Dark Histories

It was the summer of 1919, in a leafy rural region of Leicestershire that we turn our focus towards today and a woman named Bella Wright, who was found lying dead by the roadside one quiet, Saturday evening. At first, police assumed her death to have been an accident, but things escalated quickly, when a gunshot wound was later discovered and the last man seen with Bella alive appeared to have disappeared completely.

We're back for 2018 with more listener stories sent in specially for this Christmas Bonus. Thank you so much to all the contributors and to everyone for listening this year. Merry Christmas.

Victorian England, an age of great industry, enlightenment, of learning and of advancement. Equally, it was the age of spiritualism, parapsychology, and restrictive social practices. In the chaotic streets of the suburbs of London, the first Victorian Urban Legend was waiting to be born, beating out Sweeney Todd by a full 9 years, Spring Heeled Jack brewed in the fears of an uncertain populace and burst onto the scene, metal claw and all, stirring a sensation that was far too ripe for anyone to ignore. His was a legend that was overshadowed by only one other when in 1888, Jack the Ripper scribbled his name in blood on the back of a postcard.

The Lodging houses of Victorian London held no shortage of scandal and intrigue for the more imaginative Londoners in the 19th Century. The Maids and their masters, the comings and goings of a transient household and the very concept of strangers living together under one roof in an age when such situations were not seen as natural. Still, even the most imaginative of passers by could not have expected the stories that would soon come flooding out from one particular household, when in 1879, the body of an elderly woman showed up in the coal cellar of 4 Euston Square, a previously well-to-do neighbourhood in Bloomsbury, London. Not merely unidentified, it was entirely unknown how on earth it had got there in the first place.

The tale of room 1046 of the President Hotel in Kansas City is a strange one. A murder mystery with almost no clues and no evidence at the crime scene, but a victim with three names, left beaten, possibly tortured and a trail of several peculiar phone calls.

This week, we have a tale of Devilry and witchcraft, demonic possessions and a good dose of Persecution on all fronts! Pre-dating Salem by 3 years, Ann Glover was an Irish immigrant living in Boston in 1688, hung for witchcraft, an event which laid the groundwork for what would happen up the road a few years later.

Happy Halloween! As a special bonus episode to celebrate the good Hallows Eve, I decided to dig up and re-write five old folk horror tales from around the world. The stories span the last 500 years and range show that no matter what time you lived in or which language you spoke, we all have a fascination with telling a good scary tale. Usual schedule will commence with a new episode this coming Sunday. Cheers and have a good one! Stories included: Mae Nak (Thailand) Sawney bean (England) Botan Doro (Japan) La Llorona (Mexico) The Deacon of Dark River (Iceland)

In 1941, a man named Phillip Peters was found murdered in his home in Denver, Colorado. The doors and windows to the house showed no signs of forced entry and were locked when neighbours discovered the body. Strange stories of odd sightings flew around the neighbourhood, with the attack becoming known in the papers as “The Denver ghost house slayings”. The truth however, was to be something far stranger and probably for most, far more terrifying.

In 1946, The American twin city of Texarkana was plunged into the depths of panic and fear. The population of the postwar suburb was subjected to a series of murders that shook the dual cities to their core, prompting curfews, rumours and unease to spread through the area like the rail tracks that crept from it’s central hub. Nights of midnight movies, drive-in cafes, the songs of Duke Ellington and big band orchestras were perforated with tales of a man with a white sheet over his head, holes cut out for eyes, performing brutal executions upon the vulnerable and unexpecting.

In 1946, The American twin city of Texarkana was plunged into the depths of panic and fear. The population of the postwar suburb was subjected to a series of murders that shook the dual cities to their core, prompting curfews, rumours and unease to spread through the area like the rail tracks that crept from it’s central hub. Nights of midnight movies, drive-in cafes, the songs of Duke Ellington and big band orchestras were perforated with tales of a man with a white sheet over his head, holes cut out for eyes, performing brutal executions upon the vulnerable and unexpecting.

In 2011, Russia bore witness to one the most bizarre cases in the countries criminal history. A story of Black magic, the Occult and one man's unusual hobby.

Half a century before the Fox Sisters showed up on the scene to propel mainstream spiritualism onto the populace of America, there was a much lesser known haunting taking place in the cellar of a small frontier settlement, named Sullivan in Maine. Though it was extensively documented at the time, the many eye-witness testimonies fell to the back pages of history. Despite its relatively unknown status, it remains as one of, if not the very first documented cases of a haunting in North America and is a story that culminates in an event that was utterly bizarre.

All aboard, we're going back to the Victorian era to shed some light on the first ever murder on a train in Britain at a time when people were already terrified on this crazy new technology. It's not all high speed steam trains though, we've even got a super slow-mo police chase across the Atlantic!

We're crashing back to earth this week with the lesser known story of William Herbert Wallace and his wife Julia. This is a case named over and over again as the quintessential murder mystery, despite its relatively unknown status. For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at contact@darkhistories.com or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Starting off in 1890, we take a look back at the history of secret radio transmissions, leading up until today and unravel some of the mystery, whilst uncovering some new oddities, of what are known as 'Numbers Stations'.