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Highway to Hell

Monte Mader

Welcome to Highway to Hell, the unique crossroads where wanderlust meets mystery. Every episode, I take you on a journey to breathtaking destinations around the globe, unveiling not just the beauty of travel but the shadows that lurk behind the postcard-perfect views. From unsolved mysteries to infamous crimes, I explore the darker tales hidden within the world's most enchanting locales. So pack your curiosity, keep your wits about you, and join us as we dive deep into the thrilling intersection of travel and true crime. Your adventure into the unknown starts now.

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  • 33 episodes
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  • English

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  • Yesterday · 1 hr 31 min

    73. The Hatman

    Please like, share and review and support us at patreon.com/highwaytohell He stands in the doorway. He stands at the foot of the bed. He has no face, and you know exactly where he's looking. He's called the Hat Man, the tall shadow in the wide-brimmed hat and long coat that people all over the world describe in almost the same words. We start with the night visitors of the old world: the Babylonian lilu and alû, the Egyptian shadow-soul, the Norse mara that gave us the word nightmare, Odin walking the roads as "Broad Hat". Then the witch trials, where the hat first shows up on paper. Swedish children in 1669 described the Devil in a gray coat, a red beard and "a high-crown'd Hat." In Salem in 1692, Richard Carrier, eighteen, confessed that a man "black and had a high crowned hat" met him on the road home and offered to walk a little way with him. Then the modern Hatman from pop culture to TikTok challenges and possible scientific explanations why it happens. SOURCES (full list on patreon) - Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus (London, 1682), appendix on the Mora and Älvdalen witch trials translated by Anthony Horneck. archive.org - Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia (salem.lib.virginia.edu): Examination of Tituba, March 1, 1692; Examinations of Ann Foster, Mary Lacey Sr. and Mary Lacey Jr., July 21, 1692 (SWP No. 87); Examination of Richard and Andrew Carrier, July 22, 1692 (SWP No. 25) - Susannah Sheldon's testimony against Bridget Bishop, June 1692, in the notes to Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (Project Gutenberg) - Isbrand van Diemerbroeck, Observationes et Curationes Medicae (1664), "Of the Night-Mare" - Sumerian King List; Ynglinga saga; the Eddic name lists for Síðhöttr; Sahih Muslim 2814a on the qarin - The Hat Man Project (thehatmanproject.com), Tim Brown's founding account and the Stephanie, Tammy, Theresa, Tibor and Anchorage submissions, as reprinted at believingthebizarre.com/the-hat-man - Thought Catalog, "17 People On Their Real Experiences With A Shadow Person," June 2014 - Wikipedia: Shadow person; Mora witch trial; Saducismus Triumphatus; Gray Barker; El Sombrerón; La leyenda del Charro Negro; Qareen; Choctaw mythology; Ancient Egyptian conception of the soul; Alû; Night hag - Art Bell archive, Coast to Coast AM, April 12, 2001, "Shadow People – Thunder Strikes" - Heidi Hollis, The Secret War (2001); The Hat Man: The True Story of Evil Encounters (2014) - Jason Offutt, Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us (Anomalist Books, 2009) - Rodney Ascher, The Nightmare (2015); The Hat Man: Documented Cases of Pure Evil (2019) - Miles Klee, "How the 'Hat Man' Went From Benadryl Joke to TikTok Horror Villain," Rolling Stone, Nov. 2, 2022 - Know Your Meme, "The Hatman" and "Benadryl Challenge" - The Week, "Who is the Hat Man? 'Shadow people' and sleep paralysis" - IFLScience, "Who Is 'The Hatman'?" April 1, 2025 - All That's Interesting, "The Hat Man" - CBS News and ABC6 Columbus on the death of Jacob Stevens, April 2023; FDA warning on diphenhydramine, September 2020 - Mental Floss and History.com on the 1981 Los Angeles Times coverage of the Hmong deaths and Wes Craven; Slashfilm and Yahoo Entertainment on Craven's Cleveland memory and Robert Englund on the fedora - Bridgeport Public Library, "Bridgeport's UFO Legacy: Men in Black and the Albert K. Bender Story" -

  • November 3 · 1 hr 58 min

    72. The Mushroom Murders

    Merch on sale until November 15th: https://monte-mader-shop.fourthwall.com/ The door stopper Monte mentioned in episode: https://a.co/d/0548zyof On Saturday, July 29, 2023, Erin Patterson served beef Wellington to her husband's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and to Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather's husband Ian, the pastor of the Korumburra Baptist Church, at her new house in Leongatha, Victoria. She told them over dessert that she had cancer. Within a week three of them were dead from death cap mushroom poisoning. Ian Wilkinson came out of a coma in late August and was back in his pulpit the following February. Let's take a trip to Australia! South Gippsland and the English oaks the settlers planted; Erin's childhood in Glen Waverley, her time as an air traffic controller, and what the people who worked with her said about her; the marriage to Simon Patterson, the two-million-dollar inheritance, the money she gave his family, and the child-support fight that ended in a Facebook message about his parents; how a death cap works and how it got to Australia; the phone-tower trips to Loch and Outtrim, the dehydrator, the lunch plate by plate, and the five minutes she spent in Leongatha Hospital before a doctor called triple-0; the deaths at the Austin, the tip, the phone resets and the police interview; and the nine-week trial in Morwell, her eight days in the witness box, the verdict, the life sentence, and the October 30, 2026 Court of Appeal decision that took away any chance of parole. Court and official - Supreme Court of Victoria. "Erin Patterson appeals: judgment." October 29, 2026. supremecourt.vic.gov.au - Patterson v The King [2026] VSCA 253, Court of Appeal of Victoria, October 30, 2026 (as reported by the ABC, CNN, The Conversation and the Supreme Court of Victoria). - DPP v Patterson, Supreme Court of Victoria, sentencing remarks of Justice Christopher Beale, September 8, 2025 (as broadcast and reported by the ABC, The Guardian and The Conversation). - Victorian Department of Health public health investigation, August 2023, as given in evidence by Sally Ann Atkinson, May 26–27, 2025 - "Who is Erin Patterson, the host of Australia's infamous mushroom lunch?" July 8, 2025. - "The key people, timeline and evidence in Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial." Updated July 7, 2025. - Trial live blogs from the Latrobe Valley Law Courts, Morwell: May 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 22, 27 and 29, 2025; June 26, 2025. - "A girl's police interview brings 'truth' into focus during Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial." May 10, 2025. - "Lunch guests' illnesses were 'not survivable', doctor tells Erin Patterson trial." May 23, 2025. - "Erin Patterson disputes testimony of witnesses and family in mushroom murder trial." June 10, 2025. - "Erin Patterson's guilty verdict over a death cap mushroom lunch brings her trial to an end." July 7, 2025. - "Doctor who treated Erin Patterson describes moment he came face-to-face with convicted murderer." July 8, 2025. - "Intensive care doctor Stephen Warrillow details agonising efforts to save Erin Patterson's mushroom murder victims." July 9, 2025. - "The evidence and events ruled inadmissible in the Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial." August 8, 2025. - "Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson denied poisoning husband using toxic pasta, chicken curry." August 8, 2025. - "Erin Patterson's police interview about deadly mushroom lunch released by court." August 8, 2025. - "Dropped attempted murder charges against Erin Patterson labelled 'dubious', court documents show." August 12, 2025. - "Prosecutor calls for Erin Patterson to be jailed for life with no parole for mushroom murders." August 25, 2025. - "Erin Patterson sentenced to life with 33 years non-parole for mushroom murders — as it happened." September 8, 2025. - Appeal live blogs: August 19 and 20, 2026; October 30, 2026. - "Erin Patterson's failed appeal leaves few legal avenues for the mushroom killer." October 30, 2026.

  • October 30 · 2 hr

    71. Samhain and the Haunted Highlands

    We are back and Happy Halloween! Since Monte just got back from Scotland-we figured we could give you a highland special! Thank you to hellions on patreon.com/highwaytohell - you will get the full download of Monte's entire itinerary there! In 1891 a chemistry professor alone on Ben Macdui heard footsteps behind him in the mist, each stride three times his own, and ran four miles down the mountain. In 1662 a farmer's wife at Auldearn told a notary, without torture, the rhyme she used to turn into a hare. In 1692 soldiers who had eaten the MacDonalds' food for twelve nights got up at five in the morning and shot their hosts. And this week, in a glen in Perthshire, somebody carried a family of stones into a thatched hut and shut the door on them for the winter, the way it's been done every Samhain since at least the 1880s. This episode follows the oldest layer of Celtic belief from the Highlands of Scotland, starting with the Bronze Age cairns at Clava and the Cailleach, the old woman of winter, and moving forward through the first written record of Samhain on a Gaulish calendar, Columba's beast in the River Ness in 565, the Hallowe'en fires, the cup of ale offered to the sea god Shony on Lewis, the bull sacrifices on Loch Maree, the fairy faith of Robert Kirk, Isobel Gowdie's confessions, the water horse, the baobhan sith, the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui, the Brahan Seer, the last witch burned in Britain, the massacre at Glencoe, Culloden, the Clearances, the three keepers who vanished from the Flannan Isles, and the bearded sailor of Sandwood Bay. We go across the sea to the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders of Darien, Georgia, who signed the South's first anti-slavery petition in 1739, the Cape Fear settlements, the dumb suppers of Appalachia, how guising became trick-or-treat and the turnip became a pumpkin, how Walter Scott's fiery cross ended up on Stone Mountain in 1915, and how a god named Samhain who never existed got into American church pamphlets. Sources Adomnán, Life of St Columba (c. 697), trans. Sharpe (1995) Hugh G. Allison, Culloden Tales (2007) Robert Burns, "Halloween" (1785) and notes Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (1900) J. Norman Collie, address to the Cairngorm Club, Dec. 1925 Mike Dash, "The Vanishing Lighthousemen of Eilean Mor," Fortean Studies 4 (1998) John H. Dixon, Gairloch in North-West Ross-shire (1886) Major Robert Duncanson, order to Glenlyon, 12 Feb. 1692 Affleck Gray, The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui (1970) Northern Lighthouse Board: Harvie telegram, Moore and Muirhead reports (1900–01) Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth (1691) Donald Macleod, Gloomy Memories (1841) Alexander Mackenzie, The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer (1877) Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703) Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland (1769, 1772) Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. 3 (1833) Presbytery of Dingwall records, 1656 and 1678 R. Macdonald Robertson, Selected Highland Folktales (1961) Alexander Tewnion, "A Shot in the Mist," The Scots Magazine, June 1958 The Times, report from Croick, 2 June 1845 Emma Wilby, The Visions of Isobel Gowdie (2010) Also: Canmore, Spooky Isles (Cape Wrath), Spooky Scotland (Culloden), Undiscovered Scotland, University of Aberdeen (Brahan Seer study), Your Ghost Stories no. 8902, and Alex Cochrane's Sandwood Bay blog with reader comment by Granville Parker.

  • October 20 · 1 hr 41 min

    70. Aleister Crowley

    Born at 30 Clarendon Square, Leamington Spa, on October 12, 1875, to a Plymouth Brethren preacher and a mother who would call him the Beast from the Book of Revelation, Edward Alexander Crowley grew up to make the name his own. This week we follow him from the prayer meetings of Warwickshire to a boarding house in Hastings: the sadistic Brethren school in Cambridge, the Golden Dawn and his brawl with W.B. Yeats on the stairs at Blythe Road, the house on Loch Ness where he tried to summon the kings of hell and never closed the door, the Cairo flat where a voice over his left shoulder dictated The Book of the Law over three lunch hours in April 1904, the Kangchenjunga expedition that left four men under an avalanche while he drank tea, the demon Choronzon in the Algerian desert, the Rites of Eleusis, the Paris Working, five strange years in wartime America, and the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily, where an Oxford graduate named Raoul Loveday died and Mussolini threw Crowley out of the country. We lay out what Thelema actually teaches, from True Will and the three Aeons to the A∴A∴ grades, sex magick, Liber OZ, and the women he called Scarlet and used up one after another. Then three hauntings that follow him: Boleskine House and Jimmy Page's caretaker's worst night, the House of Ghosts at Cefalù that Kenneth Anger scraped the whitewash off in 1955, and Lam, the big-eyed grey thing Crowley drew in 1918, which runs straight into Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard, and an explosion in Pasadena. We close with four days in the West Midlands: Leamington and Warwick Castle's Ghost Tower, Stratford and a night at the hotel where The Haunting was filmed, Coventry and Coombe Abbey, and Birmingham for the Black Sabbath Bench, Aston Hall, a balti, Dudley Castle's Grey Lady, and a four-pound pie in the Black Country. Support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohell for ad-free episodes and bonus content. SOURCES Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (ed. Symonds and Grant, 1969); The Book of the Law (1904); The Equinox of the Gods (1936); Magick in Theory and Practice (1929); The Vision and the Voice (1911); Liber OZ (1941) Betty May, Tiger Woman (1929) Richard Kaczynski, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2010) Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley (2000) Tobias Churton, Aleister Crowley: The Biography (2011); Aleister Crowley in Paris (2022) John Symonds, The Great Beast (1951) Richard B. Spence, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (2008) Gary Lachman, Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World (2014) George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons (2005) Kenneth Grant, The Magical Revival (1972); "Statement on LAM," Starfire vol. 1 no. 3 (1989) Picture Post, "Kenneth Anger at the Abbey of Thelema," November 26, 1955 Contemporary press via aleistercrowleytimeline.com: The Pioneer (Sept. 29, 1905); Daily Mail (Sept. 11, 1905); Alpine Journal (Feb. 1906); Morning Leader and Daily Chronicle (Oct. 1910); Sunday Express (Nov. 26, 1922); John Bull (Mar. 24, 1923); Daily Express (Apr. 14, 1934); Yorkshire Post and Birmingham Gazette (Dec. 2, 1947); Crowley's 1918 Amalantrah diaries The Scotsman, "House of the Unholy"; The Wild Hunt, "Renovation Plans Underway for Boleskine House" (2019); Boleskine House Foundation Jimmy Page interview, Rolling Stone (1975) Pasadena Police Department and Los Angeles press, June 1952 (Parsons) Travel: Leamington Observer; Visit Warwickshire supernatural trail; Higgypop and Spooky Isles haunted-location guides; Express & Star; Coventry Telegraph; Birmingham Westside BID and Central BID (Black Sabbath trail, 2025–26); Songkick and Stereoboard venue listings

  • October 13 · 1 hr 52 min

    69. The Worlds Most Haunted Hotels

    Support the show and get bonus content at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast On the top floor of a hotel in Sydney, on ground that was a convict hospital in 1788, two women on two different nights woke up to a sailor standing at the foot of the bed, looking at them. In a castle on the coast of Northern Ireland, a receptionist sent up the tower stair to sweep up a broken glass was shoved from behind on the top step and went down the whole flight. In Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel, a man hid under the covers at three in the morning while his wife whispered that something was bent over the bed with its mouth at her ear, and that she could still feel its breath. In a ground-floor suite in the Ozarks that used to be a cancer quack's office, four friends propped a vodka bottle against the inside of their door, came back at eleven, and found a row of cards laid out on the carpet in front of it with the two jokers turned face up. On a ship in Long Beach, a mother woke to a man made of darkness sitting on the other twin bed, and he sat there until dawn. Today we're counting down the ten most haunted hotels in the world, from number ten to number one. We're going from Sydney to the Scottish Highlands, the Antrim coast, London, the Canadian Rockies, the French Quarter, a California beach, a Cunard liner, an Arkansas mountaintop, and Estes Park, Colorado. Sources: 24 Hours in Sydney. "Room 8 in the Russell Hotel… Sleep There If You Dare." 24hoursinsydney.com.au. Abandoned NI. "The Haunted Ballygally Castle Hotel." abandonedni.com. Archer, Bella. "Haunted Tulloch Castle in Dingwall: Castles, Ghost Stories and Scottish Mornings." Buckle Up, Boo!, buckleupboo.com. Atteberry, Todd. "Ballygally Castle Hotel: The Knock at the Door Isn't Room Service." Witchery Art / Gothic Horror Stories, February 19, 2024. gothichorrorstories.com. Avenue Calgary. "The Ghosts of Fairmont Banff Springs." avenuecalgary.com. Ballygally Castle Hotel. "Ballygally Castle Hotel and Its Ghost Room" and "The History of Ballygally Castle." ballygallycastlehotel.com. Bauer, Ellen. "A Ghostly Maid on the Queen Mary." Ghostvillage.com. Encounter dated June 1, 1973. Brody, Mike. "Confessions of a Novice Ghost Investigator: Surviving the Stanley Hotel." Ghostvillage.com, January 2010. Cappy. "The Beautiful Lady in White." Your Ghost Stories, April 1, 2020. yourghoststories.com, story 27186. Crescent Hotel and Spa. "Haunting Ghost Experiences Revealed." crescent-hotel.com. Crescenta Valley Weekly. "The Legend of B340." crescentavalleyweekly.com. Cricket Australia. "Boo! Ghosts Have England Jumping." cricket.com.au, July 2014. Cushman, Paige, and Kristen Belue. "'This Isn't a Horror Film': A Night at Arkansas' Haunted 1886 Crescent Hotel." KATV, Little Rock, October 2020. Deccan Chronicle. "Haunted London Hotel Frightens England Cricketers." July 21, 2014. East Durham Paranormal Research Group. "Tulloch Castle: Ghost Sightings." eastdurhamparanormalrg.co.uk. Fiorito, Teddy. "My Wife and I Stayed at the Stanley Hotel and Experienced Something Out of This Realm." Thought Catalog, September 2015. Ghost City Tours. "The Ghosts of Haunted Hotel Monteleone." ghostcitytours.com. Ghost5034. "What an Experience – Ghost Included!" Review of Tulloch Castle Hotel, Dingwall. TripAdvisor, June 2009. Graham, Seanín. "'There's a Darkness to That Place': A Night in Northern Ireland's Most Haunted Castle." The Irish Times, October 31, 2025. Haunted Hotels UK. "The Langham – Haunted Hotel in London," including guest review by Deborah Newton, November 6, 2023. hauntedhotels.uk. Haunted India. "Ghosts of the Langham Hotel, London, Haunting English Cricketers." hauntedindia.blogspot.com, July 2014. Haunted Rooms. "The Langham Hotel – London." hauntedrooms.co.uk. Haunt Jaunts. "Researching London's Most Haunted Hotel Room." hauntjaunts.net.

  • October 7 · 3 hr

    68. Dangerous Delusions, Surgical Precision: The Ant Hill Kids Cult

    In 1977, a charismatic former Seventh-day Adventist named Roch Thériault led a small group of followers into the woods of Quebec’s Gaspé region to await the end of the world. He renamed himself Moïse, after Moses, and told his followers God would end the world in February of 1979. When the apocalypse never came, he kept them anyway. The group lived in handmade cabins, cut off from their families, working so relentlessly that outsiders called them the Ant Hill Kids. Thériault took nearly all of the women as his wives and fathered more than twenty children with them. In 1984, after a brief prison stint, he moved the commune to a remote property near Burnt River, Ontario, where almost no one was watching. What happened there over the next five years is among the most horrific abuse ever documented in a Canadian cult. Thériault drank heavily and ruled through torture, forcing members to break their own limbs, pull out their own teeth, and sit naked in the snow. He performed brutal “surgeries” with kitchen tools. In 1988 one of his wives, Solange Boilard, died after he cut open her abdomen. The end came in 1989, when another follower, Gabrielle Lavallée, had her arm hacked off with a cleaver after years of mutilation. She escaped, walked into a hospital, and told police everything. Thériault pleaded guilty to murder and received a life sentence. In 2011 he was killed by his cellmate in a New Brunswick prison. Sources: Here's the bibliography, alphabetized, no headers, ready to paste. It's also saved as [Ant_Hill_Kids_Bibliography.txt](Ant_Hill_Kids_Bibliography.txt) in your home folder, and the script's Sources section at **https://claude.ai/artifact/DMtQSJp2AhK117SuJRjqkZ** and in the PDF now matches it. Adventist News Network. "J. Wayne McFarland" (obituary). March 24, 2011. Beeby, Dean. "Flowers and Pastels: Notorious Cult Killer's Artwork, Poetry for Sale." Canadian Press / Globe and Mail, March 10, 2008. Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec. "Union des électeurs, 1939–1948." Cameron, Daphné. "Roch Thériault assassiné." La Presse, February 27, 2011. Canadian Encyclopedia. "Asbestos Strike of 1949"; "Quiet Revolution." CBC News. Reports of July 11, 2002; April 6, 2009; February 27, 2011; May 6, 2011; March 5, 2012. Cloutier family genealogy. Entry for Solange Boilard. Dimmock, Gary. "Inside the Prison Killing of Roch Thériault." Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2011. Fenelon Falls Gazette. December 12, 1984. Ferron, Madeleine, and Robert Cliche. Les Beaucerons, ces insoumis. Montreal, 1974. Fortin, Denis. "Above and Beyond: Adventism in Québec." Adventist Review, April 28, 2005. Gagné, Gilles. "Le spectre de Moïse." Le Nouvelliste, October 5, 2018. Gagnon, Karine. "Trois femmes suivent toujours leur maître." Le Journal de Québec, 2002. Gélinas, Geneviève. "Sectes: la responsabilité partagée." Le Soleil, October 5, 2018. Geneanet. Raymond Dallaire family tree (Thériault–Tremblay marriage, 1943). Global News / Canadian Press. February 28, 2011; May 13, 2011. Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control. Park Street Press, 1988. Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. "The Ant Hill Kids." Maclean's, February 8, 1993. Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. Savage Messiah: The Shocking Story of Cult Leader Rock Thériault and the Women Who Loved Him. Doubleday Canada, 1993. Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. "Under the Spell of a Madman." Maclean's, September 27, 1993. Kropveld, Mike, and Marie-Andrée Pelland. "Le groupe de Roch 'Moïse' Thériault." Info-Secte / Info-Cult, Montreal, 2003. Laflamme, Francine. Roch Thériault dit Moïse. Stanké, 1997. Lalich, Janja. Bounded Choice. University of California Press, 2004. Lavallée, Gabrielle. L'alliance de la brebis: Rescapée de la secte de Moïse. Éditions JCL, 1993; revised 2009; 2023. Le Journal de Québec. Archives feature on the Thériault case. October 13, 2019.

  • September 29 · 2 hr 3 min

    67. Carl Tanzler and His Corpse Bride

    Support the show, get ad free and bonus content patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast Carl Tanzler was a German-born radiology technician who emigrated to the United States and by 1927 was working at the Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida. He claimed that as a young man he had been visited by the spirit of an ancestor who showed him the face of his destined true love, and in 1930 he became convinced he had found her in Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a 21-year-old Cuban-American patient dying of tuberculosis. Tanzler showered her with gifts and attempted to treat her with homemade tonics and X-ray equipment, but she died in 1931. He paid for an elaborate mausoleum, visited it nightly, and in 1933 removed her body and brought it home. Over the next seven years he reconstructed her decaying corpse with wire, plaster, wax, glass eyes, and her own hair fashioned into a wig, dressed it in a wedding gown, and kept it in his bed while dousing it in perfume to mask the odor. In 1940 Elena's sister heard rumors, confronted him, and found the body, leading to his arrest for grave robbing. The charge was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired, and much of the public, swept up by the press coverage, viewed him as a tragic romantic rather than a criminal. Elena was reburied in an unmarked grave, and Tanzler died in 1952, reportedly with a life-sized effigy of her by his side. ICK Sources Harrison, Ben. Undying Love: The True Story of a Passion That Defied Death. Key West, 1997; expanded edition 2001. Swicegood, Tom. Von Cosel. iUniverse, 2003. Source of the body-switch theory. Sloan, David L. Ghosts of Key West. Phantom Press, 1998. Sloan also discussed the 1982 Michelfelder article on the NightMerica podcast, February 3, 2021. Peričić, Marija. Exquisite Corpse. Ultimo Press, 2023. Novel; ABC News (Australia) profile of the book and the Trial Bay internment, November 18, 2023. Tanzler von Cosel, Karl. "The Secret of Elena's Tomb." Fantastic Adventures, vol. 9 no. 5, September 1947, Ziff-Davis, Chicago. Full scan at archive.org (Fantastic_Adventures_v09n05_Ziff-Davis_Sep_1947). Von Cosel's journal, final entry ("Human jealousy has robbed me of the body of my Elena"), as quoted in Harrison and in later retellings. Miami Herald, October 1940. Source of Nana Medina's statements: "She never loved him… She looked upon von Cosel as a grandfather" and the "wedding… or a funeral" warning. Key West Citizen, October 1940. Hearing coverage before Justice of the Peace Enrique Esquinaldo, October 8–9, 1940; $1,000 bond; charge wording. The Tennessean (Nashville), October 1940. Cousin's statement that Elena "finally died hating her rescuer." Death certificate of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, October 25, 1931, as reported by Michelfelder (below); no autopsy performed. DePoo, Dr. Julio, and Dr. Foraker. Recollection of the 1940 examination, first stated 1972; DePoo interviewed on HBO's Autopsy series, 1999 ("I found a tube wide enough to permit sexual intercourse…"). Perez, Bienvenido (Key West chief of police, 1940). Statement to Men True Adventure magazine, undated ("I'll kill her, if necessary, to fulfil my destiny"). Michelfelder, William. Article in Detective Cases, 1982. Source of the unverified "wolfsbane… aconite" note and the "dormant epilepsy" death-certificate wording. Wikipedia, "Carl Tanzler" (with its cited sources: Harrison, Swicegood, Sloan, HBO Autopsy). Dates of birth, marriage, emigration (Rotterdam, February 6, 1926), Hoyos family dates, hearing, viewing, citizenship 1950, death July 3, 1952. WLRN, "A Love That Would Not Die: Key West Tells Its Most Macabre Legend," February 11, 2018. HistoryHub.info, "Twists in a Twisted Tale: The Exploitation, Defilement and Murder of Elena Hoyos."

  • September 22 · 2 hr 50 min

    66. Family Business- The Hillside Stranglers

    Support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast Does evil run in the family? Cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. murdered at least 10 women and girls in the Los Angeles area between October 1977 and February 1978. They would use the "cop ruse" posing as plainclothes police officers, pull women over or approach them on the street, and take them to Buono's upholstery shop in Glendale. There they raped, tortured, and strangled their victims, then dumped the bodies on hillsides around the city. Their victims ranged in age from 12 to 28. Bianchi would eventually be arrested in washington after two more kills, tried to fake multiple personality disorder to escape before agreeing to plead guilty and testify against Buono. Buono's trial was one of the longest criminal trials in American history, running from 1981 to 1983. He was convicted of nine of the ten LA murders and sentenced to life without parole. He died in prison in 2002. Bianchi is still alive and incarcerated in Washington State. Sources: - full list on patreon ABC News. (2021). ‘City of Angels, City of Death’: Inside the hunt for Los Angeles’ string of serial killers. https://abcnews.com/US/city-angels-city-death-inside-hunt-los-angeles/story?id=81231947 Balagtas, T. (2026, July 16). All about Hillside Stranglers Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, and the victim they spared because of her famous father. A&E. https://www.aetv.com/articles/all-about-the-hillside-stranglers-angelo-buono-kenneth-bianchi-victim-they-spared-because-of-her-famous-father Bardsley, M. (2015). Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers [19-chapter feature]. Crime Library, TruTV. Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/2015/http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/stranglers/rampage_1.html Barnes, M. (Producer & Director). (1984). The mind of a murderer, Parts I and II [Television documentary transcript]. Frontline, WGBH/PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/transcripts/206.html Board denies parole for Hillside Strangler. (2010, August 18). Los Angeles Times. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/hillside-strangler-denied-parole.html Boren, R. W. (2000). The Hillside Strangler trial. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 33(2), 707–725. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol33/iss2/ Chavez, S., & Gorman, A. (2002, September 22). ‘Hillside Strangler’ dies at 67. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-sep-22-me-hillside22-story.html Chavez, S., & Gorman, A. (2002, September 23). Angelo Buono Jr. dies at 67. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2002/09/23/angelo-buono-jr-dies-at-67/5e2b4952-bb96-47a2-af4f-9cc744ffb281/ Convicted ‘Hillside Strangler’ serial killer is denied parole, will be eligible in a decade. (2025, July 10). Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-10/hillside-strangler-a-convicted-serial-killer-gets-denied-parole-will-be-eligible-in-a-decade Crabtree, M. (2026, July 4). The disturbing story of Angelo Buono, the ‘Hillside Strangler’ who tormented 1970s Los Angeles. All That’s Interesting. https://allthatsinteresting.com/angelo-buono Dismissal of Buono murder counts asked. (1981, July 14). Los Angeles Times, p. 1. Edwards, M. (2025, July). ‘Hillside Strangler’ Kenneth Bianchi, convicted in 1970s serial killings, is denied parole. CBS News Los Angeles. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/hillside-strangler-kenneth-bianchi-denied-parole/ Farr, B. (1981, July 26). Prosecution memos list holes in Strangler case. Los Angeles Times, pp. 1, 3, 24–25. Find a Grave. (n.d.). Memorial pages for Dolores Ann “Dolly” Cepeda, Cindy Lee Hudspeth, Sonja Marie Johnson, Elissa Teresa “Lissa” Kastin, Evelyn Jane King, Kimberley Dianne “Kim” Martin, Judith Lynn “Judy” Miller, Beulah Mae Stofer, Lauren Rae Wagner, and Kristina Weckler. https://www.findagrave.com

  • September 14 · 2 hr 13 min

    65. The Theology of Submission and the Death of a Pastors Wife

    TW: Suicide First ever true crossover episode! Flippers meet the Hellions, Hellions meet the Flippers. This case included so much of our mutual subject matter we decided to post it on both shows. Mica Francis Miller, 30, died on April 27, 2024, at Lumber River State Park in North Carolina, roughly an hour from her home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. She had bought a handgun that afternoon and called 911 minutes before shooting herself; the Robeson County Sheriff's Office and North Carolina medical examiners ruled her death a suicide. Days earlier she had filed for divorce from her husband, John-Paul Miller, pastor of Solid Rock Church in Market Common, and police records show she contacted law enforcement at least 14 times between February and mid-April 2024.Court filings and family statements alleged years of abuse, surveillance, financial control, and nonconsensual distribution of intimate images; a December 2024 filing added strangulation allegations. Miller denied wrongdoing. On December 17, 2025, a federal grand jury in South Carolina indicted Miller on two counts, cyberstalking and making false statements to investigators, alleging he used tracking devices and unwanted communications to harass Mica from November 2022 until her death. Netflix's documentary series "Death of a Pastor's Wife" premiered August 27, 2026, renewing attention on the case and on South Carolina's protective-order law. Sources: Full list on patreon ABC News 4 (WCIV). (2026, January 12). JP Miller pleads not guilty to federal charges of cyberstalking, false statements. ⁠https://abcnews4.com/news/local/dozens-show-up-outside-florence-federal-courthouse-for-arraignment-of-jp-miller-mica-cyberstalking-lying-authorities-fbi-solid-rock-church-pastor⁠ Burroughs Funeral Home & Cremation Services. (2024). Obituary for Mica Acacia Miller. ⁠https://www.burroughsfh.com/obituary/Mica-Miller⁠ Christianity Today. (2022, September). What happens when you ask thousands of evangelical women about sex. ⁠https://www.christianitytoday.com/2022/09/sheila-gregoire-great-sex-rescue-survey-evangelical-women/⁠ Condo-World. (n.d.). History of the Sea Captain's House Myrtle Beach. ⁠https://blog.condo-world.com/history-of-the-sea-captains-house/⁠ Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. (1987). The Danvers Statement. Creepy Catalog. (2026). Death of the Pastor's Wife: John-Paul Miller's first wife says Mica's account matched her own. ⁠https://creepycatalog.com/death-of-the-pastors-wife-john-paul-millers-first-wife-says-micas-account-matched-her-own/⁠ Crime and Cask News Network. (2026, August). Father of former Solid Rock pastor John Paul Miller pleads guilty. ⁠https://crimeandcask.com/father-of-pastor-john-paul-miller-pleads-guilty/⁠ FITSNews. (2024, December 20). Mica Miller saga: Police reports fill in blanks, raise more questions. ⁠https://www.fitsnews.com/2024/12/20/mica-miller-saga-police-reports-fill-in-blanks-raise-more-questions/⁠ FITSNews. (2025, June 2). Embattled South Carolina pastor John-Paul Miller marries girlfriend. ⁠https://www.fitsnews.com/2025/06/02/embattled-south-carolina-pastor-john-paul-miller-marries-girlfriend/⁠ Gregoire, S. W. (2023, September). 10 things to know about obligation sex. Bare Marriage. ⁠https://baremarriage.com/2023/09/10-things-obligation-sex/⁠ Gregoire, S. W., Lindenbach, R. G., & Sawatsky, J. (2021). The great sex rescue: The lies you've been taught and how to recover what God intended. Baker Books. Guidepost Solutions. (2022, May 15). Report of the independent investigation: The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee's response to sexual abuse allegations and an audit of the procedures and actions of the Credentials Committee. Jane Doe v. John-Paul Miller, Reginald Wayne Miller, et al. (2025). Complaint, Horry County Court of Common Pleas. ⁠https://www.wbtw.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2025/03/JP-lawsuit-2.pdf⁠

  • September 8 · 2 hr 24 min

    64. Crime of the Summer- the Lindsay Clancy Case

    Andy and I have bombshells about the timeline in our fireside chat on patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast (we also tease the new studio and halloween merch) Clarify some points: **This is by no means all of the data from the trial, only what we could fit into the evidence, we talk more about things on the fireside **The timeline discrepancy comes from Patrick testifying he left at 5:15 but an email being sent from his account at 5:24 **Since this recording, a mistrial has been declared due to a hold out jury refusing to follow the law on reasonable doubt On January 24, 2023, Lindsay Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital for nine years, allegedly strangled her three children in the basement of the family's home at 47 Summer Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts, while her husband was out picking up takeout and a prescription she had asked him to get. Cora was 5, Dawson was 3, Callan was 8 months old. Clancy then allegedly took pills, strangled herself with a belt, cut her wrists and neck, and went out a second-story window, severing her spinal cord. In the four months before that night, at least six providers had prescribed her thirteen different psychiatric medications across more than thirty prescriptions; she was turned away by two crisis hotlines in four days, told her psychiatrist she was having intrusive thoughts of harming her children. A status hearing on whether the Commonwealth will retry her is set for September 29. Sources- full list on patreon AAMC. "Why we know so little about women's health." aamc.org/news/why-we-know-so-little-about-women-s-health ABC News. "'She was begging for help': former mother-in-law testifies." Aug 2026. abcnews.com/GMA/News/begging-lindsay-clancys-former-mother-law-testifies/story?id=135739178 ABC News. "Mistrial declared. What happens next?" 4 Sep 2026. abcnews.com/GMA/News/lindsay-clancy-jury-deadlocked/story?id=136153308 Boston Globe. "Prescribed 13 different medications." 27 Jul 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/07/27/metro/lindsay-clancy-timeline-medications-13/ Boston Globe. "Timeline of activities on Jan. 24." 4 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/04/metro/timeline-lindsay-clancy-cell-phone-records/ Boston Globe. "Surgeon, investigators testify on her injuries." 4 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/04/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-testimony-tuesday/ Boston Globe. "Mechanics of the insanity defense." 12 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/12/metro/clancy-trial-structure-insanity-defense/ Boston Globe. "Googled psychosis symptoms and hallucinations." 13 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/13/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates/ Boston Globe. "Said 'Go to God' as she strangled each child." 21 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/21/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-mack-resnick/ Boston Globe. "Dueling assessments of psychosis." 21 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/21/metro/lindsay-clancy-trial-live-updates/ Boston Globe. "Kevin Reddington, 'girl dad' energy." 24 Aug 2026. bostonglobe.com/2026/08/24/lifestyle/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-kevin-reddington-insanity/ Boston.com. "What prosecutors say happened Jan. 24." 17 Feb 2023. boston.com/news/crime/2023/02/17/lindsay-clancy-timeline-january-24-duxbury-mother-children/ Brown University. "32 years of U.S. filicide arrests." 2014. archive2.news.brown.edu/2007-2015/articles/2014/02/filicide.html CBS Boston. "Case ends in mistrial after jury deadlock." 4 Sep 2026. cbsnews.com/boston/live-updates/lindsay-clancy-murder-trial-hung-jury-mistrial-verdict-watch-live-updates/ CBS Boston. "Karen Read sues Mass. State Police, Canton Police." cbsnews.com/boston/news/karen-read-lawsuit-massachusetts-state-police-canton-police/ CBS News. "Key moments from the Clancy trial." Aug 2026. cbsnews.com/news/lindsay-clancy-trial-key-moments-jury-weighs-case/ CNN. "Opening statements to begin." 26 Jul 2026. cnn.com/2026/07/26/us/lindsay-clancy-trial-opening-statements

  • September 1 · 1 hr 59 min

    63. Extreme Premeditation: The Life and Crimes of Israel Keyes

    We're so used to serial killers having a compulsion, a need, an insatiable craving that often makes them sloppy and leads to an arrest. Israel Keyes did not suffer from that reckless compulsion and may be the most calculated killer we have ever covered. On unrelated trips Israel Keyes would get a five gallon bucket and fill it with a gun, rope, plastic sheeting, anything he needed for a kill trip and would bury that bucket YEARS in advance. When he decided it was time to kill he would fly to a major airport, rent a car and drive sometimes a thousand miles, pick up his kill kit, and hunt for a random person he never met. The victim was never connected to him and neither was the location, until Keyes on a drunken night hunted too close to home. Sources ABC News. (2012, December). Alaska serial killer committed suicide with hidden razor and bedding. abcnews.com Adirondack Daily Enterprise. (2013, November). FBI thinks Keyes buried a body near Tupper Lake. adirondackdailyenterprise.com Alaska Public Media. (2012, April 19). U.S. Attorney's Office files charges against Keyes in Koenig case. alaskapublic.org Alaska Public Media. (2012, May 24). Israel Keyes attempts to flee courtroom. alaskapublic.org Alaska Public Media / KTOO. (2012, December 3–5). Keyes autopsy underway, investigations continue. alaskapublic.org Anchorage Daily News. (2012, May 24). Courtroom erupts as defendant tries to flee Alaska barista trial. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, May 26). In a more subdued hearing, Israel Keyes gets a March trial date. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, December 2). Israel Keyes dead in apparent suicide; suspected in Lower 48 deaths. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2012, December 3). Vermont authorities point to suspected serial killer Israel Keyes in 2011 double murder. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2013, November 13). FBI looks for clues linking confessed serial killer Israel Keyes to missing New Jersey woman. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2014, July 15). The untold story behind Israel Keyes' jailhouse suicide. adn.com Anchorage Daily News. (2018, May 18). Unsealed interviews detail two lives of Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes. adn.com Callahan, M. (2019). American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century. Viking. Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI Records: The Vault — Israel Keyes (Parts 1–8). vault.fbi.gov/israel-keyes Federal Bureau of Investigation. Israel Keyes interview recordings, video repository, including the session of May 24, 2012. fbi.gov/video-repository/ Federal Bureau of Investigation. Seeking information regarding serial killer case [video], and the Israel Keyes travel timeline. fbi.gov Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2013). New information released in serial killer case. fbi.gov/news/stories/new-information-released-in-serial-killer-case Federal Bureau of Investigation, Anchorage Field Office. (2012, April 18). Anchorage man indicted for kidnapping and killing Samantha Koenig. archives.fbi.gov/archives/anchorage/press-releases/2012/ Federal Bureau of Investigation, Portland Field Office. (2013). FBI requests the public's assistance in case of serial killer Israel Keyes. archives.fbi.gov/archives/portland/press-releases/2013/ Miller, T. C. (2015, July 30). The FBI built a database that can catch rapists — almost nobody uses it. ProPublica. propublica.org Murder Accountability Project. Unsolved homicide data and clearance rates. murderdata.org NBC News. (2012, May). Alleged barista killer tries to escape court. nbcnews.com Rosay, A. B. (2011). 2010 Alaska Victimization Survey: Report to the Alaska State Legislature. University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center. scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/7227 Southern Poverty Law Center. Extremist files: Aryan Nations; Christian Identity; Richard Butler. splcenter.org United States v. Keyes, No. 3:12-cr-00041 (D. Alaska 2012). courtlistener.com/docket/6823228/united-states-v-keyes/

  • August 25 · 1 hr 53 min

    62. The Jersey Devil

    How prejudice, misogyny and a kangaroo in bat wings created a monster. Support the show by becoming a hellion at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast The legend is rooted in the Pine Barrens, the million-acre stretch of sandy pine forest across southern New Jersey. The legend begins in 1735 when a woman remembered only as Mother Leeds went into labor with her thirteenth child. Exhausted and cursing her fertility, she cried, "Let this one be the devil." The child was born normally, then twisted before the midwife's eyes into something with a horse's head, leathery bat wings, cloven hooves, and a forked tail. It shrieked, beat its way up the chimney, and vanished into the pines. Historically this woman was likely Deborah Leeds wife of Japhet Leeds, who records show had 12 children. But the creature was likely born from politics, not a woman crying out in pain and frustration, exhausted by pregnancy and birth. Daniel Leeds, a colonial almanac publisher, broke with his Quaker neighbors and printed astrology and occult lore. They branded him "Satan's Harbinger."(great metal band name) His son Titan (also great name) continued the feud and was mocked by Benjamin Franklin, who jokingly predicted Titan's death, then insisted his ghost lingered on. The Leeds family crest bore a wyvern a winged, clawed dragon. A hated family, a devilish reputation, and a monster on the coat of arms fused over generations into the "Leeds Devil," renamed the Jersey Devil only in the twentieth century. Its most famous week came in January 1909, when hundreds of sightings and mysterious hoofprints swept New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Schools and factories closed, armed posses combed the woods, and a Philadelphia showman, Norman Jefferies, cashed in by exhibiting a painted kangaroo fitted with fake wings. The Jersey Devil was born from a colonial grudge, regional prejudice, and a curse on a woman who would DARE to not want to have more kids. SOURCES (full sources on Patreon) Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito, The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018) — the foundational scholarly work, and the source for the Daniel Leeds / Titan Leeds / wyvern / Franklin argument. Brian Regal, “The Jersey Devil: The Real Story,” Skeptical Inquirer, November 2013. W. F. Mayer, “In the Pines,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. III, May 1859 — first known print appearance of the “Leeds Devil.” Caleb Pusey, Satan’s Harbinger Encountered, 1700. Daniel Leeds, An Almanack for the Year of Christian Account 1687; The Temple of Wisdom for the Little World, 1688; The Trumpet Sounded Out of the Wilderness of America, 1699. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1733–1738 editions — the Titan Leeds death prediction and the “ghost of Titan Leeds” sequence. Japhet Leeds will, 1736, Burlington County records — twelve named children. Encounter 1 (Nelson Evans, 1909): Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and allied Philadelphia press, January 19–20, 1909, Geoff Tibballs, The World’s Greatest Hoaxes (2006) — Norman Jefferies, Jacob Hope, and the Arch Street Dime Museum kangaroo. Robert E. Bartholomew on the 1909 flap as mass hysteria seeded by regional legend. Jeff Brunner, Humane Society of New Jersey — the sandhill crane hypothesis. Henry H. Goddard, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness (1912); Elizabeth Kite, “The Pineys” (1913); Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981), on the retouched photographs. John McPhee, The Pine Barrens (1968). Weird NJ magazine, Jersey Devil reader files — three decades of submitted first-hand accounts.

  • August 18 · 2 hr 36 min

    61. The Warrens & The Conjuring Empire

    Our longest episode EVER. The ultimate deep dive on The Warrens, their history and their conjuring Empire! Ed and Lorraine were born in a factory town in Conneticut just 19 weeks apart. For both of them, a significant moment at 5 would help shape the course of their future. A chance meeting at a movie theater led to their marriage and the occult awakening and the Satanic Panic in the US would enable them to release books, cases, work a lecture circuit and become some of the most famous figures in the paranormal world. But how much of it was true? Was it God or was it money? How do you reconcile the devoted catholic couple with an alleged 40 year affair and a contract clause that said they cannot be depicted having affairs or sexual contact with minors? Thats oddly specific. SOURCES: Books and First-Person Accounts Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror: A True Story. Prentice Hall, 1977. Brittle, Gerald. The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Prentice Hall, 1980. — the authorized biography; the core text of the mythology. Brittle, Gerald. The Devil in Connecticut. Bantam, 1983. — the Glatzel/Arne Johnson case; pulled from print after the 2007 lawsuit. Curran, Robert, with Ed and Lorraine Warren. The Haunted. St. Martin's, 1988. — the Smurl case. Garton, Ray, with Ed and Lorraine Warren. In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. Villard, 1992. — the Snedeker case. Read alongside Garton's later public statements about how it was written. Hall, William J. The World's Most Haunted House: The True Story of the Bridgeport Poltergeist on Lindley Street. New Page, 2014. Lasalandra, Michael, and Mark Merenda. Satan's Harvest. Dell, 1990. — Maurice Theriault, by two Boston Herald reporters. Perron, Andrea. House of Darkness House of Light: The True Story, Vols. 1–3. AuthorHouse, 2011–2014. Playfair, Guy Lyon. This House Is Haunted: The True Story of the Enfield Poltergeist. Souvenir Press, 1980. Sawyer, J.F. Deliver Us From Evil. 1973. — the first book about the Warrens. Notably contains no mention of Annabelle. Warren, Ed and Lorraine. Ghost Hunters (1989), Werewolf: A True Story of Demonic Possession (1991, with Robert David Chase and William Ramsey), Graveyard (1992), Ghost Tracks (2004). State of Connecticut v. Arne Cheyenne Johnson, Danbury Superior Court, 1981. Judge Robert Callahan presiding. Trial opened Oct. 28, 1981; manslaughter conviction Nov. 24; sentenced Dec. 18. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Arne_Cheyenne_Johnson Dengrove courtroom sketch collection, Arne Cheyenne Johnson — University of Virginia Law Library — https://archives.law.virginia.edu/dengrove/writeup/arne-cheyenne-johnson Glatzel v. Warren, Brittle, iUniverse, and William Morris Agency, 2007 (dismissed) — https://www.religionnewsblog.com/19687/devil-in-connecticut Adams County (PA) Coroner's ruling on the death of Dan Rivera, July 2025 — cardiac, natural — https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dan-rivera-paranormal-investigator-died-tour-anabelle-doll-suffered-he-rcna229144 WPC Carolyn Heeps's signed statement, Enfield, 1977 — reproduced in Playfair; summary of police involvement at http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/07/police-officers-involved-in-enfield-case.html Lanning, Kenneth V. Investigator's Guide to Allegations of "Ritual" Child Abuse. FBI Behavioral Science Unit, 1992. — for the Satanic Panic context. Wilmer, William H. "Effects of Carbon Monoxide upon the Eye." American Journal of Ophthalmology, 1921. — the 1921 haunted-house/CO case. Vardy, Tom, et al. "The Warrens." World Religions and Spirituality Project, Jan. 19, 2023. — https://wrldrels.org/2023/01/19/the-warrens/ — the single best scholarly overview. "The Demonologist and the Clairvoyant: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Paranormal Investigation, and Exorcism in the Modern World." DIG: A History Podcast, Oct. 3, 2021. — https://digpodcast.org/2021/10/03/demonologist-and-the-clairvoyant/ — source for the gender analysis.

  • August 11 · 1 hr 59 min

    60. The Dyatlov Incident

    What could possibly cause experienced hikers to cut their way out of a tent, WALK half clothed to the treeline, and die from the elements? **Special thanks to our patreon supporters for making this show possible patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast** In January 1959, ten students from the Ural Polytechnical Institute set out on a Category III ski trek through the northern Urals, led by 23-year-old Igor Dyatlov. One member, Yuri Yudin, turned back due to back sciatic pain, leaving nine to camp on February 1 on the slope of Kholat Syakhl, "Dead Mountain." He would be the only person to survive. When searchers reached the site on February 26, the tent had been cut open from the inside, as if the climbers fled to escape. Boots, coats, and equipment remained within. Footprints led 1.5 kilometers downslope toward a treeline — people walking, not running, some barefoot, some in socks. Two bodies lay under a cedar in their underwear beside a dead fire. Three more were found between the cedar and the tent, apparently trying to climb back. The last four surfaced in May, buried in a ravine under four meters of snow. Two had crushed ribs; one had a fractured skull. The examiner compared the injuries to a car crash and noted the absence of corresponding external trauma. How is that possible? Dubinina was missing her tongue and eyes, later explained by months of decomposition in running water. Trace radiation on clothing traced to one hiker's job at a nuclear plant. Soviet investigators closed the file citing a compelling natural force the group could not overcome, then classified it. Six decades of theory followed: military tests, infrasound panic, the KGB, the paranormal. In 2021, Gaume and Puzrin modeled a delayed slab avalanche — triggered by cutting a tent platform into wind-loaded snow, small enough to leave no debris, and capable of causing internal injuries without surface damage. The rest is exposure, darkness, and exhausted people making survivable-seeming choices in −25°C. But what about the military tests? Sources (full source list on Patreon) The 1959 criminal case file — Sverdlovsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office, Feb–May 1959. Roughly 400 pageshttps://dyatlovpass.com/case-files Autopsy protocols of Boris Vozrozhdenny — forensic medical expert, Sverdlovsk Oblast. First five bodies examined March 1959; the four from the ravine on 9 May 1959.https://dyatlovpass.com/autopsy Genrietta Churkina, criminalistic examination of the tent — case file, 16 April 1959. The finding that the principal cuts were made from inside. Vladimir Levashov, radiological report — chief radiologist, Sverdlovsk city sanitary-epidemiological station, 27 May 1959. Beta contamination readings on Dubinina's sweater and Kolevatov's trousers and sweater waistband. The hikers' diaries https://dyatlovpass.com/diaries The recovered camera films — five cameras, including the negatives found in Lev Ivanov's private archive in 1997 and donated to the Dyatlov Foundation.https://dyatlovpass.com/photos "Vecherniy Otorten" (Evening Otorten) No. 1 — the group's satirical camp newsletter, dated 1 February 1959. Surviving only as an investigator's transcription in the case file. Lev Ivanov, "The Enigma of the Fireballs" — Leninsky Put, Kustanai, Kazakhstan, November 1990. The lead investigator's account of being ordered to omit the sightings, and his apology to the families.https://dyatlovpass.com/enigma-of-the-fireballs Russian Prosecutor General's Office reinvestigation, 2019–2020 , 11 July 2020.https://dyatlovpass.com/prosecutors-investigation TASS — "Prosecutors say avalanche killed Dyatlov group in Urals in 1959" (July 2020)https://tass.com/emergencies/1177345 Gaume, J. & Puzrin, A. M. — "Mechanisms of slab avalanche "Communications Earth & Environment 2, 10 (2021). Published 28 January 2021.https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00081-8DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00081-8

  • August 4 · 1 hr 45 min

    59. YES, NO, GOODBYE- The History of the Ouija Board

    Get episodes ad free and support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohell The Spiritualist movement swept America, enticing people to entertain the question, "can we truly talk to the dead?". The Fox Sisters in 1848 entranced interest with their rapping phenomena in Hydesville, NY. Beleivers in contact were already using talking boards, alphabet cards, taple tipping and planchette writing by putting a heart shape platform on casters that held a pencil and wrote form the spirit guides. The Civil Wars mass casualties increased the demand for any way for people to talk to their lost loved ones. "Can they hear me?". Soon the planchette would be combined with an alphabet board to make translating the writing more efficient and meet the increased demand. In 1890, a group of Baltimore investors: businessman Elijah Bond, attorney Charles Kennard, and others, with employee William Fuld would soon file a patent for a "talking board." Legend holds the Patent Office demanded a demonstration, and the board correctly spelled out the skeptical examiner's name; the patent was granted in February 1891. The name's origin is disputed. The company claimed it was Egyptian for "good luck"; the likelier story is that Bond's sister-in-law Helen Peters, a medium, asked the board what it wished to be called, and it answered "Ouija." A name similar to the author's name and likeness she wore in a locket. Fuld would eventually take control of production, and through aggressive manufacturing and litigation against rivals became synonymous with the board. He died in 1927 after falling from the roof of his Baltimore factory — a building he said the board had told him to construct. His family ran the business until selling to Parker Brothers in 1966; Hasbro acquired it in 1991. For decades the board was harmless parlor entertainment, spiking in popularity during wartime and the 1960s occult revival. In 1973, The Exorcist recast it as a portal for demonic possession, and evangelical anxiety hardened that reputation permanently. Science attributes its operation to the ideomotor effect, described by physiologist William Carpenter in 1852: unconscious micro-movements by participants who genuinely believe they aren't pushing. Blindfold experiments reliably reduce the board to gibberish. But then there are stories of unexplainable things, terrifying things, things the board shouldnt... couldnt know. Is it real? Sources: Condensed for Character space Deep history & belief — E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871, animism); archaeology of Sungir, Paviland, Göbekli Tepe; the Epic of Gilgamesh; Egyptian Book of the Dead & "Letters to the Dead"; 1 Samuel 28 & Deuteronomy 18; Homer's Odyssey Bk. 11. The bridge & Spiritualism — Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell (1758); Mesmer; Andrew Jackson Davis; the Fox sisters & Maggie's 1888 confession; Blavatsky & Theosophy; Conan Doyle vs. Houdini; Society for Psychical Research. Tarot — Court de Gébelin's Le Monde primitif (1781); Etteilla; Éliphas Lévi; the Golden Dawn; the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck & Pamela Colman Smith. Ouija — Smithsonian Magazine (Linda Rodriguez McRobbie) · historian Robert Murch · The Strong National Museum of Play · Baltimore Magazine · Time · The Conversation · Atlas Obscura (Pearl Curran) · UBC ideomotor study (Rensink, Gauchou & Fels, 2012) · The Lineup & True Ghost Tales (Zozo) · Wikipedia & Skeptical Inquirer (Roland Doe / Ronald Hunkeler). Dates and figures are drawn from secondary sources — double-check anything you quote on air.

  • July 28 · 2 hr 1 min

    58. The Butcher Baker

    Please support the show, get ad free episodes and bonus content at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast Robert Hansen was born in Estherville Iowa to Danish immigrant parents. His father, was a baker and very domineering. Hansen had a pronounced stutter, acne scars and experiences social rejection and humiliation. As retaliation for this humiliation, and for the rejection of young women who would bully him, in 1960 he burned down a school district bus garage in Pope County. He was arrested but only served 20 months during which is first wife left him. Good call. Ladies if he's burning buildings down, you can't save him. Once released, he would be responsible for a string of petty thefts. He would relocate to Anchorage Alaska in 1967 with his second wife and two children and opened a downtown bakery. It was a new place and new start. He was able to build a public identity as a respectable career man, family man, and most impressively in Alaska- a trophy bowhunter. Even with assault convictions in 1971 and 1972 didn't ruin his livelihood or reputation. Because how dare men be held accountable and ostracized from society for sex crimes???? Then between 1971 and 1983, Hansen would abduct, rape and kill women, mostly dancers and sex workers, knowing full well that the transient nature of Anchorage would protect him and provide alibis and lack of suspicion. He method was horrific. As a pilot, he would fly his victims to the Knik River valley and other bush country, release them... and hunt them. On June 13, 1983, 17-year-old Cindy Paulson escaped in handcuffs at Merrill Field as Hansen loaded her onto his plane. She ran to police and reported it- they didn't believe her. WHY DON'T WOMEN REPORT??? Bodies had been surfacing since 1980 including: unidentified "Eklutna Annie", Joanna Messina, Sherry Morrow, and Paula Goudling. An FBI behavioral profile FINALLY persuaded a judge to issue a warrant. The October 1983 search recovered victims' jewelry hidden in the attic, firearms concealed behind his headboard, and an aviation chart marked with roughly twenty small Xs, a map of his own graves. Ballistics matched shell casings from two scenes. In February 1984 Robert would plead guilty to four murders and was sentenced to 461 years plus life without parole. He confessed to 17 killings and more than 30 rapes, guiding investigators to burial sites. He died in custody on August 21, 2014. Sources: • Walter Gilmour & Leland E. Hale, Butcher, Baker: The True Account of an Alaskan Serial Killer (1991; reissued Open Road Media, 2016). Gilmour was an Alaska State Trooper involved in the case • Leland E. Hale, "Butcher Baker" case blog, lelandhale.com/butcherbaker (co-author's ongoing primary-source chronology, including confession-transcript excerpts, the Cindy Paulson statement, the alibi collapse, and the grave-site map). • UPI Archives, Feb. 28, 1984 — sentencing wire reports ("Sentenced to life plus 461 years"). • Anchorage Daily News — contemporaneous reporting and Aug. 21–22, 2014 obituaries/coverage. • Alaska Department of Public Safety / Alaska State Troopers — press releases, incl. the 44 Oct. 22, 2021 identification of "Horseshoe Harriet" as Robin Pelkey (genetic genealogy, Alaska Bureau of Investigation Cold Case Unit with Parabon NanoLabs). • FBI Behavioral Science Unit profile (John E. Douglas, with James Horn), October 1983. • Wikipedia, "Robert Hansen" and "Murder of Eklutna Annie" (used to locate primary citations); Charley Project / Doe Network (Emerick, Thill); Find A Grave (Futrell). • The Frozen Ground (2013, dir. Scott Walker) is a dramatization, not a source of fact — named/altered characters. Used for cultural context only.

  • July 21 · 1 hr 27 min

    57. Herb Baumeister

    Herbert Baumeister was born in Indiana in 1947 and grew up in a middle-class family near Indianapolis. Even as a young man he showed troubling signs, and he spent time in a mental institution as an adult. Still, he built what looked like an ordinary life. He married Julie Saiter in 1971, raised three children, and ran a chain of successful thrift stores called Sav-A-Lot. To neighbors and customers, he seemed like a respectable businessman and family man. Behind that image was a double life. In the early 1990s, Baumeister began visiting gay bars in Indianapolis under the name "Brian Smart." He lured men back to Fox Hollow Farm, his large estate in Westfield, Indiana, while his wife and children were away. There he strangled them, and he buried and scattered their remains across his wooded property. The first hint of trouble came in 1994, when one of his sons found a human bone in the yard. Baumeister brushed it off as a medical skeleton. The truth surfaced through a survivor. A man who had escaped went to police and helped them connect the disappearances to "Brian Smart," who was eventually identified as Baumeister. In 1996, while he was away, his wife allowed investigators to search the farm. They uncovered thousands of charred bone fragments, the remains of at least eleven men. Baumeister did not stay to face the case. He fled to Canada and, on July 3, 1996, shot himself at a provincial park in Ontario. He left a suicide note that mentioned his failing marriage and business but never confessed to the killings. Investigators later suspected he may also have been responsible for a series of unsolved murders in which bodies were dumped along highways in Indiana and Ohio. Because he died before any trial, much about his crimes remains uncertain. Efforts to identify his victims from the recovered remains have continued for decades, giving names back to some of the men lost at Fox Hollow Farm. Sources Full list on patreon Jenny Labalme, "Suicide note mentions marriage, business but not bones," The Indianapolis Star, July 6, 1996 (pp. 1–2). — The three-page suicide note's contents. (Anchor contemporary source for the death.) The New York Times, July 1996 — Quoting Hamilton County Sheriff's Sgt. Kenneth C. Whisman that the note "did not mention the deaths or remains." (Exact headline/date/URL not independently verified — fetch blocked; attribution confirmed second-hand.) Associated Press wire, early July 1996 — Breaking discovery / body-count coverage ("bodies found on Westfield estate"). People, "While Julie Was Away," Dec. 23, 1996 (Richard Jerome & Fannie Weinstein) Indianapolis Monthly, Dec. 1996 — Julie Baumeister's own first-person essay. Reuters / Indianapolis Star-News wire (c. 1996–1999) — Dr. Stephen Nawrocki, "Our minimum number at the site is 11. There could be more."; Det. Bill Clifford on the DNA signatures. Detective Mary Wilson's 12-page handwritten memo, dated June 27, 1996 — Obtained via public records and published by WRTV (Vic Ryckaert), "Forgotten at Fox Hollow," 2023. WRTV / WCPO, "Forgotten at Fox Hollow" (Vic Ryckaert), 2023 — the memo and case documents from the Hamilton County Sheriff Fannie Weinstein & Melinda Wilson, Where the Bodies Are Buried (St. Martin's, 1998) Rob Graves & Richard Estep, The Horrors of Fox Hollow Farm (2019) Stephen Nawrocki et al., "A Taphonomic Analysis of Human Cremains from the Fox Hollow Farm Serial Homicide Site" University of Indianapolis Human Identification Center (Dr. Krista Latham) — remains curation/analysis; Latham's "marginalized in life… in death" quotes. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, "Herbert R. Baumeister" (indyencyclopedia.org) — timeline, the Sept. 12, 1996 first-four IDs, "concluded he was responsible." Indianapolis Monthly, "Unburying the Truth," Eve Batey (Dec. 2024; updated Nov. 4, 2025) — Jellison's "eight gay men from Indianapolis, what do we care?" and "blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls from Carmel or Fishers" quotes; the Livingston landline detail.

  • July 14 · 1 hr 30 min

    56. Lights Out Volume 1

    Today a little palette cleanser! After some heavy true crime and hauntings we wanted to do an episode sharing claimed in person paranormal encounters. If you'd like to submit a story- submit to info@montemader.com

  • July 7 · 1 hr 46 min

    55. The Worlds Most Haunted Places Part 2

    As always special thanks to our hellions supporting us on patreon! patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcast This episode closes the two-part countdown of the most haunted places on earth, covering the top five. We open in Edinburgh, Scotland — a city that sealed off its medieval streets and built a new city on top of them, leaving the original closes and vaults intact beneath the surface. The South Bridge Vaults, rediscovered in 1985, have been the subject of one of the most rigorous paranormal studies ever conducted. From Scotland we go to Bohemia, Czech Republic, and Houska Castle — a 13th-century structure with no water source, no town to protect, and no trade route to control, built in the middle of dense forest with outer walls that face inward. It was built over a hole in the ground that medieval sources describe as a gateway to the underworld. The chapel sits directly above the sealed pit and contains a fresco of St. Michael painted deliberately left-handed — in medieval Catholic iconography, the hand of the Devil. In County Offaly, Ireland, Leap Castle earns the third spot. It is the site of a massacre carried out in the castle's own chapel during a feast, and the murder of a Catholic priest at the altar by his own brother during Mass. In 1900, renovation workers discovered a concealed oubliette off the Bloody Chapel — a spiked pit containing the remains of an estimated 150 people. An elemental is also present: a creature the size of a sheep, moving on all fours in a human manner, with a human face, black empty eye sockets, and a smell of sulfur and decay that arrives before it appears and lingers after it's gone. Number two, Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania — 51,000 casualties in 72 hours across six square miles of farmland in July 1863. The most paranormally documented site in the United States. At dusk in the Wheatfield, where 6,000 men fell in a single afternoon, figures in period clothing have been reported walking in opposite directions. We close at number one: Poveglia Island where plague victims were quarantined and burned across three centuries of epidemic — 1348, 1630, and the waves between. The soil is documented at approximately fifty percent human ash and bone fragments. An estimated 160,000 people died there. The bell that was removed from the hospital tower, still rings SOURCES Wiseman, Richard. "Hauntings and Psychology." University of Hertfordshire study, Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There. Macmillan, 2011. Historic Environment Scotland. Edinburgh Castle site documentation and architectural history. Edinburgh: HES Burke and Hare: Bailey, Brian. Burke and Hare: The Year of the Ghouls. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2002. Ottokar II of Bohemia and Houska Castle construction: Žemlička, Josef. Království v pohybu (The Kingdom in Motion). Prague: NLN, 2014. SS Ahnenerbe occult research division: Pringle, Heather. The Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust. New York: Hyperion, 2006. O'Carroll clan history and Leap Castle: Simms, Katharine. From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987. The oubliette at Leap Castle: Ryan, Sean. Personal accounts and estate documentation. See also: Costello, Con. A Most Delightful Station: The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland. Collins Press, 1996. Chamberlain and Little Round Top: Trulock, Alice Rains. In the Hands of Providence: Joshua L. Chamberlain and the American Civil War. University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Venice plague epidemics and the lazaretto system: Cohn, Samuel K. Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance. Oxford University Press, 2010. Poveglia Island quarantine history: Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. New York: Knopf, 1982. Psychiatric care in early 20th-century Italy: Foot, John. The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care. Verso, 2015.

  • July 1 · 1 hr 19 min

    54. The Worlds Most Haunted Places Part 1

    Today we start a two part series on the most haunted places in the world. This is the bottom 5 of the top 10. Little bit different format here with each individual place having its own haunted story and mini travel itinerary. Hoia-Baciu Forest in Romania — a 295-hectare forest outside Cluj-Napoca where locals refuse to enter, a circular clearing where nothing grows, and fifty years of documented reports of time loss, physical symptoms, and disappearing photographs. From there we move to Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan, India, where the Archaeological Survey of India has posted an official government sign prohibiting entry after sunset — one of the only paranormal-adjacent access restrictions at any heritage site in India — and where the ruins of a once-thriving town of tens of thousands have sat completely abandoned since the early 18th century with no adequate historical explanation. In France, we spend time at Château de Brissac in the Loire Valley, where an eighteen-year-old woman named Charlotte de Brézé was murdered by her husband in 1476, whose killer was protected from prison by his friend the king, and who has been appearing in the castle's north wing ever since. At Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, we examine 141 years of absolute solitary confinement — a Quaker reform philosophy that Charles Dickens called torture in 1842 — and what 75,000 people left behind in those cellblocks. We close in Japan at Aokigahara Forest, the Sea of Trees at the base of Mount Fuji, examining the forest's centuries-long association with death, the documented impact of a 1960 novel on its modern history, and what it means to a search volunteer named Kenji who enters it every spring. Part Two covers places five through one. SOURCES Sift, Alexandru. Field documentation of Hoia-Baciu Forest. Babeș-Bolyai University, 1960s–1970s. Archaeological Survey of India. Official access restriction signage, Bhangarh Fort, Alwar District. Government of India, Ministry of Culture. Abul Fazl. Akbarnama. Trans. H. Beveridge. Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1902–1939. Commynes, Philippe de. Mémoires. c. 1490–1498. Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation. Chapman and Hall, 1842. Chapter 7. De Tocqueville, Alexis, and Gustave de Beaumont. On the Penitentiary System in the United States. Trans. Francis Lieber. Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1833. Grassian, Stuart. "Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement." Washington University Journal of Law and Policy. Vol. 22, 2006. Matsumoto, Seicho. Kuroi Jukai (黒い樹海). Kobunsha, 1960. Miyaji, Naoaki, et al. "Lava Flow History of Fuji Volcano." Bulletin of the Volcanological Society of Japan. Vol. 49, 2004. Foster, Michael Dylan. The Book of Yokai. University of California Press, 2015.

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