Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

The press called Aileen Wuornos America's first female serial killer, and in 1998 an FBI profiler went further, saying there were no female serial killers at all. Jack the Ripper's own countrywoman, Mary Ann Cotton, had already claimed three or four times as many victims as he did, most of them children, and historians still chase the Ripper's identity while almost never mentioning her.

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mw3nzvbk

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Female serial killers… they are a lot more common than you think. 
(We’re Surrounded by Female Serial Killers) *** The founder of the website Chicago Hauntings, Ursula Bielski, shares how the paranormal first invaded her life. (My Paranormal Life) *** The death of Thomas Becket shook the middle-ages. It’s believed his assassination in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29th, 1170 changed the course of history. (The Assassination of Thomas Becket) *** We’ll take a humorous look at the insane life of Boston Corbett – the man who was a hero because he killed John Wilkes Booth, but was also an idiot, cutting off his own manhood. (Abraham Lincoln’s Insane Avenger)

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:53.536 = Show Open
00:03:24.735 = We’re Surrounded By Female Serial Killers
00:14:29.474 = The Assassination of Thomas Becket ***
00:24:23.094 = My Paranormal Life
00:53:20.747 = Abraham Lincoln’s Insane Avenger
01:01:47.516 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break

SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“We’re Surrounded by Female Serial Killers” from the book, “Lady Killers” by Tori Telfer: https://tinyurl.com/vpvqwvu
“The Assassination of Thomas Becket” from British Museum: https://tinyurl.com/rhap89e
“My Paranormal Life” by Ursula Bielski: https://tinyurl.com/uqx8gl9
“Abraham Lincoln’s Insane Avenger” by Mark Hill for Cracked: https://tinyurl.com/ql8ubex

(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.

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

EPISODE SYNOPSIS:
This episode of Weird Darkness runs from the female serial killers an FBI profiler once said didn’t exist to a medieval murder in Canterbury Cathedral, a haunted Chicago childhood, and the man who shot John Wilkes Booth.
It opens with Tori Telfer’s introduction to her book Lady Killers, which starts with Aileen Wuornos, whom the press called America’s first female serial killer, and with the 1998 line from the FBI’s Roy Hazelwood that there are no female serial killers at all, while Jack the Ripper’s own countrywoman, Mary Ann Cotton, claimed three or four times as many victims as he did, most of them children. Telfer looks at nicknames like Giggling Grandma, Arsenic Annie, and Grannyball Lecter, the legend of Erzsébet Báthory bathing in virgin blood, and Leo Tolstoy’s comment on the 18th-century Russian killer Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova.
From there, the episode turns to December 29th, 1170, when four knights tied to King Henry II cut down Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral after years of feuding between the Crown and the Church. Edward Grim, a witness wounded in the attack, described the blow that sliced off the crown of Becket’s head, and within three years Becket was a saint, with monks selling pilgrims his blood mixed with water in small lead vessels.
Next, Ursula Bielski, founder of Chicago Hauntings and author of Chicago Haunts, tells of the phantom footsteps that climbed the stairs of her family’s house on Bell Avenue every night for thirteen years, and of her father announcing that his dead twin brother had come to the door for him less than a week before he died. After the funeral, she and her mother heard keys turn in the front door locks with no one there, and six squad cars searched the house and found nothing.
The episode closes with a humorous look at Boston Corbett, the hatter and street preacher who cut off his own testicles with a pair of scissors in 1858, then ignored orders to take John Wilkes Booth alive and shot him through a slat in a burning barn in 1865. Hailed as Lincoln’s avenger, he later waved a revolver inside the Kansas State Legislature, was declared insane, escaped the asylum on a stolen horse in 1888, and may have died in an 1894 forest fire in Minnesota.

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

The people who visit Evan Bolivar never seem to leave, and when one of their cars finally pulls out of his driveway at dawn, Bolivar is behind the wheel alone, so Alan Pearson's mother sends him next door to find out why, and the meeting he's invited to that night ends at a trapdoor in Bolivar's parlor floor.

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Believers” (April 04, 1979) ***WD
00:46:52.600 = Stay Tuned For Terror, “The Bogey Man Will Get You” (October 01, 1945) ***WD
01:02:24.081 = The Strange Dr. Weird, “Picture Of A Killer” (May 08, 1945) ***WD
01:15:22.520 = Strange, “The Ghost Train” (September 18, 1955)
01:29:52.265 = Suspense, “A Friend To Alexander” (June 15, 1944)
01:56:03.601 = The Saint, “Sinister Sneeze” (June 11, 1950) ***WD
02:25:01.428 = Two Thousand Plus, “Alone” (November 15, 1950)
02:56:31.208 = The Unexpected, “The Cripple” (1948)
03:12:18.510 = Unsolved Mysteries, “Rue Morgue Mystery” (June 17, 1942) ***WD
03:29:08.939 = The Weird Circle, “Horla” (1943)
03:56:56.772 = The Whistler, “Highway Of Escape” (July 09, 1945)
04:27:25.342 = Strange Wills, “Death Is My Destiny” (November 23, 1946)
04:57:14.513 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Police in England ask a man where his friend has been, and as they walk him out of his flat, he tells them she's in the freezer. In a village in western India, a mother comes home to find her ten-year-old son dead at the family's shrine to a goddess, and her husband asleep on a cot nearby. A detective in South Carolina is accused of pulling his gun on a fellow officer over fish warmed up in the office microwave. In northern France, police climb through a window to check on mistreated animals in a house the neighbors have complained about since 2017. And in Tokyo, a man walks out of a watch shop wearing a $290,000 Royal Oak, and three days later a package arrives at the shop.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION:
https://weirddarkness.com/body-in-a-freezer-st-helens-weird-darknews

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

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

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

For years, a man in eastern Baltimore County would walk to the edge of the deep woods behind his neighborhood, and stare into the trees until he could feel something in there staring back, and he'd stay put until it seemed angry enough to hurt him before he finally turned and walked home. By the night he threw a party in those same woods, out on a little point of land reaching into the creek and well away from the deep part, he'd long since stopped thinking about whatever had been watching him.

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “The Daemon Wood” written by Rob Funkhouser for WeirdDarkness.com

WeirdDarkness® | Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness | Midnight In The Macabre™

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.

Three young listeners wrote this week's stories. Ben starts hearing scratching at his bedroom door, just like the boy in the scary movie he can't stop thinking about; Annie laughs at a zoo sign that reads MONSTER EXHIBIT; and deep in a foggy forest, a kid hides under a hollow tree root while something called the Chasing Figure stomps around outside.

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Weird Darkness©, 2026
Micro Terrors: Scary Stories for Kids™, 2026#MicroTerrors #WeirdDarkness

More episodes, additional podcasts, books, original music, in-depth paranormal and true-crime articles, and much more at https://weirddarkness.com.