Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Each night, Tom slips into a world of violent, unshakable nightmares — and every morning, the names and faces from his dreams show up in tragic news stories.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/DreamsBeforeDying

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Dreams Before Dying” by Keith Conrad. Hear more of his stories at http://www.auditoryanthology.com.

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 24, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

What really happened inside the Borden house that bloody summer morning — and could Lizzie’s silence have been hiding more than just guilt?

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/LizzieBordenFinalTestimony

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mb5xas3d

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: She looms large in the annals of American crime lore. A romantic relationship gone awry and troubles at home could explain why many still believe Lizzie Borden killed her parents. (Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden) *** Many years before Adolph Hitler and Germany’s Nazis created Auschwitz, there was another concentration camp that experienced deaths in tens of thousands. But this encampment of turpitude wasn’t located in Germany – or anywhere near Europe. It was located in the land of the free… the home of the brave. The USA. (The Devil’s Punchbowl) *** Several people have returned from their near-death experiences reporting they were briefly in the fiery pits of hell. Is there any truth to their claims? (They Escaped Hell’s Clutches) *** Have you ever seen what appears to be a shadow person or dark figure (stationary or moving) with your own eyes, close up or far away, ​maybe even in your peripheral vision or dream state? Perhaps you have felt the sensation of someone  standing behind you and then you turn around but no one was there? What is it that you are seeing when this happens? (Who Are The Shadow People?)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:00:50.704 = Show Open
00:02:54.240 = Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden
00:20:37.798 = They Escaped Hell’s Clutches ***
00:27:49.967 = The Devil’s Punchbowl: America’s Concentration Camp
00:35:51.569 = Who Are The Shadow People? ***
01:03:24.576 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden” written by Darren Marlar ***Sources include Aliza Polkes:http://bit.ly/2X60g70, Zillow: http://bit.ly/2X6TmOM, Kelly McClure: http://bit.ly/2KDy3hj, Catherine Phelan: http://bit.ly/2xkNsdv, Sarah Mangiola: http://bit.ly/2xdVd55. Lizzie Borden monologue written by Brandy Purdy:https://amzn.to/2IRCCTb, female narration by voice actor Katrina Carpenter: http://bit.ly/2Jdd8hZ
“The Devil’s Punchbowl: America’s Concentration Camp” by Claire Bernish: http://bit.ly/2YeAlqd
“They Escaped Hell’s Clutches” posted at Earth Chronicles: http://bit.ly/2xoGl49
“Who Are The Shadow People?” by Natalia Kuna: http://bit.ly/2X10esl(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: June 05, 2022
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL
Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar spends this episode on the 1892 Borden murders in Fall River, Massachusetts, visions of hell brought back from near-death experiences, a disputed Union Army camp for freed slaves in Natchez, Mississippi, and the dark figures known as shadow people.
It opens in Fall River, where the Second Street house in which Andrew and Abby Borden were killed on August 4th, 1892, now takes overnight guests as the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. Andrew's daughter, Lizzie Borden, was tried and acquitted in June 1893, and the episode covers the dress she burned days after the murders, the real count of 18 or 19 blows for Abby and 10 or 11 for Andrew against the rhyme's 40 and 41, and author Brandy Purdy's novel The Secrets of Lizzie Borden, which builds a motive around a suitor named David Anthony. Columnist Kelly McClure booked a night in the John V. Morse room, where Abby was killed, and fled to a friend's house in the middle of the night, coming back only for the complimentary breakfast.
From there, it turns to people who say their near-death experiences took them to hell. Matthew Botsford, shot in the head outside an Atlanta restaurant in 1992, says that during a 27-day coma he hung bound hand and foot over a pit of something like magma; Howard Storm, an atheist art professor who later became a pastor, describes being led into a fog by figures that turned on him and bit him until he started shouting a prayer; and in his 1978 book Return from Tomorrow, George Ritchie, a young Army private declared dead during World War II, wrote about the tormented souls he saw.
Next comes the Devil's Punchbowl, a bowl-shaped gulch in the bluffs above the Mississippi River at Natchez, where Paula Westbrook and former Natchez City Cemetery director Don Estes say the Union Army confined freed slaves in a camp and as many as 20,000 died of smallpox and starvation. History professor Jim Wiggins calls that figure inflated tenfold, and local stories, none of them verified, tell of human bones washing out of the ravine after heavy rains.
The episode closes with shadow people, the dark human outlines reported in bedrooms at night and at the edge of sight, including the Hat Man in his hat and long coat or cape. Psychic Natalia Kuna shares her own encounters and runs through the theories, from demons and jinn to astral travelers, time travelers, and entities drawn to electromagnetic energy, along with Cherokee elder Thunder Strike's belief that people see them through a "dream eye", and the protection she recommends, starting with the name of Jesus.

Eight million dollars in thousand-dollar interplanetary bills is already checked through the counter in Pauker's luggage, the take from the Brinks-Interplanetary job he set up from the inside, and he's standing in the prep building with nine months of space in front of him when a blond baggage man ten paces down the hall starts asking after a passenger with a red scar under his left eye.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/InterplanetaryEscapePlan

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Eight Million Dollars From Mars” by Winston Marks (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy November 1954)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 23, 2026 

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

Years before anyone counted the women missing from 417 W. Chew Avenue, Raymond Horsch was trading drugs and cash for access to the Kensington crematorium at the center of Philadelphia's body-parts scandal, where he photographed and filmed the dead and later hung the pictures in a gallery. Police are looking into it, two women who posed for him have spoken, his son left a five-star Google review for a different crematorium ten months ago, and Eugene Horsch's federal trial has been pushed back to March.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/HorschHouse20260923

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736

*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

As the 1900 hurricane flooded Galveston, the Sisters at St. Mary's roped the orphans to their own bodies, and Walmart employees working on that ground today say they've heard a child calling for her mother – one of fifteen orphanages on three continents where people report the sound of children crying, singing, and walking where no children are.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HauntedOrphanages

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8ctdbc

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We’ll explore chilling stories of haunted orphanages, where the echoes of heartbroken and lonely children linger long after the buildings have been abandoned. (Haunted Orphanage Stories) *** “If only these walls could talk,” we’ve heard people say. But what if the walls could talk? In the world of paranormal investigations, the “Stone Tape Theory” is gaining recognition – or at least raising eyebrows and intrigue. Could the walls of your home have recorded your horrific death – and then replay that scene as a haunting? (The Stone Tape Theory) *** One thing is for sure in this life – and that is, your life will eventually cease. How you go out could make or break your legacy. Freak accidents are something you’d probably want to avoid, but they happen – and I have a few examples to share. (Weird Deaths) *** In the misty expanse of Bodmin Moor, a tragic tale of love, jealousy, and murder unfolded in 1844. When Charlotte Dymond's lifeless body was found, all eyes turned to her lover, Matthew Weeks, whose subsequent execution left many questioning his guilt. (The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond) *** The Urantia Book – a fascinating and controversial text that blends science, religion, and philosophy into a cosmic narrative of divine beings and celestial order. But no one knows who wrote it. (The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought) *** I’m trying something new by telling a true story of old murder in an old detective style… I call it “Murder Noir” and tonight’s case will be the death of Jeanette Earnest in Fort Worth in 1954. (Murder Noir, Jeanette Earnest) *** On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a tsunami onto the streets of London… comprised entirely of beer. (A Sudden Wave of Suds)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:11.492 = Show Open
00:04:10.942 = Haunted Orphanage Stories
00:17:48.879 = The Urantia Book of Cosmic Thought ***
00:24:05.611 = The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond
00:29:32.417 = The Stone Tape Theory
00:39:39.607 = Weird Deaths ***
00:48:28.523 = A Sudden Wave of Suds
00:54:06.174 = Murder Noir: “The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” (The Death of Jeanette Earnest) ***
01:00:46.424 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Haunted Orphanage Stories” source: Elle Tharp, Graveyard Shift: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yjhkvhs7
“The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought” source: Zoe Mitchel, Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yax9yes(Read the Urantia Book online: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4e5a45ca)
“The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond” source: Les Hewitt, Historic Mysteries: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4aczfd8r
“Murder Noir: The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” source: Robert A. Waters, Kidnapping, Murder and Mayhem:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/39mw7shb
“Weird Deaths” written by Kelsie Christine McConnell for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckzkny2
“A Sudden Wave of Suds” source: Ben Johnson, Historic-UK.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8br9ap
“The Stone Tape Theory” by Rachel Elizabeth for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8rfdy8(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: June 04, 2024
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL
This episode of Weird Darkness runs from haunted orphanages on three continents to a cosmic scripture with no known author, an 1844 murder on Bodmin Moor, the Stone Tape Theory of residual hauntings, a string of freak deaths, the London Beer Flood, and a 1954 Fort Worth child murder told as detective noir.
It opens at orphanages where visitors report the voices of long-dead children, from the Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institution, where misbehaving boys and girls were shut in unlit "naughty cupboards", to St. Mary's Orphanage in Galveston, Texas, where the Sisters roped the children to themselves during the Great Storm of 1900 and 90 orphans died when the roof came down. Along the way are the Guthrie Boy's Home in Oklahoma, the Old Orphanage in Savannah, Georgia, the Gore Orphanage legend of Vermilion, Ohio, and the cellar where matron Rosa Carmichael punished children at the National Soldiers' Orphan Homestead in Gettysburg.
From there the episode turns to The Urantia Book, published in 1955 and presented as the work of celestial beings, which lays out a universe governed by the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit and retells the life of Jesus, while critics point to passages that closely track earlier writers.
Charlotte Dymond, a servant at Penhale Farm in Cornwall, walked out with her sweetheart Matthew Weeks on April 14th, 1844, and was found days later on Bodmin Moor with her throat cut; a jury convicted Weeks in 35 minutes, and he was hanged at Bodmin Jail before a crowd of about 20,000, though some still believe the wrong man went to the gallows.
Next comes the Stone Tape Theory, the idea that stone such as quartz and limestone can record a violent moment and replay it as a residual haunting, followed from Nigel Kneale's 1972 BBC Christmas ghost story The Stone Tape back to Charles Babbage's 1837 Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and parapsychologist William G. Roll's concept of place memory.
A run of freak deaths follows, including a Brazilian hospital patient killed in 2012 when soup went into her vein instead of her feeding tube, Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy's 24-story fall in 1993 while proving an office window wouldn't break, Isadora Duncan's scarf catching in a car wheel in Nice in 1927, the Strasbourg dancing plague of 1518, and the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.
That sets up the London Beer Flood of October 17th, 1814, when a 22-foot vat of porter burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road and sent more than 320,000 gallons of beer into the St Giles Rookery, killing eight people, four of them mourners at a wake for a two-year-old boy.
The episode closes with a true case told in the voice of a hardboiled detective: the November 17th, 1954 abduction of 11-year-old Jeanette Earnest from a Fort Worth washateria by her uncle by marriage, Thurman Priest, who drove her through motels in Texas, Kansas, and Missouri before his arrest, led police to her body in an oak grove off Highway 66, and was sentenced to life in prison.