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Welcome aboard for another crazy episode! Today on the train we step into a familiar world…or should we say .. Worlds? A couple episodes ago we did some mass disappearances and you know we love some true crime so today we sort  of combine the two. You see, for the mass disappearances episode there was one case that kept popping up. Now this was interesting to us because we've had that particular case on our list of shows to do for some time now. We figured this would be a good time to go ahead and finally do it. Today we are talking about the disappearance of the Sodder children.  The incident happened on Christmas Eve in 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. George and Jenny Sodder lived with 9 of their 10 children. At the time, the oldest son was off fighting in WW2. The night of the incident, Jennie was awoken three times.   First, at 12:30 a.m., she was awoken by a phone call during which she could hear a woman’s voice she didnt recognize asking for a name she didn’t know, as well as glasses clinking in the background. Jennie told the caller she had reached the wrong number, later recalling the woman's "weird laugh". As she did, she noticed that some of the lights were still on and the curtains hadn’t been closed, two things the children normally did when they stayed up later than their parents. Marion had fallen asleep on the living room couch, so Jennie assumed the other children ,who had stayed up later, had gone back up to the attic where they slept. She closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and returned to bed. She then went back to bed only to be startled by a loud bang and a rolling noise on the roof. She soon dozed off again and finally awoke an hour later at around 130, to see the house engulfed in smoke. She found that the room George used for his office was on fire, around the telephone line and fuse box.   Those are pretty much the facts that can be proven for the most part. Everything else…well it's strange to say the least.   George and Jennie made it out of that fire, as did Sylvia, just a toddler at the time. Also two of their teenage children, Marion and George Jr, made it out. 23 year old John rounded out the kids that made it out alive. Or did he? John said in his first police interview after the fire that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings sleeping there, though he later changed his story to say that he only called up there and did not actually see them. The children remaining inside were Maurice 14 , Martha 12, Louis 9, Jennie 8, and Betty 5. According to accounts, Marion, ran to the neighbors house to call the fire department because their phone was not working. A driver on the nearby road had also seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern; they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there turned out to be broken. It was Christmas Eve and I’ve read that the police chief sent everyone home to their families. She couldn't get an answer so another neighbor went to find the fire chief and let him know what was happening.    While this was going on, George, who climbed an outside wall, barefoot, to get to the attic and Jennie tried desperately to save their other children. This is where some of the strange things happen. First off neither of the Sodders trucks would start, despite having worked perfectly during the previous day.. Then their ladder was found to be mysteriously missing. Because of the family not being able to get help from the neighbor and their trucks oddly not starting when they tried to leave to look for the fire chief, help didn't arrive until 8am, almost 7 hours later. The fire department is just 2 miles from the home. The fire department was low on manpower due to the war and relying on individual firefighters to call each other. Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. Because he was fucking drunk; partying at a local pub, celebrating Christmas Eve. Oh, and one of the firefighters was Jennie’s brother, their children’s uncle.   The fire was initially blamed on faulty wiring, even though the Sodders claim there had never been any kind of issues with the electrical wiring before. In fact, A visitor to the house, seeking work, went around to the back of the house and warned George that a pair of fuse boxes would "cause a fire someday." George was puzzled by the observation, since he had just had the house rewired when an electric stove was installed, and the local electric company had said afterwards it was safe.   During the investigation something happened that makes this case the crazy thing that we are talking about. 5 of the Sodder children allegedly perished in the fire but the body's were never found. The fire chief told them the fire had cremated the bodies. Jennie asked a crematorium worker if that was possible, the worker told Jennie that bones remain even after bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees for two hours. The Sodder home only took 45 minutes to burn to the ground. So we did a little fact checking about this and there is a lot of argument about whether a house fire can burn bones to ash, but, it seems like those who have degrees and a bunch of letters after their name all agree that a house fire typically will not burn hot enough to get rid of bones. Also another thing we found is that even during cremations bones do not actually turn to dust. In fact after being incinerated at usually between 1800-2000°f, for about 2 hours, the bones are the only thing left. Now, the bones are not the same, granted, as with all the heat, it destroys the structure of the bone but does not turn it to ash. The ashes you receive are actually the bones of the deceased that have been put into what is essentially a big mixer, to pulverize them into dust. So enjoy that thought.    At any rate, due to what the experts said, the family did not believe that the other children simply burned up in the fire. They believed something else happened to the kids. But what else could have happened?   What else would lead one to think something possibly nefarious happened? Well according to some reports, some strange things happened in the lead up to the fire. One strange thing that happened was that in the months before the fire a "ominous drifter, hinted at doom '' We're assuming it was like Friday the 13th…the guy just points and goes…you're all dooooooomed, doomed! Whatever happened it sounds funny.    A few weeks earlier, not too far out from the incident, an angry insurance salesman berated George, telling him that his house was going to go up in smoke and his children would be destroyed as a retaliation for his criticisms of Mussolini in the mostly Italian immigrant community. Actually he said "the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini." If it was a sales tactic, it definitely needs work, otherwise, it's oddly specific! Also a bus driver came forward and spoke of how she saw "fireballs" being thrown into the roof of the house, could that be the noise she heard?   In the weeks before Christmas that year, George's older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway through town, its occupants watching the younger Sodder children as they returned from school.   What about the man who cut off the telephone lines at the Sodder residence? Someone witnessed him taking away a block and tackle used to remove car engines during the fire. He admitted to the theft but answered that he had no part in starting the fire; he had just wanted to cut off the power lines but instead clipped the telephone line. He was let go, and no records exist identifying him or questioning why he wanted to cut lines to steal a block and tackle.    Then on top of that you have the incidents on the night of the fire. There was the phone call and then the noise on the roof and she woke up to smoke in the house. Put all that together, and one could see where people may start to form some theories that this was more than just a tragic house fire.  You know we love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next folks…well at least Moody does.    Not only that, sightings of the children started almost immediately. For starters, locals reported seeing the 5 children in a car that was driving past and watching the fire. Then the next morning a woman operating a truck stop claimed she saw the children come in for breakfast with 4 Italian speaking adults.  Once pictures began to circulate, more sightings came in. a woman said that she saw four of the children (where was the fifth?) in the company of four adults at a hotel in South Carolina.  Which could lend credence to the truck stop story, which also mentioned 4 adults.    Armed with all these facts, George and Jennie went back to the police and demanded to have the fire further investigated. But the police refused, claiming that the coroner’s inquiry determined that no crime had been committed.   This is when George and Jennie decided they would continue the search on their own.   George would constantly go and dig through the rubble trying to find something. At one point his searching seemed to find the first evidence of the children. He found what appeared to be an internal organ and also some small pieces of bone. They were sent for testing and the tests revealed that the "organ" was a cow's liver, and that the bones were from someone older than any of the missing children. The small bone fragments that were unearthed were determined to have been human vertebrae. The bone fragments were sent to Marshall T. Newman, a specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. They were confirmed to be lumbar vertebrae, all from the same person. "Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years", Newman's report said. "The top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused". Thus, given this age range, it was not very likely

Become a Patreon supporter at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com   This week we're taking the train across the pond for another creepy adventure. That's right, we are doing one of our creepy episodes! It's been a while so we figured it was time. This week we are headed to what some people say is one of the top scariest countries in the world! Not only that…we know we have some awesome listeners here. This week we are headed to creepy Portugal! We are gonna try our best to find the coolest, creepiest places for you guys. I'm just going to assume there's going to be a bridge in here someplace.  So without further Ado.. Let's fucking rock and roll!!!   So first up we're gonna do a little history lesson. Will keep it somewhat sorry and sweet since if we got into the complete history of a country of the age of Portugal, it would be an entire episode on its own. To get there history of this country we went to the source, portugal.com and an article written by Goncarlo Costa.    The history of Portugal starts many ages ago, when the so-called Iberian tribes inhabited the territory of today’s Portugal. Then, in the beginning of the first millennium BC, Celtic tribes invaded and intermarried with the local Iberians, creating what is now known as the Celtiberians.   The Lusitanians, who inhabited the interior region of Portugal since the Iron Age, are considered the forefathers of the Portuguese nation. This is why today we have names like Lusophone, someone who speaks Portuguese, or Luso-American, a Portuguese American person. They were known for successfully fending off the Roman armies until the death of their leader, Viriathus, known as a hero in Portugal.   The tribe was considered a worthy adversary by the Romans, so much that they named the province of the whole territory of modern Portugal (south of the Douro River) and part of western Spain after them.   The Romans left various works, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, theaters and statues; some of them are still found in different parts of the country.   This lasted until the Barbarian invasions, when Germanic tribes migrated to various parts of the Roman Empire. In Portugal, the territory became controlled by the Germanic in the 5th century. The Kingdom of the Suebi controlled Galicia and the North and Center of Portugal, while the Visigothic Kingdom controlled the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, including the rest of Portugal, until eventually conquering the Suebi and, consequently, the whole of Iberia. This is when the rigid class structure appeared in the country, with a Nobility and Clergy getting more and more political and social power.   In the 8th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula from the North of Africa. Al-Andalus, the Islamic name for the Peninsula, became a part of the Caliphate, and Portugal with it. The Portuguese kept lots of things from their Muslim past, like many of their words, architecture and the famous ‘azulejos’.   The Christians held on in the North of the Peninsula, creating the Kingdom of the Asturias. This was until the Reconquista, when they reconquered the lands from the Moors, the Muslims.   In this Kingdom, at the end of the 9th century, a county based in the now north of Portugal was established, the County of Portugal. The county grew in power and, at the end of the 11th century, a Burgundian knight named Henry, who was fighting in the Reconquista, was crowned as ‘Count of Portugal’ and merged it with the County of Coimbra.   Henry’s son, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself King of Portugal in 1139 with Guimarães as its capital. This city remains known until this day as the “Cradle of the Nation’ by the Portuguese.   However, it was only in 1179 that a papal bull officially recognized Afonso I as king. The Reconquista continued with the Algarve, the south of the country, finally being conquered in 1249, and Lisbon becoming the capital in 1255. Since then, Portugal’s land borders have remained almost unchanged, being considered one of the longest standing borders in Europe.   The Kingdom of Portugal remained very important in Europe’s (and especially Iberian) politics, waging several wars against Spain, creating an alliance with England (the longest standing alliance in the world, lasting until today) and starting the “Age of Discovery”.   In this Age, the country built a vast empire, having territory all over the world, from South America to Oceania. They started by exploring their coast and adventuring into the Moroccan coast, hoping to continue the Reconquista to the North of Africa. Then, the Portuguese sailors started to adventure into the open sea, when they discovered the islands of the Canaries, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde. Subsequently, the Portuguese explored the coast of Africa, setting trading ports, and tried to discover the maritime route to India, which they did in 1498, under the explorer Vasco da Gama.   They continued to explore and look for trade around the world, from Africa, passing through Arabia, and reaching Japan, setting several outposts, many of them having developed into colonies later on. In 1500, they reached South America and started the colonization of Brazil.   The Empire started to decline, however, when the Dutch, English, and French got in the game. They started to surround or conquer the scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, diminishing their power. On the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578, Portugal lost its king, becoming part of a dynastic union with Spain that lasted until 1640, when it finally gained its independence again.   After that, the country never became the great power it once was. It lost several colonies (including its largest one, Brazil) and trade routes, it saw its capital being destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and it was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars.   From then on, Portugal was a minor power in Europe, having just some colonies in Africa and Asia and never becoming an economic powerhouse.   Then, in 1910, due to corruption, dissatisfaction with the several Kings and the loss of claimed African lands to the English, the monarchy ended and a Republic was created. Fiercely secular, to the point where it was antichurch, filed with corruption, government instability and near to bankruptcy, the regime came to an end with a military coup in 1926.   A military dictatorship was installed and then, a fascist-like regime, the ‘Estado Novo’ (‘New State’), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. This period was marked by authoritarianism, lack of freedom and, from 1961, by the Portuguese Colonial War.   All of this ended when, in April 25th 1974, the Carnation Revolution happened, carried out by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas – MFA), a movement of young left-leaning captains of the Portuguese Armed Forces. With the Revolution, democratic reforms were made and the first free elections with multiple parties happened, as well as the independence of all of Portugal’s colonies.   It also started the PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso – Ongoing Revolutionary Process), a period when conservative and left-leaning forces inside the MFA confronted each other, marked by political turmoil, violence, instability, and the nationalization and expropriation of private lands. It came to an end on the 25 November 1975, when the MFA moderates appeared as the main force.   Nevertheless, revolutionary achievements were not forgotten, with the Constitution pledging until this day to realize socialism, as well as declaring extensive nationalizations and land seizures as irreversible, many, however, now overturned.   Nowadays, Portugal is one of 15 most sustainable states in the world and considered the third most peaceful. It has high living standards and a good economy. It was a founding member of NATO, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It entered the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1986 and is one of its fiercest supporters, even having produced a European Commission President.   Ok so that's a brief…incredibly brief mini history of Portugal. Really the take aways are…super old, plenty of things happened to make the place creepy over that many years. So let's see what creepy stuff Portugal has to offer!   What better way to start than with a sanatorium! Valongo Sanatorium to be exact. The construction of the Mont'Alto Sanatorium began in 1932. Due to the appearance of a large number of people who had contracted tuberculosis, there was a need to expand the facilities, and these expansion works were completed in 1958. construction of these hospital units were carried out in high altitude places, due to the purity of the air, and also because they were away from the populations to avoid the effects of contagion. The sanatorium only operated for a short period, having been inaugurated in 1958 and closed in 1975, after which it entered a profound state of disrepair. Due to its dimensions, it is considered one of the most imposing buildings of its type in Portugal.Its building is large, with an area of ​​approximately 88,000 m², having been built with a view to housing about 300 patients. The building was designed by the architect José Júlio de Brito , who was also responsible for other prominent structures in the city of Porto, such as the Coliseu or Teatro Rivoli . The sanatorium complex, which occupied nine hectares, also included a school, a laundry room, a water reservoir, and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Sick.    The installation of the Sanatorium in Valongo was part of a phase in the history of health in Portugal, during which the government undertook the construction of several specialized establishments to combat tuberculosis, a disease that was ravaging the country at the time. This period began in 1899, with the foundation of the National Institute of Assistance to Tuberculosis, which began the construction of several sanatoriums in differ

Ep. 154 Unexplained Mass Disappearances   Today we're talking about unsolved stuff…but in a different way. We're talking about unexplained mass disappearances. How can large numbers of people just disappear without a trace? Where'd they go? Why'd they go? Did somebody make them leave? Bigfoot again? Aliens? Supernatural? Chainsaw? We may never know….but that won't stop us from discussing, speculating, and inevitably making really bad jokes on today's episode. So all aboard bitches let's roll!   Let us begin back…back…waaaaay back in 1918. We're talking about the USS Cyclops. Aside from having a great name, it fits the bill on mass disappearances. USS Cyclops (AC-4) was the second of four Proteus-class colliers built for the United States Navy several years before World War I. A collier is a fancy name for a big ass coal cargo ship. The USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy, was a converted collier. This was actually the second ship to bear the name Cyclops. She had been swimming around hauling coal and helping refugees between the Baltic sea, the Bahamas, and Mexico since 1910. In 1917 she was covered to help haul troops and coal all over the world during WW1.  In March 1918, the ship was given a new cargo: tons and tons of dense manganese ore, used in steelmaking. She left Brazil loaded up with the brittle metal, then voyaged to Barbados to resupply for the long journey home to Baltimore. That's where things get interesting. On the journey home something went wrong and the ship was never heard from again. Not even an sos. The last known transmission from the Cyclops was "weather fair, all well" at the beginning of the trip home. When the ship did not reach Baltimore a massive search was undertaken. Every naval ship from Cuba to Puerto Rico was sent out to search for debris. At the time, given it was during the war, the general consensus was that she was sunk by the Germans. But during the search, ships could not find any debris field that would be evident if it was torpedoed. In fact no one found anything…anything at all. It seemed the ship just disappeared. 306 people were just… gone. It remains to this day, the single largest loss of life in the history of the United States Navy that did not directly involve combat! Wow that's pretty crazy. So what exactly happened? Well there are theories abound my friends!    First there is a mini conspiracy theory that the captain sabotaged the ship or even took it all the way to Germany! Why, you ask? Well let us tell you. It is said that the crew was unhappy with the captain. You see, Captain Worley was hated by his staff and officers and was accused of being pro German. It was discovered later that Worley was actually German born and had changed his name at some point. It's not known why he changed his name. On top of that, the US Consulate General of Rio, named Gottschalk, boarded the ship with 73 other local sailors. Gottschalk was very popular with the German community in Brazil. Couple this with the fact that upon leaving Brazil, the ship was said to have been overloaded and people began to speculate. They say that Worley and Gottschalk purposely sabotaged the ship in some way to favor the Germans back home. Either that or the thought is that they essentially stole the crew and cargo and headed back to Germany. Seems plausible, until you try and figure how a few men could have forced 300 men to go back to Germany.  There are several theories of the ship being struck by a rogue wave or breaking up at sea. One sailor reported when they reached Rio, that on the way, the deck of the ship would sway when the ship was struck with large waves. He says the ship was showing signs of structural failure. Could that have been the issue? If so…where was the debris? Another theory was that the ship was overloaded and ran into a storm in which the unstable ship overturned and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Again…why no debris though?   For a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Tom Mangold had an expert from Lloyds investigate the loss of the Cyclops. The expert noted that manganese ore, being much denser than coal, had room to move within the holds even when fully laden, the hatch covers were canvas, and that when wet, the ore can become a slurry. As such, the load could shift and cause the ship to list. Listing is caused by the off-centerline distribution of weight aboard due to uneven loading or to flooding. By contrast, roll is the dynamic movement from side to side caused by waves. If a listing ship goes beyond the point where a righting moment will keep it afloat, it will capsize and potentially sink. Combined with a possible loss of power from its one engine, it could fill with water and go down in bad weather.   Then there's our personal favorite…the Bermuda triangle just straight fucked it up and aliens took it. That's right passengers…this happened in the infamous Bermuda triangle!!! So of course there are numerous theories involving the Bermuda triangle and supernatural goings on.  Most of these Bermuda triangle theories involve either aliens coming down and abducting the ship and crew, or aliens under the ocean coming up and claiming the ship for themselves. We here at the train, well at least Moody, think that this is the most plausible explanation of course.    So what do you guys think? Aliens?.... Yea it was aliens…   Ok so up next we’re heading up to the great white north. For those of you who don't know…that's Canada.. You know America's hat. Anyway.. we're looking at the lake Anjikuni incident. The telling of this mystery was taken from mysterioustrip.com.  Anjikuni Lake is located deep in the Kivallig area of rural Nunavut in Canada. Placed near the Kazan River, the lake is perfect for fishing and trout. Anjikuni fastly became a home for the Inuit tribe; it developed soon into a colony and became popular almost instantly on a cold November day in 1930. Joe Labelle, a Canadian fur trapper, was more than an efficient individual who spent a lot of time doing outdoor activities. He was very familiar with the area; he knew that the people established a community. Joe was acquainted with the Inuit stories of wood ghosts that were reportedly harmful, and this remote part was soaked in the tales of the Wendigo. Labelle generally didn’t have any fear or anxiety; however, this specific night at the lake became different. The full moon was casting a spooky luminosity all over the village, and no one was moving. The Huskies that were usually loud with the influx of travelers were quiet as well. The only sound he could hear was of his own steps made on the snow and the concave reverb of his greeting. He quickly understood something was not normal, and he started investigating as soon as he entered the village. The village was in complete silence, and he could see no one. No noise of conversation or laughter was detected. What’s worse was the complete lack of smoke originating from chimneys that denoted the presence of living beings.   Joe noticed a fire at a distance and went towards it to inspect; the fire seemed to be burning for a significant amount of time. Upon further investigation, he found that someone started their supper preparations; however, they didn’t finish making it. LaBelle continued towards the village, ready to bump into someone who could tell her what was really happening here. Joe, stepping out of his uncontrollable feelings, began an investigation into the Inuit’s homes to search for any clues related to the silence and made a sudden and quick decision to leave the village.   He found that several homes were well-stocked with food and weapons; he further found a burnt meal in another house. In one spot, he found a repair of a junior sealskin that was yet to be finished. Sadly, he couldn’t conclude anything.   As there wasn’t any conclusive answer concerning what took place, it must certainly have been an unexpected event that spread widely and involved all 30 men, women & children in the village. Food, clothing, and weapons were left behind. But Why? There was no answer   More investigation directed him to a pair of findings that was enough to give him goosebumps. To the extent that he was able to tell, whatever happened, had happened recently.   He examined the entire village and found no new traces in the snow apart from his own. The most ghastly discovery he made was of the dogs. Seven of them had starved to death. This evidence was enough to persuade him to head to the nearest telegraph office located farther away. That would mean that Joe had to overlook basic requirements such as shelter and food; however, he was in a hurry to leave the place and seek assistance. As beaten and frostbitten as Labelle was, he finally stumbled into the telegraph office. In a few minutes, he sent an emergency message to the nearest RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) camp. By the time the Mounties reached, many hours later, Labelle had calmed himself enough to talk about his distressing stories.   According to 1984’s article – The world’s most significant UFO mysteries, written by Roger Boar and Nigel Blundell– the Mounties, when on their way to the Angikuni Lake mystery, took a bit of time to rest at a shack alongside a trapper and his two sons. They explained to the trapper and his sons that they are heading towards Anjikuni Lake to solve a ‘problem.’ The Mounties asked the trapper if he had seen anything strange these past few days. Upon asking this question, the trapper was compelled to admit that he and his two sons had noticed an eerie luminous object flying all over the sky a few days ago. He further stated that he had seen giant, gleaming ‘flying objects’ changing shape right before their eyes. And this object was flying towards the village at Anjikuni lake.   So did this event even happen? Or was LaBelle making it up. According to skeptoid.com( see we look at both sides equally) here are a number of things about the Joe Labelle story that raise red flags. For one thing, it happened in November, when average temperatures are 13°C degrees below freezing. Angikuni Lake is a sheet o

Portlock Alaska & Other haunted ghost towns   Today we're talking about a ghost town in Alaska that is rumored to have been abandoned because of…. Wait for it….a killer bigfoot!! dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun!!! We're going to look at Portlock Alaska and after that maybe take a look at other haunted and creepy ghost towns!    History of Portlock: As per wikipedia   Portlock is a ghost town in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula, around 16 miles south of Seldovia. It is located in Port Chatham bay, after which an adjacent community takes its namesake. Named after Nathaniel Portlock, Portlock was established in the Kenai Peninsula in the early-twentieth century as a cannery, particularly for salmon. It is thought to have been named after Captain Nathaniel Portlock, a British ship captain who sailed there in 1786. In 1921, a United States Post Office opened in the town.  The population largely consisted of Russian-Aleuts, indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands. Both the Aleut people and the islands are divided between the US state of Alaska and the Russian administrative division of Kamchatka Krai.   In the early 1900s there were a series of deaths and disappearances in the town. Many people started to blame this on a killer cryptid! It is said that this big bad beast is the reason behind the town being abandoned and left to become a legend.   Nantiinaq:   First off let's talk about the cryptid that is believed to be the cause of all of this mess.   Nantinaq is a large Bigfoot-like creature that is believed to be a key factor in the abandonment of the Alaskan fishing village Portlock. Elders from the nearby town of Nanwalek have kept oral traditions of the creature alive since Portlock’s abandonment in 1950. Stories differentiate Nantinaq from the North American Sasquatch or Bigfoot through its abilities, which many believe to be supernatural and evil in nature.   The earliest descriptions and accounts of Nantinaq can be traced back to European expedition logs in the 1700’s. When Native Alaskans began inhabiting the Portlock area stories and encounters with a mysterious creature began occurring with increasing regularity.   In the early 20th century, as Portlock’s population grew, local and national sources began to record unexplained occurrences in the area. An abnormally high number of disappearances, catastrophes, and deaths eventually lead to village elders to move the population to nearby Nanwalek.    The physical characteristics of Nantinaq are typically described to be similar to the North American Sasquatch. Eye witnesses and historians describe the creature as being upwards of 8 feet tall and being covered in dark fur. Sharp claws capable of ripping mammals with ease have also been identified.   Despite the creatures imposing physical characteristics, many locals identify Nantinaq more through its invisible traits. Strange illnesses, smells and noises have all been recorded in the Portlock area with no known explanation. This has led many locals and elders to believe Nantinaq is spiritual in nature.   The craziness: Even before Portlock had even existed there had long been sinister stories told by the Natives of the area. They had long told of a creature stalking the wildernesses of the region, which they referred to as a Nantiinaq, roughly translating to “half man- half beast.” The Natives were apparently terrified of these creatures, and would avoid any area in which they were known to lurk. At first Portlock seemed safe, but whether the Nantiinaq had anything to do with it or not, strange things began happening in and around the area, not long after its settlement. In 1900, a group of hair-covered creatures ran at a prospector who had climbed a tree in an attempt to get his bearings near Thomas Bay. The prospector said they were, “the most hideous creatures. I couldn’t call them anything but devils…” The prospector, upon seeing the creatures advancing on him, was able to drop down out of the tree, get to his canoe and make his escape in the nick of time. He had no doubt in his mind that, had he not seen the creatures when he did, they would have made short work of him. Another bizarre incident allegedly happened in as early as 1905, just a few years after the cannery had opened. At this time, many of the workers at the cannery suddenly stopped coming to work and refused to come back, but this wasn’t due to poor pay or working conditions, but rather because the men were deeply spooked. They claimed that there was “something in the woods,” commonly reported by the men as being large dark shapes that would stare at them from the tree line at the shore and sometimes display menacing behavior. The workers were eventually convinced to come back the following season, but this was not the end of the town’s problems.   In the 1920s and 30s there were several mysterious deaths in the area that seemed to have been caused by something very large and powerful. The first was a local hunter by the name of Albert Petka, who was out hunting with his dogs in the 1920s when he came across a massive hairy creature that materialized from the trees to strike him in the chest, sending him flying. Petka’s dogs allegedly managed to chase the beast off, and when rescuers arrived he explained what had happened, before dying from his wounds later. Natives at the time saw this as a bad sign, believing it to be evidence that a Nantiinaq had come to haunt the area. Rumors like this persisted for years, only further perpetuated by stories of miners, loggers, hunters, or cannery workers finding huge tracks in the woods, or of seeing fleeting large dark shapes and sometimes hearing eerie howls at night. Making it even more ominous is that there were some reports from frightened Natives that there was a ghostly entity in the area as well, which took the form of a woman wearing a long black dress and who would appear at the top of the cliffs near town to scream and moan before vanishing.   Brian Weed is the co-founder of a group called Juneau's Hidden History that primarily keeps track of things through their Facebook page. He has traveled all over Juneau and many other Alaskan towns in search of natural history and stories. His group plans frequent hikes in the area to places that have some sort of story to tell or just to see the natural beauty of the state. He related another story of a mysterious death.                       "A logger was out working and something or someone hit him over the head with a huge piece of logging equipment, something that one man couldn't have lifted. When they found his body, there was blood on the equipment and there was no way that one person could have done it. He was a good ten feet from the logging equipment, so it's not like he slipped, fell, and hit his head. It looked more like someone picked it up and bonked him over the head."           In 1940 it was reported that a search party had been sent out to look for one such missing hunter, which would claim that they had come across his body in a creek, mutilated and torn apart in a way not consistent with a bear attack. Other bodies would reportedly be found as well, apparently washed down from the mountains into a nearby lagoon, with others still discovered washed up on the shores of Port Chatham, all of them ripped apart and maimed as if by some immensely powerful animal. At the time there were so many people turning up in that lagoon dead that it began to truly freak out the locals, to the point that they spent much time cowering indoors away from those creepy ass woods.   By the 1950s, locals were sick and tired of living in fear so they completely fled the town and left it abandoned. Years later when hunters returned, it is said that they reported seeing 18-inch long human-like footprints with patterns similar to a deer or wolf.   Former Portlock resident Malania Helen Kehl was interviewed by Naomi Klouda of the Homer Tribune back in October of 2009 and said things in Portlock started out well enough but degenerated to such a point that the family left their home and fled to Nanwalek.The family had endured the murder of Malania’s godfather, Andrew Kamluck in 1931. Kamluck was the logger who was killed when someone, or something, hit him over the head.           "We left our houses and the school and started all new here (Nanwalek),” said Kehl.   Port Graham elder, Simeon Kvasnikoff told of the unexplained disappearance of a gold miner near the village during this time.   “He went up there one time and never came back,” said Kvasnikoff. “No one found any sign of him.”   Another interesting aspect of the Portlock story was relayed to Klouda by an Anchorage paramedic who preferred to remain anonymous.   “In 1990, while I was working as a paramedic in Anchorage, we got called out on an alarm for a man having a heart attack at the state jail in Eagle River. He was a Native man in his 70s, and after I got him stabilized with IVs, O2 and cardiac drugs, my partner and I began to transport him to the Native Hospital in Anchorage.” En route to the hospital, the paramedic and the Native man, an “Aleut'' from Port Graham, talked about hunting. The paramedic had been to DogFish Bay and was once stuck there due to bad weather.   “This old man sat up on the gurney and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. He got right up to my face and said, ‘Did it bother you?’ Well, with that question, the hair just stood up on the back of my head. I said, ‘Yes.’ “Did you see it?” was his next question. I said, “No, did you see it?” He said “No, but my brother seen it. It chased him.”   Ok so that's pretty jacked up….a killer bigfoot! That's one hell of a story. The town had been abandoned ever since and sightings continue to this day. In fact there is a TV series about this place called Alaskan Killer Bigfoot! The series followed a 40 day expedition to the a

Ep. 152 Narranturm & Beechwood Asylums   Today we're going back to some of our creepy roots. We're gonna visit a couple Asylums!!! First, we're going to look at Narrenturm asylum, and then we'll head to Beechwood Asylum! After that, we'll just hop right into the business!   "Narrenturm" in (Austrian/older) German translates as 'fools' tower,' or more accurately: 'lunatics' tower!    The Narrenturm was indeed the world's first building especially designed, in 1783, for "keeping" such mentally ill "patients" locked up in a central facility. It was finished in 1784, and the first patients were admitted soon after.   Treatment in those days was minimal to non-existent, so the 250 or so inmates in the 28 cells branching off each of the circular corridors on each of the five floors were indeed more or less simply "incarcerated" here. It was little more than a "loony bin," then emphasizing the word "bin." Still, it was argued that this was better than letting the patients roam around freely with the risk that they might harm someone or be subjected to ridicule or even physical mistreatment by other people. So they were locked away inside this tower, two patients in each of the cells, which contained nothing but the beds and bare walls.   The Narrenturm was constructed in 1784 under Emperor Joseph II. It was Constructed by court architect Isidor Canevale. It consisted of a five-story, fortress-like circular building with 28 rooms and a ring of slit windows, plus a central chamber aligned north-to-south. There were, in total, 139 individual cells for the inmates. It was built as part of the Altes Allgemeines Krankenhaus, or "Old General Hospital." It was officially founded by Emperor Josef II in 1784 after the buildings had been used for more than 60 years as a poorhouse. The building of the Narrenturm was prompted by the discovery of underground dungeons used by the Capuchin monks of Vienna for housing their mentally ill brethren; another factor was that Joseph II had learned about similar institutions in France during his travels there. The construction of the Narrenturm points to a new attitude towards the mentally ill – they began to be separated from the rest of society and not simply classified among the general category of "the poor." Each cell had solid and barred doors and chains for restraining inmates. The building's doctors and guards were officed/housed in the center. A visitor to the Narrenturm in the late 1700s said some patients were still made to wear chains or straitjackets while in their cells. Others were allowed to roam free, although the institution was focused on a new way of dealing with the mentally ill.    The Narrenturm had a lightning rod or "lightning catcher" installed on the roof ridge when it was first built. At that time, Václav Prokop Diviš, a clergyman in Přímětice near Znojmo, had studied plant growth and treatment with electrical currents present, publishing his findings to the medical community. There are rumors the 'caught lightning' may have been used to treat the mentally ill, although that has never been proven.   Prokop Divis invented the grounded lightning rod, which is still used in today's modern infrastructures. He was also a natural scientist, theologian, and one of the Czech canon regulars during his time. A man of science from the earlier centuries, Prokop Divis thought ahead of his time and made this classic invention.    Although definitely a man who believed in God and serving the church, Prokop still made his own contribution as an inventor and scientist whose product is still being used today. He earned the needed experience to devise his invention when working in the parish in Prendice.   Prokop was responsible for managing the Abbey's farmland in Prendice. He also took charge of water conduit construction, which gave him the exposure to understand mechanical issues. In addition, Prokop developed an interest in electricity, and he began to perform his own experiments with great success on plant growth and therapy, using a small electric voltage.   When the death of Georg Wilhelm Richmann, one of the professors at St. Petersburg, reached Prokop's knowledge, he became interested in atmospheric electricity. Richmann had perished by being struck by lightning while observing a storm from a hut. This prompted Prokop to build the "weather-machine" in Prendice, a device to protect from lightning strikes.   Prokop devised the very first grounded lightning rod. He observed thunderstorms and deduced that lighting was an electrical spark. He also realized that he could imitate thunder and lightning on a smaller scale.   His grounded lightning rod was first erected on the 15th of June in 1754, six years before Benjamin Franklin invented his lightning rod in the United States.   Prokop's lightning rod consisted of a pointed slender iron bar, and fastened to it, near the top of the bar, were two crossbars, so producing four arms. Then across which, in turn, a shorter bar was laid, making twelve 'ends.' At each of the twelve extremities, a box with 27 brass needles was attached; each compartment was filled with iron shavings. The main bar was supported by a 132-foot wooden column, and iron chains connected the main bar to the ground. The rod was designed to split the lightning spark into as many smaller sparks as there were needles (324) to reduce its force.   His lightning rod invention was not popular and was received with suspicion, so Prokop removed it in 1756 and turned his interest toward music. However, his theory of atmospheric electricity was published in his papers after his death.    Apart from his invention of the first grounded lightning rod, Prokop also created the first electrical musical instrument. This was called the denis d'Or and was played by the hand and the feet, like an organ. It was invented in 1753, and this instrument had properties that allowed it to imitate the sound of other string instruments.   Initially, Prokop only studied science to be able to find the truth. But when he realized that he could utilize his findings, he made the most productive use of his scholarly knowledge. In 1765, Prokop died on the 21st of December in Prendice, aged 67.   Back to the Asylum. Whatever the rumors, most seem to believe the clinic offered more humane treatments for the mentally ill than other doctors in the general population at the time and protected them from possibly being abused by relatives.   The psychiatric clinic remained in use until 1869, when it was closed down. Vienna's «Fool's Tower» was soon considered a building worthy of condemnation. Some saw the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill at that time as unworthy. Some, therefore, quickly raised the issue of conditions in mental hospitals and prisons, made systematic inventories, and traveled abroad to gather knowledge and experience. Some thought this building and some of the other early ones that needed to be shut down were due more to architecture than anything. We've discussed several other Asylums on the show, and we've gone over their architecture and why they were designed in the specific way they were, so we won't go into that here, but feel free to go back and listen to those other episodes!    So, there's not an exceptional amount of info on this place, but we thought it was incredible, primarily because of what it is now! We know some of you depraved fuckers will like this and maybe plan a trip!  The psych facility closed in 1866 but reopened as a new location for the Anatomical-Pathological Museum in the 1970s. While the circular building (known by locals as "the poundcake") houses only a tiny percent of the museum's total collection, it contains some fascinating pieces. Syphilitic skulls that resemble Swiss cheese, jars of disfigured fetuses, and graphic wax displays of untreated STDs all peer out at you from the old cells. It also contains a recreated wonder cabinet, complete with a narwhal tusk and taxidermied monkeys. In total, 70,000 items make up the collection. Since January 2012, the collection has been administered as a branch of the Natural History Museum of Vienna.   But only a relatively small part of the collection in the museum's possession is regularly displayed to the general public. Most specimens are part of the "study collection" (Studiensammlung) for medical professionals and medical training only. However, some features are occasionally shown to visitors on guided tours.   Some people don't take kindly to the more extreme examples of shocking deformities, so some of these specimens can only be seen by special arrangement. So that's where we're all going!!! Whoooo!    These restrictions are also in force to prevent the Narrenturm from becoming some kind of overtly voyeuristic attraction (this applies in particular to a room with various conjoined twins in large formaldehyde-filled jars – a type of floating twin children's cemetery). They even have a "devil," believe it or not … In actual fact, it's a preserved stillborn baby that back then (1827) was taken to look like the Devil. You need a bit of imagination to see it that way (it doesn't have horns, hooves, or a forked tail), but it's undoubtedly "shocking" to look at. Rather than having been cursed, possessed, or any other such superstitious stuff, the poor thing was simply anencephalic – i.e., a baby deformed so that most of the forebrain, upper skull, and scalp are missing. This is an extreme form of a neural tube defect termed anencephaly, literally meaning 'no brain'). The head ends in big bulging eyes at the top of the front of the head while the flat rear of the head is open, exposing the remnants of brain tissue. The disorder is attributed to a lack of folic acid. Still, it may also result from high mercury exposure, lead, or other toxic heavy metals like Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, and cannibal corpse. Yes, it's the midnight train…and we felt we had to add that during the tour. Apparently, they go into the details of the history of tuberculosis treatment. So, there's that. Also on display ar

Ep.151 Pt.2 Ripper suspects   This week in part 2…. Suspects in the jack the ripper case… there's a ton…like pretty much everyone alive at the time of the murders…and maybe some that weren't…who knows. So here we frigging go!    Montague John Druitt:   Although there may not be any concrete, scientific evidence against him, the Jack, The Ripper murders in London's East End ended after Druitt's suicide convinced one London detective (Melville Leslie Macnaghten) that Druitt was, in fact, Jack The Ripper himself.    Montague John Druitt, son of prominent local surgeon William Druitt, was a Dorset-born barrister. He also worked as an assistant schoolmaster in Blackheath, London, to supplement his income. Outside of work, his primary interest was cricket.   He played alongside the likes of Francis Lacey, the first man knighted for services to cricket. His numerous accolades in the game include dismissing John Shuter for a duck. The England batsman was playing for Bexley Cricket Club at the time.   On the recommendation of Charles Seymour and noted fielder Vernon Royle, Druitt was elected to the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) on May 26th, 1884. One of the minor matches for MCC was with England bowler William Attewell against Harrow School on June 10th, 1886. The MCC won by 57 runs.   Montague John Druitt's decomposed body was found floating in the Thames near Chiswick on December 31st, 1888. He had a return train ticket to Hammersmith dated December 1st, a silver watch, a cheque for £50 and £16 in gold (equivalent to £5,600 and £1,800 today).   He is believed to have committed suicide, a line of thought substantiated by the fact there were stones in his pockets. Possibly to keep his body submerged in the river.   The cause of his suicide is said to be his dismissal from his post at the Blackheath boys' school. The reason for his release is unclear. However, one newspaper, quoting his brother William's inquest testimony, reported being dismissed because he "had got into serious trouble." Although, it did not specify any further.   Several authors have suggested that Druitt may have been dismissed because he was a homosexual or a pederast. Another speculation is that the money found on his body would be used for payment to a blackmailer, or it could have simply been a final payment from the school.   Another possibility involving his dismissal and eventual death is an underlying hereditary psychiatric illness. His mother had already attempted suicide once by taking an overdose of laudanum. She died in an asylum in Chiswick in 1890. In addition, both his Grandmother and eldest sister committed suicide, while his aunt also attempted suicide.   A note written by Druitt and addressed to his brother William was found in Druitt's room in Blackheath. It read,                "Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die."   The last of the canonical five murders had taken place shortly before Druitt's suicide. Following his death, there were no more ripper murders.   In 1891, a member of parliament from West Dorchester, England, began saying that the Ripper was "the son of a surgeon" who had committed suicide on the night of the last murder.   Assistant Chief Constable Sir Melville Macnaghten named Druitt as a suspect in the case.   He did so in a private hand-written memorandum on February 23rd, 1894. Macnaghten highlighted the coincidence between Druitt's disappearance and death shortly after the last of the five murders.   He also claimed to have unspecified "private information." One that left "little doubt" that Druitt's own family believed him to have been the murderer.   The memorandum read:    "I have always held strong opinions regarding him, and the more I think the matter over, the stronger do these opinions become. The truth, however, will never be known, and did indeed, at one time lie at the bottom of the Thames, if my conjections be correct!"   Macnaghten was convinced that Montague John Druitt was the serial killer they had long been looking for. However, he incorrectly described the 31-year old barrister as a 41-year-old doctor and cited allegations that he "was sexually insane" without specifying the source or details of the allegations.   Macnaghten did not join the force until 1889, after the murder of Kelly and the death of Druitt. He was also not involved in the investigation directly and is likely to have been misinformed.   There is also the case of Druitt playing Cricket games far away from London during many of the murders.   On September 1st, the day after the murder of Nichols, Druitt was in Dorset playing cricket. On the day of Chapman's murder, he played cricket in Blackheath. The day after the murders of Stride and Eddowes, he was in the West Country defending a client in a court case.   Some writers such as Andrew Spallek and Tom Cullen have argued that Druitt had the time and opportunity to travel by train between London and his cricket and legal engagements. He could have even used his city chambers as a base from which to commit the murders. However, several others have dismissed the claim as "improbable."   For instance, Druitt took 3 wickets in the match against the Christopherson brothers at Blackheath on September 8th, the day of the Chapman murder. He was on the field at 11.30 AM for the game and performed out of his skin. An event unlikely if he were walking the streets of London committing a murder at 5:30 AM.   Most experts now believe that the killer was local to Whitechapel. On the other hand, Druitt lived miles away on the other side of the Thames in Kent. Even Inspector Frederick Abberline appeared to dismiss Druitt as a serious suspect because the only evidence against him was the coincidental timing of his suicide shortly after the last canonical murder. Aaron Kosminski:   Aaron Kosminski was not a stable man. In 1891, he was sent to Colney Hatch Asylum. Psychiatric reports made during Kosminski's time there state that Kosminski heard auditory hallucinations that directed him to do things. Although some claim that Kosminski wasn't violent, there is a record of him threatening his own sister with a knife.    The "canonical five" murders which wrapped up the sum of the Ripper's official kills, stopped soon after Kosminski was put into an asylum. Present-day doctors think Kosminski might have been a paranoid schizophrenic, but it sure is suspicious that his institutionalization fits the timeline of Jack the Ripper.    Kosminski threatened his sister with a knife. Jack the Ripper is infamous for the violent way he murdered his female victims. This serial killer did things like slashing throats, removing organs, and severely disfiguring faces. The crimes he committed were grisly and suggested a severe hatred of women.    Kosminski definitely fits the description of hating women. He was terrible at socializing with women, and according to Chief Constable Melville Macnaghten, he was known for his profound resentment of women.    Macnaghten wrote, "This man became insane due to indulgence in solitary vices for many years. He had a great hatred of women, especially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies."    Hating prostitutes and suspected as being capable of murder? Kosminski is looking better and better as the chief Jack the Ripper suspect.    On the night of one of the murders, a woman named Elizabeth Long said she heard the man's voice who led Jack the Ripper victim, Annie Chapman, to her death. Long said she listened to the man ask Annie, "Will you?" as they were discussing their sex work arrangement. Long described the man's voice as having an accent.    Kosminski, as a Polish Jew, had an accent. A clue left on a Goulston Street wall in London suggested that Jack the Ripper had a native language other than English as well. The person who wrote the message spelled the word "Juwes" instead of "Jews." The entire statement read, "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." It was never understood what was actually meant by it.    What's more, Macnaghten wrote this about a suspect spotted fleeing on the night of Catherine Eddowes' murder: "This man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City P.C. near Mitre Square."    Care to guess who "the individual seen by the City P.C." Macnaughten referred to was? That's right. He was talking about Aaron Kosminski! Although reports of Jack the Ripper's appearance, in general, were inconsistent, Kosminski fit the appearance of someone spotted at one of the crime scenes. Macnaghten's report has been discredited, though, so take this information as you will.    In 2007, a man named Russel Edwards wanted to confirm the identity of Jack the Ripper so severely that he acquired the shawl of Jack the Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes. He had the shawl's DNA tested and confirmed that the genetic material on the shawl traced back to one of Kosminski's living relatives.    Edwards had written a book entitled, Naming Jack the Ripper, thus having something to gain, so people didn't believe this analysis. That is until the DNA was studied by an unrelated peer-reviewed science journal. In 2019, The Journal of Forensic Sciences confirmed that the DNA did indeed match Aaron Kosminski. The results were apparently sketchy and not tested again until 2019 by Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Leeds. The DNA presented matched the descendants of Kosminski and Eddowes. Although, the shawl was never documented in police custody.   Francis Craig:    Born in 1837 in Acton, west London, Francis Spurzheim Craig was the son of a well-known Victorian social reformer.   His father, ET Craig, was a writer and advocate of phrenology – interpreting personality types by feeling the shape of the head – a so-called "science" that was already fallin

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FRIGGIN' EPISODES! Thank you all so much!! Consider becoming a Patreon POOPR! www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com  London in 1888:   Victorian London was not a happy place to be, and the facts speak for themselves. Prostitution was rife, poverty and crime were prevalent, and 19th-century housing was barely habitable. Finding work in 1888 was extremely difficult for the residents of Whitechapel, feeding into the cycle of poverty and depravity.   Soot and smoke generally filled the air, and there were still grazing sheep in Regent's Park in the mid-Victorian period — it was said that you could tell how long the sheep had been in the capital by how dirty their coats were. They went increasingly from white to black over days.   The nights were riddled with gas lamp-lit streets and dark, foggy alleyways.   The city was steeped in poverty and all manner of crime and disease.   Many children were seen as a strain on their parents' resources, and it is believed that two in every ten died before reaching five years old.   breeding ground for crime and poor behavioral habits, including murder, prostitution, and violence – and vicious circles like these were rarely broken in such poor districts   Streets were dirty, and fresh food was scarce. Pollution and sewage smells filled the air.   Urine soaked the streets. There was an experiment in Piccadilly with wood paving in the midcentury. It was abandoned after a few weeks because the sheer smell of ammonia coming from the pavement was horrible. Also, the shopkeepers nearby said that this ammonia was discoloring their shop fronts.   London in the 19th century was basically filled with cesspools.   There'd be brick chambers, maybe 6 feet deep, about 4 feet wide, and every house would have them.   It was more common to have a cesspool in the basement in central London and in more crowded areas.   Above the cesspool would be where your household privy, or toilet, would be.   These made the general smell in crowded London pretty awful.   There would have been horses everywhere. By the 1890s, there were approximately 300,000 horses and 1,000 tons of horse droppings a day in London. The Victorians employed boys ages 12 to 14 to dodge between the traffic and try to scoop up the excrement as soon as it hit the streets.   Shit everywhere.   The streets were lined with "mud,"... except it wasn't mud.    Life was much harder for women than men generally.   The lack of proper work and money led many women and girls into prostitution, a high-demand service by those wishing to escape their grim realities.   These women were commonly known as "unfortunates,"   They owned only what they wore and carried in their pockets - their dirty deeds would pay for their bed for the night.   There was an extraordinary lack of contraception for women.   Doctors performed unorthodox abortions in dirty facilities, including the back streets.   Many women would die of infection from these ill-performed surgeries or ingesting chemicals or poison.   The insides of the houses throughout the borough were no less uninviting and more reminiscent of slums.   Many of these dilapidated homes were makeshift brothels.   Prostitution was a dangerous trade, as diseases were passed from person to person very quickly, and doctors did not come cheap.   Most work came through casual or 'sweated' labor, like tailoring, boot making, and making matchboxes.   There was very little job security, and the work premises would more than likely be small, cramped, dusty rooms with little to no natural light.   Workhouses were another alternative, set up to offer food and shelter to the poorest of the community in return for hard, grueling labor in even worse conditions.   large portions of the population turned to drinking or drugs to cope with everyday life   Pubs and music halls were abundant in the East End, and booze was cheap, too, making it a viable means of escapism for many.   Crime rates spiraled and were unmanageable by London's police force in 1888. Petty crime like street theft was normality.   High levels of alcohol-related violence, gang crime, and even protection rackets were everywhere.   The high level of prostitution meant that vulnerable women were often forced to earn a living on the streets, leaving them easy targets for assault, rape, and even murder.   Police stations and the detectives at the helm lacked structure and organization, with many crimes being mislabelled, evidence going missing, or being tampered with was common.    The maze of dingy alleyways and dark courtyards, each with multiple entrances and exit points, made the district even more difficult to police. There were even some parts of Whitechapel that police officers were afraid to enter, making them crime hotspots.   With that brief look into what it was like in Whitechapel, it is no wonder that Jack the Ripper could get away with his crimes. That being said, let's look at the crimes and victims.   Mary Ann Nichols:   Mary Ann Nichols led a brief life marked with hardships. Born to a London locksmith in 1845, she married Edward in 1864 and gave birth to five children before the marriage dissolved in 1880.   In explaining the roots of the separation, Nichols' father accused Edward of having an affair with the nurse who attended one of their children's births. For his part, Edward claimed that Nichols' drinking problem drove them to part ways.   After separating, the court required Edward to give his estranged wife five shillings per month, over 600 pounds today— a requirement he successfully challenged when he found out she was working as a prostitute.   Nichols then lived in and out of workhouses until her death. She tried living with her father, but they did not get along, so she continued to work as a prostitute to support herself. Though she once worked as a servant in a well-off family home, she quit because her employers did not drink.   On the night of her death, Nichols found herself surrounded by the same problems she'd had for most of her life: lack of money and a propensity to drink. On 31st August 1888, she left the pub where she was drinking and walked back to the boarding house where she planned to sleep for the night.   Nichols lacked the funds to pay for the entrance fee, so she went back out to earn it. But, according to her roommate, who saw her the night before someone killed her, she spent whatever money she did earn on alcohol.   That night Mary was wearing a bonnet that none of the other residents of the lodging house had seen her with before. Since she intended to resort to prostitution to raise the money for her bed, she felt this would be an irresistible draw to potential clients. So, she was escorted from the premises by the deputy lodging housekeeper. She laughed to him, "I'll soon get my doss money, see what a jolly bonnet I have now."   At 2.30 on the morning of 31st August, she met a friend named Emily Holland by the shop at the junction of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road.   Mary was very drunk, and she boasted to Emily that she had made her lodging money three times over but had spent it.   Concerned at Mary's drunken state, Emily tried to persuade her to come back to Wilmott's with her. Mary refused, and, telling Emily that she must get her lodging money somehow, she stumbled off along Whitechapel Road.   That was the last time that Mary Nichols was seen alive.   At 3.45 a.m., a woman's body was found with her skirt pulled up to her waist, lying next to a gateway in Buck's Row, Just off Whitechapel Road. This location was around a ten-minute walk from the corner where Mary met Emily Holland.   According to some newspaper reports, the woman's throat had been cut back to the spine, the wound being so savagely inflicted that it had almost severed her head from her body.   Within 45 minutes, she had been placed on a police ambulance, which was nothing more than a wooden hand cart. She had been taken to the mortuary of the nearby Whitechapel Workhouse Infirmary.   Here, Inspector Spratling of the Metropolitan Police's J Division arrived to take down a description of the, at the time, unknown victim, and he made the horrific discovery that, in addition to the dreadful wound to the throat, a deep gash ran along the woman's abdomen - The killer had disemboweled her.   The funeral of Mary Ann Nichols took place amidst great secrecy to deter morbid sightseers on Thursday, 6th September 1888.   Strangely, the ruse used to get Mary Nichols's body to the undertaker's could be said to have included an element of foreshadowing.   Mary Nichols's body was brought out of the mortuary's back gate in Chapman's Court, from where it was taken to the undertaker's premises on Hanbury Street.   Two days later, the murderer struck again and murdered Annie Chapman in Hanbury Street.   Annie Chapman:   Annie Chapman didn't always lead a hard life. She lived for some time with her husband, John, a coachman, in West London.   However, after the couple had children, her life began to unravel: Her son, John, was born disabled, and her youngest daughter, Emily, died of meningitis. She and her husband both began to drink heavily and eventually separated in 1884.   After the separation, Chapman moved to Whitechapel to live with another man. While she still received ten shillings per week from her husband, she sometimes worked as a prostitute to supplement her income.   When her husband died from alcohol abuse, that money stopped. According to her friends, Chapman "seemed to have given away all together." Then, a week before she died, Chapman got into a fistfight with another woman over an unreturned bar of soap.   At 5 p.m. on Friday, 7th September, Annie met her friend, Amelia Palmer, in Dorset Street. Annie looked extremely unwell and complained of feeling "too ill to do anything."   Amelia met her again, ten minutes later, still s

Support the show and receive bonus episodes by becoming a Patreon producer over at: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com  Archives of terror Archivos del Terror were found on december 22, 1992 by a lawyer and human rights activist, strange how those two titles are in the same sentence, Dr. Martín Almada, and Judge José Agustín Fernández. Found in a police station in the suburbs of Paraguay known as Asunción.   Fernandez was looking for files on a former prisoner. Instead, stumbled across an archive describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay with the help of our friendly neighborhood CIA. Known as Operation Condor.   “Operation Condor was a U.S. backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents.”   Let’s go back a ways toward the beginning. One day, a young guy, wanted to fuck up the world and created the CIA. JK… but not really.   So we go back to 1968 where General Robert W. Porter said that "in order to facilitate the coordinated employment of internal security forces within and among Latin American countries, we are ... endeavoring to foster inter-service and regional cooperation by assisting in the organization of integrated command and control centers; the establishment of common operating procedures; and the conduct of joint and combined training exercises."   According to former secret CIA documents from 1976, plans were developed among international security officials at the US Army School of the Americas and the Conference of American Armies in the 1960s and early 1970s to deal with perceived threats in South America from political dissidents, according to American historian J. Patrice McSherry. "In early 1974, security officials from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia convened in Buenos Aires to prepare synchronized attacks against subversive targets," according to a declassified CIA memo dated June 23, 1976.   Following a series of military-led coups d'états, particularly in the 1970s, the program was established: General Alfredo Stroessner took control of Paraguay in 1954 General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez takes control of Peru after a successful coup in 1975 The Brazilian military overthrew the president João Goulart in 1964 General Hugo Banzer took power in Bolivia in 1971 through a series of coups A military dictatorship seized power in Uruguay on 27 June 1973 Chilean armed forces commanded by General Augusto Pinochet bombed the presidential palace in Chile on 11 September 1973, overthrowing democratically elected president Salvador Allende A military dictatorship headed by General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in Argentina on 24 March 1976   According to American journalist A. J. Langguth, the CIA organized the first meetings between Argentinian and Uruguayan security officials regarding the surveillance (and subsequent disappearance or assassination) of political refugees in these countries, as well as its role as an intermediary in the meetings between Argentinian, Uruguayan, and Brazilian death squads.   According to the National Security Archive's documentary evidence from US, Paraguayan, Argentine, and Chilean files, "Founded by the Pinochet regime in November 1975, Operation Condor was the codename for a formal Southern Cone collaboration that included transnational secret intelligence activities, kidnapping, torture, disappearance, and assassination." Several persons were slain as part of this codename mission. "Notable Condor victims include two former Uruguayan legislators and a former Bolivian president, Juan José Torres, murdered in Buenos Aires, a former Chilean Minister of the Interior, Bernardo Leighton, and former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his 26-year-old American colleague, Ronni Moffitt, assassinated by a car bomb in downtown Washington D.C.," according to the report.   Prior to the formation of Operation Condor, there had been cooperation among various security services with the goal of "eliminating Marxist subversion." On September 3, 1973, at the Conference of American Armies in Caracas, Brazilian General Breno Borges Fortes, the chief of the Brazilian army, urged that various services "expand the interchange of information" in order to "fight against subversion."   Representatives from Chile, Uruguay, and Bolivia's police forces met with Alberto Villar, deputy chief of the Argentine Federal Police and co-founder of the Triple A killing squad, in March 1974 to discuss collaboration standards. Their purpose was to eliminate the "subversive" threat posed by Argentina's tens of thousands of political exiles. Bolivian immigrants' bodies were discovered at rubbish dumps in Buenos Aires in August 1974. Based on recently revealed CIA records dated June 1976, McSherry corroborated the kidnapping and torture of Chilean and Uruguayan exiles living in Buenos Aires during this time.   On General Augusto Pinochet's 60th birthday, November 25, 1975, in Santiago de Chile, heads of the military intelligence services of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay met with Manuel Contreras, commander of the Chilean secret police, to officially establish the Plan Condor. General Rivero, an intelligence officer in the Argentine Armed Forces and a former student of the French, devised the concept of Operation Condor, according to French writer Marie-Monique Robin, author of Escadrons de la death, l'école française (2004, Death Squads, The French School).   Officially, the targets were armed groups (such as the MIR, the Montoneros or the ERP, the Tupamaros, etc.) based on the governments' perceptions of threats, but the governments expanded their attacks to include all types of political opponents, including their families and others, as reported by the Valech Commission, which is known as The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report. The Argentine "Dirty War," for example, kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated many trade unionists, relatives of activists, social activists such as the founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, nuns, university professors, and others, according to most estimates.   The Chilean DINA and its Argentine counterpart, SIDE, were the operation's front-line troops from 1976 forward. The infamous "death flights," which were postulated in Argentina by Luis Mara Menda and deployed by French forces during the Algerian War (1954–62), were widely used. Government forces flew or helicoptered victims out to sea, where they were dumped to die in premeditated disappearances. According to reports, the OPR-33 facility in Argentina was destroyed as a result of the military bombardment. Members of Plan Condor met in Santiago, Chile, in May 1976, to discuss "long-range collaboration... [that] went well beyond intelligence exchange" and to assign code names to the participating countries. The CIA acquired information in July that Plan Condor participants planned to strike "against leaders of indigenous terrorist groups residing overseas."   Several corpses washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in late 1977 as a result of extraordinary storms, providing evidence of some of the government's victims. Hundreds of newborns and children were removed from women in prison who had been kidnapped and later disappeared; the children were then given to families and associates of the dictatorship in clandestine adoptions. According to the CIA, Operation Condor countries reacted positively to the concept of cooperating and built their own communications network as well as joint training programs in areas like psychological warfare.    The military governments in South America were coming together to join forces for security concerns, according to a memo prepared by Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America Harry W. Shlaudeman to Kissinger on August 3, 1976. They were anxious about the growth of Marxism and the consequences it would have on their dominance. This new force worked in secret in the countries of other members. Their mission: to track out and murder "Revolutionary Coordinating Committee" terrorists in their own nations and throughout Europe.Shlaudeman voiced fear that the members of Operation Condor's "siege mindset" could lead to a wider divide between military and civilian institutions in the region. He was also concerned that this would further isolate these countries from developed Western countries. He argued that some of these anxieties were justified, but that by reacting too harshly, these countries risked inciting a violent counter-reaction comparable to the PLO's in Israel.   Chile and Argentina were both active in using communications medium for the purpose of transmitting propaganda, according to papers from the United States dated April 17, 1977. The propaganda's goal was to accomplish two things. The first goal was to defuse/counter international media criticism of the governments involved, and the second goal was to instill national pride in the local population. "Chile after Allende," a propaganda piece developed by Chile, was sent to the states functioning under Condor. The paper, however, solely mentions Uruguay and Argentina as the only two countries that have signed the deal. The government of Paraguay was solely identified as using the local press, "Patria," as its primary source of propaganda. Due to the reorganisation of both Argentina's and Paraguay's intelligence organizations, a meeting scheduled for March 1977 to discuss "psychological warfare measures against terrorists and leftist extremists" was canceled.   One "component of the campaign including Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina envisages unlawful operations beyond Latin America against expatriate terrorists, primarily in Europe," according to a 2016 declassified CIA study titled "Counterterrorism in the Southern Cone." "All military-controlled regimes in the Southern Cone consider themselves targets of international Marxism," the memo stated. Condor's fundamental characteristi

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders   Were a series of murders in the spring of 1946 where 8 people were attacked, 5 of which murdered. Similar to the Zodiac and the Monster of Florence, the attacker focused on male/female couples. Also similar to those cases, the attacker has never been caught.   OK, first off, what the hell is Texarkana? You’re probably thinking “that’s not a state I’ve ever heard of.” and you, passenger, would be correct.    Texarkana began as a railroad and lumber center and is considered the two county area between Texarkana, Arkansas in Miller County and Texarkana, Texas in Bowie County and according to the US Office of Management and Budget, the Texarkana metropolitan statistical area (or MSA) has the area with around 137,000 people living in it, as of the 2020 census.   The Red River Army Depot and Lone Star Ammunition Plant seemed to drive the jobs to the area, mainly due in part to that little skirmish called World War 2, in the 1940’s.   It was founded in 1873 and has three possibilities of how it acquired its name.    First, there was a Red River steamboat that tugged around the area named “The Texarkana” and the settlers just liked the name.   Second, a storekeeper named “Swindle” from Louisiana made up a drink called “Texarkana Bitters” and the settlers were a bunch of drunks who liked that name. My kinda folks!   Third, it was named by railroad surveyor, Colonel Gus Knobel, who took one look out his front door and said:   “Well, there’s Texas over there, Arkansas over there and Louisina down there. Hmmm… I got it! “Arkanexasiana!” No… That won’t do. Think, Colonel, think! “Louie’s Assless Exes!” Dammit! No… Texarkana! Eureka! That’s the stuff!”   The area is also home to the Fouke Monster, which resides in Boggy Creek and seems to be their version of the one and only Moody, I MEAN SASQUATCH!    The four violent attacks took place from February to May in 1946, which doesn’t seem like spring but let’s just go with it. The attacker had his sights on couples. Male/female couples to be exact. Although focusing on gay couples would have made the area and the attacker quite progressive for the time. Or much worse.   The first attack was on Friday, February 22 of 1946, right around 11:45 at night. 25 year old Jimmy Hollis and his 19 year old girlfriend, Mary Jeanne Larey decided to head to lovers lane after seeing a movie together. I’m not sure what movie they saw but it was probably either Song of the South, The Stranger or Strangler of the Swamp.   Regardless, after the movie they wanted to do some neckin’ and proceed to park at lovers lane, which was about 300 ft past the last row of houses in that area. Ten minutes later, as they were sitting in the secluded and dark area, probably talking about how the moon was made of cheese, a flashlight suddenly shined through Jimmy’s driver side window. As he looked up, all he could see was a figure resembling a man with a white cloth mask and eye holes cut out, standing outside his door. The mask was said to look like a pillowcase with eye holes. Which is frightening in and of itself.   Jimmy, thinking it may be a joke, told the guy to fuck off and that he had the wrong car, to which the man said: “I don’t want to kill you, fella, so do what I say.”   The masked man then ordered Jimmy and his girlfriend, Mary Jeanne, out of the car, through the drivers door when the man yelled, “Take off your goddamn britches!” This order was directed at Jimmy and as he was doing what the terrifying man said to do, the attacker pulled out a pistol and cracked Jimmy in the head, twice. Later on, Mary Jeanne would say that the sound of him hitting Jimmy was so loud, she thought they were gunshots. Instead, those sounds were Jimmy’s skull fracturing.   Rightfully so, Mary Jeanne assumed the dude with the gun was trying to rob them. She grabbed Jimmy’s wallet and showed the man that he was broke as a joke, when the man smacked her in the head with a blunt object, presumably the gun handle or the flashlight.   The attacker told her to get on her feet and as she stood, he told her to run. She took off running toward a ditch but the man yelled at her and told her to run up the road.   “Not toward the ditch, woman! There’s snakes in there! I hate snakes! Head up the road like a civilized victim!”   Mary Jeanne hightailed it up the road and spotted a car but there was no one inside. Then, as she turned around and like she was magically whisked away to an 80’s slasher flick, the attacker was standing there, asking her why she was running. For some reason, that part freaks me out. Maybe because he’s obviously toying with her or maybe because I was traumatized by Friday the 13th, as a child.   Mary Jeanne responded to the man by telling him that he had told her to run. This set him off and he yelled “Liar!” He then knocked her to the ground and proceeded to sexually assault her… with the barrel of his pistol. YUCK!   After the assault, Mary Jeanne gathered herself up and ran to a house nearby where she banged on the door, waking the residents, who then helped her call the police.   During this time, or shortly after, Jimmy had regained consciousness and flagged down a passing car who ran and called the police, as well.    Bowie County Sheriff Presley and three officers arrived on the scene, short of 30 minutes, but the attacker was nowhere to be found. Mary Jeanne spent the night in the hospital for her head wound and Jimmy was there for several days with multiple skull fractures.   When asked to give detailed descriptions of their attacker, Jimmy and Mary Jeanne had slightly different details. Well, they both agreed that he was around 6 feet tall but Mary Jeanne claimed that she could see under the man’s mask and that he was a light skinned black man. Jimmy, however, said the guy was a tanned white man, around 30 years old but couldn’t really see more than that due to the flashlight being blared into his face.    The police continuously questioned Mary Jeannes account of the attack and they believed that the couple knew their attacker and were just covering for him.    Could it have been a jilted ex of Mary Jeanne’s? Is that why Jimmy was pistol whipped and she had only a minor injury? Is this why she said it was a black man instead of giving up the perpetrators real identity?   The morning of Sunday, March 24th, 1946, a passing motorist saw a parked car on lovers lane, just south of the highway and decided to check if they needed help or to just be nosey. What they first believed to be two people asleep in their vehicle, turned out to be the lifeless bodies of 29 year old Richard Griffin and his girlfriend, 17 year old Polly Ann More.   Richard was found shot twice, on his knees between the front seats, hands crossed, his head laying on his hands and his pockets turned inside out. Polly Ann was lying face down in the back seat with evidence suggesting they had been murdered outside of the car and then placed there. A blood soaked patch of soil and congealed blood on one of the running boards, as it appeared to have flowed out from the bottom of the car door.   They were both fully clothed and both had been shot in the back of the head and a .32 caliber shell was found and investigators believed it may have been fired from a pistol wrapped in a blanket.   There were no pathologist examinations of the bodies, which seems odd, but 1946 Texarkana, I guess. This didn’t stop the rumors from flying around saying that Polly Ann had been sexually assaulted. These rumors were put to rest with later reports.   17 year old Paul Martin picked up his 15 year old girlfriend, Betty Jo Booker from the local VFW (The VFW or veterans of foreign wars is an establishment set up for former military personnel who had fought in wars, and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or airspace.) after a musical performance on Sunday, April 14th right around 1:30 in the morning.   Later, at approximately 6:30 that morning, Paul’s lifeless body was found on the side of a nearby road, lying on its left side. His body had been riddled with bullet holes through his nose, through his ribs from the back, through his right hand and one through the back of his neck. Investigators found blood on the opposite side of the road, leading them to believe that he was allegedly alive when he crossed the road, after being shot four times.    Paul’s girlfriend, Betty Jo was found at approximately 11:30am by a search party. Her body was lying almost 2 miles away from Paul’s, hidden behind a tree. She was fully clothed, laying on her back with her right hand inside the pocket of the buttoned up overcoat she was wearing.    She had been shot twice, once in the face and the other shot went through her chest. According to investigators, the weapon used was a .32 caliber Colt pistol, the same pistol type used in the first set of murders.   Paul’s car wasn’t found near his body but instead was found 3 miles away from where his body was found. The car was sitting parked, keys in the ignition, at Spring Lake Park.    The investigators couldn’t determine if Paul or Betty Jo had been shot first. According to the sheriff and Captain Manuel Gonzaullas of the Texas Rangers, their investigations determined that both of the victims put up a hell of a fight.   Tom Albritton, a friend of Paul’s, stated that he didn’t believe there was an argument between the couple and that Paul didn’t have any enemies.   So on Friday, May 3rd in the same year, around 9 at night, 37 year old Virgil Starks and his wife Katie were in their home, set on a 500 acre farm. Now I’m pretty sure there's a few movies based on similar events such as this one. Their home was just off the local highway, 67 East, which was about ten miles northeast of Texarkana.   Virgil was sitting quietly in his armchair in the living room. He was reading some quality information from his local newspaper when suddenly, he was shot TWICE in the back of the head from a closed double wind

www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast   Simo Hayha   Let’s talk about Finland   officially called the Republic of Finland.   The country’s name was said to be found on three runestones.    has about 168,000 lakes and 179,000 islands.   Helsinki is capital    As for weather, In Helsinki, the summers are comfortable and partly cloudy and the winters are long, freezing, snowy, windy, and mostly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 17°F to 71°F and is rarely below -3°F or above 79°F.   Member of the EU   338,455 square kilometres (130,678 sq mi) with a population of 5.5 million people.   Helsinki is capital  According to an American study, an average of 7,000 rifle-caliber shots were required to achieve one combat kill during the First World War. During the Vietnam War this number had increased to more than 25,000. So, for Simo Häyhä’s more than 505 kills, more than 13,550,000 bullets would have been needed in Vietnam. Simo Was born December 17th, 1905   In the Kiiskinen hamlet of the Rautjärvi, Viipuri Province, In southern Finland.   Not far from the Russian border.   His father, Juho Häyhä, was the owner of the Mattila farm while Simo's mother, Katriina was known as a “loving and hard-working farmer's wife”.   He was the the second youngest of eight children,    Went to school in the village of Miettilä in Kivennapa parish   Working on his family's farm and hunting in the Finnish wilderness made him tough, yet very patient.   Built his own farm along with his eldest brother.    Proficient farmer, hunter, and skier.   At 17, Simo joined the Finnish voluntary Militia Civil Guard, kind of like the National Guard in the US.    Was only 5’ 3”   Was great at marksmanship and won several shooting competitions, having many trophies and awards in his home.   Was a shy guy that wasn’t a big fan of the spotlight   At 19, Simo started a 15 month mandatory military service, called Conscription, in the Bicycle Battalion 2 in Raivola.    He didn’t even start sniper training until he was 20.   Simo was supposedly able to estimate distances up to 150 meters (500 ft) within 1 meter or 3.3 ft. That’s over 1 and a half football fields in length.    An author that wrote about Simo said that he once hit a target 16 times from 150 meters away in only one minute. “This was an unbelievable accomplishment with a bolt action rifle, considering that each cartridge had to be manually fed with a fixed magazine that held together five cartridges.” That’s insane.   Simo went back to his farm until the invasion happened.   THE WAR   The Soviets didn’t trust Germany and wanted a buffer zone.   In the autumn of 1939, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland move their border back 25 kilometers from Leningrad.    The Finnish government refused.   The Soviet Union staged an incident at the border, using it as an excuse to attack Finland.   This started the Winter War.   Stalin sent over 750,000 Russian soldiers to invade Finland. Finland’s army had only 300,000, a few tanks and just over 100 aircraft.   Russia had almost 6000 tanks and over 3000 aircraft.   Stalin thought Finland would be a pushover. He was wrong.  Simo was called up. He pulled out his old gun, joined the Finnish army and entered the Winter War between 1939 and 1940.   This war was between Finland and Russia and the temperatures were between -40 and -4 degrees Fahrenheit.     Simo dressed in all white camo where the Russian troops weren’t given any camo, making them easier targets.   They wore their standard Green greatcoats.   This disorganization was due to Stalin freaking out and killing most of his superior generals, leaving confusion and a lack of leadership.   ON A SIDE NOTE    The Finns were also smart in their tactics, the most notable of which were known as “Motti”-tactics. Since the Soviets would invade by the roads, the Finns would hide out in the surrounding wilderness. They would then let the invaders cross the border, and attack them from behind.   the Finns faced both the 9th and 14th Soviet Armies, and at one point were fighting against as many as 12 divisions - about 160,000 soldiers. Also at one point in the same area, there were only 32 Finns fighting against over 4,000 Soviets   The Russian army supposedly gave him the name “white Death”, but some speculation believes it was propaganda created by Finland. Kind of like the new “Ghost Of Kiev”.   Russian prisoners claimed that “white death” was referring to how cold it gets in the deepest parts of the forests.    The Finnish newspapers used the name and the likeness of an “invisible soldier” to create and proport a hero for the war.    He was also called the “magic shooter”.   Even rumors that captured Russian soldiers were disappointed to not get to meet Simo.   AS A SNIPER   All 500 of Simos kills were supposedly done in less than 100 days.   That’s an average of 5 kills a day. Not a lot of sunlight during this time of the year.   On February 17th, 1940 Simo was awarded an honorary rifle.   Given by Commander Svensson, for 219 confirmed kills with a rifle and 219 with a submachine gun.   December 21, 1939 was his daily high kill count of 25.    Army chaplain Rantamaa claims it was more like 542 confirmed kills, starting from the beginning of the war until he was injured   Some Finnish documents say he had:   138 sniper kills in 22 days, published on December 22, 1939   199 sniper kills published on January 26th, 1940   219 Sniper kills published on February 17th, 1940   259 Sniper kills (40 in 18 days) published on March 7th, 1940   In Simo’s memoirs found in 2017, he had a “sin list” that claims around 500 kills.   Finnish historian Marjomaa claims the number to be like “more than 200 kills” due to the absence of bodies and the use of the press's propaganda. Still a lot.   Simo’s gun of choice was his SAKO M/28-30, a Finnish version of a Mosin-Nagant, known as “The Spitz” because of its front sights resembling the head of a dog. Also, a popular bolt action rifle in the video game, Call of Duty.   Simo liked iron sights, not scopes. He claimed that he could keep his head lower and it gave him a smaller target.   Iron sights were dependable where scopes could fog up in cold weather and made the gun easier to hide. Not to mention the reflection of light from the scope’s lens could show enemies where the sniper was positioned.   Simo knew how cold it could be out there so he dressed for the weather wearing multiple layers. This meant he could stay out in the cold longer, waiting for his attack or to wait after.   He kept sugar and bread in his pockets.   He would eat them for calories to help keep him warm.   Unlike most snipers, Simo didn’t fire from the prone position; he preferred sitting up.    Being shorter helped him as he hid from enemies.   He would go out at night, improve his favorite shooting positions, and perform meticulous maintenance on his rifle so that it would never jam, especially in the cold conditions.   He would head to his spot for the day before sunrise and stay there until after the sun had set.   Daylight only lasted for roughly 3 hours a day.   Simo would pile the snow or pour water on it in a way that the blast from his barrel wouldn’t disturb the snow in front of him and even kept snow in his mouth to keep his breath from showing the enemy where he was.   He’d place his gloves on the snow and his rifle on top of them to lessen the recoil.   In the early days of the fighting, a Soviet sniper had killed three junior platoon leaders and an NCO. Simo’s platoon leader told him to take out the sniper. As the sun was setting, the Soviet sniper carelessly abandoned his position. As he did, the sunlight glinted off his sniper scope. Simo put a round through his face.   Later another Soviet sniper kept Häyhä’s unit pinned down. Again, Simo was called upon  and began to search for his target.  Using another Finnish lieutenant as a spotter, he took the Soviet sniper out with a single shot from 400 meters.   Simo told a writer that snipers didn’t aim for headshots. “The head is a small size compared to the torso and for that reason, I always fired at the center of the torso. Shooting an enemy should only be done so when the probability of killing the enemy is at its highest, and if aiming at his head, a slight misjudgment leads to a miss which can give away your position with no gain taken.”   WOUNDED   Russia ordered counter snipers and artillery missions to SPECIFICALLY take out Simo.   Most failed.   Simo was almost killed on March 6th, 1940.   Shot in the face by an explosive, incendiary round, which explodes on impact.   Hit his lower left jaw, removing his upper jaw, most of his lower jaw and most of his left cheek.   Russians thought he was dead and threw him on a pile of bodies.   Finnish soldiers went looking for him and noticed a leg twitching in the pile of bodies.   The soldiers took him to get help and said “half his face was missing.”   Rumors of Simo’s death were everywhere.   One week later, he regained consciousness. The day that peace was declared.   The Finnish Army was exhausted, its ammunition nearly out, and its defensive lines close to being overrun. So, Finland was forced to sign the Treaty of Moscow on March 12, 1940. Under the treaty, it ceded 11 percent of its territory to the Soviet Union, more than the Soviets demanded prior to the start of the conflict.   Took him over 14 months to recover after 26 surgeries.   Saw a story about his death in a newspaper. He sent them a letter saying he was alive.   After recovery, he wanted to go back out to fight but wasn’t permitted.   AWARDS   Simo received the

MKULTRA/PROJECT ARTICHOKE/SPELLBINDER   MKULTRA- What is it Code name given for the illegal experimentation done on humans Done by the C.I.A. Aim was to develop procedures and drugs to weaken individuals during interrogations and produce confessions Brainwashing and psychological warfare Use of LSD Numerous methods to manipulate subjects’ mental states and brain functions through high doses of psychoactive drugs and other chemicals, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isoloation, and verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture. Preceded by Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. We’ll discuss these later on. MKULTRA background According to author Stephen Kinzer, who is a former New York Times correspondent, who also wrote several books and writes for multiple newspapers and news agencies.( Kind of hard to get an unbiased opinion when one guy writes for most of the news.) Kinzer wrote that the CIA project “was a continuation of the work begun in WWII-era Japanese Facilities and Nazi concentraion camps on subduing and controlling human minds”. Kinzer also wrote that MKUltra’s use of mescaline on people had begun in the Dachau concentration camp. Kinzer proposed evidence of the continuation of the Nazi agenda Kinzer Cited the CIA’s secret recruitment of Nazi torturers and vivisectionists( surgery conducted for experiemnts on living organisms with a central nervous system to view internal structure.) to continue the expriemtns on thousands of people Nazis brought abck to Fort Detrick, Maryland to teach CIA officers on the lethal use of sarin gas Project headed by Sidney Gottlieb but began with the order from Allen Dulles in 1953. They wanted to develop mind controlling drugs to be used against the soviets in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on US POWs during the Korean War. CIA was interested in using techniques on their own captives and wanted to manipulate forewwign leaders as well Even creating schemes to drug Fidel Castro Obviously most experiments were done without the consent of its subjects’ Academic researchers were funded through grants from CIA fronts and completely unaware that the CIA was using their work. Sheer scale of project- excerpt from 1977 Senate Hearing on MKULTRA summarized by Wikipedia Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public. Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception. Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol. Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so they may be used for malingering, etc. Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing". Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use. Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use. Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc. Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts. Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects. A knockout pill which can be surreptitiously administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis. A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity. Project BLUEBIRD-1952 Focused on hypnosis and behavioral modification as a means of preventing any Agency members from disclosing information to allies. (Sleeper Agents?) Dr. Colin A. Ross wrote a 10 page summary on the Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists This summary was made to “blow the whistle on extensive political abuse of psychiatry in North America in the second half of the 20th century.” Bluebird was approved in 1950 and then renamed Artichoke in 1951 Bluebird and Artichoke aimed to establish the Manchurian Candidate Bluebird/Artichoke was rolled over into MKUltra in 1953 and then into MKSearch in 1964 and ran until 1972. We’ll discuss the turn of events that transpired here later on in the broadcast. Through electroshock and hypnosis treatment and experimnetation, subjects would be basically given a split personality that had no recollection of the other frame of mind. This personality was given access codes, protocols/procedures, identities, and several missions to be carried out within the experiment. Think sleeper agents. Like The Winter Soldier. You say a couple words or show some pictures and it would trigger the other personality to come forth and then the subject would act entirely differently. Much like someone you may know. A.k.a. Lee Harvey Oswald. Its speculation and entirely conspiratorial but is likely that he was under said experiments. Project ARTICHOKE Bluebird was basically designed to alter the personality of subjects through drugs, electroshock, hypnosis, and other forms of torture. Which would allow a person to withhold certain pieces of information, influence certain parties without their knowing, or even carry out specific actions. All while never being aware of their doing so. Artichoke was similar but this time the project was to be used in subjects to force them to do the government's bidding against their will and even against the laws of nature such as self preservation. They carried out testing within the states and even overseas Using LSD, hypnosis and total isolation as forms of physiological harassment for interrogations of subjects. Started off at first using cocaine, marijuana, heroin, peyote and mescaline. They saw that LSD was the most promising though. Subjects who were able to leave the program had amnesia, and their memories were fogged resulting in faulty and vague recounts of their time. LSD was even given to unsuspecting CIA agents to see how the drug affects those who aren't entirely of the programOne Record shows that a single subject was kept on LSD for 77 days Artichoke even did research on the potential use of dengue fever and other diseases.One declassified  ARTICHOKE memo read: “Not all viruses have to be lethal… the objective includes those that act as short-term and long-term incapacitating agents.”COVID Anyone? It was found in the declassified documents that the CIA had a goal of using hypnosis to  to create an assassin to assassinate a prominent politician or American official. Overseas operations included bases in Europe, Japan, southeast asia and the philippines. They wanted to use aliens( foreign peoples of the area) as test subjects  at these foreign installments. MKSEARCH So to fuck with you guys even more lets talk about MKSEARCH. MKSEARCH was the name given to the continuation of MKULTRA. It was divided in to two projects named MKOFTEN and MKCHIKWIT The whole premise of MKSEARCH was incapacitating agents They wanted to test biological, chemical and radioactive materials and systems to make predictable human behaviors and psychological changes. The CIA was interested in bird migration patterns for use with chemical and biological warfare. Subproject 139 designated “Bird Disease Studies” at Penn State.Again using a front to give research studies’ grants and using the findings for their own use with in MKULTRA/SEARCH. Conspiracies of the bird disease program was the transfer of diseases from avian species to the carrying of said diseases around the world. MKOFTEN dealt with testing and toxicological transmissivity( tests to show exposure of transmissive diseases and chemical agents) and their behaviors in animals and then humansCovid… anyone? MKCHICKWIT wanted to understand drug development in europe and asia and also acquiring samples. There are a couple hundred different projects under the umbrella of MKULTRA. It would take hours to talk about all of them, so we are just talking about the popular ones and some of the unknown projects. So now let's talk about the experiments themselves.(Project Monarch was another covert front used to determine monarch butterflies' migratory patterns and the usefulness of radiological transmissions and diseases within the group.) (Project Spellbinder was creating the Manchurian Candidate with the sole purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro) Experiments LSDLSD-25 or acid as the kids call it, was the main drug used in MKULTRA  Effects of acid are typically intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. High doses create visual hallucinations but can also create auditory ones as well Can take about 30 minutes to kick in but can last for up to 20 hours. Considered non-addictive and low abuse potential. Frequent use creates exceptionally quick tolerance which leads to higher doses Known to create intermittent or chronic visual hallucinations even without further use. LSD overdose is unknown(HA!) but death or injury has been noted from accidents stemmed from psychological impairment Adopted by the counterculture movement in the 60’s because it allegedly expanded consciousness. Or it was just more CIA Propaganda to monitor subjects without the use of interrogation tactics. LSD was given to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and even prostitutes at the be

A little about Florence, Italy. It is the Capital of Tuscany, in Central Italy. Built on both sides of the Arno river. Florence was Founded as a roman military colony in the first century bce. Florence’s vernacular became the italian language Noteworthy celebrities that flourished here were Leonardo da Vinci, Filipp Brunelleschi, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Dante, and Galileo. Some famous buildings that reside here are the Baptistery of St. John, the Gothic Duomo, and the Uffizi Gallery. Economy is largely based around tourism… duh duh duuuuuuuuun.   What happened Between 1968 and 1985, 14 to 16 people were murdered in florence italy, in what leading criminologists and police officials have declared as one of the most puzzling crimes of their time.Mostly all couples First Known victims were Antonio Lo Bianco and his Sardinian lover Barbara LocciKilled on August 21, 1968 Small town near florence Locci’s 6 year old son, Natalino Mele, asleep in the back seat. (saw somewhere that they were having sex in the car and kid was asleep in back seat). Kid woke up and found his mother dead and he fled.Kid ran two kilometers and knocked on the door of a house. Kid banged on the door and told the homeowner “open the door and let me in, I'm sleepy and my daddy is sick in bed. THen you have to drive me home, because my mother and my uncle are dead in their car.” Kid was questioned by authorities as to how he ran alone in the dark two kilometers on unpaved country road. Kid originally said that he was scared and alone but changed his story later on saying that his father or an uncle drove him to the house. Kid said years later that he was alone but was too shocked to really remember what happened. Uncle was the name given to the mothers lovers. Mother had the nickname of ape regina or queen bee, due to the countless affairs she had. Lover of several men including 3 brothers; Giovanni, Salvatore and Francesco Vinci. Manual laborers and petty criminalsSalvatore lived with Locci and Mele in their own home for a short time. Lovers were shot and killed in the car by a .22 caliber pistol. Suspected killer was Loccis’s husband, Stefano Mele.Considered to be older and mentally slow Cops found a glove that was his that was tested and shown to have gun fire residue. Mele confessed but retracted his confession, and then confessed again but accused the vinci brothers of being involved, but later confessed to doing it alone. Despite changing his story and his son changing stories numerous times, the cuckolded husband was convicted and sent to prison for 14 yearsGiven a light sentence due to suffering from “infirmity of the mind” and deemed mentally dysfunctional. Mele said that he dropped the gun at the crime scene but it was never recovered. Considered a cut and dry case of a simple crime of passion. UNTIL… Saturday night of September 14th, 1974.Young couple, Stefania Pettini and Pasquale Gentilcore were regulars to a small secluded spot in the gentle suburban countryside on the outskirts of Florence, so they can spend some “private time alone”. The young couple was found dead the next morning.The young man was found inside the car leaning on the door Young lady was found in the grass behind the vehicle. Her body was nude and there had been stab wounds found.Not deep Surface wounds Stabbed or “Pricked” over 90 TIMES!!!! Raped? With a thin olive branch An author by the name of Magdalen Nabb wrote in her novel “The Monster Of Florence” -which was a fictional adaptation of the case- saw the act as a sign that the killer was impotent, writing: “He tries to rape the girl, but isnt able, so he violates her with an olive vine instead”. No money was stolen but it was noted that a few pieces of jewelry were stolen from Stefania Florence officials considered this a one-off event Seven years go by Saturday Night June 6th,1981 Carmela de Nuccio and Giovanni Faggi were parked on a dirt road just outside of Florence, known as Scandicci which is close to the popular night club, the “Anastasia Club”. They made it a habit to go to this spot alone Next morning bodies were found deadBoth shot and stabbed Giovanni was found in the driver's seat with half of his clothes on. Carmela was found 20 feet away from the car with her jeans pulled down and her pubic area had been cut out and taken away. Ballistics were run and the same gun, a .22 caliber long rifle, had been used with each of the  Winchester bullets having the letter “H” embossed on the back of the casing. Police were certain that the 1974 murder was not just a “one-off” and that they may have a maniac on the loose. Police also were certain that the killer was strong. Seeing as how the woman was not dragged, but instead carried out of the car and down a hill where her body was found. Police decide to look into a common issue plaguing Florence - peeping toms. With Florence being surrounded by hills, woods and countryside, just driving less than 20 minutes would find you in a secluded field or wooded area. Deprived of witnesses or townsfolk.During this time it was common for many Italians to live at home until they were married. Which means that couples didn't really get much privacy or robust ability to be alone together.Lovemaking in cars was common and couples would typically wait for night and secluded areas. Having a culture like this makes it a little easier for the occasional “Peeping-Tom” to have their gross fun. Most onlookers or peeping-toms went into the woods with just a pair of binoculars, although it wasn't uncommon to find the Professional peeping-tom.Armed with advanced night vision goggles or cameras so they could take pictures or even film unaware lovers Disgusting of an act as this may be, the police thought that the “toms” may come in handy to the investigation of the Monster of Florence. Hoping that these people may be able to give tips or see something that could aid in their investigation. Apparently it did help as one “Tom” gave some info. Police had nothing and jumped at this chance. Enzo Spalletti was a husband and a father.Taken into custody after seeing two dead bodies in the woods. Main reason he was being incarcerated was his unwillingness to divulge any information as to why he just so happened to be in the woods at the time the crime took place and knowing about the crime before it was officially reported.Eyewitnesses placed him and his vehicle at the crime scene at the time of the murder, although he denied every any part of being apart of the crime. Thursday night October 22nd, 1981 Susanna Cambi and Stefano Baldi had parked their vehicle on a country road just outside of florence. Couple was not known for visiting this spot and police believed they stopped on a whim with the sudden urge of intimacy. Bodies were found in the morning.Stefano was found outside of the car wearing just a shirt and underwear. Susanna had been carried to a spot nearby and her private areas had been horribly disfigured Nothing was stolen from these victims either This murder is known to this day as an anomaly since it happened on a thursday even though the day after, friday, was a national labor strike. The other crimes also took place in the summer where this was in the fall. That evening was also a very bright, moonlit night.Officials believe that the murderer acted out as to throw off the police to the investigation. This anomaly also gave one strong clue to the police that wasn't available prior, a size 44(u.s size 10) shoe print found in the mud.Police believed that the culprit was a “Tall”(Hahahaha) and robust person. With this new crime happening they released Enzo from custody. Saturday Night June 19th, 1982 Antonella Migliorini and Paolo Mainardi were parked by some bushes in Baccaiano which is south of Florence. Vehicle was able to be seen clearly from the street.Friends of theirs have driven by and seen the two in the car and could clearly identify who was in it. Antonella chose this area because it wasn't as private for fears of running into the monster of Florence This particular case could show to be a turning point in the investigation.The monster had shot the couple. What made things interesting however was the shot on Paolo did not kill him right away.He was able to turn on the vehicle and attempt to drive away. Car was facing away from the street so any attempt at fleeing would have to have been done in reverse. Hard to drive in reverse while being shot at Monster shot the headlights out to avoid any attention. Paolo unfortunately got the vehicle stuck in a ditch while trying to flee. Neither of the victims were stabbed nor were there any ritualistic disfigurements of Antonella.Mainly because the Monster most likely had to flee from the disruptive scene, plus it was a rather busy area. Very shortly after the incident, another vehicle passed byAssuming the vehicle was stuck they got out to help Found the blood bath and immediately called for an ambulance and police. Paolo was still breathing when help arrived and drove him to the hospital where he shortly died from his wounds. The prosecutor who was investigating this case at the time, Silvia della Monica, decided to try and create a trap for the Monster.She had the newspapers print off saying that Paolo was able to say some words about what happened before he passed. Hoping to make the Monster second guess everything or at the very least, make a mistake. Shortly after the incident at Baccaiano, an envelope arrived at the Carabinieri police station in Florence.Contents of envelopeNewspaper clipping with article dating back to the 1968 killing of the two lovers that were shot by the alleged jealous husband, Stefano Mele. Written on top of the clipping was the statement ‘Why dont you take another look at this case?’ The spent casings of the bullets that were fired in 1968 were still archived.Ballistics tests were ran Ballistics proved that the same gun had been used that day and with the other cases with similar incidents.The bullets were the same type and were to have been from the same box of ammo as well. How could this be?The Man that killed the first couple was s

Research borrowed from: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/were-there-female-pirates   https://www.piratesquest.co.uk/top-10-famous-female-pirates/   Mentalfloss.com   https://www.badassoftheweek.com/teuta There have been dramatic Tales of women sailing the open oceans and seas throughout history. Most of these legends began from the Golden Age of Piracy (1650 to 1720). However, there are stories of female pirates dating back thousands of years.    According to history, women weren't permitted to stay on ships once they had set sail. Sailor superstitions thought that women on merchant and military vessels were bad luck and could mean disaster at sea. The presence of women was believed to anger the water gods, which might cause storms, violent waves, and weather. Others thought that women would just distract the male sailors at sea and fall victim to harassment and even violence.  Women weren't allowed to hold jobs at sea until the 20th Century. Some women would disguise themselves as men, using a fake name, but there could be severe penalties if they were caught. So the only way for most women to participate in running a merchant vessel before 1900 was through their relations or marriage.  Only recently, women were allowed at sea within the British Royal Navy. In October 1990, during the Gulf War, the HMS Brilliant carried the first women officially to serve on a functioning warship. In 1998, Commander Samantha Moore became one of the first female officers to command a Royal Navy warship, HMS Dasher.    The superstitions and old-school customs for military and commercial vessels were also held for pirates. Historically, women who remained on ships at sea would have to do so illegitimately and in disguise. They would also need to learn the critical skills necessary for a life at sea before setting sail. Without this knowledge, it would have been tough to be a female sailor, let alone a pirate.  Piracy was a criminal act, so becoming a pirate could mean being arrested and even killed. It wasn't a decision taken lightly. Although pirates are often portrayed as swashbuckling heroes or villains, many were ordinary men and women forced into piracy to survive difficult times.    Piracy has been around since people first hopped on a boat, so it's likely women dressed like the women or as sailors of their time. But unfortunately, many of the depictions of male and female pirates we see today are glamorized accounts of the 17th Century's golden age of piracy. The rise of popular fiction tales in the 1800s dramatically affected our understanding of pirate attire. One example is "The Penny Dreadful," a famous book series of the 1860s - both in the United States and the British Empire. These cheap books told sensational stories of adventure. They featured pirates and highwaymen, likely a leading source for many tales and imagery of female pirates today.  As we mentioned, many women who became sailors often had to hide their identity and conceal their gender by dressing like men. However, the stories of Grace O'Malley, Mary Read, and Anne Bonny show that these pirates did not hide their gender. They wore whatever they wanted, depending on what they were doing. In the pamphlet "The Tryals of Captain John Rackam and other Pirates" published in 1721, people of the time said: "When they saw any Vessel, gave Chase, or Attacked, they wore Men's Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women's Cloaths."   Ok, let's talk about some of the more famous lady pirates.    Queen Teuta of Illyria Queen Teuta of the Illyrians was a badass Classical Age warrior queen who oversaw a fleet of hardcore pirates. She tormented the Spartans in their own backyard, led armies and navies that conquered cities and islands along the Adriatic coast, and told the Romans to eat a bag of dicks. Then she went out on her own terms by hurling herself off a mountain after supposedly burying 6,000 pounds of gold in a secret location at a place called Devil's Island. Her last words were a curse that doomed the Albanian city of Durres to "never have a seafaring tradition." Yet, she's still a national heroine of Albania, appears on their 100 lek coin (basically the $1 bill), and is generally depicted in full armor with a take-no-prisoners demeanor.    Queen Teuta's husband was King Agron, a pretty brutal warrior-type dude. He ruled over one of the more powerful Illyrian tribes. Illyria is what Greeks called anyone who lived on the Adriatic coast north of Greece. Still, Agron and Teuta were almost certainly from present-day Albania. This detail bears mentioning mostly because the Albanians don't really like being confused with Serbs or Croats. In 231 BC, King Agron put together an awe-inspiring army, conquered Illyria in a whirlwind of blood, and set his sights south towards Greece. One tribe near the Greek border that was really pissing him off was the Aetolians. So when they laid siege on a city allied with Agron, the Illyrian King responded by launching 5,000-guys in a water-based night attack from the Adriatic Sea. The King captured the high ground, charged downhill with heavy infantry, destroyed their camp, and broke their Army's spirit. The victory was considered so awesome that everyone just went nuts and had this colossal rager party. In all of his amazingness, King Agron got so drunk that his lungs exploded.   Rule of the Illyrians technically passed to Agron's son, but he was only two years old. Teuta took over as the boss. She went right to work taking over where her hubby King Agron left off plundering, conquering, destroying everything in sight, and so on. She sent armies to the Peleponnese, sacking and ravaging the lands Sparta was supposed to defend. Her troops captured Phoenice, the wealthiest city in the Northern Greek region of Epirus. She held it for ransom and then gave it back to its people in exchange for money, slaves, treasure, and the undying loyalty of its citizens. When she wasn't dispatching armies to loot and plunder her enemies, she told any Albanian man with a rowboat and a scimitar to step up. She wasn't going to punish them if they raided, pirated, and plundered ships along the Adriatic… as long as she received a percentage of the profits. For the next few years, no ships were safe. The Illyrian pirate fleet destroyed Greek and Roman shipping, dominating the wealthiest and most trade-heavy waters on earth, taking whatever they wanted. Yes, they were killing it. However, this craziness didn't really go down well with the new power in the Mediterranean-- the Roman Republic. So Rome sent two brothers to talk to Teuta and tell her to knock it off.  They met her in her throne room in the city of Scoda. They demanded that she order a cease-fire on all Illyrian piracy and pay Rome reparations for all the ships and goods they lost.  Teuta was busy managing the Siege of Issa and all the other conquests she was undertaking. So (according to Roman sources), she told the brothers that "it was contrary to the custom of the Illyrian kings to hinder their subjects from winning booty from the sea." Or, eat one! Well, as you probably guessed, the Romans didn't like hearing this, especially from a woman. The ambassadors basically started lecturing Queen Teuta on manners, respect, and yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, Queen Teuta had that dude's throat cut, and his brother chucked into an Albanian prison.   Things were great until five or six years into Queen Teuta's reign when the Romans showed up with a big ol fleet and 20,000 legionnaires. All battle-hardened from the War with Carthage and drilled by professional Roman drill instructors. Teuta rallied the Illyrian defenses, but she was immediately betrayed by her top General named Demetrius. Teuta fought heroically but ultimately was forced to surrender to Rome in 227 BC. There are rumors that she took a bunch of treasure she'd accumulated from her pirates and armies and buried it in a cave on an island somewhere in her domain.   The Romans allowed Teuta to rule a small domain after she surrendered. Still, they made that traitor Demetrius the regent for King Agron's young son. Not long after, Rome decided to get rid of Demetrius, and of course, our fearless Queen. Upon hearing of Rome's plans, Teuta fled her palace. She climbed to the top of a nearby mountain, placed a curse on the city of Risan so that they'd never be able to build a good ship again, and then hurled herself off a mountain to her death.  Teuta is a pretty common name in Albania to this day. She appears on their money and has a special place in the hearts of the Albanian people. Go to the city of Durres. You'll see that the National Bank of Albania has a statue of her reclining on a chaise lounge and wearing nothing but a spear, a shield, and a helmet. Ladgerda Ladgerda (also spelled Lagertha) was a Danish Viking pirate who lived in the 9th Century AD. She was a shieldmaiden - Viking women who carried a sword and shield, known for their ferocity and skills in battle on land and sea.  With only a few accounts of her life known to exist, historians have controversy whether Ladgerda is, in fact, a legendary figure and a substitute for the actions of a group of women. One story suggests that she rescued her husband's fleet from a warring tribe but, on saving him, murdered him with a concealed knife and took his place as the leader of the tribe. You may have heard of her from the show "Vikings," kicking ass and taking names.   Jeanne de Clisson Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Brittany. Noblewoman, wife, mother, pirate. Jeanne swore revenge against the French King after the execution of her husband. She raised a fleet of ships that terrorized the French and led a loyal army to sack many French strongholds for over a decade. And she did so alone in the 14th Century. Jeanne de Belleville was born in 1300 in Belleville-sur-Vie into the French nobility. She married her first husband, Geoffrey de Châteaubriant VIII, at only 12 years old. He was seven years her senior. In fourteen years of marriage, they had two children. In 1326, Jeanne was w

sign up for our Patreon to support the show and get bonus episodes! www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast  Info take from: https://allthatsinteresting.com/skinwalker   https://www.legendsofamerica.com/navajo-skinwalkers/   https://www.wjhl.com   The Uinta Basin is a section of the Colorado Plateaus province, part of the enormous Intermontane Plateaus division. It is also a geologic structural basin in eastern Utah, east of the Wasatch Mountains and south of the Uinta Mountains. For as long as humans have lived in the Uintah Basin, they’ve seen strange things in the sky. In the 1970s, Utah State professor Frank Salisbury wrote a detailed, profoundly investigative book about hundreds of UFO sightings seen in the basin, called “The Utah UFO Display: A Biologists Report.” However, the weird stuff goes way beyond strange flying anomalies. For 15 generations, indigenous tribes, including the Utes, have referred to this ridge as being “in the path of the skinwalker.”  In the Navajo culture, a skinwalker is a harmful witch who can turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal.   The legend of the shapeshifting entity known as the Skinwalker has primarily been seen as a hoax. It’s hard to believe that a human-like figure has been transforming into a four-legged animal and terrorizing families in the American Southwest for centuries. While not precisely proven, the Navajo Skinwalker has profound roots in Native American lore.   So, what is a Skinwalker? As The Navajo-English Dictionary explains, the “Skinwalker” has been translated from the Navajo “Yee Naaldlooshii. The literal translation means “by means of it, it goes on all fours” — and the yee naaldlooshii is just one of many varieties of Skinwalkers, called ‘ánti’jhni and is considered one of the most volatile and dangerous witches. For the Navajo people, witchcraft is just another part of their spirituality and one of the “ways” of their lives. Witchcraft has long been part of their culture, history, and traditions. Witches exist alongside humans and are not supernatural beings. The Navajo believe there are places where the powers of both good and evil are present and that those powers can be harnessed for either. Medicine men utilize these powers to heal and aid members of their communities. At the same time, those who practice Navajo witchcraft seek to direct the spiritual forces to cause harm or misfortune to others. This type of Navajo witchcraft is known as the “Witchery Way,” which uses human corpses in various ways such as tools from the bones, and concoctions that are used to curse, harm, or kill intended victims. The knowledge of these powers is passed down from the elders through the generations.   The Navajo are part of a larger cultural area that includes the Pueblo people, Apache, Hopi, Ute, and other groups that also have their versions of the Skinwalker. Still, each consists of an evil witch capable of transforming itself into an animal. Among these tribes, several stories and descriptions have been told throughout the years about the Skinwalkers. Sometimes, these witches evolved from living their lives as respected healers or spiritual guides, who later chose to use their powers for evil. Though they can be male or female, they are more often male. They walk freely among the tribe during the day and secretly transform at night. To become a Skinwalker, they must be initiated by a secret society that requires the evilest of deeds – the killing of a close family member, most often a sibling. Kind of like the soul stone. After this horrible task has been completed, the person then acquires supernatural powers, which give them the ability to shape-shift into animals. They are often seen in the form of coyotes, wolves, freddy foxes, cougars, dogs, and bears but can take the shape of any animal. They then wear the skins of the animals they transform into, hence, the name Skinwalker.  Sometimes, they also adorned animal skulls or antlers atop their heads, which brought them more power. They choose what animal they want to turn into, depending on the abilities needed for a particular task, such as speed, strength, endurance, stealth, claws, teeth, etc. They may transform again if trying to escape from pursuers. Because of this, the Navajo consider it taboo for its members to wear the pelt of any predatory animal. However, sheepskin, leather, and buckskin are acceptable. The skinwalkers can also take possession of the bodies of human victims if a person locks eyes with them. After controlling, the witch can make its victims do and say things that they wouldn’t otherwise.   Some traditions believe Skinwalkers are born of a benevolent medicine man who abuses indigenous magic for evil. The medicine man is then given mythical powers of sin that vary from tradition to tradition. Still, the power all traditions mention is the ability to turn into or possess an animal or person. Other practices believe a man, woman, or child can become a Skinwalker by committing any deep-seated evil deed.   The evil society of the witches gathers in dark caves or secluded places for several purposes – to initiate new members, plot their activities, harm people from a distance with black magic, perform dark ceremonial rites and tickle the taints of ceremonial voodoo dolls. These ceremonies are similar to other tribal affairs, including dancing, feasts, rituals, mutual masturbation, and sand-painting, but were “corrupted” with dark connotations. The evildoers are also said to engage in necrophilia with female corpses, commit cannibalism, incest, and grave robberies. During these gatherings, the Skinwalkers shape-shift into their animal forms or go naked, wearing only beaded jewelry and ceremonial paint. The leader of the Skinwalkers is usually an older man, who is a very powerful and longtime Skinwalker. Skinwalkers also have other powers, including reading others’ minds, controlling their thoughts and behavior, causing disease and illness, destroying property, getting a woman to make up their mind about where to have dinner, and even death. Those who have talked of their encounters with these evil beings describe several ways to know if a skinwalker is near. They make sounds around homes, such as knocking on windows, banging on walls, and scraping noises on the roof. On some occasions, they have been spied peering through windows. More often, they appear in front of vehicles in hopes of causing a severe accident. Some claim that, in addition to being able to shapeshift, the Skinwalker is also able to control the creatures of the night, such as wolves and owls, and to make them do their bidding. Some can call up the spirits of the dead and reanimate the corpses to attack their enemies. Zombies. Boom! Because of this, the Native Americans rarely ventured out alone. The skin walkers' supernatural powers are uncanny, as they are said to run faster than a car and have the ability to jump high cliffs. They are swift, agile, impossible to catch, and leave tracks that are larger than those of any animal. When they have been seen, they have been described as not quite human and not entirely animal. They are usually naked, but some have reported seeing the creature wearing tattered shirts or jeans, kind of like Bruce Banner.   The Skinwalker kills out of greed, anger, envy, spite, or revenge. It also robs graves for personal wealth and collects much-needed ingredients in black magic. These witches live on the unexpired lives of their victims, and they must continually kill or die themselves. Skinwalkers and other witches have long been blamed for all manner of unexpected struggles and tragedies through the years, including sickness, drought, poor crops, and sudden deaths. Even more minor or individual problems such as windstorms during dances, alienation of affection by mates, the death of livestock, and reversal of fortune, were often believed to be the work of a witch. This situation was most apparent with the Navajo Witch Purge of 1878, which initially evolved from a cultural response to many people moving across and onto their lands. After a series of wars with the U.S. Army, the Navajo were expelled from their land and forced to march to the Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner) in New Mexico in what is known as the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1864. The people suffered from inadequate water, failed crops, illness, and death, reducing their numbers dramatically. After four years, the government finally admitted they had made a mistake, and the Navajo were allowed to return to their homeland in the Four Corners area. During these years, many of the tribe’s members were said to have turned to shape-shifting to escape the terrible conditions. In the meantime, the rest of the tribe were convinced that their gods had deserted them. Once the people had returned to their homeland, their conditions improved, but the dreaded skinwalkers, whom they blamed for their years on the bleak reservation, were still among them. Accusations of witchcraft and the hunting of the skinwalkers began. When someone found a collection of witch artifacts wrapped in a copy of the Treaty of 1868, the tribal members unleashed deadly consequences. The “Navajo Witch Purge” occurred in 1878, in which 40 Navajo suspected witches were killed to restore harmony and balance for the tribe. Today, most of the tales of sightings of these witches do not include death or injury but instead are more “trickster-like.” So, the Native American equivalent of Loki.  Numerous people have told stories of swift animals running alongside their vehicles, matching their speed. After a short period, however, they run off into the wilderness. Along the way, these animals often turn into a man, who jumps out and bangs on the hood. Another story tells of a man making repairs on an old ranch home when he began to hear loud laughter coming from the nearby sheep pens. Thinking he was alone, he investigated and found all sheep but one huddled in one corner of the pen. However, a lone ram was separated from the group, standing upright and laughing very human-like. After the man locks eyes with the ram, he sees that h

Become a POOPR! Support the show, get bonuses and be cooler than your friends! www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast  In July of 1979, Glenna Susan "Sue" Sharp and her five children, John, fifteen,  Ohhhhh Sheila, fourteen, Tina, twelve, Ricky, ten, and Greg, five, left her home in Connecticut after separating from her abusive husband, James Sharp, and their excessively turbulent marriage. She decided to take her children to northern California, where her brother Don lived. She began renting a small one-bedroom trailer formerly occupied by her brother at the Claremont Trailer Village in Quincy. Obviously, the cramped trailer wasn't working for the family so, the following fall, she moved to house #28 in the rural Sierra Nevada resort town of Keddie.    The resort was having financial troubles and had converted its once massively successful cabins into low-income housing. The house was much larger than the trailer and had become available when Plumas County's then-sheriff, Sylvester Douglas Thomas, moved out. The cabin was a bit beat up, but there were three rooms and plenty of other families nearby. The oldest son Johnny took the unfinished basement, her youngest boys, Rick and Greg, took a bedroom, Sue and Tina shared a room, and Sheila had a bedroom. The kids all had friends their own ages to hang out with, and, at least for that moment, everyone seemed happy and content.   Sue's ex-husband, James, had been in the Navy so, the family was familiar with moving a lot, and they looked forward to being in one place for a while. However, sue had a hard time making ends meet. She received $250 from her ex-husband, food stamps, and social welfare. She was also enrolled in a federal education program that gave her money to attend classes at the local community college. Sue was taking business classes. Her classmates said she was a good student. Sue worked hard and obtained excellent grades. However, her classmates also said she was a loner; she didn't join in on coffee breaks and preferred studying alone rather than in a group setting. Perhaps years of abuse had taken a toll on her.   Sue faced a lot of stigmatism in the community. People didn't seem like she was on welfare and appeared to date many men. People gossiped, as nosy assholes always do, and accused her of dealing drugs or sleeping with men for money. A significant reason for the gossip was that Sue just kept to herself. She didn't make many friends; this was most likely because she had spent most of her adult life moving and wasn't accustomed to establishing lasting friendships. Coming from someone that moved around a lot, it's always easier to distance yourself than to create relationships that could disappear at any given moment. Sue didn't seem to mind being alone, and she didn't care what the Bridgettes and Mikes of the neighborhood had thought about her. She just looked forward to building her life. She wanted to own a small business, buy a house suitable for the kids and, most importantly, keep them safe.   On April 11, 1981, around 11:30 am, Sue, Sheila, and Greg drove from their friends' residence, the Meeks family, to pick up ten-year-old Ricky, who was attending baseball tryouts at Gansner Field in Quincy. They happened upon the oldest son, John, and his friend, Dana Hall Wingate hitchhiking from Quincy to Keddie and picked them up, then drove about 6 miles (9.7 km) toward Keddie. Two hours later, around 3:30 pm, John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy, where they may have had plans to visit friends for a party. Around this time, the two were seen in the city's downtown area.   That same evening, fourteen-year-old Sheila had plans to spend the night with the Seabolt family, who lived in a nearby cabin. At the same time, Sue remained at home with Rick, Greg, and the boys' young friend, Justin. The three boys had spent most of the day riding bikes and playing outside. Damn, I miss those days. Sheila left their home shortly after 8:00 pm, leaving her mother alone with the younger children. Twelve-year-old Tina, who had been watching television at the Seabolt's, returned home around 9:30 pm after Sheila arrived at the Seabolts' to spend the night. So, mom's at home with  Ricky, Greg, their friend Justin and Tina on a Saturday night, just hanging out. John and his buddy were supposed to come home that night, but it was never apparent when.   Little Greg was the first to go to bed around 8:30 pm. Then Tina around 9:30. Ricky and Justin joined Sue to watch Love Boat, and then they went to bed around 10:00 pm. Sue remained on the couch watching TV, dozing off, but not ready to turn in. More than likely, she was waiting for John and Dana to return before calling it a night.   Around 7:00 am on Sunday, April 12, Sheila returned home to change clothes and head to church with the Seabolt's. What she discovered was something out of a nightmare; the dead bodies of Sue, John, and Dana in the house's living room. She recognized her brother John lying face up, covered in blood. Another boy was face down, and they were both tied at the feet. She saw a yellow blanket covering what she thought looked like another body, but she didn't know who. She ran out of the cabin, screaming, back to the Seabolt's who called the police. All three had been bound with medical tape and electrical cords. Tina was absent from the home, while the three younger children—Rick, Greg, and Justin—were unharmed in an adjacent bedroom. Initial reports stated that the three young boys had slept through the incident, though later contradicted. Sheila and James Seabolt Jr. went back to Cabin 28 to find the rest of the family. Looking into the cabin's windows, they saw the youngest boys and Justin sleeping in their bedroom. They woke them up by tapping on the window and insisted that they crawl through it, so they didn't have to see the horrors in the living room. James Seabolt later admitted to having briefly entered the home through the back door to see if anyone was still alive, potentially contaminating evidence in the process.   The murders of Sue, John, and Dana were incredibly ferocious. Two bloodied knives and one hammer were found at the scene. One of the knives (a steak knife later determined to have been used in the murders) had been bent at roughly 30 degrees, demonstrating the amount of aggression administered in the slayings. Blood spatter evidence from inside the house indicated that the murders of Sue, John, and Dana had all taken place in the living room. Tina was still unaccounted for.   This shit is pretty rough, so you've been warned.    Sue was found lying on her side near the living room sofa, nude from the waist down. She had been gagged with a blue bandana and her own panties, which had been secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest, her throat was stabbed horizontally, the wound going so deep that it went through her larynx and nicked her spine. On the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 Powerline BB/pellet rifle. John's throat was slashed. Dana had multiple head injuries and had been manually strangled to death. In addition, John and Dana suffered blunt-force trauma to their heads caused by a hammer or hammers. Autopsies determined that Sue and John died from knife wounds and blunt-force trauma. Dana had died by asphyxiation.   Sheila and the Seabolt family (remember, Sheila had spent the night in the with them) heard no commotion during the night; a couple living in nearby house #16 was awakened at 1:15 am by what sounded like muffled screaming. Tina's jacket, shoes, and a toolbox containing various tools were missing from the house. There were no signs of forced entry, meaning the family possibly knew the killer or killers. The house's telephone had been taken off the hook and the cord cut from the outlet. The drapes were pulled closed.   The crime scene wasn't contained. The Plumas County Sheriff's Office initially handled it. Unfortunately, it was riddled with errors and oversights. Deputy Hank Klement was first on the scene, and he confirmed all three bodies were deceased. Sergeant Jerry Shaver was next on the scene and spoke to a group of people outside, taking their statements. At some point, Shaver and Klement walked through the house, "reviewing the scene." Sheriff Sylvester Stillbone Doug Thomas and assistant Sheriff Ken Shanks came to the scene, and then Don Stoy joined them. The scene now had five men walk through it (seven if you consider that James and Sheila had also entered the scene), none of whom knew how to preserve a crime scene. It wasn't until all five men had walked through the home that photographs of the scene were taken. Next, officers did house-by-house welfare checks and interviewed potential witnesses, and it wasn't until several hours that officers noticed Tina was unaccounted for.   Original composite sketches of two suspects based on testimony from Justin, who claimed to have witnessed the crimes. Justin gave conflicting stories of the evening, including that he had dreamed details of the murders. However, he later claimed to have actually witnessed them. In his later account of events, told under hypnosis, Justin claimed to have awoken to sounds coming from the living room while asleep in the bedroom with Rick and Greg. Investigating these sounds, he saw Sue with two men: one with a mustache and short hair, the other clean-shaven with long hair; both wore glasses. According to Justin, John and Dana entered the home and began heatedly arguing with the men. A fight ensued, after which Tina entered the room and was taken out of the cabin's back door by one of the men. Based on Justin's descriptions, composite sketches of the two unknown men were produced by Harlan Embry, a man with no artistic ability and no training in forensic sketching. It was never explained why, with access to the Justice Department's and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's top forensic artists, law enforcement chose to use an amateur who sometimes volunteered to help local police. In press releases accompanying the sketches, the suspects were described as being in their

Support the show! www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast Creepy Ireland Today's episode is on Creepy Ireland. To kick it off right, we wanted to say "top of the mornin' to ye '’' but seeing as how that's just a silly Hollywood invention, we are instead going to say "A hundred thousand welcomes."    Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, I reached out to a friend of ours, Katie, who’s father is directly from Ireland. I asked her to see if he had any sort of creepy interactions over there. She also reached out to a cousin who lives over there and I received this message, this morning:   Oh boy I hit the jackpot reaching out to my cousins in Ireland I had no idea about this but here’s her message.    Ohhh some that I've heard, well as it happens 😅 Our cousin Sibeal, your cousin too (Shib-ale) her dad is part of PSI Ireland, Paranormal Study Investigations they have a whole Facebook/Tiktok following so he could have some good stuff Yes, they have a website and everyone should go check it out and tell them we sent you. It’s http://psiireland.com/   Oh, and the response from Katie’s father: (From her mother) Dad said he can’t think of anything.  I asked him about the fairies and the bancheez and he said he never saw any of them.  The only thing we can think of was when they had to break his dead great uncles legs to get him in his coffin because they died at home and rigor mortis set in. Amazing.   Well, it's not much like the Irish or us to beat around the bush, so if you don't like that then, "Fuck off while you still got the legs to carry ya."   First off, let's do what we do and talk about the country of Ireland and its history.  Ireland is a beautiful, lavishly green island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. The first is Greenland. Pretty impressive. By the way, the name "St George's Channel" is said to be recorded in 1578 in Martin Frobisher's record of his second voyage. It derives from a legend that Saint George had voyaged to Roman Britain from the Byzantine Empire, approaching Britain via the channel that bears his name. The name was popularized by English settlers in Ireland after the Plantations. Funny story about Martin Frobisher; He was a privateer that used to rob French ships. Frobisher also found what he thought was gold ore and carried 200 tons of it home on three ships. They initially determined it to be worth a profit of £5.20 per ton (Roughly $7 U.S. Dollars), Which today would equate to around $237 per ton, making the haul worth approximately $47,400. Encouraged by his newfound wealth, Frobisher returned to Canada with an extensive fleet and dug several mines around Frobisher Bay. He carried 1,350 tons (approximately $319,950 today) of the ore back to England, where, after years and years of smelting, they realized that the ore was an utterly worthless rock called hornblende, which is typically dark green and shows how dumb people were back in the 16th Century. Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. In 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.6 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. As of 2016, 4.8 million people lived in the Republic of Ireland, and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland. Ireland has low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several rivers extending inland. Its lush vegetation is a product of its mild but changeable climate, free of extremes in temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. Sounds nice. Much of Ireland was primarily forests until the end of the Middle Ages. Today, woodland makes up about 10% of the island, compared with a European average of over 33%. There are twenty-six land mammal species native to Ireland; this includes the Red Deer, which is believed to have been present in Ireland for at least 12,000 years. The mighty red deer is Ireland's most significant land mammal and the only current species of deer considered "native" to the country. The Irish climate is influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and thus very moderate, and winters are milder than expected for such a northern area. However, summers are cooler than those in continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant. Like, a lot. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century AD. The island was Christianised from the 5th Century forward. Following the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion, England claimed supreme power over Ireland. However, English rule did not extend over the entire island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonization by settlers from Logan and my distant relatives, the Brits. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially screw over the Catholic majority and Protestant protesters and was extended during the 18th Century. Finally, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. In the early 20th Century, the island's partition followed a war of independence, thus creating the Irish Free State, which became increasingly on its own over the following decades, and Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the United Kingdom.  Ok, that is a little history on the country of Ireland, and just a little side note, the wife and I are actually looking into going over to Ireland with my best pal and Patreon POOPR, Bill Birch, to visit his girlfriend's awesome family! Now, let's get into the CREEPY side of Ireland. What would a creepy episode be without a haunted castle or two or 30,000? Yes, there is approximately 30,000 muffin farmin' castles in Ireland, and, HELL NO, we're not talking about them all.  Loftus Hall, County Wexford. Known as the most haunted house in Ireland and said to be haunted by the Devil himself, the fate of Loftus Hall as one of the most haunted places in Ireland was perhaps set in stone due to its construction in 1350 during the time of the Black Death. (head back and listen to that episode) However, the legend of Loftus Hall actually dates from the 18th Century, when a mysterious stranger came calling on the Tottenham family, who occupied the house at the time. Legend has it that the Tottenham daughter, Anne, soon realized that this mysterious stranger was none other than the mother fuckin Devil due to the apparent fact that he had a cloven hoof in place of his foot. Good catch, Anne.  Soon after, the mysterious stranger disappeared when he flew up and through the roof. Having disgraced the family due to her supposed hysterics, Anne was subsequently locked away in her room, where she died several years later. Psilocybin, anyone? Odd side note, in 2006, Minister for Health Mary Harney banned the sale and possession of magic mushrooms containing psilocybin following the tragic death of a 33-year-old Dublin man who jumped from a balcony while hallucinating. Oof It is said that mushroom Anne actually haunts Loftus Hall, which is said to be a hive of poltergeist activity, even today. That sonofabitch Devil also left his mark on Loftus Hall, where he left a mysterious mark on the roof, which visitors could view via a pre-booked guided tour of the hall if it were still functioning as a ghost trap. Yep, as far as I know, it's still for sale. As with most ghost stories, especially ones from forever ago, there are always variations to the story, and, of course, I found one.   One evening Charles was resting in his home in 1775 with his second wife and daughter from his first marriage, Anne, while the Loftus family were away on business. A ship unexpectedly arrived at the Hook Peninsula during a storm, where the mansion was located. A young man was welcomed into the mansion. Anne and the young man became very close. One night, the family and the mysterious man were in the Game Room playing cards. Each player received 3 cards apart from Anne, who was only dealt 2 by the mystery man in the game. A butler serving the Tottenham family at the table was just about to question the man when Anne bent down to pick another card from the floor, which she must have dropped. It is said that when Anne bent over to pick up the card, she looked beneath the table to see that the mysterious man had a cloven foot. It was then that Anne stood up and said to the man: "You have a cloven foot!" So the man went up through the roof, leaving behind a large hole in the ceiling. Soon Anne became mentally ill. It is believed that the family was ashamed of Anne and locked her away in her favorite room, where she would be happy, yet out of everyone's view, which was known as the Tapestry Room. Anne refused food and drink and sat with her knees under her chin, looking out the Tapestry Room window across the sea to where Dunmore East is today, waiting for her mysterious stranger to return until Anne died in the Tapestry Room in 1775. It is said that when she died, they could not straighten her body, as her muscles had seized, and she was buried in the same sitting position in which she had died.   Ballygally Castle, County Antrim. Said to be one of the most haunted places in all of Ulster, the picturesque Ballygally Castle, which sits on the coast, is haunted by several different ghosts. The most well-known of these entities is the ghost of Lady Isabella Shaw. This so-called 'Ghost of Ballygally' has a penchant for knocking on bedroom doors in the dead of night. Though restless, Lady Isabella is a friendly ghost who roams the halls looking for the child taken from her at birth by her cruel husband, Lord James. Once in possession of his child, legend has it that Lord of buttholes James locked his wife away in a tower, where she fell –or was pushed – to her death sometime later. Today, visitors can climb a spiral staircase to view the 'Ghost Room' where Lady Isabella lived her tragic final days. In 2003, manager Olga Henry mentioned that after spending time in the hotel, "I'm sort of very skeptical abo

Tonight we are going to tell you a tale. A superb tale. A tale as old as time that takes us from the beginnings of civilization until today. This tale will thrill you and chill you. It may elicit feelings of dread and sadness. It may make you angry.  At times it may make you uneasily laugh like the friend at school that was kicked in the balls but couldn’t show his weakness. It's a subject that people continually argue about and debate with savage ferocity. Tonight we are talking about executions! We'll talk about the methods and the reasons behind executions throughout the years. Then we'll talk about some famous executions, as well as some of the more fucked up ones. And by fucked up, we mean botched. Bad stuff. This episode isn't meant to be a debate for or against executions but merely to discuss them and the crazy shit surrounding them. So with all that being said, Let’s rock and roll!           Capital punishment has been practiced in the history of virtually all known societies and places. The first established death penalty laws date as far back as the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes.  The Code of Hammurabi was one of the earliest and most complete written legal codes and was proclaimed by the Babylonian king Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C. Hammurabi expanded the city-state of Babylon along the Euphrates River to unite all of southern Mesopotamia. The Hammurabi code of laws, a collection of 282 rules, established standards for commercial interactions and set fines and punishments to meet the requirements of justice. Hammurabi’s Code was carved onto a massive, finger-shaped black stone stele (pillar) that was looted by invaders and finally rediscovered in 1901. The text, compiled at the end of Hammurabi’s reign, is less a proclamation of principles than a collection of legal precedents, set between prose celebrating Hammurabi’s just and pious rule. Hammurabi’s Code provides some of the earliest examples of the doctrine of “lex talionis,” or the laws of retribution, sometimes better known as “an eye for an eye the greatest soulfly song ever!   The Code of Hammurabi includes many harsh punishments, sometimes demanding the removal of the guilty party’s tongue, hands, breasts, eye, or ear. But the code is also one of the earliest examples of an accused person being considered innocent until proven guilty. The 282 laws are all written in an “if-then form.” For example, if a man steals an ox, he must pay back 30 times its value. The laws range from family law to professional contracts and administrative law, often outlining different standards of justice for the three classes of Babylonian society—the propertied class, freedmen, and slaves.   A doctor’s fee for curing a severe wound would be ten silver shekels for a gentleman, five shekels for a freedman, and two shekels for a slave. So, it was less expensive when you were a lower-class citizen. Penalties for malpractice followed the same scheme: a doctor who killed a wealthy patient would have his hands cut off, while only financial restitution was required if the victim was a slave. Crazy!   Some examples of the death penalty laws at this time are as follows:         If a man accuses another man and charges him with homicide but cannot bring proof against him, his accuser shall be killed. Holy shit.         If a man breaks into a house, they shall kill him and hang him in front of that same house.          The death penalty was also part of the Hittite Code in the 14th century B.C., but only partially. The most severe offenses typically were punished through enslavement, although crimes of a sexual nature often were punishable by death. The Hittite laws, also known as the Code of the Nesilim, constitute an ancient legal code dating from c. 1650 – 1500 BCE. The Hittite laws were kept in use for roughly 500 years, and many copies show that other than changes in grammar, what might be called the 'original edition' with its apparent disorder, was copied slavishly; no attempt was made to 'tidy up' by placing even apparent afterthoughts in a more appropriate position.    The Draconian constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code enforced by Draco near the end of the 7th century BC; its composition started around 621BC. It was written in response to the unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats. Aristotle, the chief source for knowledge of Draco, claims that he was the first to write Athenian laws and that Draco established a constitution enfranchising hoplites, the lower class soldiers. The Draconian laws were most noteworthy for their harshness; they were written in blood rather than ink. Death was prescribed for almost all criminal offenses. Solon, who was the magistrate in 594 BCE, later repealed Draco’s code and published new laws, retaining only Draco’s homicide statutes.   In the 5th century B.C., the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables also contained the death penalty. Death sentences were carried out by such means as beheading, boiling in oil, burying alive, burning, crucifixion, disembowelment, drowning, flaying alive, hanging, impalement, stoning, strangling, being thrown to wild animals, and quartering. We'll talk more about that later. The earliest attempt by the Romans to create a code of law was the Laws of the Twelve Tables. A commission of ten men (Decemviri) was appointed (c. 455 B.C.) to draw up a code of law binding on patrician and plebeian and which consuls would have to enforce. The commission produced enough statutes to fill ten bronze tablets.    Mosaic Law codified many capital crimes. There is evidence that Jews used many different techniques, including stoning, hanging, beheading, crucifixion (copied from the Romans), throwing the criminal from a rock, and sawing asunder. The most infamous execution of history occurred approximately 29 AD with the crucifixion of that one guy, Jesus Christ, outside Jerusalem. About 300 years later, Emperor Constantine, after converting to Christianity, abolished crucifixion and other cruel death penalties in the Roman Empire. In 438, the Code of Theodosius made more than 80 crimes punishable by death.    Britain influenced the colonies more than any other country and has a long history of punishment by death. About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire, which is not only the character from Family Guy, and another word for dilemma but in this case is a soft boggy area of land. By the 10th Century, hanging from the gallows was the most frequent execution method. William the Conqueror opposed taking life except in war and ordered no person to be hanged or executed for any offense. Nice guy, right? However, he allowed criminals to be mutilated for their crimes.    During the middle ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows, and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. For example, in 1279, two hundred and eighty-nine Jews were hanged for clipping coins. What the fuck is that you may be wondering. Well, Clipping was taking a small amount of metal off the edge of hand-struck coins. Over time, the precious metal clippings could be saved up and melted into bullion (a lump of precious metal) to be sold or used to make new coins. Under Edward I, two gatekeepers were killed because the city gate had not been closed in time to prevent the escape of an accused murderer. Burning was the punishment for women’s high treason, and men were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Beheading was generally accepted for the upper classes. One could be burned to death for marrying a Jew. Pressing became the penalty for those who would not confess to their crimes—the executioner placed heavy weights on the victim’s chest until death. On the first day, he gave the victim a small quantity of bread, on the second day a small drink of bad water, and so on until he confessed or died. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the number of those put to death is estimated as high as 72,000. Boiling to death was another penalty approved in 1531, and there are records to show some people cooked for up to two hours before death took them. When a woman was burned, the executioner tied a rope around her neck when she was connected to the stake. When the flames reached her, she could be strangled from outside the ring of fire. However, this often failed, and many were burnt alive.   In Britain, the number of capital offenses continually increased until the 1700’s when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death. These included stealing from a house for forty shillings, stealing from a shop the value of five shillings, robbing a rabbit warren, cutting down a tree, and counterfeiting tax stamps. However, juries tended not to convict when the penalty was significant, and the crime was not. Reforms began to take place. In 1823, five laws were passed, removing about a hundred crimes from the death penalty. Between 1832 and 1837, many capital offenses were swept away. In 1840, there was a failed attempt to abolish all capital punishment. Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, more and more capital punishments were abolished, not only in Britain but also all across Europe; until today, only a few European countries retain the death penalty.   The first recorded execution in the English American colonies was in 1608 when officials executed George Kendall of Virginia for supposedly plotting to betray the British to the Spanish. In 1612, Virginia’s governor, Sir Thomas Dale, implemented the Divine, Moral, and Martial Laws that made death the penalty for even minor offenses such as stealing grapes, killing chickens, killing dogs or horses without permission, or trading with Indians. Seven years later, these laws were softened because Virginia feared that no one would settle there. Well, no shit. &

Today we're entering the world of sports. That's right, we're talking about everyone's favorite sport… Curling! Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite rocks, also called stones, across the ice curling sheet toward the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones, with each player throwing two. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the center of the house after each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends…  Um...What the fuck.. Fucking Moody… This is why we can't trust him to do research while hunting Sasquatch in Canada… Hold on, let me find the right notes… Son of a bitch, where are they… Ah, here we go. Today we are actually going into the wonderful world of… WRESTLING!!! But you know us… we're actually not looking at the wonderful part… No sirs and madams, we take it to the not-so-wonderful side. We'll be discussing some crazy and tragic wrestler Deaths. Many of our beloved childhood wrestling favorites have passed on over the past decade or so. Many were related to the job's rigors, leading to drug use and overdose, heart attacks, suicides, and a host of other causes. Today, we're going to look at some more… "interesting," if you will... wrestler deaths. Some of these guys you'll know, some only hardcore wrestling fans will know, and some, none of you may know, at all. Also, we're going to skip some of the biggest ones because they've been covered more times than podcasts covering Ted Bundy and in much more detail within the time we have, so you won't be hearing about some of the more popular ones. So without any more curling bullshit (fucking Moody). Let's get to it!    First up is an old-timer that primarily wrestled in Australia… We love you beautiful sumbitches in Australia, so we wanted to throw this one in. Also, maybe you guys have some stories about this guy if you're old enough to remember him. His name is Brute Bernard! He initially made his name as tag team partner of Skull Murphy in the WWF. Brute toured the world with Skull until he died in 1969. Brute won the IWA World Tag titles in Australia with Murphy 6 times. They defeated Mark Lewin & Dominic de Nucci, Lewin & Bearcat Wright, Mario Milano & Billy White Wolf, Mario Milano & Antonio Pugliese, and Lars Anderson & Dick Murdoch. They lost to Lewin & Wright twice, Milano & Pugliese twice, Don Leo Jonathan & Antonio Pugliese, and Mario Milano & Spiros Arion. Brute continued as a solo wrestler in Australia, where he had his most tremendous success, winning the Austro-Asian title from Spiros Arion before dropping it back to him. He also wrestled extensively in the Carolinas, teaming up with the Missouri Mauler in Texas. Brute was also married to pro wrestler Betty Joe Hawkins.   He was famous for his 'camel walk.' I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything about it, but I think it was probably something like the iron Shiek's "Camel Clutch."    So when you look up the cause of death of this guy, you get a common reason of "shot while cleaning gun," which is still fucked up. The thing is, if you do a little more digging, it doesn't seem so simple. While there isn't an incredible amount of information on his death, if you look, you can find enough people that are suspicious of the "accidental" death ruling. Some think it was an intentional self-inflicted gunshot. There is a small amount that believes it was murder. And then some say that he was drunk and decided to play a game of Russian roulette. So what is the real story? Who knows? But there are enough people asking questions and spewing theories to make this an exciting appetizer for the show! Suicide? Russian roulette? Courtney Love? Who knows! And if that's "too soon", fuck off... she had SOMETHING to do with it.   Ok, so who's next? Oh, how about Neil Allen Caricofe. His ring name "Neil Superior" was better known, and he was born on April 6, 1963, in Hagerstown, Maryland. He was at one point a corrections officer, and he also served in the army reserve. He was trained by one of the Wild Samoans, who you definitely remember if you're Chainsaw's age. Superior made his pro debut in 1989. He and his father, Dick Caricofe, founded the All-Star Wrestling League (later known as the National Wrestling League) in Hagerstown, Maryland, that same year. Caricofe formed a tag team with fellow Wild Samoan graduate Doug Stahl called The Superior Brothers, "Nasty" Neil, and "Desirable" Doug Superior. At some point, the two also wrestled under the team name...The Satanic Warriors… yea… Anyway. After splitting with Stahl, Superior embarked on a singles career. One of his first significant opponents was "The Honky Tonk Man" (who I loved as a kid) and who he faced in Hagerstown on August 10, 1991. Superior also feuded with Rasta the Voodoo Mon. Later that year, Superior defeated Helmut Hesler to win the NWL Heavyweight Championship. After that, he worked for many other independent companies throughout the 90s. Finally, he became the south Atlantic pro wrestling heavyweight champion in 1992 and held the belt for 4 months until the promotion folded. He would then go back and finish his career in the NWL until his death… Which is why we're here.    Early on the morning of August 23, 1996, Caricofe, who had left his hotel room around 4:00 A.M., was observed acting erratically and running naked on the seventh floor of the Fenwick Inn in Ocean City, Maryland. Which, of course, we've all done at some point in our lives. It was believed that Caricofe had left his room accidentally and was unable to find his way back. Caricofe may have suffered from a medical condition caused by seizures, which made him sleepwalk. According to the Caricofe family, it wasn't unusual for him to sleep either in his underwear or nude. The night desk clerk, Lisa Mulvihill, became aware of the situation when a concerned guest called the front desk. When Mulvihill investigated, she saw Caricofe "jumping around and banging himself against the wall ."She briefly attempted to communicate with Caricofe but returned to the front desk and called the police, finding him unresponsive. Mulvihill received a second call that Caricofe was banging on the doors of several rooms. Mulvihill then made a second call to the police, informing them that she was returning to the seventh floor and requesting that officers meet her there. Officers would arrive and find Superior roaming the hallway, and when they approached him, they said he appeared to be in a boxer's stance, dancing around on his tiptoes and doing some kind of shadowboxing. They say he was not responding to their commands, and they called for backup when they assumed he was under the influence and dangerous. An attempt by two officers to handcuff Superior failed. They continued shouting commands to lay down on the ground and, when Caricofe failed to respond, all four officers used pepper spray, which they later claimed had no effect. Caricofe then moved toward the officers, pinning Officer Freddie Howard up against the wall, and held the officer by his shirt. Sergeant Braeuninger and Officer Alban radioed for backup, the latter calling in a "Signal 13," indicating an officer needed emergency assistance. Alban, Braeuninger, and Jones began hitting Caricofe on his lower back and legs with nightsticks to free Howard. Caricofe would run away and mash his way down 7 flights of stairs; along the way, police say he ran into a vending area and began beating his head and shoulders into the vending machines. Once he made it down the stairs, he headed into the parking lot, where more police were waiting. They sprayed him with pepper foam and beat him with nightsticks in another attempt to subdue him. Finally, the over officer grabbed him and held him long enough for the others to restrain him. The group held Caricofe down while attempting to handcuff him and place the "violent prisoner restraining device" on his legs. While police were waiting for paramedics to arrive, the officers observed that Caricofe was no longer breathing. They assisted paramedics in performing CPR on Caricofe but could not revive him. He was pronounced dead at the hospital a short time later. The story does not end there, though.    The circumstances surrounding Caricofe's death were questioned during the next few weeks. It was not learned until afterward that Caricofe had been diagnosed with a medical condition two years earlier, a neurological problem possibly resulting from a wrestling-related injury that caused seizures and made him appear to be sleepwalking. Ya know, CTE... for those that don't know, Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive brain condition that's thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head and repeated episodes of concussion. It's mainly associated with contact sports, such as boxing or American football. The Caricofe family was given little information from authorities regarding the death of their son. They learned from Gerald Minnich, director of Minnich Funeral Home in Hagerstown, who described their son's injuries, that Neil Caricofe had sustained "a possible broken nose, swelling around his eyes and a bruise on the back of his head ." Caricofe's father did not initially hold Ocean City police liable for the death of his son. He was told by a Maryland State Police investigator and a friend who was a state trooper at the Berlin police barracks that his son had hit his head on a vending machine as he was running from police. The family believed that the responding police officers, three of whom were temporary, seasonal patrolmen, were inexperienced and had overreacted due to Neil Caricofe's size. In an article from the Washington Post, shortly after the incident, a woman who said she was staying at the hotel and witnessed the incident said Caric

www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com  Hello, you crazy, beautiful bastards. And happy new year. We hope your Christmas or whatever holiday you chose to celebrate was a great one. As you probably know, we took the week off to be with our families, and this week we're back with another banger, as the cool kids say. We are hopping back into the dark, twisted world of UNSOLVED true crime—the best and only way to serve that horrible cold dish. We know you guys love that shit, and so do we. Of course, not in a weird "sitting alone in front of my computer masturbating to unsolved terrible crimes" sort of way, but in more of a "gee-whiz Mr. Wilson, that's interesting, I'd like to learn more" kind of way. And with that out of the way, let's get into today's episode on the Jennings 8!   The Jennings 8, sometimes also referred to as the Jeff Davis 8, is a series of unsolved murders in Jefferson Davis Parish in Louisiana between 2005- 2009. And for those of you wondering, no, Moody wasn't living there yet. So he's been cleared of this one. This one.  Two of the victims had their throats slit; the other six were in such a bad state of decay that a cause of death could not be determined, but asphyxiation is thought to be the cause. Law enforcement would have you believe a serial killer was on the loose but is that really what happened? Or was something crazier going down?  Let's take a look at the unfortunate victims first.    The first body found was that of Loretta Lynn Chaisson Lewis. She was 28 and last seen on 05/17/05 in Jennings, Louisiana. Her body was found in the Grand Marais Canal 05/20/05 and floating in Grand Marais Canal's east fork, a few miles southwest of Jennings. She was partially clothed and shoeless. The advanced decomposition caused difficulty identifying and collecting evidence, and an autopsy found Loretta had no physical injuries. A toxicology report showed "high levels of drugs and alcohol" in her system, but no cause of death was determined. Investigators believe she may have been in the canal for three to four days.    The second victim, Ernestine Patterson, was a mother of four and a lifelong Jennings resident. The 30-year-old was last seen on June 16, 2005. On June 18, her body was discovered in a drainage canal off LA Highway 102. She was partially clothed, and her throat had been slit. The death was ruled a homicide, and two people were arrested and charged with 2nd-degree murder but were later released due to "lack of evidence." She worked at Iota State University.   The third victim was Kristen Elizabeth Gary-Lopez. Kristen was last seen alive by friends and family on March 6, 2007. By all published accounts, Kristen was involved in a high-risk lifestyle of drugs and prostitution. Because it was not unusual to not hear from her for extended amounts of time, she was not reported missing until ten days later.   On March 18, a fisherman discovered Lopez's utterly nude body in the Petitjean Canal, a rural area near Cherokee Road right off LA 99, about 10 miles south of the town of Welsh. Investigators felt her body had been placed in that location but killed elsewhere. According to autopsy results, the cause of death for Kristen Gary Lopez is undetermined. However, toxicology results showed elevated levels of drugs and alcohol in Lopez's system. In May 2007, Frankie Richard and his niece, Hannah Conner, were arrested in connection with Lopez's death. Richard and Conner were also questioned about the other deaths before Lopez's body was found. Richard was reportedly seen with three of the victims in the last days of their lives. Charges were eventually dropped due to insufficient evidence and conflicting witness statements.   Also arrested in May 2007 was Tracee L. Chaisson. The police booked her on Accessory After the Fact charges. Chaisson was the person who reported Kristen missing. Investigators believed she knew where the body was when she made the report. Like Richard and Conner, charges were dropped against Tracee Chaisson due to lack of evidence and conflicting statements.       Whitnei Charlene Dubois, 26, was last seen on 05/10/07. Her remains were found 05/12/07 at the intersection of Bobby and Earl Duhon Roads, approximately five miles outside of Jennings, Louisiana.   According to the family, "Whitnei enjoyed listening to music, absolutely adored her daughter, was tough on the outside despite her vulnerabilities within, and left a lasting impression on all those who knew and loved her."   The nude body of Whitnei Dubois was found 05/12/07 near the intersection of Bobby and Earl Duhon Roads, approximately five miles outside of Jennings. Investigators believe she had been dead "a couple of days." Officials never determined the cause of death, but high levels of alcohol and drugs were found in her body.    Her family has doubts about the investigation into her death. Whitnei's sister Brittney Jones wonders, "why haven't we been questioned? Why haven't we been asked when was the last time we saw our sister? Where her whereabouts was? Why haven't we been asked about the evidence? Why haven't we been contacted?"   Lolita Doucet, her aunt, believes Whitnei and the other victims were dismissed as women who lived high-risk lifestyles involving drugs and prostitution.   23-year-old LaConia Shontel "Muggy" Brown was last seen on May 27, 2008. Around 2 am on May 29, a Jennings police officer discovered her body lying on Racca Road, leading to the police firing range. Although in a rural area, Brown's body was the first found within the city limits of Jennings. She would become the 5th victim of the Jennings 8. LaConia was clothed but had no shoes on. Her throat had been slit, and someone had doused her body with bleach. Brown was wearing a white, tank-top style shirt stained from white to pink. Police believed the stain to be blood and that some type of liquid had diluted it from red to pink. They discovered more evidence and potential leads in this case than in any of the previous deaths since Brown's body was found about six hours after it was left on the road.   LaConia's family stated that she may have known something horrible was about to happen to her and that she was living in fear just days before her death. She was a lifelong resident of Jennings and attended Jennings High School.   Crystal 'Shay' Benoit Zeno, 23, was last seen 08/29/08. Her remains were found on 09/11/08 near a dry irrigation canal a few miles from Jennings, Louisiana.   Crystal was employed with Sonic in Lake Arthur until May 2008, when she moved to Jennings. She enjoyed spending time with her daughter, fishing, singing, and listening to music. She was a people-person, who also enjoyed spending time with friends.   According to her parents, Shay was diagnosed with bipolar at 12 and started using drugs early to cope with the illness.   On 09/11/08, hunters reported a foul smell in a wooded area to authorities. The remains of Crystal Shay were found around 3:00 pm on the LaCour Road levee, off LA Highway 1126, a few miles southeast of Jennings. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, she was not identified with DNA until nearly two months later, on 11/07/08. Her death was ruled a homicide, although the cause of death and toxicology reports have not been released to the public.   Crystal, who went by "Shay," was married and had a young daughter. She also knew many of the other victims, including Brittney Gary.   17-year-old Brittney Gary became the 7th and youngest victim. Brittney walked out of the Family Dollar Store in Jennings, never to be seen alive again; sometime after 5:30 pm that day, she was abducted. Thirteen days passed as her family, and a concerned public held out hope that Brittney was safe and would be located soon. Sadly, on November 15, 2008, her deceased body was found in a grassy area outside Jennings. According to her family, Brittney loved to swim, hang out with her friends, and listen to music. She enjoyed spending time with her friends and family and was a friendly and loving person. She was also trusted by the third victim Kristine Gary Lopez. She also knew several of the other victims. Necole Jean Guillory, 26, was last seen on 08/16/09. Her remains were discovered on 08/19/09 near the westbound I-10 exit in Egan, Louisiana.   She was a resident of Lake Arthur, and according to her family, enjoyed listening to music and loved being outdoors.   Necole's remains were discovered on 08/19/09 by a highway worker mowing grass. She was left between mile markers 72 & 73, near the westbound I-10 Egan exit (between Crowley and Jennings) in Acadia Parish. Mark Dawson, Acadia Parish Coroner, ruled the death of Necole murder by probable asphyxia.    According to Necole's mother, shortly before her daughter's disappearance, she'd asked her what kind of icing she wanted for her birthday cake. Necole replied it didn't matter because she wouldn't see her birthday. Unfortunately, her premonition was correct: her body was found just days before her birthday. She also confided in her Mom that police killed the other young women, and it would only be a matter of time before she ended up dead too. Holy shit! What the hell is going on down there?   Ok, so those are the unfortunate victims in the case. Did a serial killer kill them? In December 2008, Officials formed a multi-agency investigative team (MAIT) of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to solve the killings. At the time, there were seven dead women, and the reward for information leading to the guilty party's arrest was increased from $35,000 to $85,000. From the outset, the task force was searching for a serial killer. "It is the collective opinion of all agencies involved in this investigation," said then Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff Ricky Edwards, who was flanked by FBI agents, Louisiana State Police, and sheriffs from neighboring parishes at a press conference announcing the task force's inception, "that these murders may have been committed by a common offender."    In 2012 the new Jeffe

Due to popular demand, we've decided to rerelease our epic remake of the the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol".    WARNING! This isn't exactly PG so listener discretion is always advised. Happy Holidays! Thank you for listening.   Don't miss this years Christmas bonus as well as all of the other amazing content available only at www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast