Listen Now

In this personal essay from listener DM Gasparillo Adil II, he shares childhood anecdotes about his late father's 𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨, a twin-spirit that's part of Maguindanaon folklore. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CLVeqitrEe3 / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In February 2019, 11-year-old CJ Bautista killed himself and when his mother checked his phone, she found messages from a classmate and recent online searches about a "suicide game" called the Momo Challenge. Listener discretion is advised due to discussions of suicide in these stories. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CK8byAxLeSG / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In 2018, 16-year old Christine Lee Silawan became the object of a man's obsessive desire through Facebook. She ended up brutally murdered the following year when they finally met in person. Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CKZtsF5rKvc / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In 2001, multi-awarded actress Nida Blanca was found murdered inside her car in San Juan, Metro Manila and suspicion fell on her American husband Rod Strunk based on the confession of mercenary Philip Medel. Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CJQDBnrrZaR / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

Trans woman Jennifer Laude was killed by US serviceman Joseph Scott Pemberton in a motel in Olongapo, sparking outrage among the LGBTQ community and putting the spotlight back on the Visiting Forces Agreement which previously became controversial in the 2005 Subic rape case. Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CDr2CieJpF_ / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In May 1953, before newspapers around the world heavily featured the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, their attention was on an 18-year old girl named Clarita Villanueva who was locked up in the Old Bilibid Prison. For two weeks, she kept on screaming that she was being attacked by two demons until American pastor Lester Sumrall came to exorcise her. • This story was suggested by listener Sam Lichauco via email. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/CA0L9HTJHyo / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

25-year old advertising executive Kae Davantes went out with her friends one Friday night in 2013. She was found dead the next morning, an hour away from both her house in Las Piñas and Bonifacio Global City where she was last seen. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B_9rYvkpoQ2 / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

The Philippines' notoriously slow justice system caused a former police captain to hijack a bus full of Hong Kong tourists in Rizal Park, ending in the death of 9 people. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B_DJKqppvM6 / References: storiesafterdark.home.blog / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / For feedback or story suggestions: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com • Special acknowledgments: (41:40) / Podcast trailer for The Asian Madness Podcast: (42:58)

Out of the more than 600 hundred mountains in the Philippines, Laguna's Mount Makiling, though technically a dormant volcano, is probably the most popular in terms of folklore, with a multitude of stories about the "diwata" or fairy who guards it. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B-YBKPjnOHU / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In 1996, hundreds of young people flocked to Ozone Disco along Timog Ave. in Quezon City, Metro Manila, not knowing that most of them would no longer come out of the nightclub alive. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B-CiQKXHOAU / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

Everyone was shocked when news broke out in 2014 about a massacre committed in the barangay of Kayang-Hilltop in Baguio City. Five people were killed, four of them only minors, in what has been considered a city with one of the lowest crime rates in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B8_4IexHLQu / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

A Spanish soldier guarding the governor-general's palace walls in Manila suddenly feels exhausted and decides to rest against the wall with his eyes closed for a bit. When he next opens his eyes, he is outside a different palace thousands of miles away in Mexico City. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of part of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B7yn-tun9Ei / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

Maguindanao isn't usually a place tourists would want to visit in the Philippines, and for good reason. It is home to bandits, rebel insurgency groups and warring political families, and in 2009, fifty seven people, including 31 journalists, were brutally killed by the Ampatuan clan as a result of one man's attempt to wrest power from them. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B6xtN22n1__ / References: storiesafterdark.home.blog / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / For feedback or story suggestions: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

In 1929, the Court of First Instance of Pampanga sentenced Avelina Teodoro to life imprisonment for stabbing Constancia Pineda to death. That the murder was so cold-blooded or that it was committed by a female wasn’t even the most shocking thing about the case. It was the fact that both the criminal and her victim were only 16 years old. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B5x92VPHF_8 / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

15-year old Cosette Tanjuaquio was in her bedroom one Monday night when four men came in her aunt's house in Quezon City where she was staying and abducted her. She wouldn't be found until 83 days later, purely by accident. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B45Zu3QHfXu / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

Loakan Road in Baguio and Balete Drive in New Manila are two of the most popular haunted roads in the Philippines, and they both involve a tree and a "kaperosa" or white lady. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B4SzXidnJY1 / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

This is the controversial story of Delia Smith, more popularly known as Pepsi Paloma, a 14-year old "bold star" or "bomba" (soft-porn) actress who in 1982 was allegedly raped by Vic Sotto, Joey De Leon and Ricardo Reyes (a.k.a. Richie D'Horsie), hosts of the popular noontime variety TV show Eat Bulaga. Three years later, she was found dead in her apartment by an apparent suicide. But did she really take her own life or was there foul play? • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B37DkGKnWJp / References: storiesafterdark.home.blog / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / For feedback or story suggestions: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com • Podcast trailer for The True Crime Files: (39:59)

More than 2,000 years ago, the Igorots of Sagada began their burial tradition of hanging coffins, which survived despite most of the Philippines being converted to Christianity by the Spanish. Today, the hanging coffins, "lamay," "pasiyam," "babang luksa," and "pamahiin" (superstitions) such as"sukob" and "pagpag" are some of the many funeral customs that Filipinos are known for. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B3DGO_JnL7a / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

Maggie de la Riva is a beautiful and talented Filipina actress who at just the age of 23 had already starred in more than 30 films. She was abducted and raped by four young men in 1967 but instead of staying silent, she decided she wasn't letting them get away with it. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B2fTv2YnMOS / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com

No one could have known that on January 4, 2013, just several days after 7-year old Stephanie Nicole Ella died from a stray bullet in Caloocan and 26 people were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the United States, another incident of indiscriminate gun firing would happen, much less in the quiet neighborhood of Tabon I, Kawit, Cavite. Seven people died and thirteen others were injured when they were shot by drug-addled Ronald Bae, a 41-year old former barangay councilor with a dark and mysterious past. • Listener discretion is advised due to the graphic nature of this story. • Episode photos: instagram.com/p/B2AP5EDHz0Q / References: storiesafterdark.ph / Facebook page: facebook.com/storiesafterdarkph / Twitter: twitter.com/afterdarkph / Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/storiesafterdark / Share your feedback, case suggestions and personal stories: storiesafterdarkph@gmail.com