(NEW!) “THE BIZARRE DISAPPEARANCE OF A TRUCK DRIVER” and More True Horrors! #WeirdDarkness

Listen to “(NEW!) “THE BIZARRE DISAPPEARANCE OF A TRUCK DRIVER” and More True Horrors! #WeirdDarkness” on Spreaker.

IN THIS EPISODE: In May 1995, Devin Williams, a devoted father and trucker, vanished under mysterious circumstances in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. His journey turned into a mystery, marked by sightings of a semi-truck driving erratically and Devin’s last known moments of confusion. Despite an abandoned truck with undisturbed cargo and the eerie discovery of his skull two years later, the question remains: What happened to Devin Williams in those remote woods? (The Bizarre Disappearance of Truck Driver Devin Williams) *** What do astronomers say about those who deny the moon landing really took place? The conspiracy theory gets an assist from, believe it or not, the New York Mets! (The Faked Moon Landing And The New York Mets) *** New England has a lot of great places to visit, and travel times to these locations are minimal. One of the most infamous would be Rhode Island – home to story of vampire Mercy Brown. (Vampires of Rhode Island) *** Until the Humpty Doo poltergeist outbreak of 1998, Australia’s most notorious poltergeist was a very persistent, wall-bashing, stone-throwing entity known as the “Guyra Ghost” which terrorized William Bowen, his wife and three children in their tiny weatherboard cottage just outside Guyra, New South Wales in early 1921. (The Guyra Ghost) *** In 1814, London experienced one of the most bizarre disasters in British history. An unfortunate chain of events at the Horseshoe Brewery led to the death of 8 women and children as they were caught up in London’s Great Beer Flood. But, what really happened? And, did Londoners really get drunk, as beer flowed past their homes in the streets, free for the taking? (The Great London Beer Flood) *** Ghost marriages in China have led to a very unsavory and deeply disturbing trade. They are called ghost marriages, because the groom is given a dead woman to marry… often forced to do so. And the stories are, understandably, horrifying. (Forced to Marry a Corpse) *** In September 1982, people wanting to get away from aches and pains from the flu or just a headache shopped store shelves for relief… and ended up dead. Their Tylenol had been laced with poison. (The Tylenol Murders)

SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM THE EPISODE…
BOOK: “Mercy: The Last New England Vampire” by Sarah L. Thomson: https://amzn.to/3OCqiaR
“The Great London Beer Flood” by Lenora for Haunted Palace Blog: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4mksvfhe
“The Faked Moon Landing And The New York Mets” by Michael Richmond for The Conversation: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/56av32z3
“The Bizarre Disappearance of Truck Driver Devin Williams” by Zach Brown for Oola.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/24kah92v
“Vampires of Rhode Island” by David Albaugh for BasementOfTheBizarre.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2s4mykvd
“The Guyra Ghost” posted by Paul Cropper at TheFortean.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2whkdd7n
“Forced To Marry a Corpse” by Ossiana Tepfenhart for Medium: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3wcc49bz
“The Tylenol Murders” by Dr. Howard Markel for PBS: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckth74h
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library.

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Check out all of my podcasts – “Auditory Anthology”, “Retro Radio: Old Time Radio In The Dark”, “Church of the Undead”, “Micro Terrors”, “Weird Darkness”, and more by clicking on “EPISODES” at https://WeirdDarkness.com!

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(Over time links seen above 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.)

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“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” — John 12:46

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Originally aired: February 28, 2024

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:

DISCLAIMER: Ads heard during the podcast that are not in my voice are placed by third party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. *** Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.

SHOW OPEN=====

Welcome, Weirdos – (I’m Darren Marlar and) this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

Coming up in this episode…

What do astronomers say about those who deny the moon landing really took place? The conspiracy theory gets an assist from, believe it or not, the New York Mets! (The Faked Moon Landing And The New York Mets)

New England has a lot of great places to visit, and travel times to these locations are minimal. One of the most infamous would be Rhode Island – home to the story of vampire Mercy Brown. (Vampires of Rhode Island)

Until the Humpty Doo poltergeist outbreak of 1998, Australia’s most notorious poltergeist was a very persistent, wall-bashing, stone-throwing entity known as the “Guyra Ghost” which terrorized William Bowen, his wife and three children in their tiny weatherboard cottage just outside Guyra, New South Wales in early 1921. (The Guyra Ghost)

In 1814, London experienced one of the most bizarre disasters in British history. An unfortunate chain of events at the Horseshoe Brewery led to the death of 8 women and children as they were caught up in London’s Great Beer Flood. But, what really happened? And, did Londoners really get drunk, as beer flowed past their homes in the streets, free for the taking? (The Great London Beer Flood)

Ghost marriages in China have led to a very unsavory and deeply disturbing trade. They are called ghost marriages, because the groom is given a dead woman to marry… often forced to do so. And the stories are, understandably, horrifying. (Forced to Marry a Corpse)

In September 1982, people wanting to get away from aches and pains from the flu or just a headache shopped store shelves for relief… and ended up dead. Their Tylenol had been laced with poison. (The Tylenol Murders)

In May 1995, Devin Williams, a devoted father and trucker, vanished under mysterious circumstances in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. His journey turned into a mystery, marked by sightings of a semi-truck driving erratically and Devin’s last known moments of confusion. Despite an abandoned truck with undisturbed cargo and the eerie discovery of his skull two years later, the question remains: What happened to Devin Williams in those remote woods? (The Bizarre Disappearance of Truck Driver Devin Williams)

If you’re new here, welcome to the show! While you’re listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter, enter contests, connect with me on social media, listen to my other podcasts like “Retro Radio: Old Time Radio In The Dark”, “Church of the Undead” and a classic 1950’s sci-fi style podcast called “Auditory Anthology,” plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you’re struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

Now.. bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness!

STORY: THE BIZARRE DISAPPEARANCE OF TRUCK DRIVER DEVIN WILLIAMS=====

“In May of 1995, twenty-nine-year-old Devin Eugene Williams held a job as a long-distance truck driver, often hauling produce from the Midwest to the west coast. He was a married father of three children, raising his family in Americus, Kansas. The couple had just purchased a new home and were in the process of making plans for the house, as well as their future. Devin’s wife would later go on to say that this was the happiest point in their marriage, the spring right before he disappeared. Devin was described as a pleasant and patient man with a co-worker saying the only times she ever saw him get irritated was when he had to wait for his truck to be loaded, as he was eager to get back home to his family.

On Sunday, May 28th, in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, the silence that nature provided was suddenly interrupted by the sounds of a forty-eight-foot, ten-ton, eighteen-wheeler semi-truck barreling through the remote forest road. Nearby campers, Lynn and Jack Yarrington stated that the road wasn’t large enough for an 18-wheeler and that they only would see four-wheel trucks use the road- and even then, only sparingly. Jack and Lynn claimed that the 18-wheeler continued to drive back and forth on that road at a high rate of speed, for much of the day. Other campers had a close call with this same semi-truck- the 18-wheeler drove right at them, head-on, nearly running them over. The campers were able to reverse in time, and get out of the way, but stated that the driver of the truck stared straight ahead, with no expression on his face- almost as if he was looking right through them, or didn’t recognize anyone was in front of him, at all.

Later on in the day, a group of people having a picnic stumbled on the semi-truck, now stuck in a field. They left their vehicle to speak to the man standing next to the mired truck. One of the men in the group named Charles Hall asked the man how he got his truck stuck in the mud.

The man replied, ‘They made me do it.’

This prompted Charles to ask him, ‘What?’

And the man muttered under his breath, ‘No, you can’t help me out. I’ll never get it out of here. I’m going to jail.’

When Charles heard the man mention jail, he thought something sinister might be going on- such as a carjacking, hostage situation, or kidnapping. Charles stated that he had wondered if there was another person in the cab of the truck, possibly holding a weapon on the man. Despite the strange situation, the man made no attempt to ask them for help, nor keep them there with him.

Later in the afternoon, a report came to the local deputy, Deputy Wells, about a truck stuck in the heart of the forest. The deputy was confused, like the campers, about how such a large truck would end up within the forest at all. When he went to investigate, he discovered the semi stuck in deep mud within a meadow. This meadow was located near Forest Service Road 137 in the Buck Springs area, nearly 20 miles from highway 87. Once Wells looked inside the truck, he discovered the cargo within undisturbed and intact- 1,200 boxes of lettuce and strawberries, with the refrigeration still running. No one was near the abandoned vehicle, and the cab was locked.

The deputy checked his national crime computer and learned that there were no reports submitted for either a missing truck or a missing truck driver. He stated that when he peered through the window of the cab, that the inside was very clean, and there were no indications that foul play had taken place.

At 4 pm that same day, Lynn and Jack Harrington were driving through the forest along Forest Service Road 321, when they came upon a man off the side of the road, near the trees. The man was partially kneeling on the ground, staring at a tree. The man was mumbling to himself, but they weren’t able to make out exactly what he was saying.

Jack asked the man if he needed any help or assistance, and the man simply said, ‘I’ve got to light the grill.’

The man was holding a $20 bill in his hand, and hitting it repeatedly with a rock as if to start a fire. The couple looked around, but didn’t find any evidence of food that he may want to grill- he had nothing else with him, at all. The man then threw a rock at the couple’s car, and they decided it was time to leave, getting in the car and driving away. This was the last confirmed sighting of Devin Williams.

When no one had heard from Devin that day, and he was off-schedule for his delivery, he was reported missing. Although those who knew him were certain that Devin wasn’t the type to abandon his truck, investigators had linked the missing man to the situation in the Tonto National Forest. Eyewitnesses were certain that the man acting strangely in the woods that day was the same man in the photos they were shown: Devin Williams.

Investigators began to track Devin’s movements leading up to his disappearance. They learned that Devin had left his home on May 23, heading west. This was a route he took many times. He successfully delivered his haul to California and reloaded his truck for his trip back to the Midwest. Devin spoke to his boss, Tom Wilson, that evening, with Tom stating later that everything seemed normal: that Devin was on time, and everything was going seemingly well.

On Saturday evening, May 27, Devin made his way into Kingman, Arizona. He would phone his work headquarters for the last time, telling them that he was unable to get any sleep, but that he was determined to get back on the road. After this, Devin was meant to arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday morning, but he never made it out of Arizona.

Detective Bruce Cornish went on to say that narcotics, mental health, nor criminal history were factors in Devin’s disappearance. How he came to this determination is unknown, as mental health issues can appear out of the blue, or, can be hidden from friends and family. He went on to note that it was possible that Devin ran away on his own accord- pointing to the fact that his briefcase, ice chest, and sleeping bag were left in the truck, but that his duffel bag and favorite audiotapes were missing. For this to have happened, though, the entire episode in the forest on that Sunday would have needed to be an act. In the absence of any real evidence, investigators only had theories to work with.

A search was conducted for Devin, using foot patrol, search dogs, volunteers, and off-road vehicles- but all searches came up empty. No scraps of clothing, bone fragments, nor any trace of which direction Devin may have gone were discovered. The Deputy involved in the case said that he had conducted many missing person searches, and not one had been conducted where they had not found the person except Devin’s.

On May 2, 1997, hikers were walking along the bottom of the Mogollon Rim near the intersection of Forest Road 321, and Rim Road 300 in Gila County- about a quarter of a mile from where Devin had last been seen. This is an area that had already been previously searched for Devin. There, they stumbled upon a human skull. Dental records would later go on to confirm what many thought: the skull belonged to Devin Williams. There was no evidence of foul play on the skull, and no other remains were discovered. They were unable to determine Devin’s cause of death based on the skull alone, and it is still unknown what exactly had happened to him. Many would go on to speculate a few theories, which lead to his erratic behavior: a diabetic episode, sleep deprivation, mental illness, narcotic use, or carbon monoxide poisoning. None of these theories have been confirmed, and the mystery of what happened to Devin that day in 1995 still remains.

Devin’s wife, Mary Lou, still holds out hope in finding out what happened to her husband but says that hope diminishes with each passing day. During the time of Devin’s disappearance, but before the discovery of the skull, Mary Lou stated that her children had a very rough time. Some days, they would be fine, and other days, they would ask her if their dad was ever coming back. She had no clue how to answer them, simply saying that she didn’t know, but if he doesn’t, he is ‘up there with God.’ With the discovery of his skull, they were able to find closure in his death, but not the circumstances that led up to it.”

BREAK=====

When Weird Darkness returns… New England has a lot of great places to visit. One of the most infamous would be Rhode Island – home to story of vampire Mercy Brown. (Vampires of Rhode Island)

And… ghost marriages in China have led to a very unsavory and deeply disturbing trade involving dead brides forced to marry live grooms – often without consent of the girls’ families. (Forced to Marry a Corpse)

But first… what do astronomers say about those who deny the moon landing really took place? The conspiracy theory gets an assist from, believe it or not, the New York Mets! (The Faked Moon Landing And The New York Mets) That story is up next!

STORY: THE FAKED MOON LANDING AND THE NEW YORK METS=====

Back in 1969 – more than a half-century ago – Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon.

At least that’s what most people think.

But a few still insist that humans did not land on the Moon.

Should you believe them? How can you know that astronauts really did go to the Moon?

Let’s address this question by putting it side by side with another stunning event of the same year: the New York Mets’ shocking win in baseball’s World Series. They beat the Baltimore Orioles, four games to one.

But how do you know that? How can you be sure? After all, up until 1969, the Mets were a terrible team. They won the fewest games in the major leagues in 1967, and the third-fewest in 1968. It seems very unlikely they could have won the championship the very next year.

What if someone said that it didn’t happen? That the Mets instead lost the series to the Orioles? That the claim the Mets won is just a hoax, a canard, a fake story?

Is it possible to prove they’re wrong?

First: Millions of Americans watched the World Series on television – approximately 11 million to 17 million viewers per game, according to Nielsen ratings. Many of those people are still alive today and remember seeing the Mets win.

Why would all of them lie? That doesn’t make sense.

Now consider this: More than 600 million people around the world watched the Moon landing on TV.

But a skeptic might say “so what” – maybe the entire World Series was somehow faked, re-created in a TV studio.

Yet ticket records document more than 250,000 people saw the games in person. Along with them were hundreds of TV, radio and newspaper reporters and support personnel who also witnessed the action directly. Many of them are still alive today, and every one of them agrees that the Mets won.

Why would all of them lie? That doesn’t make sense.

Now consider this: More than 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program – scientists, engineers, researchers and support staff along with the astronauts.

So a skeptic might claim the New York media, or some other corporate entity, set up fake broadcasts and fake fans for some nefarious purpose. And the reason no one talks – well, maybe everyone was paid off.

Although the New York newspapers and TV stations may have wanted the Mets to win, the Baltimore reporters and broadcasters, and especially the players and fans, did not.

Yet all of them – even the players – admitted their team had lost. If the Series was a sham, why didn’t a single one of them who opposed the Mets expose the fraud?

Why would all of them lie? That doesn’t make sense.

Now consider this: The Soviet Union was the United States’ rival in the Space Race – it wanted to be the first on the Moon. But the Soviet government told its citizenson radio and television and in newspaper articles in July 1969 that U.S. astronauts had landed on the Moon. Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny even sent a telegram to U.S. President Richard Nixon offering his congratulations.

At this point, a skeptic might change tactics and say all of this evidence is just hearsay, and you can’t trust people.

But consider the hard physical objects preserved from the Series. At the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, you can find score cards and programsfrom the games, as well as the glove worn by center fielder Tommie Agee. All the objects can be dated to the year 1969.

Certainly, this is slightly weaker evidence; after all, it’s possible to produce fake printed items. And even if scientists found traces of Tommie Agee’s DNA in the glove, it would prove only that he wore it at some point that year, not necessarily that the Mets had won the Series.

But the physical evidence for the Moon landings cannot be faked so easily. First, the Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts are unlike rocks on Earth. And they are similar to lunar samples returned by Soviet and Chinese spacecraft. Scientists from many countries have examined these rocks and continue to studythem today.

Second, the Apollo 11 astronauts placed mirrors on the Moon that have been detected for decades by telescopes in the U.S., France, Germany, South Africa and Australia. Anyone with a few million dollars can build a telescope big enough to see them.

There’s even more evidence we haven’t mentioned: the dozens of unmanned probes sent to the Moon by both the U.S. and the USSR before Apollo 11, which built up the technology needed for the landings; the large budget devoted to the project – NASA spent about US$49 billion on lunar missions between 1960 and 1973; and the universal agreement by scientific and academic institutions around the world for the past half-century that astronauts really did land on the Moon.

So why do some people continue to insist that humans never reached the Moon? Maybe they like to imagine they have “secret knowledge.” It makes them feel they’re just a bit smarter than everyone else. After all, a few still incorrectly claim the Earth is flat.

Now – what do you think? Did the Baltimore Orioles actually win the World Series in 1969? Has a worldwide conspiracy prevented millions of witnesses from coming forward to expose the hoax? Have citizens of the United States suffered from an episode of mass delusion?

Or did the Miracle Mets actually win the World Series in 1969?

The evidence – and your logic and common sense – will answer the question for you.

STORY: VAMPIRES OF RHODE ISLAND=====

New England has a lot of great places to visit, and travel times to these locations are minimal. One of the most infamous would be Rhode Island – home to story of vampire Mercy Brown.

Our story begins in 1883 in the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island. Mary Brown, married to George and the mother of six, became ill late in the year, dying of consumption on December 8. In the spring of the following year, the eldest daughter Mary Olive died of the same disease on June 6. Before succumbing, she complained of dreams of a crushing weight on her body.

Five years later, the only son of the Brown family, Edwin, started to show signs of the disease as well. At this time, he was married and living in nearby Wickford and complained of dreams of suffocation. When he awoke each morning, he complained of feeling like something had drained the blood from his body. At the recommendations of his friends, Edwin and his wife moved to Colorado Springs, hoping that a spa there would help in his recovery. While away, Edwin learned that another sister, Mercy Lena, had also died from the disease in January of 1892. He then returned to Rhode Island, healthier than when he had left. This quickly changed.

Superstition abounded with friends and family, suggesting that one of Edwin’s family members was feeding off his flesh and blood, causing him to deteriorate. They recommended that the bodies of Mary, Mary Olive, and Mercy be exhumed from their final resting place at Chestnut Hill Cemetery to see which family member was responsible for Edwin’s condition.

The bodies of the mother and Mary Olive were decomposed as expected. When somebody checked Mercy’s body, which was stored in an above-ground crypt (the ground was too frozen to bury her at this time), her body looked as fresh as it had when she had died, and her body was in a different position. Though there were good reasons that her body was like this, the neighbors suspected Mercy was a vampire. It is thought that since she died in January and was exhumed in March, the cold slowed down her body’s natural tendency to decompose. Perhaps her body shifted within the coffin while it was being opened.

Upon removal of the heart and liver, “fresh” blood was found dripping from both organs, cementing the vampire theory even more with the locals. These were burned on a nearby rock, and a drink was made from the ashes. The belief was that if Edwin drank this, it would cure him, and since Mercy’s heart had been removed and burned, she was no longer a vampire. Despite these efforts, Edwin died two months later.

Now remember that even though many residents in this area may have believed in the vampire legend, there was no proof. Even the doctor that exhumed Mercy stated to them that the condition of her body, including the blood, was perfectly normal. Consumption, also known as tuberculosis, was a crippling disease that would sometimes wipe out entire families.

This incident was covered extensively in The Providence Journal, the state’s main newspaper (in fact, on occasion, the paper will cover the subject again even now, usually during the Halloween season). It is believed that Bram Stoker, the author of “Dracula,” actually got ahold of these articles and based the character of Lucy Westenra from the novel on Mercy Brown. The incident is mentioned in two other short stories, “So Runs The World Away” by Caitlín R. Kiernan and “The Shunned House” by H.P. Lovecraft. More recently, Sarah L. Thomson wrote about Mercy in in her book “Mercy: The Last New England Vampire,” a novel for young adults by Sarah L. Thomson. I’ll place a link to the book in the episode notes.

I often wonder what it was like to live during this period, where your entire family relied on you as a father to provide for the family, working the land and having so many family members die of tuberculosis with no known cure. Modern time can be stressful too, with long work days, not enough screen time, and keeping up with the lives of celebrities, but at least we don’t have vampires to contend with as well. Do we?

STORY: FORCED TO MARRY A CORPSE=====

Have you ever had a YouTube video that made you leap into a dark internet rabbit hole? Recently, I had several, and one of them was the tragic story of Chinese influencer Little Kitty, also known as Luo Little Cat .

Prepare for a heartbreaking story, Weirdos.

Little Kitty was a famous TikTokker/Douyin who was known for being a fashion influencer, a beauty icon, and the girl who always offered a spot of wisdom. Unfortunately for her, she fell for not one, but two very bad men.

The first man used her for fame and quickly started to turn her fans against her. Soon, people would go on her livestreams just to taunt her. It only got worse after they split and she got with another guy who used her for money.

After one too many taunts and a horrible split involving infidelity on her ex’s end, she made a live video where she admitted that she was dealing with severe depression. She then drank an entire bottle of pesticide, got rushed to the hospital, and died the next day.

Many people believe that she wouldn’t have killed herself if trolls hadn’t encouraged her to do so. One of the trolls, known only as “Z”, was rumored to be her ex.

This would be tragic enough, but it somehow got worse. Her grieving parents later found out that her ashes were sold for material in a “ghost wedding” for around $10,000.

They were able to recover the ashes before the ceremony, but it still raised serious concerns about a growing issue in China.

Ghost weddings are an ancient Chinese tradition of marrying a dead woman to a living (or sometimes deceased) person.

Ghost weddings, or minghun, have been happening for the better part of 3,000 years in China. It’s a part of Chinese tradition that intertwines both spirituality and the basics of everyday living.

The idea behind it was often twofold: it could offer a sense of peace for the bereaved and may also make it easier for a poor family to get taken care of by a wealthier family who lost a son.

Families would agree to this for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, it’s because one partner of a relationship tragically died before they could marry the other. Other times, a family member would dream that a deceased relative wanted to marry another deceased person.

These weddings are often done when someone dies without a spouse, as a way of appeasing the dead. They were in decline for years, but have recently found a resurgence…and with them, a rise in “ghost matchmakers” has started to appear.

Ghost matchmakers are often people who traffic people — typically, the bodies of dead and dying women.

In the past, per Wikipedia, a ghost matchmaker would be a priest and everything would be fairly consensual between families. Today, matchmakers have basically become body snatchers who sell corpses for a fee and do a fast ceremony.

But, who would want this? You’d be surprised. It has been illegal to sell a corpse in China since 2006. That brings things to a rather awful “predicament” for people who believe in this tradition.

Traditionally, ghost weddings can only happen if the bride’s family is paid a hefty dowry and given paper tributes. As a result, the practice has moved underground.

News reports revealed that the practice is still alive and well — especially in Shangxi, Henan, and Shandong provinces. In many cases, the body snatchers will arrange it with the dying girl’s family before she’s dead.

Other times, women (both old and young, married and single) will get dug up from graves or have their ashes stolen. It’s alarming, to say the least. Some of these forced marriages don’t even require the woman to be alive anymore. However, there is something we can all do:

Spread the word about how to avoid trafficking. An international sign of human trafficking in airports is to hide a piece of metal in your underwear as you go through metal detectors. When guards pull you aside, tell them what is going on.
If you see something, say something. Little Kitty’s ashes wouldn’t have been found if the funeral home didn’t speak up. Calling the police, CPS, or FBI when you see suspicious activity can also work.
Donate to anti-trafficking coalitions. Yes, there are some out there! These include GirlsNotBrides.org and UnchainedAtLast.org.

BREAK=====

Coming up… until the Humpty Doo poltergeist outbreak of 1998, Australia’s most notorious poltergeist was a very persistent, wall-bashing, stone-throwing entity known as the “Guyra Ghost” which terrorized William Bowen, his wife and three children in their tiny weatherboard cottage just outside Guyra, New South Wales in early 1921. (The Guyra Ghost)

Plus… in 1814, London experienced one of the most bizarre disasters in British history. An unfortunate chain of events at the Horseshoe Brewery led to the death of 8 women and children as they were caught up in London’s Great Beer Flood. But, what really happened? And, did Londoners really get drunk, as beer flowed past their homes in the streets, free for the drinking? (The Great London Beer Flood) These stories and more, when Weird Darkness returns!

STORY: THE GUYRA GHOST=====

The haunting began on about April 8^th, 1921 with “tremendous thumping’s” on the walls followed by showers of stones which eventually broke every window in the house. Nobody could see who or what was creating the mayhem but it was soon noticed the attacks seemed to be focused on 12 year old Minnie: stones smashed through her bedroom window and fell on her bed.

Whether they believed a ghost was responsible or whether they thought a fiendishly clever prowler was at work, local residents of Guyra, New South Wales– many of whom had observed the phenomena at the Bowen’s – became quite jittery. Some took to sleeping with loaded guns at hand. As a result a young girl was wounded in the head and several other people narrowly escaped being shot.

In this stressful atmosphere the local police sergeant, who sat up night after night at the cottage amid the interminable thumps and stone showers, broke under the strain and was sent away for a rest.

Alarmed at the dangerous situation which was developing, the State government sent a team of detectives from Sydney which maintained a constant surveillance of the stressed but cooperative Bowen family, interrogated a large number of Guyra residents and organized teams of up to 80 armed volunteers.

Despite a double cordon being maintained around the house the mighty thumping continued, “sufficient to shake the cottage to its foundations and audible to watchers a hundred yards from the house.” To those outside, the thumping appeared to come from within; to those inside, it seemed to come from outside.

At its peak the “Guyra Ghost” created international interest. One of the people drawn to the remote township by the mystery was a certain Mr Moors, a personal friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and who, like Conan Doyle, had a great interest in psychic phenomena. Given full access to the house, he removed portions of the roof to create lookout posts and set an elaborate system of traps.

Completely unimpressed, the “ghost” continued its maddening mayhem. Moors and his five assistants were completely flummoxed: they couldn’t even say for sure whether the walnut-sized stones were thrown from inside or outside the house. But where a foreign expert failed, a local ghost buster may have partially succeeded.

When Ben Davey of Uralla, a student of spiritualism and theosophy, visited the Bowen household he learned that a daughter of Mrs Bowen by a former marriage had died about three months earlier. As he told The Sunday Times later, he immediately suspected the spirit of the dead girl was trying to communicate with young Minnie:

I said to the girl, ‘If the knock comes again, ask if that’s your sister May.’

She replied, ‘I can’t speak to my sister – she’s dead.’ I coaxed her, saying, ‘Speak, dear. Even if your sister can’t speak she might knock again.’

I hardly spoke the words before the knock came again. I can tell you my hair stood up on end. But I continued to coax the girl, and about five minutes later a third knock came. Then the little girl crossed and blessed herself, put her hands up in supplication, and said, ‘If that’s you. May, speak to me.’ She was silent a moment and then began to cry.

I asked her, “Did May speak?’

She said, ‘Yes, May spoke.’

I said. ‘What did she say?’

She said, ‘I can’t tell you. The message is for mother.’

She then went over and laid her head on her mother’s lap, crying. Her mother said, “Well, tell the gentlemen what she said’

The little girl looked up and said the message she received was this: ‘Tell mother I am perfectly happy where I am, and that your prayers when I was sick brought me where I am, and made me happy. Tell mother not to worry, I’ll watch and guard over you all.’

What with the near-destruction of the house and the whole town in an uproar, it would seem that her sister had a very strange way of “watching and guarding” over her family. However, Ben Davey’s belief that she was behind the haunting seemed to be confirmed by the fact that after Minnie’s chat with her all poltergeist activity ceased …… at least for a while.

When, to the despair of all, the thumpings and stonefalls recommenced, Minnie’s parents, in desperation, sent her 60 kilometers away to her grandmother’s house in Glen Innes. Proof that she really had been the focus of the poltergeist’s attention was soon provided: it followed her there.

As the second house was situated in town it was possible to imagine the flying stones were the work of local larrikins, but the wall-shaking thumps were as difficult to explain as ever. Some thumps were heavy enough to dislodge ornaments on a sideboard. When a 200 pound man threw his full weight against the wall next to the sideboard the ornaments did not even shake.

After a time Minnie’s parents took her back to the Guyra cottage. Thereafter, it seems, the strange phenomena simply faded away.

Nowadays it is hard to find any resident of Guyra who knows much about the story which pushed the little town into the spotlight so many years ago. The townspeople’s attitude to the “ghost” seems tinged with embarrassment and they seem content with explanations of the episode which don’t make a lot of sense. Interestingly, one of their “explanations” – that the stones were all fired from a giant slingshot set up on a distant hill – has been suggested several times before in several different countries to account for poltergeist attacks.

Twelve year old Minnie appears to have been a typical “poltergeist medium”: the kind of troubled adolescent who very often seems to be the focus – and possibly the unconscious instigator – of poltergeist attacks. A Sunday Times journalist considered her a rather odd little girl: “Minnie is tall, thin and dark, with peculiar dark, introspective eyes that never seem to miss any movement in a room. When she speaks to you she never smiles, and seems to look beyond or through you … she has a rather uncanny aptitude for anticipating questions, almost before they are asked …”

The two houses involved in the mystery still stand, although the Bowen residence has been enlarged and renovated. The current occupants, though a little nervous when they moved in, have never heard a peep out of the “ghost.”

Minnie Bowen grew up, married, and, as Mrs Frank Ince, lived for many years, apparently normally, in Armidale. If she knew more about the “Guyra Ghost” than she let on as a child, there is no record of her telling anyone about it in later life.

In about 1988 or ’89 an elderly, slow-moving lady, once a strange, dark-eyed, haunted girl, was run over and killed on the Grafton Road, just outside Armidale.

STORY: THE GREAT LONDON BEER FLOOD=====

In 1814 England had a lot to deal with. The king, George III, was incurably mad; England was at war, not just with the French, in the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, but with erstwhile colony, North America, in what was to become known as the War of 1812.

It was also a cold year, a disappointing summer was followed by bitter winter, cold enough for a Frost Fair on the River Thames, the very last one, as it turns out.

1814 was also the year of one of the most bizarre disasters in English history, one that is now all but forgotten.

This is the story of the London Beer Flood of 1814.

In the seventeenth century, the wealthy Bainbridge family owned land in the Parish of St Giles, West London. Over time, they gradually leased it all out to landlords, who, greedy for profit, built fast and cheap. The result was a warren of dark alleyways and dingy courts leading to masses of cheap lodging houses. Over the course of the eighteenth century, these densely packed dwellings fell into disrepair and disrepute. The St Giles Rookery, as it became known, soon became one of the most notorious areas of slum housing in London. Its inhabitants were made up of the lowest rung of society: impoverished families, the unemployed, criminals. Many were Irish immigrants and were treated with suspicion and distain by Londoners.

Within these multiple occupancy houses, people were crammed in everywhere, from drafty garret to dank cellar and every space between. People lived in corridors, on landings, in kitchens, sometimes several families shared a single room. It was, to say the least, a hard life. But children still played, and families still loved each other, and hoped for a better future.

At tea-time on Monday 17 October 1814, the inhabitants of St Giles Rookery went about their daily lives, unaware of the disaster about to engulf them.

On New Street, Mrs Banfield was sitting down to tea with her 4-year-old daughter Hannah and another child.

In a nearby cellar dwelling, a party of Irish immigrants met. Anne Saville had tragically lost her 2-year-old-son John and was holding a wake for him. She was joined by a thirty strong gathering, including Elizabeth Smith, Catherine Butler and Mary Mulvaney, Mary had also brought along her own 3-year-old son, Thomas. Perhaps the children had been playfellows.

Not far away, 3-year-old Sarah Bates was playing in her room.

Over on Old Russell Street, at the Tavistock Arms, 14-year-old Eleanor Cooper was hard at work in the back yard of the pub, scrubbing pots.

Messer’s Henry Meux & Co owned the Horseshoe Brewery on Bainbridge Street (on the corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Road). They were one of Britain’s most prolific producers of Porter, a thick dark beer that was popular at the time, producing upwards of 100,000 barrels of beer a year.

The Brewery backed onto New Street, George Street, and was close by Great Russell Street.

The Brewery storehouse contained rack upon rack of huge wooden vats of fermenting Porter, each bound by several heavy iron hoops. The scale is not to be underestimated, the vats stood 22ft (6.7m) tall and some of the hoops weighed up to a tonne in weight. When full the vats contained around 3,555 barrels of beer (upwards of 500,000 litres of beer).

On Monday 17 October, at around 4.30pm, Mr George Crick, the storehouse manager carried out an inspection. He quickly noticed that one of the vats had a problem. One of the iron hoops had fallen down. He was not unduly alarmed as hoops slipping was quite a common occurrence. He informed his manager, then left the storeroom to write a note to Mr Young, a partner in the business and the man tasked with building and repairing the vats.

At around 5.30pm, as Mr Crick stood, letter in hand, in a nearby room, he heard a huge crash. Rushing back into the storeroom, he was horrified to see that the vat had burst, not only this, but the force of the eruption had demolished the 25ft (7.6m) high brewery wall and most of the roof in the process. To make matters worse, he saw the body of the superintendent of the storehouse, his own brother, lying motionless in the rubble, along with many other injured workers.

This was only the beginning of the horror. Along with a rain of bricks and rubble that fell upon nearby New Street, demolishing two houses outright, the burst vat had released a tidal wave of beer. It is estimated that between 580,000-1,470,000 litres of beer flooded out of the Horseshoe Brewery, surging down the neighbouring streets in a fifteen foot (4.6m) high tidal wave of beer.

It was heading straight for the St Giles Rookery.

The rescue effort began quickly, with people wading waste deep through beer to search for survivors. The terrible effect of the catastrophe was palpable, injured, and distressed people filled the streets, crying, and desperately picking through the rubble for their loved ones, straining to hear the faint cries of those still trapped.

Much of what we know about the disaster comes from the witness statements taken at the Coroner’s Inquest.

Mr Cummins lived in Camden Town, but he also owned a house on New Street, and he spent most of Tuesday 18 October there, helping recover the bodies.

The first body he found drowned was that of Elizabeth Smith, the wife of a bricklayer, one of the guests at the wake. An hour later, at Number 3, he found the lifeless body of little Sarah Bates.

By 4pm Mr Cummins entered the cellar where the wake had taken place and found the body of the grieving mother, Mrs Savill, floating amongst the butts in the cellar. Four of her guests, including Mrs Mulvaney and her three-year-old son, Thomas, also perished when the cellar was inundated with beer. They never stood a chance.

Mrs Banfield, who had been in the middle of having tea with her daughter and another child, found herself caught up in a terrifying tide of beer which swept her off her feet and out of a window, leaving her battered and bruised on the street outside. Amazingly, she survived this ordeal. The other child was later found almost suffocated on a bed, she too survived.

Poor little Hannah was not so lucky –

“The daughter was swept away by the current through a partition and dashed to pieces”

Her body was recovered at 6.30pm.

Teenage Eleanor, cleaning her pots in the backyard of the Tavistock Arms on Great Russell Street, found herself instantly buried beneath a collapsed wall. It took Mr Howse, the landlord, until twenty past eight that night to dig her out of the rubble.

“She was found standing by the water butt, quite dead”

She had suffocated.

Others, upon finding their dwellings suddenly inundated, desperately climbed on top of their highest furniture until the flood subsided.

The situation was aggravated because the land around the brewery was flat and had little drainage, so the beer did not flow away, instead it spread out in the neighbouring streets, filling up cellars first, then ground floor rooms, as it went.

It was initially feared that the death toll would be huge because almost every inundated cellar in St Giles was inhabited. However, once the flood had subsided, and the bodies were counted, it was found that in total eight people had perished. Most of them women and children who had been either caught unawares or trapped by the flood.

The victims were named at the Inquest:

Eleanor Cooper, age 14
Mary Mulvaney, age 30
Thomas Murry, age 3 (Mary Mulvaney’s son)
Hannah Banfield, age 4 years 4 months
Sarah Bates, age 3 years 5 months
Ann Saville, age 60
Elizabeth Smith, age 27
Catherine Butler, age 65

Many more were injured, including thirty-one workers at the Brewery (although almost unbelievably, despite their proximity to the disaster, none of the workers perished). The injured, including Mrs Banfield, were taken to Middlesex Hospital.

The bodies of the dead were sent to the St Giles Workhouse and an Inquest was held on 19th October 1814.

Mr Crick, the storehouse clerk at the Brewery, Mr Howse the landlord of the Tavistock Arms, Mr Cummins, and others, gave their witness statements to the Inquest.

As part of the investigation, witnesses were also taken back to the site of the incident to view the destruction. By now, vast crowds of onlookers had also arrived to view the scene of the flood. Warehouse workers at the brewery even began charging visitors to see the ruins of the storeroom.

It is often claimed, even today, that relatives charged visitors to view the bodies of the dead, and that so many piled into to the building where the corpses were displayed that the floor collapsed, depositing these dark tourists into the beer-filled cellar beneath. While viewing corpses was certainly a popular tourist attraction in the nineteenth century (Brits travelling to Paris, flocked to the Paris Morgue considering it a popular tourist attraction) there is no contemporary evidence that this happened following the Beer Flood.

Inquest discovered that the flood had been exacerbated because:

“When the vat burst, the force and pressure was so great it stove several hogsheads of porter, it also knocked the cock out of a vat nearly as large…”

After hearing all of the evidence, the coroner’s verdict was that the victims’ deaths were not the fault of the brewery, but were caused “casually, accidentally, and by misfortune.”

Today, victims of a tragedy like this might expect to receive compensation. However, the verdict of the Coroner’s Inquest, that the disaster was an unfortunate accident, meant no compensation was paid to the families of those who lost loved ones, or lost their homes and possessions in the flood.

Nevertheless, some indirect financial compensation was paid, just not to the victims. The disaster had cost Messer’s H Meux an estimated £23,000 (over £1,000,000 in today’s money). To avoid the company going bankrupt, the government agreed to refund the excise tax that the company had paid in advance, and paid the company £7250 (around £400,000) compensation for their lost beer.

I can’t help thinking that this must have been a bitter pill to swallow for those who lost their lives, their family members, and all their possessions, in the Beer Flood.

Despite the lack of help from the government, compassion was not entirely lacking. Many curious Londoners who flocked to the area, as people inevitably do when disaster strikes, found themselves filing past the coffins of the victims. Many were moved by the loss they saw. And while most of them were themselves poor, they contributed their pennies, sixpences, and shillings, to ensure that the victims could be properly laid to rest.

There was a persistent rumour that in the days after the flood, the locals took advantage of the rivers of beer flowing in the streets and got outrageously drunk and rowdy. It was even said that some people drank themselves to death as a result.

However, the idea of mass public drunkenness following the flood has been challenged by Martyn Cornell. The affected area was home to a large immigrant Irish population which was often treated with distain and unease by Londoners. Cornell points out that there were no contemporary newspaper reports of this type of behaviour, and it is unlikely the press would have missed a chance to lambast Irish immigrants or the undeserving poor.

The idea of a beer flood, on the surface sounds quite entertaining, conjuring up images of boozy Londoners partying in the streets while guzzling free liquor. However, the devastation and personal tragedies caused by this sudden and catastrophic event must have been terrible for those affected.

It may well be that the idea of the London Beer Flood being a huge drunken street party grew up later on, when details of the actual events had faded from memory, allowing the story to transform into just one more bizarre and amusing anecdote from London’s long and eventful history.

H Meux & Co’s Horseshoe Brewery is long gone, the site now occupied by the Dominion Theatre.

BREAK=====

Up next on Weird Darkness… in September 1982, people wanting to get away from aches and pains from the flu or just a headache shopped store shelves for relief… and ended up dead. Their Tylenol had been laced with poison. (The Tylenol Murders)

STORY: THE TYLENOL MURDERS=====

Early on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, a tragic, medical mystery began with a sore throat and a runny nose. It was then that Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old girl from Elk Grove Village, a suburb of Chicago, told her mother and father about her symptoms. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. Mary was dead by 7 a.m. Within a week, her death would panic the entire nation. And only months later, it changed the way we purchase and consume over-the-counter medications.

That same day, a 27-year-old postal worker named Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois, died of what was initially thought to be a massive heart attack but turned out to be cyanide poisoning as well. His brother and sister-in-law, Stanley, 25, and Theresa, 19, of Lisle, Illinois, rushed to his home to console their loved ones. Both experienced throbbing headaches, a not uncommon response to a death in the family and each took a Tylenol extra-strength capsule or two from the same bottle Adam had used earlier in the day. Stanley died that very day and Theresa died two days later.

Over the next few days, three more strange deaths occurred: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois. All of them, it turned out, took Tylenol shortly before they died.

It was at this point, early October of 1982, that investigators made the connection between the poisoning deaths and Tylenol, the best-selling, non-prescription pain reliever sold in the United States at that time. The gelatin-based capsules were especially popular because they were slick and easy to swallow. Unfortunately, each victim swallowed a Tylenol capsule laced with A lethal dose of cyanide.

McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of the health care giant, Johnson & Johnson, manufactured Tylenol. To its credit, the company took an active role with the media in issuing mass warning communications and immediately called for a massive recall of the more than 31 million bottles of Tylenol in circulation. Tainted capsules were discovered in early October in a few other grocery stores and drug stores in the Chicago area, but, fortunately, they had not yet been sold or consumed. McNeill and Johnson & Johnson offered replacement capsules to those who turned in pills already purchased and a reward for anyone with information leading to the apprehension of the individual or people involved in these random murders.

The case continued to be confusing to the police, the drug maker and the public at large. For example, Johnson & Johnson quickly established that the cyanide lacing occurred after cases of Tylenol left the factory. Someone, police hypothesized, must have taken bottles off the shelves of local grocers and drug stores in the Chicago area, laced the capsules with poison, and then returned the restored packages to the shelves to be purchased by the unknowing victims.

To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found.

One man, James Lewis, claiming to be the Tylenol killer wrote a “ransom” letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million in exchange for stopping the poisonings. After a lengthy cat and mouse game, police and federal investigators determined that Lewis lived in New York and had no demonstrable links to the Chicago events. That said, he was charged with extortion and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was released in 1995 after serving only 13 years.

Other “copy-cat” poisonings, involving Tylenol and other over-the-counter medications, cropped up again in the 1980s and early 1990s but these events were never as dramatic or as deadly as the 1982 Chicago-area deaths. Conspiracy theories about motives and suspects for all these heinous acts continue to be bandied about on the Internet to this day.

Before the 1982 crisis, Tylenol controlled more than 35 percent of the over-the-counter pain reliever market; only a few weeks after the murders, that number plummeted to less than 8 percent. The dire situation, both in terms of human life and business, made it imperative that the Johnson & Johnson executives respond swiftly and authoritatively.

For example, Johnson & Johnson developed new product protection methods and ironclad pledges to do better in protecting their consumers in the future. Working with FDA officials, they introduced a new tamper-proof packaging, which included foil seals and other features that made it obvious to a consumer if foul play had transpired. These packaging protections soon became the industry standard for all over-the-counter medications. The company also introduced price reductions and a new version of their pills — called the “caplet” — a tablet coated with slick, easy-to-swallow gelatin but far harder to tamper with than the older capsules which could be easily opened, laced with a contaminant, and then placed back in the older non-tamper-proof bottle.

Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, Tylenol’s sales rebounded to its healthy past and it became, once again, the nation’s favorite over-the-counter pain reliever. Critics who had prematurely announced the death of the brand Tylenol were now praising the company’s handling of the matter. Indeed, the Johnson & Johnson recall became a classic case study in business schools across the nation.

In 1983, the U.S. Congress passed what was called “the Tylenol bill,” making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof.

Sadly, the tragedies that resulted from the Tylenol poisonings can never be undone. But their deaths did inspire a series of important moves to make over-the-counter medications safer (albeit never 100 percent safe) for the hundreds of millions of people who buy them every year.

SHOW CLOSE=====

Thanks for listening! If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do! You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren@weirddarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show, find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I’ve narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host including “Retro Radio: Old Time Radio In The Dark”, “Church of the Undead” and a classic 1950’s sci-fi style podcast called “Auditory Anthology”. Also on the site you can visit the store for Weird Darkness tee-shirts, mugs, and other merchandise… plus, it’s where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or thoughts of harming yourself or others. And if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell of your own, you can click on TELL YOUR STORY. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com.

All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes.

“The Great London Beer Flood” by Lenora for Haunted Palace Blog

“The Faked Moon Landing And The New York Mets” by Michael Richmond for The Conversation

“The Bizarre Disappearance of Truck Driver Devin Williams” by Zach Brown for Oola.com

“Vampires of Rhode Island” by David Albaugh for BasementOfTheBizarre.com

“The Guyra Ghost” posted by Paul Cropper at TheFortean.com

“Forced To Marry a Corpse” by Ossiana Tepfenhart for Medium

“The Tylenol Murders” by Dr. Howard Markel for PBS

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

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31

And a final thought… From “Alice in Wonderland”…

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

I’m Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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