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Sunday Feb 14, 2021

89 Valentine's Day History... and a MASSACRE!

Sunday Feb 14, 2021

Like the drink pop song? check it out here: https://www.reverbnation.com/Sayreofficial/song/8642528-your-love-the-outfield-cover

As most of you may or may not know, Valentine’s Day occurs every February 14. Across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and horrible gifts are exchanged between loved ones and potential flames, all in the name of St. Valentine. But, have you ever asked yourself “who is this fantastical saint and where did these sappy traditions come from?” Did some guy in a cave, thousands of years ago, screw up with his woman after bopping her on the head with a stick? Did he just say “ugh...sorry… here rock”?

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Well, the history of Valentine’s Day—and the story of its patron saint—is actually shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains traces of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was this Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient ritual?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom died or were out to death, rather than renouncing their religion. One legend tells us that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, and ever the romantic, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were inevitably discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Still others insist that it was Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop, who was the true namesake of the holiday. He, too, was beheaded by Claudius II outside Rome. So… you know… Claudius was a swell guy.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl—possibly his jailor’s daughter—who visited him during his imprisonment. Before his death, it has been said that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still used today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and—most importantly—romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France. The French! We are the most romantic! Screw the English!

While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to celebrate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial—which probably occurred around A.D. 270—others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was actually a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. Get all that? Sure you do!

At the start of the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. Poor dog! They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Yep. Too bad that tradition is gone. Sounds SUPER fun! Anyway, Far from being a bunch of scared pansies, Roman women welcomed the slap of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Yeah! Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. So, it was like eharmony but with a little more sacrifice and far less computers.

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity but was eventually outlawed, BUT OF COURSE IT WAS—as it was deemed “un-Christian”—at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, alright! which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance. Because, ya know if birds do it… I mean… anyway. The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. Valentine’s Day as a day of romantic celebration in his 1375 poem “Parliament of Foules,” writing, ““For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.” Smooth, Chaucer, real smooth.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

Now, that chubby little bastard Cupid is often portrayed on Valentine’s Day cards as a naked cherub launching arrows of love at unsuspecting lovers. But the Roman God Cupid has his roots in Greek mythology as the Greek god of love, Eros. Accounts of his birth vary; some say he is the son of Nyx and Erebus; others, of Aphrodite and Ares; still others suggest he is the son of Iris and Zephyrus or even Aphrodite and Zeus (who would have been both his father and grandfather… because, you know… incest).

According to the Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome immortal who played with the emotions of Gods and men, using golden arrows to incite love and leaden ones to simply fuck with people. It wasn’t until the Hellenistic period that he began to be portrayed as the mischievous, chubby child he’d become on Valentine’s Day cards. Such a weird transition. From handsome immortal to a fat baby in a diaper.

In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century.

By the middle of the 18th century, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made extravagant creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year only next to Christmas

Some cool notes on St. Valentine.

In all, there are about a dozen St. Valentines, plus a pope.

The saint we celebrate on Valentine’s Day is known officially as St. Valentine of Rome in order to differentiate him from the dozen or so other Valentines on the list. Because “Valentinus”—from the Latin word for worthy, strong or powerful—was a popular moniker between the second and eighth centuries A.D., several martyrs over the centuries have carried this name. The official Roman Catholic roster of saints shows about a dozen who were named Valentine or some variation thereof. The most recently beatified Valentine is St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, a Spaniard of the Dominican order who traveled to Vietnam, where he served as bishop until his beheading in 1861. Pope John Paul II canonized Berrio-Ochoa in 1988. There was even a Pope Valentine, though little is known about him except that he served a mere 40 days around A.D. 827.

Valentine is the patron saint of beekeepers and epilepsy, among many other things.

Saints are certainly expected to keep busy in the afterlife. Their holy duties include interceding in earthly affairs and entertaining petitions from living souls. In this respect, St. Valentine has wide-ranging spiritual responsibilities. People call on him to watch over the lives of lovers, of course, but also for interventions regarding beekeeping and epilepsy, as well as the plague, fainting and traveling. As you might expect, he’s also the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages.

You can find Valentine’s skull in Rome.

The flower-adorned skull of St. Valentine is on display in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. In the early 1800s, the excavation of a catacomb near Rome yielded skeletal remains and other relics now associated with St. Valentine. As is customary, these bits and pieces of the late saint’s body have subsequently been distributed to holy containers around the world. You’ll find other bits of St. Valentine’s skeleton on display in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland, England and France.

Here’s one for the ladies! You can actually celebrate Valentine’s Day several times a year.

Because of the abundance of St. Valentines on the Roman Catholic roster, you can choose to celebrate the saint multiple times each year. Aside from February 14, you might decide to celebrate St. Valentine of Viterbo on November 3. Or maybe you want to get a jump on the traditional Valentine celebration by feting St. Valentine of Raetia on January 7. Women might choose to honor the only female St. Valentine (Valentina), a virgin martyred in Palestine on July 25, A.D. 308. The Eastern Orthodox Church officially celebrates St. Valentine twice, once as an elder of the church on July 6 and once as a martyr on July 30.

Ok! So the lovey dovey shit is out of the way, let’s talk about some Murders.

At 10:30 a.m. on Saint Valentine's Day, Thursday, February 14, 1929, seven men were murdered at the garage at 2122 North Clark Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side. They were shot by four men using weapons that included two Thompson submachine guns. Two of the shooters were dressed as uniformed policemen, while the others wore suits, ties, overcoats, and hats. Witnesses saw the fake police leading the other men at gunpoint out of the garage after the shooting.

The victims included five members of George "Bugs" Moran's North Side Gang. Moran's second in command and brother-in-law Albert Kachellek (alias James Clark) was killed along with Adam Heyer, the gang's bookkeeper and business manager, Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran, and gang enforcers Frank Gusenberg and Peter Gusenberg. Two collaborators were also shot: Reinhardt H. Schwimmer, a former optician turned gambler and gang associate, and John May, an occasional mechanic for the Moran gang. Real Chicago police officers arrived at the scene to find that victim Frank Gusenberg was still alive. He was taken to the hospital, where doctors stabilized him for a short time and police tried to question him. He had sustained 14 bullet wounds; the police asked him who did it, and he replied, "No one shot me." He died three hours later.[4]

Al Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the murders in an attempt to eliminate Moran. Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors Vincent Drucci and Hymie Weiss had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion.[5][6]

Several factors contributed to the timing of the plan to kill Moran. Earlier in the year, North Sider Frank Gusenberg and his brother Peter unsuccessfully attempted to murder Jack McGurn. The North Side Gang was complicit in the murders of Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo and Antonio "The Scourge" Lombardo. Both had been presidents of the Unione Siciliana, the local Mafia, and close associates of Capone. Moran and Capone had been vying for control of the lucrative Chicago bootlegging trade. Moran had also been muscling in on a Capone-run dog track in the Chicago suburbs, and he had taken over several saloons that were run by Capone, insisting that they were in his territory.

The plan was to lure Moran to the SMC Cartage warehouse on North Clark Street on February 14, 1929 to kill him and perhaps two or three of his lieutenants. It is usually assumed that the North Siders were lured to the garage with the promise of a stolen, cut-rate shipment of whiskey, supplied by Detroit's Purple Gang which was associated with Capone. The Gusenberg brothers were supposed to drive two empty trucks to Detroit that day to pick up two loads of stolen Canadian whiskey. All of the victims were dressed in their best clothes, with the exception of John May, as was customary for the North Siders and other gangsters at the time.

Most of the Moran gang arrived at the warehouse by approximately 10:30 a.m., but Moran was not there, having left his Parkway Hotel apartment late. He and fellow gang member Ted Newberry approached the rear of the warehouse from a side street when they saw a police car approaching the building. They immediately turned and retraced their steps, going to a nearby coffee shop. They encountered gang member Henry Gusenberg on the street and warned him, so he too turned back. North Side Gang member Willie Marks also spotted the police car on his way to the garage, and he ducked into a doorway and jotted down the license number before leaving the neighborhood.

Capone's lookouts likely mistook one of Moran's men for Moran himself, probably Albert Weinshank, who was the same height and build. The physical similarity between the two men was enhanced by their dress that morning; both happened to be wearing the same color overcoats and hats. Witnesses outside the garage saw a Cadillac sedan pull up to a stop in front of the garage. Four men emerged and walked inside, two of them dressed in police uniform. The two fake police officers carried shotguns and entered the rear portion of the garage, where they found members of Moran's gang and collaborators Reinhart Schwimmer and John May, who was fixing one of the trucks. The fake policemen then ordered the men to line up against the wall. They then signaled to the pair in civilian clothes who had accompanied them. Two of the killers opened fire with Thompson sub-machine guns, one with a 20-round box magazine and the other a 50-round drum. They were thorough, spraying their victims left and right, even continuing to fire after all seven had hit the floor. Two shotgun blasts afterward all but obliterated the faces of John May and James Clark, according to the coroner's report.

To give the appearance that everything was under control, the men in street clothes came out with their hands up, prodded by the two uniformed policemen. Inside the garage, the only survivors in the warehouse were May's dog "Highball" and Frank Gusenberg — despite 14 bullet wounds. He was still conscious, but he died three hours later, refusing to utter a word about the identities of the killers. The Valentine's Day Massacre set off a public outcry which posed a problem for all mob bosses.[7]

Victims Edit

Peter Gusenberg, a front-line enforcer for the Moran organizations

Frank Gusenberg, the brother of Peter Gusenberg and also an enforcer

Albert Kachellek (alias "James Clark"), Moran's second in command

Adam Heyer, the bookkeeper and business manager of the Moran gang

Reinhardt Schwimmer, an optician who had abandoned his practice to gamble on horse racing and associate with the gang

Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran; his resemblance to Moran is allegedly what set the massacre in motion before Moran arrived, including the clothes that he was wearing

John May, an occasional car mechanic for the Moran gang[8]

Within days, Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too unwell to attend.[9]

It was common knowledge that Moran was hijacking Capone's Detroit-based liquor shipments, and police focused their attention on Detroit's predominantly Jewish Purple Gang. Landladies Mrs. Doody and Mrs. Orvidson had taken in three men as roomers ten days before the massacre, and their rooming houses were directly across the street from the North Clark Street garage. They picked out mugshots of Purple Gang members George Lewis, Eddie Fletcher, Phil Keywell, and his younger brother Harry, but they later wavered in their identification. The police questioned and cleared Fletcher, Lewis, and Harry Keywell. Nevertheless, the Keywell brothers (and by extension the Purple Gang) remained associated with the crime in the years that followed. Many also believed that the police were involved, which may have been the intention of the killers.

On February 22, police were called to the scene of a garage fire on Wood Street where they found a 1927 Cadillac sedan disassembled and partially burned, and they determined that the killers had used the car. They traced the engine number to a Michigan Avenue dealer who had sold the car to a James Morton of Los Angeles. The garage had been rented by a man calling himself Frank Rogers, who gave his address as 1859 West North Avenue. This was the address of the Circus Café operated by Claude Maddox, a former St. Louis gangster with ties to the Capone gang, the Purple Gang, and the St. Louis gang, Egan's Rats. Police could not turn up any information about persons named James Morton or Frank Rogers, but they had a definite lead on one of the killers. Just minutes before the killings, a truck driver named Elmer Lewis had turned a corner a block away from 2122 North Clark and sideswiped a police car. He told police that he stopped immediately but was waved away by the uniformed driver, who was missing a front tooth. Board of Education president H. Wallace Caldwell had witnessed the accident, and he gave the same description of the driver. Police were confident that they were describing Fred Burke, a former member of Egan's Rats. Burke and a close companion named James Ray were known to wear police uniforms whenever on a robbery spree. Burke was also a fugitive, under indictment for robbery and murder in Ohio. Police also suggested that Joseph Lolordo could have been one of the killers because of his brother Pasqualino's recent murder by the North Side Gang.

Police then announced that they suspected Capone gunmen John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, as well as Jack McGurn and Frank Rio, a Capone bodyguard. Police eventually charged McGurn and Scalise with the massacre. Capone murdered John Scalise, Anselmi, and Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta in May 1929 after he learned about their plan to kill him. The police dropped the murder charges against Jack McGurn because of a lack of evidence, and he was just charged with a violation of the Mann Act; he took his girlfriend Louise Rolfe across state lines to marry.

The case stagnated until December 14, 1929, when the Berrien County, Michigan Sheriff's Department raided the St. Joseph, Michigan bungalow of "Frederick Dane", the registered owner of a vehicle driven by Fred "Killer" Burke. Burke had been drinking that night, then rear-ended another vehicle and drove off. Patrolman Charles Skelly pursued, finally forcing him off the road. Skelly hopped onto the running board of Burke's car, but he was shot three times and died of his wounds that night. The car was found wrecked and abandoned just outside St. Joseph and traced to Fred Dane. By this time, police photos confirmed that Dane was in fact Fred Burke, wanted by the Chicago police for his participation in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Police raided Burke's bungalow and found a large trunk containing a bullet-proof vest, almost $320,000 in bonds recently stolen from a Wisconsin bank, two Thompson submachine guns, pistols, two shotguns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. St. Joseph authorities immediately notified the Chicago police, who requested both machine guns. They used the new science of forensic ballistics to identify both weapons as those used in the massacre. They also discovered that one of them had also been used to murder New York mobster Frankie Yale a year and a half earlier. Unfortunately, no further concrete evidence surfaced in the massacre case. Burke was captured over a year later on a Missouri farm. The case against him was strongest in connection to the murder of Officer Skelly, so he was tried in Michigan and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison in 1940.

On January 8, 1935, FBI agents surrounded a Chicago apartment building at 3920 North Pine Grove looking for the remaining members of the Barker Gang. A brief shootout erupted, resulting in the death of bank robber Russell Gibson. Taken into custody were Doc Barker, Byron Bolton, and two women. Bolton was a Navy machine-gunner and associate of Egan's Rats, and he had been the valet of Chicago hit man Fred Goetz. Bolton was privy to many of the Barker Gang's crimes and pinpointed the Florida hideout of Ma Barker and Freddie Barker, both of whom were killed in a shootout with the FBI a week later. Bolton claimed to have taken part in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre with Goetz, Fred Burke, and several others.

The FBI had no jurisdiction in a state murder case, so they kept Bolton's revelations confidential until the Chicago American newspaper reported a second-hand version of his confession. The newspaper declared that the crime had been "solved", despite being stonewalled by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, who did not want any part of the massacre case. Garbled versions of Bolton's story went out in the national media. Bolton, it was reported,[where?] claimed that the murder of Bugs Moran had been plotted in October or November 1928 at a Couderay, Wisconsin resort owned by Fred Goetz. Present at this meeting were Goetz, Al Capone, Frank Nitti, Fred Burke, Gus Winkler, Louis Campagna, Daniel Serritella, William Pacelli, and Bolton. The men stayed two or three weeks, hunting and fishing when they were not planning the murder of their enemies.

Bolton claimed that he and Jimmy Moran were charged with watching the S.M.C. Cartage garage and phoning the signal to the killers at the Circus Café when Bugs Moran arrived at the meeting. Police had found a letter addressed to Bolton in the lookout nest (and possibly a vial of prescription medicine). Bolton guessed that the actual killers had been Burke, Winkeler, Goetz, Bob Carey, Raymond "Crane Neck" Nugent,[10] and Claude Maddox (four shooters and two getaway drivers). Bolton gave an account of the massacre different from the one generally told by historians. He claimed that he saw only "plainclothes" men exit the Cadillac and go into the garage. This indicates that a second car was used by the killers. George Brichet claimed to have seen at least two uniformed men exiting a car in the alley and entering the garage through its rear doors. A Peerless Motor Company sedan had been found near a Maywood house owned by Claude Maddox in the days after the massacre, and in one of the pockets was an address book belonging to victim Albert Weinshank. Bolton said that he had mistaken one of Moran's men to be Moran, after which he telephoned the signal to the Circus Café. The killers had expected to kill Moran and two or three of his men, but they were unexpectedly confronted with seven men; they simply decided to kill them all and get out fast. Bolton claimed that Capone was furious with him for his mistake and the resulting police pressure and threatened to kill him, only to be dissuaded by Fred Goetz.

His claims were corroborated by Gus Winkeler's widow Georgette in an official FBI statement and in her memoirs, which were published in a four-part series in a true detective magazine during the winter of 1935–36. She revealed that her husband and his friends had formed a special crew used by Capone for high-risk jobs. The mob boss was said to have trusted them implicitly and nicknamed them the "American Boys". Bolton's statements were also backed up by William Drury, a Chicago detective who had stayed on the massacre case long after everyone else had given up. Bank robber Alvin Karpis later claimed to have heard secondhand from Ray Nugent about the massacre and that the "American Boys" were paid a collective salary of $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also claimed that Capone had told him while they were in Alcatraz together that Goetz had been the actual planner of the massacre.

Despite Byron Bolton's statements, no action was taken by the FBI. All the men whom he named were dead by 1935, with the exception of Burke and Maddox. Bank robber Harvey Bailey complained in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in Calumet City, Illinois at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Historians are still divided on whether or not the "American Boys" committed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Many mobsters have been named as part of the Valentine's Day hit team. Two prime suspects are Cosa Nostra hit men John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. In the days after the massacre, Scalise was heard[by whom?] to brag, "I am the most powerful man in Chicago." Unione Siciliana president Joseph Guinta had recently elevated him to the position of the Unione's vice-president. Nevertheless, Scalise, Anselmi, and Guinta were found dead on a lonely road near Hammond, Indiana on May 8, 1929. Gangland lore has it that Capone had discovered that the pair were planning to betray him. Legend states[where?] that Capone produced a baseball bat at the climax of a dinner party thrown in their honor and beat the trio to death.[11]

Police tested the two Thompson submachine guns (serial numbers 2347 and 7580) found in Fred Burke's Michigan bungalow and determined that both had been used in the massacre. One of them had also been used in the murder of Brooklyn mob boss Frankie Yale, which confirmed the New York Police Department's long-held theory that Burke had been responsible for Yale's death.

Les Farmer, a deputy sheriff in Marion, Illinois, purchased gun number 2347 on November 12, 1924. Marion and the surrounding area were overrun by the warring bootleg factions of the Shelton Brothers Gang and Charlie Birger. Farmer had ties with Egan's Rats, based 100 miles away in St. Louis, and the weapon had wound up in Fred Burke's possession by 1927. It is possible that he used this same gun in Detroit's Milaflores Massacre on March 28, 1927. Chicago sporting goods owner Peter von Frantzius sold gun number 7580 to a Victor Thompson, also known as Frank V. Thompson, but it wound up with James "Bozo" Shupe, a small-time hood from Chicago's West Side who had ties to various members of Capone's outfit. Both guns are still in the possession of the Berrien County, Michigan Sheriff's Department.

The garage at 2122 N. Clark Street was demolished in 1967, and the site is now a parking lot for a nursing home.[12] The bricks of the north wall against which the victims were shot were purchased by a Canadian businessman. For many years, they were displayed in various crime-related novelty displays. Many of them were later sold individually, and the remainder are now owned by the Mob Museum in Las Vegas.[13]

Monday Feb 08, 2021

88 - The Butterfly People of Joplin, Missouri

Monday Feb 08, 2021

Today's ride, while keeping with the theme of the possibly paranormal and cryptid, takes us on a more uplifting ride. While the story is rooted in tragedy, the discussion quickly turned to stories of help and hope. This is something that neither Moody nor myself knew about, and through discussing it with several people, doesn't seem to be a hugely popular topic in these circles. Despite this fact, we found it to be an intriguing topic so we decided to follow up on it. Today we are talking about the Butterfly people of Joplin Missouri. Before we get into what they are, we need to take a look at the incident that spawned the tales. So without further ado… Let's get into it!

Between May 21 and May 26, 2011 the Midwestern and southern United States experienced the largest tornado outbreak on record, with a total of 1,894 tornadoes causing 551 fatalities. Most of the tornadoes developed in a corridor from Lake Superior southwest to central Texas; isolated tornadoes occurred in other areas.

On May 21, a small system of thunderstorms developed in Brown County, Kansas while another system formed to the southeast of Emporia, Kansas. The Brown county system spawned a brief tornado over Topeka, Kansas, causing minor damage. This system also caused significant damage in Oskaloosa, Kansas, and other communities. Meanwhile, the Emporia system spawned an EF3 tornado that struck Reading, Kansas; one person was killed, several others were injured, and at least 20 houses were destroyed. These two systems developed several other tornadoes throughout the evening. A moderate risk of severe weather was issued for much of the Midwest, as well as further south to Oklahoma for May 22. The first tornadic supercell developed in the mid-afternoon hours over the western Twin Cities in Minnesota, and caused moderate damage in the Minneapolis area. Shortly thereafter, an intense tornado crept towards Harmony, Minnesota, prompting the National Weather Service to issue the first tornado emergency of the outbreak. Late that afternoon, a large, intense EF5 multiple-vortex tornado left catastrophic destruction in Joplin, Missouri. This is the tornado that we are looking at in this episode. After the Joplin tornado there would be many more throughout the next few days. In fact the cell would spawn a total of 241 tornadoes total. Out of those 241 only 2 reached EF5 status, the Joplin tornado and one dubbed El Reno. El Reno was actually the more violent of the two, but luckily it landed in a rural area and there were considerably less fatalities. To give you an idea of the strength of these guys, he's an example of some of the damage of the El Reno twister which reached a max velocity of 295 mph!: As it approached and crossed Interstate 40 west of El Reno, it reached its maximum intensity. Three people were killed as two vehicles were tossed more than 1,093 yards from the road and obliterated, the victims being found stripped of clothing 1⁄4 mile from the interstate and left "unrecognizable". Only pieces of the vehicle's frames were reportedly recovered. A nearby 20,000-pound oil tanker truck that was parked at an oil production site near the interstate was thrown approximately one mile into a wooded gully. Several homes were swept completely away along I-40, trees were completely debarked, and the ground was heavily scoured in some areas. At the nearby Cactus-117 oil rig site, a 1,900,000-pound oil derrick was blown over and rolled three times. That shit is intense! Imagine if that had hit a major city. And that was only a portion of the damage and impact. The El Reno tornado had a 63 mile long path through 4 counties in Oklahoma killing 9 and injuring 161. While that tornado was devastating, we're looking at the Joplin tornado, the one that saw incredible stories of butterfly people helping to save the lives of townspeople. The tornado itself could honestly be an entire episode because of its craziness.

The Joplin tornado was a powerful and catastrophic EF5-rated multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, United States, on the evening of Sunday, May 22, 2011. The tornado initially touched down just east of the Missouri-Kansas state line near the end of 32nd Street at 5:34 pm CDT and tracked due east, downing a few trees at EF0 intensity. Eyewitnesses and storm chasers reported multiple vortices rotating around the parent circulation in that area. Civil defense sirens sounded in Joplin twenty minutes before the tornado struck in response to a tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) at 5:17 pm CDT for northwestern Newton and southwestern Jasper counties in Missouri, and southeastern portions of Cherokee County, Kansas, but many Joplin residents did not heed them. The tornado strengthened to EF1 intensity as it continued through rural areas towards Joplin, snapping trees and power poles and damaging outbuildings. Widening, the tornado then tracked into the more densely populated southwest corner of the city near the Twin Hills Country Club. It heavily damaged several homes at a subdivision in this area at EF1 to EF2 strength. The tornado continued to strengthen as it ripped through another subdivision just east of Iron Gates Road. Numerous homes were destroyed at EF2 to EF3 strength at that location, and multiple vehicles were tossed around, some of which were thrown on or rolled into homes. The now massive wedge tornado then crossed S. Schifferdecker Ave., producing its first area of EF4 damage as several small but well-built commercial buildings were flattened. Consistent EF4 to EF5 damage was noted east of S. Schifferdecker Ave. and continued through most of southern Joplin. Numerous homes, businesses, and medical buildings were flattened in this area, with concrete walls collapsed and crushed into the foundations. A large steel-reinforced step and floor structure leading to a completely destroyed medical building was "deflected upward several inches and cracked". Steel trusses from some of the buildings were "rolled up like paper", and deformation/twisting of the main support beams was noted. Multiple vehicles were thrown and mangled or wrapped around trees nearby. Several 300-pound concrete parking stops anchored with rebar were torn from a parking lot in this area and were thrown up to 60 yards away. Iowa State University wind engineer Partha Sarkar was able to calculate the force needed to remove the parking stops and found that winds exceeding 200 mph were needed to tear them from the parking lot. Damage became remarkably widespread and catastrophic at and around the nearby St. John's Regional Medical Center, which lost many windows, interior walls, ceilings, and part of its roof; its life flight helicopter was also blown away and destroyed. Five fatalities were caused by loss of backup power, and the nine-story building was so damaged that it was deemed structurally compromised, and was later torn down. According to the NWS office in Springfield, Missouri, such extreme structural damage to such a large and well-built structure was likely indicative of winds at or exceeding 200 mph. Vehicles in the hospital parking lot were thrown into the air and mangled beyond recognition, including a semi-truck that was tossed 125 yards and wrapped completely around a debarked tree. Wind-rowing of debris was noted in this area, and additional concrete parking stops were removed from the St. John's parking lot as well. Virtually every house near McClelland Boulevard and 26th Street was flattened; some were swept completely away, and trees sustained severe debarking.

As the tornado tracked eastward, it maintained EF5 strength as it crossed Main Street (SR 43) between 20th and 26th Streets. It heavily damaged every business along that stretch and several institutional buildings were virtually destroyed. It tracked just south of downtown, narrowly missing it. Entire neighborhoods were leveled in this area with some more homes swept away, and trees were stripped completely of their bark. At some residences, reinforced concrete porches were deformed, or in some cases completely torn away. Damage to driveways was noted at some residences as well. Numerous vehicles were tossed up to several blocks away from the residences where they originated, and a few homeowners never located their vehicles. A large church, Greenbriar Nursing Home, Franklin Technology Center, St. Mary's Catholic Church and School, and Joplin High School were all destroyed along this corridor. The Greenbriar Nursing Home was completely leveled, with 21 fatalities occurring there alone. As the tornado crossed Connecticut Ave further to the east, it destroyed several large apartment buildings, a Dillon's grocery store, and a bank. Only the concrete vault remained at the bank, and a wooden 2x4 was found speared completely through a concrete curb at one location as well. No one was in the high school at the time; the high school graduation ceremonies held about 3 miles (4.8 km) to the north at Missouri Southern State University had concluded shortly before the storm. Pieces of cardboard were found embedded sideways into stucco walls that remained standing at Joplin High School.

Steel beams and pieces of fencing were deeply embedded into the ground in fields near the high school as well, steel fence posts were bent to the ground in opposite directions, and a school bus was thrown into a nearby bus garage. The tornado then approached Range Line Road, the main commercial strip in the eastern part of Joplin, affecting additional neighborhoods along 20th Street.

The now heavily rain-wrapped tornado continued at EF5 intensity as it crossed Range Line Road. In that corridor between about 13th and 32nd Streets, the tornado continued producing catastrophic damage as it was at its widest at this point, being nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. As the tornado hit the Pizza Hut at 1901 South Range Line Road, store manager Christopher Lucas herded four employees and 15 customers into a walk-in freezer. With difficulty closing the door, he wrapped a bungee cable holding the door shut around his arm until he was sucked out and killed by the tornado. The tornado completely destroyed Walmart Supercenter No. 59, a Home Depot, and numerous other businesses and restaurants in this area, many of which were flattened. Numerous metal roof trusses were torn from the Home Depot building and were found broken and mangled in nearby fields. Cars that originated at the Home Depot parking lot were found hundreds of yards away. Asphalt was scoured from parking lots at Walmart and a nearby pizza restaurant, and large tractor-trailers were thrown up to 200 yards away. An Academy Sports + Outdoors store along Range Line sustained major structural damage, and a chair was found impaled legs-first through an exterior stucco wall at that location. A nearby three-story apartment complex was also devastated, and two cell phone towers were found collapsed onto the remains of the apartments. Numerous cars were thrown and piled on top of each other, 100-pound manhole covers were removed from roads and thrown, ground scouring occurred, and a Pepsi distribution plant was completely leveled in this area as well. Additional calculations of the manhole covers in Joplin by Parka Sarkar revealed that winds had to have exceeded 200 mph for the manhole covers to be removed. Many fatalities occurred in this area, and damage was rated as EF5.

Extreme damage continued in the area of Duquesne Road in southeast Joplin. Many houses and industrial and commercial buildings were flattened in this area as well. The industrial park near the corner of 20th and Duquesne was especially hard hit with nearly every building flattened. Several large metal warehouse structures were swept cleanly from their foundations, and several heavy industrial vehicles were thrown up to 400 yards away in this area. One of the many warehouses affected was a Cummins warehouse, a concrete block and steel building that was destroyed. The last area of EF5 damage occurred in the industrial park, and a nearby Fastrip gas station and convenience store was completely destroyed. Many homes were destroyed further to the east at EF3 to EF4 strength in a nearby subdivision, and East Middle School sustained major damage.

The tornado then continued on an east to east-southeast trajectory towards Interstate 44 where it weakened; nonetheless, vehicles were blown off the highway and mangled near the U.S. Route 71 interchange. The damage at and around the interchange was rated EF2 to EF3. The weakening tornado continued to track into the rural areas of southeastern Jasper County and northeastern Newton County where damage was generally minor to moderate, with trees, mobile homes, outbuildings, and frame homes damaged mainly at EF0 to EF1 strength. The tornado lifted east of Diamond at 6:12 pm CDT (23:12 UTC) according to aerial surveys. The tornado's total track length was at least 22.1 miles (35.6 km) long. Overall, 6,954 homes were destroyed, 359 homes had major damage and 516 had minor damage, 158 people were killed, and 1,150 others were injured along the path. A separate EF2 tornado touched down near Wentworth from the same supercell about 25 miles (40 km) east-southeast of Joplin.

So that's the story of this incredible tornado. But something more came from this. In the aftermath of this devastating event, tales began to emerge of strange beings described as butterfly people, appearing to help and protect the citizens of Joplin. This is why we are talking about this event!

What were they? Was it mass hysteria? Was it a cooking mechanism for the many children affected? If they were real, where did they come from? Extraterrestrial? Interdimensional? Let's look at some stories and then explore some theories!

So we'll start with some of the stories from the people that were there. One woman, arriving home with her children, ran inside her home with great hurry. Together, they sheltered inside a small closet and the family started praying when, suddenly, the full force of the F5 tornado ripped their home to shreds. Inside the fury of wind and hail, the family thought it was the end. The winds were so fierce even the daughter’s glasses shattered as the roof was ripped off above them. Then, strangely, the son saw something in the sky. Amidst the pain and anguish, there was something above them, amongst the winds. A white woman with wings, hovering over them, as if she was protecting them from harm. Had madness set in? Was it a religious vision? The son described what he saw as a ‘butterfly woman’, who stayed and stayed, protecting the family from harm. Moreover, the rest of the family also saw the vision. As the tornado passed by, the family were left unharmed. In fact, the closet was the only thing left without damage. The entire rest of the house, everything, was destroyed, yet that humble closet, with no additional protection to the rest of the house, survived. All this served to reinforce the belief for the family that an angel had protected them on that day. Medical aid soon arrived and the search began for the injured and the trapped. Rumours began to circulate amongst the crowds. One nurse, looking rather confused, told the family she saw an angel and when pressed, she described the exact same vision the family had seen. Down to the last detail. The nurse said the ‘butterfly woman’ was larger than the average human, with wings. She wasn’t sure what to make of what she saw, but she didn’t fear it. She said she saw it whilst tending to a man who had been impaled on a wooden stake. She knew he was dying and then she saw it. Something standing nearby. As if it was comforting the man. If this was a religious vision of the dying, then why did the nurse see it?

And it wasn’t the only one. Rather than some strange being protecting the town, the nurse said that she saw many. Not a ‘butterfly woman’… butterfly people.

Over the following weeks, counsellors spoke to dozens and dozens of traumatised children across the town, none of whom knew each other, and every single one spoke of the Butterfly People, and how they ‘saved them’ on that day. And time and time again, the descriptions matched. Joplin was no longer just the scene of a tragedy. No longer just a war zone steeped in loss and billions of dollars worth of damage. It was now also home to something strange. Something unexplainable.

Lage Grigsby was believed to be near death when he arrived at Freeman Hospital West after being pulled from debris in the May 22, 2011, tornado. In fact he was actually taken to the hospital's fucking morgue.

Mason Lillard would have died, her surgeon said, if a metal rod driven through her body would have shifted an inch either direction. Despite critical injuries suffered when their grandparents' truck was thrown more than 300 feet across the Home Depot parking lot, the two cousins say they don't think that often about the EF5 twister.

"You kind of forget about it unless you look at the scars," said Mason.

On the night of the tornado, Mason was rushed to surgery, but Lage had been black tagged — meaning he was thought to be dying. That same night Freeman Hospital West ER nurse Tracy Dye arrived at the hospital after she heard the tornado had hit St. John's Regional Medical Center. She had considered not going to work because she was watching the storm develop and didn't want to leave her sons. When Dye arrived at the hospital, she was sent down to the morgue. Walking through, she touched Lage's arm and... get this shit..."he let out a scream. I ran and got a doctor and we got him out of there," she said. Dye stayed with him until surgery, which lasted six hours. For him, those actions were lifesaving, Lage reminded the nurse Wednesday.

"I owe you my life," he said.

Sharon Lillard calls Dye "our angel," adding, "I was at the hospital the other day and I dropped a little gift by for her." According to Mason's account of the storm, Dye was not the only angel on duty that night. She saw them just before the storm hit, Mason said, and after... she felt a touch on her shoulder.

"I thought it was Lage, but when I turned I saw two angels in robes, one with brown hair and one with blond hair," she said. "It was kinda calming. I knew God was with us and that he'd take us to be with him, or leave us to do something great."

Elsewhere, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recounted another story of a mother and daughter. When the storm hit, the mother, holding her little child, ran for shelter. The force of the winds knocked them to the ground. Terrifyingly, the mother looked back to see a car picked up by the tornado and flung right in their direction. She couldn’t escape, she didn’t have the time. So she curled up and cradled her daughter, hoping to protect her from the impact of the car that was literally right above them. But it didn’t hit. She had closed her eyes, but her daughter didn’t. When the seconds passed by turned into minutes, she opened her eyes and the car was nowhere to be seen. “What happened?” she asked her daughter. “Didn’t you see the butterfly people mommy?” Her daughter was sure the Butterfly People were carrying humans through the sky. “They were beautiful”, the little girl said smiling!

Crazy shit! That literally gave me goosebumps as I read it.

The stories were mounting up. A grandfather and two young boys trapped outside during the tornado. The grandfather lost his shoes as the tornado passed over them, when the two young boys looked up they saw the ‘Butterfly People’ watching over them. Over the weeks, more and more people came forward, from all over the town. All reporting the same thing. People with wings, always described as butterflies. And most of the time, the reports were coming from children. One little girl with her mother said she wasn’t afraid because the ‘butterfly people were with them’. Another four-year-old boy said two Butterfly People ‘held’ his father’s car to stop it being taken away. And yet another little boy, who was picked up by the winds and flung some six miles through the air, told rescuers that angels caught him and sat him down safely on the ground.

The local hospital was inundated with the injured and soon, every ward, every room, every nurse, every patient, were filled with stories of these “Butterfly People”... angels protecting them during the worst of the storm. And not just there, but in the lines waiting for donated food, all anyone was talking about were the Butterfly People. It was one of the worst tornado strikes in living memory. For the months that followed, people gathered all over town and told their stories. Stories of how they survived and stories of those they lost. And, above all, stories of the Butterfly People.

This sounds incredible… But this isn't the first instance of this sort of thing happening. Take a look at the 1978 Freiberg mine disaster. All the miners, every one of them, saw a man standing in front of the mine at Freiberg, Germany. When the workers approached the man, they discovered huge wings covering his body. They stood in shock for a moment when, suddenly, the ‘angel’ let out a series of shrieks described as similar to a train’s emergency brakes. The miner’s fled and around one hour later, the mine exploded. A huge plume of smoke covered Freiberg. For many of the miners, what they saw was an angel, warning them of the danger. If they hadn’t fled, they’d all be dead after all…

The same thing happened in 1986 in Chernobyl. Dozens and dozens of people saw winged creatures, which many described as ‘angels’, hovering above the land moments before the disaster, leading many to believe these ‘angels’ were signs that a horrific event was coming. Even as recently as 2001, many people claim to have seen winged creatures around the Twin Towers shortly before the disaster.

So what are they?

Well the obvious first choice is… Angels. Joplin is at the centre of America’s religious heartland. Deep in the religious heartland, people of great faith claim to see an angel before they think they’re about to die. It does happen. Quite a lot, in fact. Near-death experiences often sound strange to those of us who haven’t had them. The one hole in this theory is that they didn’t say ‘angels’. Only a few did, but most people who saw the Butterfly People of Joplin described what they saw as the name implies, ‘butterfly people’ and not angels. Of course, many were children. Maybe the simple answer is that children have a better idea of what a butterfly is than an angel.

This leads into another explanation. NDEs, or near death experiences. Now since we know you guys are avid listeners, we know that you've already listened to our episode on NDE. Without getting deep into that subject again, basically some are saying that these people were simply experiencing NDE. Their brains were helping them cope with the fact they were about to die. But that doesn't explain why they all saw the same thing. Or why some that were literally about to die ended up safe.

Another interesting theory is that they were interdimensional beings. The theory basically states that because of the storm being so massive, the electricity in the atmosphere was ramped up considerably. This added to all of the energy of the storm somehow managing to rip open a portal or gateway that allowed these beings to pass through. The thought is that the beings, when confronted with the scene before them, came through the portal to help as many people as they could before the portal closed again. So there's that… Interdimensional beings.

With all of the stories it's hard to doubt that something strange truly happened. The people of Joplin stand by what they claim to have seen and with great conviction. During the summer, a mural was painted in downtown Joplin. Public meetings were held to gather ideas for the mural, how the city's history and the tornado should be depicted. While they resisted the inclusion of the butterfly people at first, they eventually decided on including butterflies in the mural. Big, colorful butterflies flutter across the scene, while two small angels can be seen, too. The murals artist said the butterflies represented metamorphosis, how the city is being reborn. The mural was titled "The Butterfly Effect" to represent how the mural could inspire others to do good in this world. It has nothing to do with butterfly people, he said. But everyone wasn't convinced. "Even on that mural," one resident said, "there's butterflies because they've heard of the butterfly people."

Butterflies have long held symbolic value. The ancient Greek word "psyche" refers to both butterflies and the human soul. Butterflies are depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of the book "On Death and Dying," said her study of death was influenced by a visit to a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland where she saw images of hundreds of butterflies carved into walls by prisoners.

So, what did they see? Could it have been mass hysteria? Interdimensional beings that crossed over during one of the most powerful natural events our world can create? Why was it mainly children that saw them? Are children just more susceptible to being able to see spirits? We’ve all seen “The Sixth Sense”, right? The Bruce Willis movie where the little boy is tormented by the ghosts he and ONLY he sees. Well, not to go COMPLETELY off the rails, here are some stories about creepy kids seeing some creepy shit.

The pajama-clad boy

“When we were looking at condos to purchase our first place, Claire was just shy of her third birthday. We brought her with us to all of our showings because we wanted to see how comfortable she was as it would be her home too. When we walked through the door of the place we ultimately bought, the second floor of a 1911 Chicago brick three-flat, we all knew immediately that it was the right place. That evening, I asked Claire if she thought that place would be a good home for her, and her response was, ‘Yes! And the little boy that lives there is really nice too.’

This took me aback, but I tried to remain calm. I asked her what she meant, and she said there was a little boy in his pajamas that she saw in the dining room. She said he had waved at her, he was about her age, and he was only in the dining room. She knew his name (which I don’t remember now) and that he was afraid of water. After she went to bed that night, I looked up ways to clear the energy of a home, how to communicate with a ghost so they don’t bother your family, and anything else I could find to make sure at least I could be comfortable living in this otherwise perfect condo. Claire never talked about him again, not even the next day when I asked her to tell my husband.” —Ashlie M., mom of two

The cemetery sighting

Trigger Warning: This next anecdote touches on the subject of the loss of a child and could be potentially triggering for some. Please skip ahead if you feel it might not be for you.

“My son was around 2 at the time. We were driving past the cemetery when he said, ‘Look, mama! Dead people.’ Yes, darling, I responded. ‘Kids!’ he continued, matter-of-factly. And sure enough, we were passing by the children’s section. Curious, I asked if the kids were happy or sad. ‘Happy, mama!’ he said. ‘They are running around that daddy.’ All I saw was a man standing alone with his head dropped. It warmed my heart, honestly.” —Erin T., mom of two

The lingering grandmother

“We bought our current house from a man who was married for 40+ years. His wife passed away a couple of years before we bought the house. One evening, while tucking my 2.5-year-old into bed, he said, ‘Mama, night-night to the grandma,’ while pointing to the hallway between his room and mine—what was her room back then.” —Priscilla A., mom of one

The ghost friend

“When we moved into our house, Leo (2.5) was seeing a ghost. He would say ‘ghost’ and point to the dining room table. One day, I mentioned ‘Mr. Hutchinson’ to someone while giving a history of the house, and Leo said, ‘Mr. Hutchinson, my ghost friend?’ We confirmed with a house cleanser that someone attached to the home, like a grandfather figure was here, and attracted to Leo’s light and innocence. We have since had our house cleansed twice!” —Amy F., mom of two

The midnight playmate

“My then 4-year-old would tell me about a little girl who wanted to play with her. She apparently wanted to play all hours of the day and night. When I was finally able to sort out what was up with my daughter, in the middle of the night, I left this little ghost some toys in an upstairs closet so she could play by herself. She had a stuffed lamb and a stuffed duck, and I used to find them moved most mornings. The 4-year-old shared a room with her sibling, so I know it wasn’t her moving the toys.” —Tracy B., mom of three

The door-slammer

“Ender, my 4-year-old, will tell us stories about the little girl who shuts doors and turns off the lights. He can’t tell us what she looks like or where she goes. I don’t talk about ghosts or anything that would give Ender this idea. The last time the little girl was here, I heard the door slam. I ran in and asked him if he had closed it. He told me ‘No, the little girl did because she didn’t want to play.’” —Dee Dee A., mom of two

The visit from grandpa

“My husband’s father passed away several years before my son was born. He died from the flu, and my husband had always felt guilty because he had been the one to share the sickness with him. We never talked to our son about his grandpa, but one morning he woke and said point-blank, ‘Daddy, Papa Don wanted me to tell you he’s doing fine.’ We asked him to describe his grandpa and he did so to a T, despite never having seen a photo of him. He said he was standing by a fast car with a cloud of smoke around him. This made perfect sense because my father-in-law raced sports cars and smoked heavily all his life.” —Michelle K., mom of two

So, there ya go! I only have one last question to ask… butterflies can often look like moths, right? Could these sightings have been the one and only Mothman? If you’re not familiar with his (or her) story, go all the way back to episode number five, from June 11, 2019 and listen to the train ride on THE MOTHMAN!

Now, it’s everyone’s favorite time! The Movies!

In order to keep this episode more uplifting than horrific, we’ve decided to discuss the top movies about kids with powers!

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Monday Feb 01, 2021

87 - The Axeman of New Orleans

Monday Feb 01, 2021

Hell, March 13, 1919

Esteemed Mortal of New Orleans:

They have never caught me and they never will. They have never seen me, for I am invisible, even as the ether that surrounds your earth. I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman.

When I see fit, I shall come and claim other victims. I alone know whom they shall be. I shall leave no clue except my bloody axe, besmeared with blood and brains of he whom I have sent below to keep me company.

If you wish you may tell the police to be careful not to rile me. Of course, I am a reasonable spirit. I take no offense at the way they have conducted their investigations in the past. In fact, they have been so utterly stupid as to not only amuse me, but His Satanic Majesty, Francis Josef, etc. But tell them to beware. Let them not try to discover what I am, for it were better that they were never born than to incur the wrath of the Axeman. I don't think there is any need of such a warning, for I feel sure the police will always dodge me, as they have in the past. They are wise and know how to keep away from all harm.

Undoubtedly, you Orleanians think of me as a most horrible murderer, which I am, but I could be much worse if I wanted to. If I wished, I could pay a visit to your city every night. At will I could slay thousands of your best citizens (and the worst), for I am in close relationship with the Angel of Death.

Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.

Well, as I am cold and crave the warmth of my native Tartarus, and it is about time I leave your earthly home, I will cease my discourse. Hoping that thou wilt publish this, that it may go well with thee, I have been, am and will be the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.

--The Axeman

Normally we would put this letter in the timeline where it belongs but we really think it sets the mood for the episode. It is now obvious that we are talking about none other than The Axeman Of New Orleans! This is another unsolved series of murders along the lines of The Cleveland Torso Killer and the Hinterkaifeck murders that we’ve covered. Are you sensing the pattern? Cus there's a pattern.

For over a year, from May 1918 to October 1919, the city of New Orleans, Louisiana was in a frenzied panic over a roaming serial killer dubbed the “Axeman”. The killer often struck with an axe that was found at the house of the victim. It wasn't always an axe, but it was always brutal. The axeman prayed on italians in New orleans. Today we will discuss the murders and some of the suspects of this crazy unsolved case.

First Murders:

Joseph and Catherine Maggio were italian immigrants who owned an Italian grocery and tavern at the corner of Upperline and Magnolia streets. The couple lived in an apartment behind the store and an adjacent apartment was occupied by Joseph's brothers Jake and Andrew. In the early morning of may 23rd 1918, at about 5 am, Andrew was awakened by loud thuds and moaning coming through the wall of the connecting apartment. Andrew awoke Jake and told him what he had heard. Andrew pounded on the wall but got no response. The brothers then rushed over to their brothers apartment to see what was happening. When they opened the door to their brothers room they were greeted by a horrifying sight. The room was covered in blood and the couple lay on the bed in a horrible state. The couple was laid out on the bed covered in blood each with several gashes in their heads.

In addition their throats were severed. The police arrived and questioned the brothers and searched the apartment. They found that a panel in the door had been removed with a chisel and that was the point of entry. A blood smeared axe was found in the bathtub which was identified by the brothers as Joseph’s. There was a safe that had been opened and rifled through but nothing appeared to be missing. There was also a box of cash and gems under the bed that had not been touched. Andrew, the younger brother was under suspicion immediately. He was a barber by trade and admitted the straight razor found on the bed, that was used to cut the throats of the victims, was his. Jake had just received his draft notice and spent the night drinking. A neighbor confirmed that he had come home at around 2am, before the killing was thought to have happened. Both men were taken down to the station. Jake was released soon after but Andrew was held longer in hopes they could build a case against him. With no physical evidence, the police released Andrew a little later in the day. One block from athe murder scene a cryptic message was found written in chalk on the sidewalk. It read:

“ Mrs Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney.”

What did this mean? Who was Mrs Toney? No one really knew but some thought this may have something to do with the murders of three italian couples killed in much the same way in 1911. The three couples were all italian grocers that were hacked up with axes. The houses were entered by the killer removing door panels. The husband of the last couple murdered had the first name of tony. Could his wife be the “Mrs. Toney” from the message? Oddly enough journalists could find no accounts of these crimes even though they were reported by a retired detective that claimed to have worked the cases. People started thinking this may be mafia related and have something to do with the couple not paying protection money.

It doesn't take long for the killer to strike again. Saturday June 16, 1918, a baker named John Banza arrived for a delivery at a grocery store at the corner of Dorgenois and LaHarpe streets. The grocery is owned by 59 year old Louis Besumer. He lived in an apartment behind the business with his companion, 28 year old Anna Harriet Lowe. As John was making his delivery, he found the front door locked so he went around to the side door and knocked. The door opened and John was shocked when Besumer opened the door and greeted him covered in blood from a large gash on his head. “We were attacked,” Besumer told John. In the bedroom John finds Anna, mutilated and barely clinging to life. There are bloody footprints leading from the bed to a swath of false hair on the floor. Once again entry was through a removed door panel and the weapon was a small rusty hatchet identified by Besumer as his own. Also no money or valuables were missing, just as in the first incident. Besumer couldn't give a description of the assailant and his wounds were not life threatening. Anna lays delirious from her wounds but claims she was attacked by a “mulatto”. Shortly after, a black man who worked at the grocery store had quit just a week prior, was arrested and questioned. He was ultimately exonerated and released. Anna's condition worsened and she began to accuse Besumer, the owner of the store, of the attack and claimed he was a german fuckin’ spy! The u.s. Justice department refutes this claim. The neighbors, obviously, begin to talk, spreading rumors of the two being an estranged couple, that secret government papers were found in the apartment, and even that the two were drug dealers with a secret supply of narcotics. Monday August 5, 1918, Anna died without saying anything else about the attack. When Besumer is released from the hospital he asks police if he could investigate the murder himself. This only makes the police suspicious and they actually arrest Besumer and try him for murder! He was eventually acquitted after a whopping ten minute...yes ten minute deliberation. Basically the jury took a smoke break and was like fuck it ...not guilty... lets go home.

On the same day that Anna died, another grisly scene was found. In the suburb of Algiers, just across the Mississippi river from New Orleans, Edward Schnieder was arriving home after working third shift at his job. As he walked into the house, something felt off. The house was way too fuckin quiet. He calls out to his wife but she doesn't answer him back. As he suspiciously walks around, He unexpectedly finds his wife lying on the bed bleeding profusely from several cuts to the head. She is also 8 months pregnant. The police and ambulance arrive and after a search, there is actually little that links this attack to the previous ones. There was no entry by a door panel, the weapon was missing, and they were neither italian nor grocers. So, was it connected or does our killer just NOT have an MO. Which, if you’re up on your serial killer methodology, you’ll recognize that’s not exactly “normal”. According to crimemuseum.org (and all the good true crime researchers and authors), there are three main types of serial killers.

THE MEDICAL KILLER

Although this type of killer is very rare, there have been some people who have become involved in the medical industry to carry out their nefarious deeds. This type of killer feels they are shroud because it isn’t uncommon for people to pass in a hospital. They are usually highly intelligent and know how to carefully and cleverly conceal their murders. If it appears that a victim has died a natural death, there will be no reason for anyone to suspect foul play and search for the guilty party. Few doctors in history have managed to kill dozens of people before others began to catch on.

THE ORGANIZED KILLER

This type of serial killer is the most difficult to identify and capture. They are usually highly intelligent and well organized to the point of being meticulous. Every detail of the crime is planned out well in advance, and the killer takes every precaution to make sure they leave no incriminating evidence behind. It is common for this type of psychopath to watch potential victims for several days to find someone they consider to be a good target. Once the victim is chosen, the killer will kidnap them, often through some sort of ploy designed to gain their sympathy and take them to another location to commit the murder. Once the person has been killed, the perpetrator will usually take precautions to ensure the body is not found until they want it to be. A criminal like this usually takes great pride in what they consider to be their “work” and tend to pay close attention to news stories about their deeds. One of their motivating factors may be to stump the law enforcement officers who are trying to solve their crime.

THE DISORGANIZED KILLER

These individuals rarely plan out the deaths of their victims in any way. Most often, the people they kill are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This type of serial killer appears to strike at random whenever an opportunity arises. They take no steps to cover up any signs of their crime and tend to move regularly to avoid being captured. Disorganized killers usually have low IQ’s and are extremely antisocial. They rarely have close friends or family, and do not like to stay in one place for too long. These killers are prone to have no recollection of their deeds, or to confess that they were motivated by voices in their heads or some other imaginary source.

Ok so on Saturday August 10, 1918, Pauline and Mary Bruno, age 18 and 13 are awakened in the middle of the night. They live behind a grocery store at the corner of Gravier and Tonti streets with their uncle Joseph Romano, age 30. He is a barber and Italian immigrant. The girls are awoken by sounds of a struggle coming from their uncles room. They sat up to see a large hulking figure looming in the doorway, and no… it wasn’t Mr. Moody. The girls screamed and the figure took off running. Their uncle staggered into the room and said something had happened, as the girls followed him into the kitchen. He was covered in blood. “My head hurts, call an ambulance!” he said. He then lapsed into unconsciousness and was taken to the hospital where he died a short time later. Pauline would say that Joseph was a good man with no enemies. The murder weapon was again the victims own axe which was taken from his shed and found covered in blood on the kitchen floor.

By now the italian community is undoubtedly on edge. And for obvious and good reason... They were all wondering who would be next. In an in depth and profound statement, the Police Superintendent said:

“I am of the belief that the murderer is a depraved killer with no regard for human life.”

Really? What the fuck made you assume that ? Brilliant….absolutely brilliant! Fly off and save someone else, captain obvious!

Sales of rifles, pistols, and shotguns increased, as did the addition of bars, grates, and grills on windows. Police are inundated with calls about suspicious people, findings of axes and chisels discarde on the street, and at least four incidents of grocers finding evidence that someone had tried to gain entry into their buildings using a chisel on the back door. In these cases the doors were too thick for the chisel to get through and whoever was trying to get in just gave up. There was even a report of a man that heard scraping sounds at his back door so he fired his shotgun at the door and saw someone hauling ass away from the house.

One man said an entry attempt was foiled by a case of tomatoes blocking the back door on the inside. That's one lazy killer, seriously, that is lame. Oddly enough, the range of victims and dates seem completely random. Police had pretty much no leads. The only things they knew for sure were that the killer entered by chiseling out door panels and attached brutally with axes and hatchets found at the scene of the crime. There was a lack of much more evidence. There were no clear finger or foot prints at the scenes. The city was in a panic. And of course there was no shortage of people bringing up the Jack the ripper comparisons. Since were also postulating that the killer may be a jekyll and hyde type personality. A normal well mannered person that may have some impulse take over that turns then into a killer with a blood lust… Which we suppose is like many serial killers.

Well as the summer went by and the year was coming to an end, things died down on the axe murderer front. The war ended and people rejoiced and the murders started to fade from the public consciousness. By the new year most were not talking about the murders anymore and many had let their guard down. Then in March of 1919 it all came rushing back.

Charles Cortimiglia, an italian immigrant, his wife Rose and the couple's two year old daughter May, live behind their store at the corner of 2nd and Jefferson streets in the suburb of Gretna. On the morning of March 9, 1919, a neighbor, Hazel Johnson, went to the store to find it locked up. This struck her as odd as Charles was known for his reliability. He had the store open at 5am every day including Sundays without fail. Hazel knocked but received no answer. She went around to the side of the building and peered into the bedroom window but it was so dark, she couldn’t see anything inside. She went around the back and saw that a panel had been removed. And so, for some stupid ass reason she decided to go inside…all of these people wandering into other people's homes are just asking for it honestly… Who does that?! You know it's gonna be bad… Call the fucking cops.

At any rate, once inside she of course, found a disturbingly brutal scene. She found Rose bleeding profusely from deep gashes on her head and holding the body of her dead daughter. Her husband lay on the bed beside them with several severe injuries to his head as well. Clinging to life the couple was taken across the river to Charity Hospital. Rose suffered a few severe injuries to her head but was expected to survive. Her husband had his skull crushed during the attack and was not expected to live. In the hospital, as Rose was recovering she was able to recall waking up in the night to her husband struggling with an intruder who was brandishing an axe. After disabling the husband the intruder came after her and her daughter. Incredibly she claims she was able to identify her attacker! She named 17 year old Frank Jordano, son of their neighbor iorlando Jordano. The Jordanos owned a competing grocery store on the same block. According to locals there had been bad blood between the families for a little while now. The Cortimiglias had worked for the Jordanos managing their grocery store. The Jordanos decided to take over managing the grocery themselves putting the Cortimiglias out of work. The Cortimiglias then opened their own grocery just a few doors down. The Jordanos vehemently deny any wrongdoing and claim the relationship with the Cortimiglias has been cordial. Also standing at 6ft tall and weighing over 200 lbs, they say there's no way their son could have squeezed his big ass through the removed door panel. A few days later, surprising everyone, Charles regains consciousness. He says that in fact it was not the neighbor that attacked him but it was an unknown assailant. Despite this, Frank and his father are placed under arrest for the murder of Mary Cortimiglia.

This brings us to Friday March 14, 1919. The newspaper in New Orleans, the Times-Picayune, publishes the letter that we read at the opening of the show. A mocking letter full of cryptic statements. Again, the letter states that the following Tuesday, the axeman will spare anyone playing jazz as he is a jazz aficionado. The following Wednesday would be St. Joseph's day, a day off celebrating within the Italian community. Accordingly, Tuesday night there was all kinds of shit going on around the city. Jazz clubs were packed with people. Axeman parties were in full swing at people's houses. Even homeless people along the riverfront improvised their own instruments to play jazz all night. True to his word, the axeman did not cometh. Not one was attacked that night… And they probably had a ton of fun not getting killed, but THAT would NOT be the end of the axeman's reign of terror.

Wednesday May 21st sees the trial of Frank and iorlando Jordano. Despite overwhelming evidence to their innocence and the refusal of Charles Cortimiglia to identify either of them as the attacker, the jury convicts the two men based solely on the accusations of Rose. The judge sentences Frank to death and his father to life in prison. Everyone was hopeful that the axeman's run was over, however on Sunday August 10, 1919… The axeman would strike again.

On this morning, Stephen Boca, you guessed it, an italian immigrant grocer, SHOCKER, came stumbling out of his apartment that was, yes… Connected to his grocery store on elysian fields Ave. He stumbled down the street bleeding profusely from several severe head wounds, making his way to a friend's house. His friend Frank helped him in, treated his wounds and called for help. The police investigated the scene and found all the axeman trademarks including the chiseled door panel and another, you guessed it, a bloody axe in the kitchen.

On Tuesday September 2, 1919 a druggist named William Carlson hears a suspicious noise outside of his back door. He fires several shots through the door at the would be intruder. The figure runs off leaving behind a what? Yep! An axe!

Wednesday September 3rd 1919 a young woman named Sarah Laumann is attacked in her bed by a man with a DUN DUN DUN… axe. She sustains several head wounds but recovers at the hospital. She claimed the man came after her in the dark with an axe, yet she could offer no description of the attacker. A bloody axe was found in the yard but that's possibly the only similarity at the crime scene. Entry was gained through a window not a chiseled door panel. And she was young, not italian and not a grocer. Was this the work of the axeman, or maybe a copy cat killer?

Mike and Rose Pepitone were italian immigrants who ran a grocery store at the corner of Ulloa and South Scott streets. They shared the residence with their 6 children ages 2-12. In the early morning of Monday October 27 1919, a man named Ben Corcoran, a sheriff's deputy, happened to be walking by the store. As he passed by, the Pepitone's 11 year old daughter came running out screaming at him for help. Inside the home he found a horrific scene. Mike Pepitone lay on the bed with his skull smashed in from several smashes with a blunt object. He was still alive…but barely. He was rushed to the hospital where he would die a short time later. His wife and children were all unharmed. Rose claims that around 2am she was startled by her husband's screams. She saw two shadows retreating towards the children's room. That's right… She said she saw TWO shadows. She turned to the kids room but the attackers had dipped out the back door. Police include this in the axeman murders, despite a couple of significant differences. First, entry was made via a window that was broken enough to unlatch and open it. Second the murder weapon was a pipe with a large nut at the end. it was found that there was no axe on hand at the house so they think the killer used whatever they found. Also the obvious claim of there being two attackers. Police noted that Rose did not seem to be upset over the incident and did not cry or show any emotion when answering questions. We'll get back to Rose Pepitone in a bit.

The residents didn't know it yet but this would be the last axeman killing. And just as abruptly as it started, it was over… no more axeman. So who was it… Were there suspects? Let's take a look.

First off, whatever happened to Frank and his father that were convicted in the killing of 2 year old Mary Cortimiglia? Well on December 6 1920, Rose Cortimiglia recanted her statement and claimed she only accused the men because of her jealousy stemming from the feud between the families...a family feud if you will…SURVEY SAYS!! No? Ah whatever fuck you if you don't think that's funny. Anyway, The men were given full pardons and set free.

Crime writer Colin Wilson speculates the Axeman could have been Joseph Momfre, a man shot to death in Los Angeles in December 1920 by the widow of Mike Pepitone, the Axeman's last known victim. Wilson's theory has been widely repeated in other true crime books and websites. However, true crime writer Michael Newton searched New Orleans and Los Angeles public, police and court records as well as newspaper archives, and failed to find any evidence of a man with the name "Joseph Momfre" (or a similar name) having been assaulted or killed in Los Angeles.

Newton was also not able to find any information that Mrs. Pepitone (identified in some sources as Esther Albano, and in others simply as a "woman who claimed to be Pepitone's widow") was arrested, tried or convicted for such a crime, or indeed had been in California. Newton notes that "Momfre" was not an unusual surname in New Orleans at the time of the crimes. It appears that there actually may have been an individual named Joseph Momfre or Mumfre in New Orleans who had a criminal history, and who may have been connected with organized crime; however, local records for the period are not extensive enough to allow confirmation of this, or to positively identify the individual. Wilson's explanation is an urban legend, and there is no more evidence now on the identity of the killer than there was at the time of the crimes.

Two of the alleged "early" victims of the Axeman, an Italian couple named Schiambra, were shot by an intruder in their Lower Ninth Ward home in the early morning hours of May 16, 1912. The male Schiambra survived while his wife died. In newspaper accounts, the prime suspect is referred to by the name of "Momfre" more than once. While radically different than the Axeman's usual modus operandi, if Joseph Momfre was indeed the Axeman, the Schiambras may well have been early victims of the future serial killer.

Ok, so let’s talk about THE BLACK HAND…

Since the majority of the Axeman’s attacks were on Italian-American grocers, it has led some to believe that they were all victims of an early form of Mafia, called the Black Hand. Black Hand crime was a name given to an extortion method used in Italian neighbourhoods at this time, therefore the murders could be linked to unpaid extortion debts. However, the Axeman frequently left suspects alive, which many Mafia experts believe would not have been the case if they’d have been true Black Hand attacks.

In a similar vein, many Sicilian immigrants to American at that time had a deep distrust of the authorities, which led them to take disputes into their own hands and settle them the old-fashioned way, otherwise known as the ‘vendetta’. The vendetta could well have been the reason behind a number of the attacks. The good ol “sleep with the fishes, see! Meh!”

COPYCAT KILLERS

Although the Axeman had a very distinct M.O., not all of the killings followed it to the letter, leading some to believe the Axeman was, in fact, several people who may or may not have been working together to terrorise the community. Looking at some of the crimes there were definitely differences to the norm. Whether it be the murder weapon or the mode of entry, even the number of assailants. This tends to be a pretty popular theory in a lot of circles.

UNGODLY DEMON

His ability to appear in people’s houses in the middle of the night and vanish just as easily, have some believing the Axeman was indeed what he said he was in his letter to the press - ‘the worst spirit that ever existed either in fact or realm of fancy.’ People point to the fact that whomever it was, was able to fit through tiny openings in the doors lending to the claim that it was a shape shifting demon. Combined with the wording in the infamous letter, since people who are easily led down that path believe wholeheartedly that this was truly the work of evil incarnate.

Other than those theories there doesn't seem to be much else in the way of suspects although during the investigation of the murder of the first victims, the Maggios, a crazy side story emerged, it goes as follows:

The killing of Joseph and Katherine Maggio was never solved. But the case did take up another phase the next day, just hours after Andrew Maggio's release from jail. At 3 a.m. on May 26, Dodson and Obitz, the detectives who discovered the writing in chalk on the sidewalk a block from where Joseph and Katherine Maggio had been killed, were sitting on a stoop at Baronne and Calliope streets while investigating a series of robberies in the neighborhood. A man approached them. Dodson and Obitz "accosted" him, according to news reports about the incident, and a gunbattle began. Obitz, 38, was shot through the heart and died.

In the aftermath, two innocent men who were mistakenly identified as having been the man confronted at Baronne and Calliope were shot dead by police, who faced no legal consequences for the killings. STREET JUSTICE! FUCK YEAH! Four days after the fatal shooting of Obitz, a teenager named Frank Bailey was arrested as a suspect at a house at the corner of Liberty and Perdido streets.

"Will the death of Detective Theodore Obitz handicap the police in their pursuit of evidence upon which to lay a foundation for disclosing the murderer or murderers of Joseph Maggio and his wife, who were hacked to death with an axe last Thursday morning in their bedroom of Magnolia and Upperline streets?" the States asked in a front-page story published on May 28. "Obitz was one of the most active of the investigators in the Maggio mystery, and is said to have possessed some information that might lead to its solution."

Bailey confessed to several robberies and to shooting Obitz, though at trial he changed his story and said he had falsely admitted to the killing of the officer because he was being tortured by police. He didn't deny firing his gun in the shootout. But Obitz, Bailey said at trial, had actually been shot by Dodson, the other officer. You hear that? The other COP shot him! Hhmmm suspicious much?!

The jury didn't buy it, however. Frank Bailey was convicted of murder in the death of Theodore Obitz and sentenced to die at the old Parish Prison. He was executed just over two years later, on Aug. 13, 1920. He was 18 years old.

Before going to the gallows, Bailey angrily denounced the prosecution.

"Detective Harry Dodson, partner of Obitz, was the man who killed him," Bailey told the States in a jailhouse interview published the day before he was hanged. "One of the bullets fired by Dodson struck Obitz in the head as he was shooting at me. I fired three shots as I ran, but I am sure none of them took effect. I fired as I ran and could not take aim.

"But if I am to die for the murder of Obitz, who is going to pay the penalty for the deaths of Louis Johnson and Abraham Price, two innocent negroes who were shot down while they were hunting me?

"When I have been executed, nothing will have been taken out of this world Friday. Most persons who hang are expected to make a last request. I will make none; not to the people of Louisiana. But I will make it to God. He hears; the public do not. I am going to walk to the gallows without a whimper. If there is such a thing as a spirit coming back to earth, I do not want to come back."

Wow… So that's another crazy arm of this case that, while not directly related to the axe murders, produced more craziness and death.

There were some later attacks too that might possibly have been the Axeman – Joseph Spero and his daughter in December 1920, in the city of Alexandria in central Louisiana, Giovanni Orlando of DeRiddler in western Louisiana a month later, in January 1921, and Frank Scalisi of nearby Lake Charles in April of the same year. Opinion is divided on whether these later attacks were the work of the Axeman or not. Some researchers do not even attribute the Pepitone murder to him.

We’re very unlikely to ever know for sure. The Axeman was never caught, and there are a number of potential suspects, all of whom are problematic in one way or another.

Top horror movies that take place in New Orleans, Louisiana.

https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=louisiana&genres=Horror&title_type=moviein or are about New Orleans.

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-about-new-orleans/ranker-film

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Monday Jan 25, 2021

86 - Tim Burton (Your Passenger Request)

Monday Jan 25, 2021

"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?"

-Tim Burton

Today's episode comes to you as per YOUR recommendation, passengers! Nope! It’s not another haunted tale about a murderous house or Another far fetched story about Moody having his colon cleansed by an alien with a shop vac! We asked who you wanted to hear about and you answered pretty much unanimously! You sexy sumbitches wanted to hear about none other than Mr. Burton! So today we are going to discuss all things related to the fantastic thrill ride known as BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA! That’s right! Jack Burton!

Kurt Russel and his big rig crushing through.. um... wait…

hold on a second.

Ok, that’s my bad…

it’s actually the OTHER Mr. Burton of importance, TIM BURTON!

Tim Burton was born Timothy Walter Burton on August 25, 1958 in Burbank, California. His mother was Jean Burton, later the owner of a cat-themed gift shop, lending to the notion that she, too, was quirky before quirky became fashionable.

"I don't know about that," Burton frowns today. "I found it more horrific than quirky but that's my opinion. Opening a cat store in Burbank was just a very strange idea. I don't think it did very well." His father was William "Bill" Burton, a former minor league baseball player who was working for the Burbank Parks and Recreation Department. Tim's younger brother, Daniel, was born in 1961.

Although he grew up in a typical American family in a typical American suburb, Tim did not have a typical, happy childhood. He recalls that he was a sad child who kept to himself. He didn’t even feel close to his family. His father wanted him to play sports and his mother tried to get him interested in playing the clarinet, but Tim resisted both. Although he did admit to playing baseball for a bit.

"I played baseball," he reluctantly admits. "My dad was a baseball player. He had been a professional athlete, and so it's easy for me to relate to that sort of dynamic with parents and kids, pushing and pulling them one way or the other."

He spent a great deal of his time in his room or watching TV. In talking of his strange childhood he recounts a story of his parents almost literally walling him in:

"When I was younger, I had these two windows in my room, nice windows that looked out onto the lawn, and for some reason my parents walled them up and gave me this little slit-window that I had to climb up on a desk to see out of. I never did ask them why.

"But my parents are dead now, so I guess the answer will remain unanswered as to why they sealed me in a room. I guess they just didn't want me to escape."

When he was ten years old, Tim went to live with his grandmother. She allowed him to spend even more time by himself, which he appreciated. He did not have many friends. Unlike other kids his age, he was not interested in after-school activities, sports, or popular music. He felt like he did not fit in, especially at school, where he was not a good student. Rumor has it that he attempted to burn the place down with everyone in it.

That rumor was actually started by ME, at this exact moment and of course it’s horse shit.

Although he felt alone in his world, Tim did find one thing that made him feel at home: monster movies. He spent many hours watching these movies on TV and in theaters. He identified with Frankenstein, Godzilla, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Tim felt that the creatures in the movies were not evil, rather, they were just misunderstood. In his mind, it was the people trying to destroy the creatures who were the real monsters. In the book Burton on Burton, he says, "I've always loved monsters and monster movies. I was never terrified of them, I just loved them from as early as I can remember." Feeling more empathy for the monsters in the popular horror movies of the day than he did with the adults in his life, he says: "I don't know why but I always related to characters like Frankenstein. I think a lot of kids do; it's easier to relate to the monster in the sense of he's alone. Growing up, you could feel those feelings and the way you felt about your neighbours is like they're the angry villagers.”

"I was never scared of monster movies. I could happily watch a monster movie but if I had one of my relatives come over, you'd be terrified."

Those same basic facts are always trotted out about Burton's childhood.

The young Burton won a poster-designing competition when in the ninth grade, and his anti-litter design adorned the sides of Burbank's garbage trucks for a year; he rarely mentions his younger brother; he wanted to be the actor who plays Godzilla; he played sports, but has since described himself as 'pushed' into this, he produced a number of Super-8 home movies that have since been lost. Those are the rest of the basics that you'll always find when looking for info about his childhood.

In many ways, this is unsurprising. Burton himself has gone on record about the uneventful nature of his early life saying, “it's weird, but the only experiences I remember from childhood are the ones which had a major impact: fearful things, like from a scary movie." Going through numerous interviews, it does indeed seem that the only things from this time that actually stuck with him are scary movies and the odd cult TV show, be it The Prisoner or Gilligan's Island. Only when he's asked by interviewers to explain the origins of his images of a bleak, bland suffocating suburbia (like Frankenweenie, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood or, pretty much every movie he’s ever been a part of.), alienated children (Vincent, Beetlejuice, Batman Returns, Mars Attacks! The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy or… any…uh.. other movie… he’s, uh… ever been a part of), or heroes who seem 'weird' to the people around them (ya’ know… like pretty much ALL of his films) Only at these times does Burton, seemingly bored by such a line of questioning, roll out the usual anecdotes that seem to be accepted as representative of his childhood.

When pressed, Burton's most regular description of his youth is to state something along the lines of, “if you didn't speak well, if you didn't hang out with the other children or didn't play sports, if you liked monster movies, you were strange.”? To the young Mr. Burton though, this outside status had advantages. The very fact that they categorised him this way allowed him to see the world from an external point of view.

"That meant my perception of normality was strange. For me, reality is bizarre."

However, Burton clearly didn't see this aspect of his childhood as unique, nor did he consider that he was a special, isolated case. “Every time I looked around... it looked like everyone had their own private world. You didn't see too many people... paying attention. They were in their own special worlds." This was an idea that he would soon be able to explore in his short film, Vincent.

It could be said that Burton has reshaped his own experiences in childhood to suit his later media image - that of the shy yet talented young artist and has now come to rely on them, maybe even believe them, exactly as another imaginative young man comes to believe his fantasies in Burton's first film to receive any kind of commercial release, “Vincent”. As Burton's friend and frequent collaborator Glenn Shadix put it, "the magazine idea of Tim is this weird, wigged-out, crazy person, and he's not like that, there's something very solid about him - yes, I think he always felt like a fish out of water growing up, but that doesn't mean his creativity is fuelled by pain or anger." Caroline Thompson, again both a friend and a collaborator, feels the same. For her, Burton's work has a "real affection for neighbourhood life... although he perpetuates this perception of himself as ... damaged, from my perspective it's just the opposite... he's escaped some fundamental damage that shuts most people down." Burton's life begins to be better documented from the time he first moved into the film world, having won a scholarship to the Disney-backed California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1976. One of his short film projects while at CalArts, Stalk of the Celery Monster was soon deemed good enough by Disney to warrant offering him a job as an animator, and he shifted base to Disney's Burbank lot.

Despite not being credited on the films, Burton’s initial tenure at Disney saw him working on both The Fox and the Hound and Tron.

His work was enough to get him recognized by a couple of Disney executives, who allotted him a small sum of cash to develop a short film of his own based on a poem he had written. This came to be known as Vincent, a short stop-animation film that followed a boy named Vincent that wants nothing more than to BE Vincent Price, narrated by Price himself. Which is amazing because, well… it’s Vincent fuckin Price.

While not anywhere close to what would be considered “Disney material” for the time, the short film was still a strong first effort from Burton as a director. “Vincent”, the short film, received accolades and awards, because it’s VINCENT FUCKING PRICE...and Burton would frequently reference it in his future works.

Despite Vincent’s relative success, the short film only saw a small, limited release in a single Los Angeles movie theatre before being locked away into the Disney Vault.

However, Burton’s effort on the film was not overlooked. He was given additional work as both an animator and a concept artist for Disney’s next feature animated film, “The Black Cauldron”.

Not-so-affectionately known as the “black sheep of Disney films,” The Black Cauldron suffered a number of issues during production.

Creative differences between personnel led to animators leaving the project. After a screening of the film in 1984, Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg marched down to the editing room and started to cut the “scarier” scenes himself- It wasn’t until Disney CEO Michael Eisner stepped in that Katzenberg relented. Still, over 12 minutes of footage ended up being cut from the film. Dick move, Katzy… dick move.

The Black Cauldron was a commercial and critical flop, with critics citing flat characters, scary visuals, and sloppy jumps in the animation as key reasons for the film’s failure. Probably because ol Katzy went in all willy nilly just chopping shit up. Again, I say… Dick move, Katzy… dick move.

However, while production on The Black Cauldron was wrapping up, Burton was already hard at work on a project of his own.

While the troubled production wrapped up on The Black Cauldron in 1984, Tim Burton had managed to secure a budget for another short film through Disney.

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie clocks in at just under half an hour and the cast included Shelley Duvall (The Shining), Sofia Coppola (Director, Lost in Translation), and Daniel Stern! Yes, THAT Daniel Stern. Marv from Home Alone and the narrator of the 80’s television hit show, “The Wonder Years”, which most of you are probably too young to know or remember and... you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Anyway, Frankenweenie follows the story of a young Victor Frankenstein living in a picturesque white-picket-fence suburban neighborhood.

All is well until his dog, Sparky, is struck by a car, right in front of him. Ugh!

As characters named Frankenstein often tend to do, he sneaks out in the night to raid the grave of his former friend and straps the corpse to a table hooked up to a number of improvised electronic instruments.

One bolt of lightning later... and Victor’s pal is back to wagging his tail just as he did before the accident, just with a few more stitches (and from the looks of things, pieces of other people’s dogs).

From there, the film plays just as any other Frankenstein’s Monster story would, but instead of angry villagers, you have paranoid neighbors. Instead of a fearsome, misunderstood monster, there’s a spry, happy, reanimated pup.

While the film is a call back to the golden age of the silver screen both in style and substance, Disney executives weren’t as impressed with the final product. FUCKIN’ KATZY! You know that scene chopping sonofabitch was involved.

Frankenweenie was meant to accompany the theatrical re-releases of The Jungle Book and Pinocchio, but after reviewing the film, the execs deemed that it was far too scary for the children that would be filling the theaters. Kids are pussies, just saying.

The film was shelved, placed into the Disney vault alongside Vincent, and Burton was accused of “wasting money” on a kid’s film too scary to actually be seen by kids.

Tim Burton was then fired from Disney after completing the film, stating that “It was a ‘thank you very much, but you go your way, and we’ll go our way’ kind of thing.” KATZY! You prick!

Given that Frankenweenie was completed just after the disastrous 1984 screening of The Black Cauldron, it’s no surprise that Disney would want to distance themselves from yet another film that was “too scary.”

Although Frankenweenie was not released to the public, it was shown in private screenings. Comedian Paul Reubens was at one of these screenings When he saw the film, and while NOT masterbating into a bucket of popcorn...this time, Reubens knew that Burton was the perfect person to bring his character, Pee-Wee Mother fucking Herman, to the big screen.

Burton was twenty-six when he met Reubens. By then Reubens's character of Pee-Wee Herman was well developed. If you’ve been hog tied in someone’s basement for the last 30 years, Pee-Wee Herman was a grown man, but his bizarre and often immature behavior made him seem more like a spoiled child. He always dressed in a gray suit with a red bow tie. He had a large collection of toys, including his most prized possession: a shiny red bicycle. Which would inevitably be stolen by that fat fuck, Francis… I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I!!!???

Sorry.

Ol TB (That’s Mr. Burton to you passengers) was thrilled when a representative from Warner Brothers Studios asked him to direct the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. He liked the material and he needed another project since he had quit his job at Disney after finishing Frankenweenie. Or was asked to leave… or was shit canned… Either way He also felt that he understood the Pee-Wee Herman character. Ac- cording to Burton. "The Pee-Wee character was just into what he was doing. It was nice that he didn't really care about how he was perceived. He operated in his own world and there's something I find very admirable about that.” Like jerkin it in movie theaters… that really happened, passengers… look it up.

In the movie, Pee-Wee's beloved bicycle is stolen. BY FUCKING FRANCIS! UGH! He goes on a Cross-Country trek to get it back, and on the way meets many interesting characters. Burton was careful to not put too many of his own ideas into the film. He understood that although he was the director it was really Reuben’s movie But Burton was still able to add some of his own personal touches. For example, there are two parts that feature stop-motion animation. Burton used this technique to animate a scene in which Pee Wee dreams his bicycle is being eaten by a tyrannosaurus rex. He also used stop motion to animate a truck driver named Large Marge. Many people think that Large Marge's distorting head is one of the funniest parts of the movie. “TELL EM LARGE MARGE SENT YA!

Cool side story, the same group that animated the large marge scene also did the stop motion animation for the Wil Ferrel film, Elf. You know, the part where Buddy was heading off to NY to see his dad and the narwhal says “Bye Buddy! I hope you find your dad!” Yeah, that was the Chiodos Brothers. Even deeper, Jon Favreau, the director of Elf… and Iron Man… and the Avengers… he voiced the narwhal. Ok…. sorry… I’m a nerd.

ANYWAY! Another way that Burton enhanced the movie was with his unexpected choice of composer for the musical score. Burton hired Danny Elfman, lead singer of the pop band Oingo Boingo, who’s song was our drink pop tune for this episode, to create music for the movie. Although Elfman had never scored a movie before, and literally almost said “NO” to the offer, the circus-like music he wrote turned out to be perfect for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. The film was the first of many that Elfman would score for Burton. Ya know… like DAMN NEAR EVERY FILM HE’S EVER DONE!

The next film that Burton would direct would be none other than Beetlejuice! For those of you who for some ridiculous reason don't know, The plot revolves around a recently deceased couple who become ghosts haunting their former home, and an obnoxious, devious poltergeist named Beetlejuice from the Netherworld tries to scare away the new inhabitants. Beetlejuice's budget was US$15 million, with just US$1 million given over to visual effects work. Considering the scale and scope of the effects, which included stop motion, replacement animation, prosthetic makeup, puppetry and blue screen, it was always Burton's intention to make the style similar to the B movies he grew up with as a child. "I wanted to make them look cheap and purposely fake-looking", Burton remarked. The test screenings were met with positive feedback and prompted Burton to film an epilogue featuring Betelgeuse foolishly angering a witch doctor. Warner Bros. disliked the title Beetlejuice and wanted to call the film House Ghosts. As a joke, Burton suggested the name Scared Sheetless and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it. Which is fucking amazing.

While working on Beetlejuice, warner bros approached Burton about working on Batman. Yes, Batman. One of the reasons that Burton wanted to direct Batman was that he felt that he understood the Batman character. He says, "I loved Batman, the split personality, the hidden person. It's a character I could relate to. Having those two sides, a light side and a dark one and not being able to resolve them."

It is important for Burton to connect to the characters he directs. Many observers believe this is why he tends to do movies about dark characters, who, like himself, have trouble fitting in with the people around them.

Even though he is a well-known director, Burton often feels like an outsider. He has suffered frequent bouts of depression and has a reputation for being short-tempered and moody. In his twenties he had a hard time communicating with people and rarely made eye contact. Burton usually prefers to be alone rather than with other people. Even his appearance is unusual -he has pale skin, droopy eyes, and an unruly mop of dark hair. He dresses only in black. Sounds like me but with hair...

Despite his reputation, Burton does have a few close friends. He’s also had three long-term relationships. The first was with German artist Lena Gieseke, whom he met while filming Batman. The two were married in 1989,

During the first year of his marriage to Gieseke, Burton worked on Batman, a much bigger movie than anything he had worked on before. The production budget for Beetlejuice was $15 million. For Batman, it was $40 million. Burton filmed the movie at Pinewood Studios in Great Britain, where his sets took up most of the 95-acre backlot and seventeen soundstages

Burton faced several challenges working on Batman. One of the first problems he encountered was resistance to his choice for the lead role. Burton cast the infamous Michael Keaton as the star of his movie. Many people doubted that Keaton would make a good Batman. Those people are what we at the train station like to call “dumbasses”. He did not have a muscular build and was not considered to be an action-adventure actor. Angry assholes wrote hundreds of letters to Warner Brothers demanding that the part be recast. But Burton stood by his decision. He told interviewer Alan Jones. "I looked at actors that were more the fan image of Batman, but I felt it was such an uninteresting way to go."

Another challenge Burton faced was that the writers kept rewriting parts of the script during filming. The writers got new ideas or realized that certain parts of the script would not work as well as they had originally thought. The constant changes were confusing and frustrating for Burton. He struggled to make the movie flow smoothly and to be sure that the plot was not too hard to follow. He told Jones, "It was tough from the point of having no time to regroup after the script revisions: I never had time to think about them. I always felt like I was catching up.”

Burton also felt the pressure of working on a big-budget picture. Studio executives had high hopes for the film. They had put a lot of money into it and expected it to make a lot of money back for them. In addition, millions of Batman fans were waiting to see how Burton would portray the beloved comic book character. This was also the first time that Burton had worked with a major star. Jack Nicholson, who played The Joker, was a superstar in Hollywood at this time.

Burton met these challenges, and when Batman came out in 1989 it was a huge success. Most of the fans liked the darker Batman that Burton created. However, Burton himself was not happy with the film. He felt that he let the script unravel, which resulted in a confusing plot with holes and inconsistencies. Burton eventually agreed to make the sequel, Batman Returns, because he wanted to correct these mistakes. But before working on the second Batman movie, Burton did a project of his own.

Between the two Batman movies, Burton wrote, produced, and directed Edward Scissorhands. The idea for the movie came from one of his many drawings. Burton drew constantly, both on and off the set. The drawing that inspired the movie was of a young man who had large, razor-sharp scissors instead of hands,

In the movie, which has been described as a modern-day fairy tale. Edward is the creation of an inventor (played by Vincent fucking Price), who died before he could give Edward human hands. An unusually shy and gentle man, Edward is left to go through life unable to touch anyone without hurting them. He is taken in by a kind woman played by Winona Ryder, who later went on to be Will’s mom in stranger things, and for a while is welcomed by her neighbors, who are thrilled with his ability to sculpt shrubs and cut hair. But affection soon turns to fear! There is a violent confrontation, after which Edward is exiled from the suburbs.

Burton cast Johnny Depp to play the part of Edward scissorhands. Burton felt that Depp had an innocent quality that was key to Edwards' character. He also thought that Depp had expressive eyes, which was important because the character does not speak very much. Burton and Depp worked well together and went on to become good friends. Though not a blockbuster, the movie did well. Most of the reviews from critics were positive, praising Burton's imaginative style. Many reviewers also noted that the movie was obviously a very personal one for Burton. In it, Burton's own feelings and life experiences are strong themes.

Like Edward, Burton felt he did not fit in with his surroundings, especially when he was young. He talks about this in an interview with Kristine McKenna: "School is your first taste of categorization and you don't have to do much to be put in a weird category. I felt very lonely in school, and Edward Scissorhands was based on the loneliness I experienced as a kid."

Burton may have felt lonely as a child, but by the time Edward Scissorhands was released, he was very much in demand. With four successful major motion pictures to his credit. Burton was one of the hottest directors in Hollywood.

Soon after Edward Scissorhands was released in 1990, Burton Began working on Batman Returns. Although the movie did very well at the box office, some critics felt that the character of Batman was even darker in this movie than in the first one. Burton agrees. He believes that the problems he was having in his personal life influenced how he directed the movie. His marriage to Gieseke came to an end during the filming, and a close friend committed suicide. Burton was depressed and struggled more than usual to relate to other people. His reputation for being inconsiderate and difficult to work with worsened.

Burton's life improved dramatically on New Year's Eve in 1991 when he met model Lisa Marie. The two fell in love, and friends say that the relationship changed Burton's life. He became more focused and easier to work with, and even started dressing better!

During this time Burton was also working on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton had proposed this project to Disney ten years earlier. At that time Disney executives were not interested in producing the project. However, Disney still retained the rights to the project, and by 1991, the studio was eager to work with Burton, by then one of the most successful directors in Hollywood,

Burton produced Nightmare, but most people don’t know that he did not direct it! Mainly because he was still working on Batman Returns. He also created the characters, wrote the script, and made sure that the crew stayed focused on his vision. The movie was done using stop-motion animation, a process that took so long that only about seventy seconds of film was shot each week. As a result, the movie took three years to complete.

In the film, once again, Burton's main character is misunderstood by the people around him. Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, decides that he wants to take over Christmas. But he does not quite understand the holiday. After kidnapping Santa Claus, Jack delivers strange and scary toys made by the spooky residents of Halloweentown. Children are terrified, and Jack's version of Christmas is a failure.

The movie, however, was not. Well, at first it kind of was. Once again, Burton was praised for his originality. Although some parents thought the movie was too scary for children, Burton disagreed. He believes that children should decide for themselves if something is too scary and that adults should give them the freedom to make those choices. Disney initially pulled their name from the movie, releasing it on Touchstone pictures and simply calling it “Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas”. Well, the movie took on a life of its own and on a trip to China, one of the guys who had worked on the movie noticed that the characters were HUGE there and brought it to everyone's attention. Obviously, Disney took notice, because… money. That’s why. When you see it now, it’s got the “Disney” name all over it. It’s even on Disney plus…

Oh. And Burton once put his foot through a wall because he didn’t like one of the scenes from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

In 1994, Burton and frequent co-producer Denise Di Novi produced the 1994 fantasy-comedy Cabin Boy, starring comedian Chris Elliott and directed/written by Adam Resnick. Burton was originally supposed to direct the film after seeing Elliott perform on Get a Life, but he handed the directing responsibility to Resnick once he was offered Ed Wood. Burton's next film, Ed Wood (1994), was of a much smaller scale, depicting the life of infamous director Ed Wood. Starring Johnny Depp in the title role, the film is an homage to the low-budget science fiction and horror films of Burton's childhood and handles its comical protagonist and his motley band of collaborators with surprising fondness and sensitivity. Owing to creative squabbles during the making of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Danny Elfman declined to score Ed Wood, and the assignment went to Howard Shore. While a commercial failure at the time of its release, Ed Wood was well received by critics. Martin Landau received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi, and the film received the Academy Award for Best Makeup.

In 1996, Burton and Selick reunited for the musical fantasy James and the Giant Peach, based on the book by Roald Dahl which contains magical elements and references to drugs and alcohol. The film, a combination of live action and stop motion footage, starred Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, David Thewlis, Simon Callow and Jane Leeves among others, with Burton producing and Selick directing. The film was mostly praised by critics and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (by Randy Newman).

Elfman and Burton reunited for Mars Attacks! (1996). Based on a popular science-fiction trading card series, the film was a hybrid of 1950s science fiction and 1970s all-star disaster films. Coincidence made it an inadvertent spoof of the blockbuster Independence Day, which had been released five months earlier.

Sleepy Hollow, released in late 1999, had a supernatural setting and starred Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, a detective with an interest in forensic science rather than the schoolteacher of Washington Irving's original tale. With Sleepy Hollow, Burton paid homage to the horror films of the English company Hammer Films. Christopher Lee, one of Hammer's stars, was given a cameo role. Mostly well received by critics, and with a special mention to Elfman's gothic score, the film won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, as well as two BAFTAs for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. A box office success, Sleepy Hollow was also a turning point for Burton. Along with change in his personal life (separation from actress Lisa Marie), Burton changed radically in style for his next project, leaving the haunted forests and colorful outcasts behind to go on to directing Planet of the Apes which, as Burton had repeatedly noted, was "not a remake" of the earlier film.

Planet of the Apes did not do as well at the box office as the studio had expected, and it received mixed reviews. Many critics felt that the story was too slow and the plot contained too many holes. But most agreed that the movie was visually stunning. The ape world that Burton created is dark, filled with creeping vines and cavelike rooms. The apes that live in this world are also quite amazing, due to their elaborate costumes and makeup. Critics also praised the performance of Helena Bonham Carter, who had a starring role as an ape who tries to help the humans,

Burton was also pleased with Carter's performance. The two struck up a friendship that quickly turned romantic. Shortly after the movie came out in 2001, Burton broke up with Lisa Marie. He began dating Carter and the two were soon engaged. Despite Planet of the Apes' disappointing reviews, Burton remained a sought after director. No matter what kind of reviews his movies received, the films were never boring, Burton was admired for his unique style and willingness to take chances.

Roald Dahl's classic book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was made into a movie over thirty years ago with one of my favorite actors, Gene Wilder. Although many people loved the movie, Burton did not. He thought it was sappy. He also did not like the ways in which the movie was different from the book. He especially felt that the character of Willy Wonka was not portrayed as Dahl had written him. Burton wanted his version of the book to stick more closely to Dahl's original story

Chocolate and Corpses

Burton was given a budget of $150 million for Charlie and the Chocolate factory. A lot of the money for the movie went into building the elaborate sets and creating the amazing special effects that were needed to bring Dahl's story to life. In the story, Charlie Bucket and four other children find golden tickets in Wonka chocolate bars that allow them to visit Willy Wonkas mysterious chocolate factory. During the tour of the bizarre, amazing, and sometimes scary factory, each of the children except Charlie manages to get into serious trouble

Burton cast Johnny Depp in the important role of Willy Wonka. Like many of Burton's characters, Wonka is depicted as a strange man who has issues with his family and who does not know how to relate to other people.

One of the most incredible scenes in the movie is when Willy Wonka brings the five lucky children into the Chocolate Room. Rather than using computer-generated images (CGI) to create this room, Burton chose to build the entire set. The set takes up 45,000 square feet (13,716 sq m.) The landscape was all made to look edible and includes nearly seventy different kinds of plants, 30-foot (9m) trees, and a chocolate river with a 70-foot (21m) chocolate falls. Burton explains. ”We felt it was important to be in the environment and make it as textural as possible to give it as much reality as possible.... We spent months trying to find the right consistency to make the chocolate, to give it the weight so it didn't look like brown water." Burton needed nearly 250,000 gallons of the fake chocolate to make his river. One of the challenges of working with the gooey liquid, which is called Nutrisol, was that after a couple of weeks it started to smell really awful.

It is in the Chocolate Room that the children first encounter the Oompa-Loompas, the little people who work in the factory. The Oompa-Loompas also perform four elaborate song-and-dance numbers. Although there are hundreds of them in the movie, they were all played by only one actor-a 4-foot (1.2m) dwarf named Deep Roy. Burton used several kinds of special effects to multiply the Oompa-Loompas. Remote-controlled robots were used when the Oompa-Loompas were shot at a distance and when they did not need to do anything too complicated Burton also used camera tricks to multiply Roys image. For these scenes, Roy was filmed hundreds of times from many different angles. In addition, Burton used CGI for some of the trickier Oompa-Loompa scenes

Some of the same special effects were used in the scene in which forty squirrels shell walnuts and attack one of the children. Although some of the squirrels were robots or CGIS, most of them were real. Burton had them trained to sit on stools, crack nuts, and put the nuts on a conveyor belt. It took four months to train the squirrels because these animals are very difficult to work with. To learn the behavior, each squirrel had to repeat it about two thousand times. Although the scene was difficult and expensive to film, Burton was pleased with the result.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was well received by audiences both young and old. People loved the spectacular world of the chocolate factory that Burton created, as well as the interesting characters.

While filming Charlie and the chocolate factory, Burton, Carter, and Depp were also starting work on Corpse Bride. Corpse Bride (also known as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) is a 2005 stop-motion animated musical fantasy film. The film is based on a 19th-century Russian-Jewish folktale, which Joe Ranft introduced to Burton while they were finishing The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film began production in November 2003. Co-director Mike Johnson spoke about how they took a more organic approach to directing the film, saying: "In a co-directing situation, one director usually handles one sequence while the other handles another. Our approach was more organic. Tim knew where he wanted the film to go as far as the emotional tone and story points to hit. My job was to work with the crew on a daily basis and get the footage as close as possible to how I thought he wanted it." Corpse Bride received positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for the 78th Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which also starred Helena Bonham Carter. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Animation Films list.

2007 saw Burton put out his version of the Sweeney Todd tale. The film retells the Victorian melodramatic tale of Sweeney Todd, an English barber and serial killer who murders his customers with a straight razor and, with the help of his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett, processes their corpses into meat pies. The film stars Johnny Depp as the title character and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett. Grossing over $150 million worldwide, the film was praised for the performances of the cast, musical numbers, costume and set design, and its faithfulness to the 1979 musical. It was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2007 and won numerous awards, including Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, as well as the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Depp received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Although the film was not an outstanding financial success in North America, it performed well worldwide.

In 2010 Burton released his Version of Alice in Wonderland. Loosely inspired by Lewis Carroll's fantasy novels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and Walt Disney's 1951 animated film of the same name, the film tells the story of a nineteen-year-old Alice Kingsleigh, who is told that she can restore the White Queen to her throne, with the help of the Mad Hatter. She is the only one who can slay the Jabberwocky, a dragon-like creature that is controlled by the Red Queen and terrorizes Underland's inhabitants. In this situation, Alice fights against the Red Queen to protect the world. Alice in Wonderland received mixed reviews from critics upon release; although praised for its visual style, costumes, production values, musical score, and visual effects, the film was criticized for its lack of narrative coherence and sombre tone.

Dark Shadows is a 2012 American fantasy horror comedy film based on the gothic television soap opera of the same name.The film performed poorly at the U.S. box office, but did well in foreign markets. The film received mixed reviews; critics praised its visual style and consistent humor but felt it lacked a focused or substantial plot and developed characters. The film was produced by Richard D. Zanuck, who died two months after its release. It featured the final appearance of original series actor Jonathan Frid, who died shortly before its release. It was the 200th film appearance of actor Christopher Lee, who you all know as Saruman from the Lord of the Rings movies and Count Fuckin Dooku from The shitty Star Wars movies. Dark shadows was Lee’s fifth and final appearance in a Burton film.

Burton then remade his 1984 short film Frankenweenie as a feature-length stop motion film, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Burton has said, "The film is based on a memory that I had when I was growing up and with my relationship with a dog that I had." The film was released on October 5, 2012, and met with positive reviews.

Burton directed the 2014 biographical drama film Big Eyes about American artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), whose work was fraudulently claimed in the 1950s and 1960s by her then-husband, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), and their heated divorce trial after Margaret accused Walter of stealing credit for her paintings. The script was written by the screenwriters behind Burton's Ed Wood, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Filming began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in mid-2013. The film was distributed by The Weinstein Company and released in U.S. theaters on December 25, 2014. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Next up was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It is based on a contemporary fantasy debut novel by American author Ransom Riggs. Who may quite possibly have the coolest name in Hollywood. The story is told through a combination of narrative and a mix of vernacular and found photography from the personal archives of collectors listed by the author.

2019 saw Burton put out a live action adaptation of the Disney classic Dumbo. Yep! Burton was behind the new Dumbo movie. Plans for a live-action film adaptation of Dumbo were announced in 2014, and Burton was confirmed as director in March 2015. Most of the cast signed on for the feature in March 2017 and principal photography began in July 2017 in England, lasting until November. It was the first of four remakes of prior animated films that Disney released in 2019. I, personally, can’t stand these live action remakes and wish these hacks would come up with something original. LIKE SHIT EATING ROBOTS KNOWN AS THE FECAL FIGHTERS!!

Anyway. The film grossed $353 million worldwide against a $170 million budget, which was not as commercially successful as Aladdin or The Lion King. Fuck those movies.

Dumbo received mixed reviews from critics, who praised its ambition but said it did not live up to its predecessor. Reviews were mixed for the movie. while audiences gave the film an average of an A- grade, critics were not as convinced, giving the movie an average of 3 out of 5 stars.

As for his personal life, as we mentioned, Burton was married to Lena Gieseke, a German-born artist. Their marriage ended in 1991 after four years. He went on to live with model and actress Lisa Marie; she acted in the films he made during their relationship from 1992 to 2001, most notably in Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks!. Burton developed a romantic relationship with English actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he met while filming Planet of the Apes. Marie responded in 2005 by holding an auction of personal belongings that Burton had left behind, much to his dismay. Which is fucking hilarious and why we had to mention her again.

Burton and Bonham Carter have two children: a son, William Raymond, named after his and Bonham Carter's fathers, born in 2003; and a daughter, Nell, born in 2007. Bonham Carter's representative said in December 2014 that she and Burton had broken up amicably earlier that year. It is unclear whether or not they were married; Bonham Carter has used the word divorce when discussing the end of their relationship while other news outlets state that they never married.

In a 2005 interview with the Evening Standard, Bonham Carter speculated that Burton might have traits of Asperger syndrome.

On March 15, 2010, Burton received the insignia of Chevalier of Arts and Letters from then-Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand. The same year, Burton was the President of the Jury for the 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival, held from May 12 to 24 in Cannes, France.

Burton's next big project — 'The Addams Family' series — is slated to release via Netflix in 2022, confirms Deadline. And as rumor has it, Burton wants Depp to portray Gomez Addams. Multiple 'sources' have hinted that Tim Burton has explicitly said he thinks Depp would be perfect as Gomez, and fans agree.

Tim Burton directed movies ranked!

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/all-tim-burton-movies-ranked/

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Monday Jan 18, 2021

85 - The Winchester Mansion (Sarah Winchester Was A Bad Ass!)

Monday Jan 18, 2021

Today's episode examines the life of an eccentric, possibly mentally ill woman and the incredible house she built. We‘ll talk about possible hauntings, impossible architecture and the delusion of a heart broken woman. We are discussing Sarah Winchester and what some less than creative people have dubbed The Winchester Mystery House!

Her birth name was Sarah Lockwood Pardee. She was the fifth of seven children born to Leonard Pardee and Sarah Burns. There are no existing records or any other form of factual information to establish Sarah’s date of birth—even the year remains unknown. The scarce information that survives from the historical record indicates her birth must have occurred somewhere between 1835 and 1845.

At the time of Sarah’s birth, the Pardee’s were a respectable, upper middle class New Haven family. Her father Leonard was a joiner by trade whose shrewd sense of business found him moving up the ladder of polite society as a successful carriage manufacturer. Later, during the Civil War, he made a fortune supplying ambulances to the Union Army.

Young Sarah’s most distinguishing characteristic was that she was everything but ordinary. She was a child prodigy… a fire starter. Ok, no… By all accounts, she was also considered to be quite beautiful. By the age of twelve, Sarah was already fluent in the Latin, French, Spanish, and Italian languages. Furthermore, her knowledge of the classics (most notably Homer… no, not Simpson, and Shakespeare) along with a remarkable talent as a musician was well noticed. It is no wonder that New Haven Society would eventually dub her “The Belle of New Haven.”

In addition to Sarah’s brilliance and respectable place in society, there were several factors about New Haven that presented a unique influence on her upbringing. To begin, there was Yale University (originally known as Yale College). From its inception, Yale (and New Haven) was a hub of progressive, Freemasonic-Rosicrucian thinking and activity. By the way, we’ll most definitely be taking a train ride on the Freemasons.

As a result, Sarah was raised and educated in an environment ripe with Freemasonic and Rosicrucian philosophy. Several of Sarah’s uncles and cousins were Freemasons. But more importantly, at an early age, she was admitted to Yale’s only female scholastic institution known as the “Young Ladies Collegiate Institute.” Two of the school’s most influential administrators and professors, Judson A. Root and his brother N.W. Taylor Root were both Rose Croix Freemasons. In addition to the liberal arts, the Roots set forth a strict curriculum consisting of the sciences and mathematics. Sounds super fucking boring.

Furthermore, two of Sarah’s schoolmates Susan and Rebecca Bacon were the daughters of New Haven’s highly respected Reverend Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon (no relation to Francis Bacon, who was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and as Lord Chancellor of England. His works are credited with developing the scientific method and remained influential through the scientific revolution, just in case you nerds were wondering.). While Sarah and the Bacon girls were attending the school, Dr. Bacon’s sister Delia, also a New Haven resident, attracted considerable fame and attention for writing her famous treatise that Sir Francis Bacon (with the aid of a circle of the finest literary minds of the Elizabethan-Jacobean Age) was the actual author, editor, and publisher of the original works of Shakespeare. Ah ha! See!

Her work was sponsored by the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and was later supported by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Mark Twain! Good ol Samuel Clemens.

In addition to her writing, Delia Bacon gave numerous public lectures to the citizens of New Haven; thus, New Haven, Connecticut was the actual birthplace of the “Bacon is Shakespeare” doctrine. We’re here to learn ya, folks!

Given her direct exposure to the Baconian Doctrine, along with her passion for the Shakespearean works, it was inevitable that Sarah was drawn like an irresistible force to a more than passing interest in the new theorem. Moreover, the Baconian-Masonic preoccupation with secret encryption techniques using numbered cipher systems most certainly influenced young Sarah’s world view. This unique backdrop to Sarah’s early development played a crucial role which, in essence, defined what would become her life’s work. So much smarts!

As we’ll see, the Belle of New Haven became a staunch Baconian for the rest of her life. She just LOOOVED HER BACON! BLTs, Canadian bacon, pancetta… she loved it all! A completely strict diet of fucking bacon! Except turkey bacon. Fuck that fake shit.

No, but seriously, She also acquired a vast and uncanny knowledge of Masonic-Rosicrucian ritual and symbolism… SSSYMBOLISM. Additionally, she gravitated to Theosophy.

Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late nineteenth century. It was founded primarily by the Russian immigrant Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings.

Author and historian Ralph Rambo (who actually knew Sarah and is a direct descendant of American bad ass and war hero John J Rambo) wrote “it is believed that Mrs. Winchester was a Theosophist.” Rambo didn’t elaborate on the matter, making him and his statement one of the more boring we’ve heard, but since he was close to Sarah he was certainly in a position to know some things about her. It should be noted that most Rosicrucians are theosophists.

Sarah adhered both to Bacon’s Kabbalistic theosophy, which is the eternal belief in the Mortal Kombat franchise no matter how bad their movies are… ok, that was stupid. Anyway, she was also super into the theosophical perspective held by Rudolph Steiner (1861- 1925). Steiner viewed the universe as a vast, living organism in which all things are likened to individually evolving units or cells that comprise a greater universal, synergistic body that is “ever building.” As we shall further see, the “ever building” theme was at the core of Sarah’s methodology.

William Wirt Winchester was born in Baltimore, MD on July 22, 1837. He was the only son of Oliver Fisher Winchester and Jane Ellen Hope. In keeping with a popular trend of the day, he was named after William Wirt, the highly popular and longest serving Attorney General of the United States .

Soon after William’s arrival, the Winchesters moved to New Haven where the enterprising Oliver, along with his partner John Davies, founded a successful clothing manufacturing company. Gradually, the Winchester patriarch amassed a considerable fortune. Later, Oliver channeled his efforts into a firearms manufacturing venture that eventually (1866) evolved into the famous Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Fuckin’ Winchester! Woo!!

According to historical documents, the Winchesters and the Pardees were well acquainted, particularly through the auspices of New Haven’s First Baptist Church. Additionally, Sarah Pardee and William’s sister Annie were classmates at the Young Ladies Collegiate Institute.

Not far away, William attended New Haven’s Collegiate and Commercial Institute—another arm of Yale College. Here, William’s teachers included N.W. Taylor Root (one of Sarah’s instructors) and Henry E. Pardee who was another of Sarah’s cousins. Thus, Young Sarah and William found themselves studying virtually the same curriculum under very similar circumstances. Moreover, like the Pardees, the Winchester family was not lacking in members who were Freemasons.

Sarah and William were married on September 30, 1862. Their only child, Annie Pardee Winchester came into the world on July 12, 1866. Unfortunately, due to an infantile decease known as Marasmus (a severe form of malnutrition due to the body’s inability to metabolize proteins), Annie died 40 days later.

In 1880, Ol Oliver Fisher Winchester died, leaving the succession of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to his only son. One year later, William died of fucking Tuberculosis at the age of 43. Dammit, TB! The double loss of Annie and William was a staggering blow to Sarah. However, the loss did leave the widow Winchester with an inheritance of 20 million dollars (510 million today) plus nearly 50% of the Winchester Arms stock—which, in turn earned her approximately $1,000 dollars per day (25,000 today) in royalties for the rest of her life—the result of which made her one of the wealthiest women in the world. Get it, girl!

According to Ralph Rambo, john j rambo’s great great uncle, Sarah went on a three year world tour with her new band “Rifles and Posies”, who sold 3 million records worldwide and had a huge hit with their single “fuck tuberculosis” before settling in California in 1884.

“The New Haven Register,” dated 1886, lists Sarah as having been “removed to Europe.” No other information has survived to tell us exactly where Mrs. Winchester went during those years or what her activities consisted of. But we can project some well educated theories.

Although Freemasonry has traditionally barred women from its membership, there are numerous documented cases in which some head-strong women have gained admittance into liberal, Masonic Lodges as far back as the 18th Century. A movement in France called Co-Freemasonry, which allows for male and female membership was already underway when Sarah arrived in that country. Given her social status, a predilection towards Freemasonic tenets, and a mastery of the European languages, Sarah could easily have been admitted into any of the permissive French Masonic lodges.

Another possible scenario involving Mrs. Winchester’s activities while abroad could well have included visits to esoteric, architectural landmarks such as the French Cathedral of Chartres. Sarah’s Masonic-Rosicrucian interest in labyrinths would have drawn her to Chartres with its 11 circuit labyrinth, a puzzle-like feature that stresses the discipline of the initiatic tradition of the ancient mystery schools. Likewise, she would also have found inspiration in the Freemasonic symbolism and the mysterious structure (including a staircase that leads nowhere) of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland .

In 1884, Sarah took up residence in the San Francisco Bay area—eventually moving inland to the Santa Clara Valley (now San Jose) to buy an eight room farmhouse from one Dr. Robert Caldwell. Her apparent motive for the move was to live in close proximity to her numerous Pardee relatives, most of whom had come to California during the 1849 Gold Rush, and were scattered from Sacramento to the Bay area.

One of these Pardee relatives, Enoch H. Pardee, had become a highly respected physician and politician while living in Oakland. Later his son George C. Pardee followed in his father’s footsteps rising to the office of Governor of California (1903- 1907.

It is interesting that Wikipedia makes particular note of Enoch Pardee having been “a prominent occultist.” Most likely the occult reference has to do with the fact that both Enoch and his son George were members of the highly secretive and mysterious ( California based) Bohemian Club which was an offshoot of Yale’s Skull and Bones Society. Moreover, Enoch and George were Knights Templar Freemasons.

Also interesting, is the fact that President Theodore Roosevelt (another member of the Bohemian Club) came to California in 1903 to ask Governor Pardee to run as his Vice Presidential candidate in the 1904 national election. The offer was turned down. During the same trip, Roosevelt attempted to visit Sarah Pardee Winchester. Again, Roosevelt’s offer was turned down.

THE STORY BEHIND THE HOUSE

The story goes that after the death of her child and her husband she moved to California and bought the 8 room farmhouse and began building. It is said once construction started it was a continuous process. Workers in the area would work in shifts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We're going to explore the stories about her mental state, the construction of the house, and the reports of ghosts and spooky stuff.

The story supposedly starts like this:

There was no plan – no official blueprints were drawn up, no architectural vision was created, and yet a once-unfinished house took shape on a sprawling lot in the heart of San Jose, California. Inside, staircases ascended through several levels before ending abruptly, doorways opened to blank walls, and corners rounded to dead ends.

The house was the brainchild of Sarah Winchester, heir by marriage to the Winchester firearms fortune, and since the project began in 1884 rumors have swirled about the construction, the inhabitants, and the seemingly endless maze that sits at 525 South Winchester Blvd.

Today, the house is known as the Winchester Mystery House, but at the time of its construction, it was simply Sarah Winchester’s House.

Newly in possession of a massive fortune and struggling with the loss of her husband and daughter, she sought the advice of a medium. She hoped, perhaps, to get advice from the beyond as to how to spend her fortune or what to do with her life.

Though the exact specifics remain between Sarah Winchester and her medium, the story goes that the medium was able to channel dearly departed William, who advised Sarah to leave her home in New Haven, Connecticut, and head west to California. As far as what to do with her money, William answered that too; she was to use the fortune to build a home for the spirits of those who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles, lest she be haunted by them for the rest of her life.

So there's that… Spirits from beyond told her to build!

After this is when she ended up in San Jose and purchased the farm house.

Winchester hired carpenters to work around the clock, expanding the small house into a seven-story mansion. The construction of the House was an “ever building” enterprise in which rotating shifts of workers labored 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. the House gradually mushroomed outward and upward,By the turn of the century, Sarah Winchester had her ghost house: an oddly laid out mansion, with seven stories, 161 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 panes of glass, two basements, three elevators, and a mysterious fun-house-like interior. It was built at a price tag of the $5 million dollars in 1923 or $71 million today. Due to the lack of a plan and the presence of an architect, the house was constructed haphazardly; rooms were added onto exterior walls resulting in windows overlooking other rooms. Multiple staircases would be added, all with different sized risers, giving each staircase a distorted look.

Gold and silver chandeliers hung from the ceilings above hand-inlaid parquet flooring. Dozens of artful stained-glass windows created by Tiffany & Co. dotted the walls, including some designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. One window, in particular, was intended to create a prismatic rainbow effect on the floor when light flowed through it – of course, the window ended up on an interior wall, and thus the effect was never achieved. Even more luxurious than the fixtures was the plumbing an electrical work. Rare for the time, the Winchester Mystery House boasted indoor plumbing, including coveted hot running water, and push-button gas lighting available throughout the home. Additionally, forced-air heating flowed throughout the house.

Adding further to the mysterious features, the prime numbers 7, 11, and 13 are repeatedly displayed in various ways throughout the House—the number 13 being most prominent. These numbers consistently show up in the number of windows in many of the rooms, or the number of stairs in the staircases, or the number of rails in the railings, or the number of panels in the floors and walls, or the number of lights in a chandelier, etc. Unquestionably, these three prime numbers were extremely important to Sarah.

In 1906 something happened that would change the landscape of california and the Winchester house. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. More than 3,000 people died. Over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed. The events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high on the lists of American disasters. Although The impact of the earthquake on San Francisco was the most famous, the earthquake also inflicted considerable damage on several other cities. These include San Jose and Santa Rosa, the entire downtown of which was essentially destroyed. Since if the damage in San Jose was located at, you guessed it, the Winchester house. Standing 7 stories at the time, the house was damaged badly and the top three floors were essentially reduced and the house said at for stories from then on due to the damage.

Aside from its immense size and Victorian style architecture, the House has a number of unique characteristics. To begin, it is undeniably a labyrinth. There are literally miles of maze-like corridors and twisting hallways, some of which have dead ends—forcing the traveler to turn around and back-up. There are also some centrally located passages and stairways that serve as shortcuts allowing a virtual leap from one side of the House to the other. Traversing the labyrinth is truly dizzying and disorienting to one’s sensibilities.

The House abounds in oddities and anomalous features. There are rooms within rooms. There is a staircase that leads nowhere, abruptly halting at the ceiling. In another place, there is a door which opens into a solid wall. Some of the House’s 47 chimneys have an overhead ceiling—while, in some places, there are skylights covered by a roof—and some skylights are covered by another skylight—and, in one place, there is a skylight built into the floor. There are tiny doors leading into large spaces, and large doors that lead into very small spaces. In another part of the House, a second story door opens outward to a sheer drop to the ground below. Moreover, upside-down pillars can be found all about the House. Many visitors to the Winchester mansion have justifiably compared its strange design to the work of the late Dutch artist M.C. Escher.

Practically a small town unto itself, the Winchester estate was virtually self sufficient with its own carpenter and plumber’s workshops along with an on-premise water and electrical supply, and a sewage drainage system.

On September 5, 1922, she died in her sleep of heart failure. A service was held in Palo Alto, California, and her remains lay at Alta Mesa Cemetery until they were transferred, along with those of her sister, to New Haven, Connecticut. She was buried next to her husband and their infant child in Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut. She left a will written in thirteen sections, which she signed thirteen times.

In accordance with her will Sarah had her entire estate divided up in generous portions to be distributed among a number of charities and those people who had faithfully spent years in her service. Her favorite niece and secretary, Marian Marriott, oversaw the removal and sale of all of Sarah’s furnishings and personal property. Roy Lieb, Mrs. Winchester’s attorney of many years, had been named in her will as executor to her estate. He sold the House to the people who, in 1933, preserved it as a “living” museum—today, it is known as the Winchester Mystery House also known as California Historical Landmark #868. Although no mention has ever surfaced as to any specific guidelines or special instructions by which Mr. Lieb would select a buyer for the property, one gets the distinct impression that Sarah wanted the House to stand intact and perpetually preserved… and so it does.

SOME OF THE FOLKLORE

Some of this stuff we've touched on already but here's a rundown of the folklore behind the house.

Despite the fact that Sarah Winchester was extremely secretive about herself, nearly all of what the public thinks it knows about her reads like a mish-mash of gossip out “The National Enquirer.” some refer to this body of misinformation as “The Folklore.” Indeed, on a research visits to the Winchester Mystery House, a senior tour guide informed one writer that “in the old days, the tour guides were encouraged to make up stuff just to give some spice to the story.”

The Folklore about Sarah says that, after William’s death in 1881, the highly distraught Mrs. Winchester sought the advice of the then famous Boston medium Adam Coons. During a séance with Coons, Sarah was told that because of the many people who had been slain by the Winchester Rifle, she was cursed by the Winchester fortune. Coons further instructed Sarah that the angry spirits demanded that she move to California and build them a house.

Upon her arrival in California, Sarah began holding her own séances every midnight so that she could receive the next day’s building instructions from the spirits. Her séances allegedly involved the use of a Ouija board and planchette, and 13 various colored robes she would ritualistically wear each night (for the edification of the spirits) within the confines of her “Séance Room.”

To further appease the angry spirits, Mrs. Winchester made sure the construction of the House went on, nonstop, 24 / 7, 365 days a year for fear that should the building ever stop, she would die.

For some inexplicable reason, however, Mrs. Winchester took precautions in the building design so as to incorporate all of the strange features of the House to “confuse the evil spirits.” Moreover, she would ring her alarm bell every night at midnight to signal the spirits that it was séance time, and then again at 2:00 am, signaling the spirits that it was time to depart. Which begs the question “who was in charge of whom?” And, why would spirits’ have an inability or need to keep track of time?

Whenever people make mention of Sarah Winchester the typical response you get from people is “Oh yeah…wasn’t she the crazy lady who built that weird house because she was afraid the spirits would kill her?” Many of these people have never been to the Winchester House. Their source is usually television. “ America ’s Most Haunted Places” tops the list of TV shows that grossly reinforces the Folklore of the house.

The misinformation is further compounded by the “Haunted House” tour business thriving in San Jose as the commercial enterprise known as the “Winchester Mystery House” which profits by perpetuating the Folklore myth. In fairness to the management of the “WMH,” they try to present Mrs. Winchester in a positive light. However, their Halloween flashlight tours, along with booklets, postcards, coffee mugs and other sundry items being sold in the WMH souvenir shop displaying the title “The Mansion Designed By Spirits” only enhances the Folklore version of Sarah Winchester’s life. You’ve got to hand it to them, they’ve created a highly effective marketing strategy for a very lucrative commercial enterprise. These are good people who mean well—but this is hardly the legacy Sarah wanted to leave to posterity. Even in more recent times the house keeps giving up secrets. In 2016, a secret attic was discovered. Inside the attic were a pump organ, a Victorian-era couch, a dress form, a sewing machine, and various paintings. There was a rumour that Sarah had a secrecy room full of undisplayed treasures and large amounts of cash, it was thought this attic may have been that room but there is no concrete proof of this.

So these are the stories about Sarah Winchester and her house, now comes the sad news, most of what you think you know, and most of what you've just heard, are myths. Stories that have grown over the years about the woman and the house.

Early on we talked about president roosevelt trying to visit Sarah and the house. If you forgot, the story goes that Theodore Roosevelt attempted to visit Sarah at home in 1903, but was turned away. This is used as an example of her alleged weirdness. It is said the rumors likely started about Sarah because in life she was extremely private, refused to address gossip and did not engage much in the community. This infamous presidential visit never occurred. Eyewitness accounts state that the President's carriage never stopped at the Winchester place. Furthermore, Winchester had rented a house near San Francisco that year to prepare for the wedding of her niece. She was not at home.

There is another myth that Sarah would spy on her employees. It is said that some employees believed Sarah could walk through walls and closed doors. The claims are that Sarah had elaborate spying features built into the house. There is no evidence she spied on her workers. Would a suspicious employer retain the same workers for decades? Would she name them in her will? Would she buy them homes? Would they name children after her? All these things happened. In short, there is no evidence that she ever spied on her employees.

Then there is the fascination with the number 13 and several other numbers. Since websites detail the occurrences of 13 in the house: 13 robe hooks in the seance room, 13 panes of glass in several windows, a stairway with 13 steps, just to name a few. These facts are used as evidence to prove the woman was ruled by superstition. References to the number 13 were added after Sarah's death, according to workers at the time. The 13 hooks were added not long ago.

Then we have some of the crazy architecture. The story goes that she built crazy things like hallways to nowhere, stairs to nowhere, doors that lead to walls, and doors that lead to several story drops, to confuse spirits. Some websites make much of the architectural "oddities" of the house, such as doors and flights of stairs leading into walls, and how they were supposedly built to confuse vengeful ghosts. Some say there is a more natural explanation—the 1906 earthquake. Research uncovered the fact that there was massive damage to the house in the trembler and that Sarah never fully repaired it. The stairs and doors that lead to "nowhere" are merely where damage has been sealed off or where landings have fallen away. After the earthquake she moved to another house. She did not want to make the necessary repairs—it had nothing to do with spirits. Not to mention she herself admitted that with her being the architect and having no formal training, things often did not go as planned. "I am constantly having to make an upheaval for some reason,” Winchester wrote to her sister-in-law in 1898. “For instance, my upper hall which leads to the sleeping apartment was rendered so unexpectedly dark by a little addition that after a number of people had missed their footing on the stairs I decided that safety demanded something to be done." Far from an exercise in spiritualism, Winchester’s labyrinth arose because she made mistakes — and had the disposable income to carry on making them. It didn’t help her reputation that she was naturally reserved. While most Bay Area millionaires were out in society, attending galas and loudly donating to charities, Winchester preferred a quiet life with the close family who occasionally lived with her. In the absence of her own voice, locals began to gossip.

One of the biggest myths however is the stories of how construction started and kept in going 24-7. There were actually many instances of Sarah sending workers away. Many times in the summer months she would send them away for a couple months because it got too hot. And in the winter she would send them away for a little break for everyone. This has been uncovered in Sarah's own writings. The Feb. 24, 1895 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article that almost single-handedly laid the foundation for the Winchester Mystery House legend.

"The sound of the hammer is never hushed,” it reported. “... The reason for it is in Mrs. Winchester's belief that when the house is entirely finished she will die."

So aside from appeasing spirits with the continued building this article states that she believes that if she ever finished the house that's when she would die, so that's why she kept building.

"Whether she had discovered the secret of eternal youth and will live as long as the building material, saws and hammers last, or is doomed to disappointment as great as Ponce de Leon in his search for the fountain of life, is a question for time to solve,” the story concludes.

Some modern-day historians speculate one of the reasons Winchester kept building was because of the economic climate. By continuing construction, she was able to keep locals employed. In her unusual way, it was an act of kindness.

"She had a social conscience and she did try to give back," Winchester Mystery House historian Janan Boehme told the Los Angeles Times in 2017. "This house, in itself, was her biggest social work of all."

As far as all of the supernatural talk, most of it started after her death. The famed Winchester mansion fell into the hands of John H. Brown, a theme park worker who designed roller coasters.

One of his inventions, the Backety-Back coaster in Canada, killed a woman who was thrown from a car. After her death, the Browns moved to California. When the Winchester house went up for rent, Brown and his wife Mayme jumped at the chance and quickly began playing up the home’s strangeness.

Less than two years after Sarah Winchester’s death, newspapers were suddenly beginning to write about the mansion’s supernatural powers.

“The seance room, dedicated to the spirit world in which Mrs. Winchester had such faith, is magnificently done in heavy velvet of many colors,” the Healdsburg Tribune wrote in 1924. “... Here are hundreds of clothes hooks, upon which hang many costumes. Mrs. Winchester, it is said, believed that she could don any of these costumes and speak to the spirits of the characters of the area represented by the clothing.”

(It is worth noting here: There are no contemporary accounts of Winchester holding seances in the home, and “Ghostland” writes that the “seance room” was actually a gardener’s private quarters.)

The myth took hold, though, and the home, with its dead ends and tight turns, is easy to imagine as haunted. Although the spirits are fun, the ghosts shroud the real life of a fascinating, creative woman. Winchester was "as sane and clear headed a woman as I have ever known,” her lawyer Samuel Leib said after her death. “She had a better grasp of business and financial affairs than most men."

Speaking of supernatural, let's get into the haunted history. Dozens of psychics have visited the house over the years and most have come away convinced, or claim to be convinced, that spirits still wander the place. It was even named one of the “Most Haunted Places in the World” by Time magazine. Here are just a few tales, courtesy of Winchester tour manager Janan Boehme.

The Case of the Ghostly Handyman

Some of Sarah Winchester’s loyal workmen and house servants may still be looking after the place, according to sightings of figures or the “feeling of a presence” reported many times over the years, by tour guides and visitors alike. One frequent apparition is a man with jet-black hair believed to have been a former handyman. He’s been seen repairing the fireplace in the ballroom, or pushing an equally spectral wheelbarrow – if wheelbarrows indeed linger in the beyond — down a long, dark hallway.

The Secret of the Invisible Hand

Several years ago, a man working on one of the many restoration projects in the mansion started his day early in a section with several fireplaces, known as the Hall of Fires. The house was dead quiet before tours got underway, and he was working up on a ladder when he felt someone tap him on the back. He turned to ask what the person wanted. No one was there.

Reassuring himself he’d just imagined the sensation, he went back to his work, only to experience what felt like someone pushing against his back. That was enough. He hurried down the ladder, crossed the estate and started on another project, figuring that someone — or something — didn’t want him working in the Hall of Fires that day.

The Sign of the Heavy Sigh

A tour guide named Samantha recently led visitors to the room the Daisy Bedroom, where Sarah Winchester was trapped during the 1906 quake. Samantha was about to begin her spiel when a very clear “sigh” came from the small hallway outside the bedroom door. Thinking one of her guests had merely fallen behind, Samantha turned to call the person into the room but saw no one. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the darkened hallway, she did see something. The form of a small, dark person slowly emerged, gliding around a corner. Samantha quickly stepped around the corner and again saw nothing but heard yet another deep sigh. She felt sure it was the tiny form of Sarah Winchester herself, perhaps peeved to find people in her favorite bedroom.

You can find a surveillance video that seems to show a ghost or something moving around in a balcony late ate night on the fourth floor. Just as unexpected things turn up on video, the same is true of photographs. The Winchester Mystery House's own Public Relations Coordinator reports that he took several photos of the mansion in 2015. When he downloaded the photos he deleted what he didn't need. But, one caught his eye. In one window of the house, Tim O'Day spotted something. Was it a shadow? A reflection of a cloud? Or something else?

Visitors to the Winchester Mystery House also report taking photos with strange shapes in the windows. A few even shared their snapshots on Facebook. If you visit, study all photos carefully before hitting the delete button. You never know what you will find!

Top haunted house movies from ranker.com

https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-haunted-house-movies/ranker-film?ref=collections_btm&l=367358&collectionId=2164

Monday Jan 11, 2021

84 - Black Eyed Children

Monday Jan 11, 2021

Ep. 84

Black Eyed

Children

In a snowy town, within the middle of nowhere of Vermont, an elderly couple heard the sound of three loud knocks on their door. They opened the door and saw two children, a boy and a girl. "Parents will be here soon, may we come in?" The children did not make eye contact and just stood there in the doorway. The elderly couple were hesitant but after a while, they let the boy and girl inside.

The kids settled on the couch while the wife made some hot cocoa and the husband asked them questions that went unanswered. The wife returned and noticed that her cat was scared and angry with the children. "May we please use the restroom?"

The wife looked at the kids and she finally saw them. The children's eyes were as black as a starless universe. She directed them to the bathroom and returned to her husband who was covering his face with his hand. "Did you see their eyes?" the husband then shows her his hand full of blood from a nosebleed.

The power suddenly went out and the house turned as dark as the kids' eyes. The wife headed to the restroom and was confronted by the voice of the kids at the end of the hall uttering, "Our parents are here." The kids then exited the house leaving the door wide open. The wife then noticed that there were two men at the end of the driveway. The men were very tall and slender; the wife waved but did not receive the same friendly gesture. The two men and children then drove away together in one car.

The power then came back on a little later after the kids left. Throughout the next week, weird things happened in the house; three out of four cats went missing and the fourth had been found dead in the pool of its blood. The husband continued to have nosebleeds and finally went to the doctor, where he was diagnosed with very aggressive skin cancer.

That is one of the first stories to be related about today's subjects. That story gained much attention in the paranormal circles and with alien enthusiasts. So exactly what are black eyed kids, Aliens, vampires, demonically possessed children, some other worldly entities? The black-eyed children are paranormal creatures that resemble children around the ages 6 to 16 who have pale skin and pitch black eyes and are completely soulless. Additionally, people who have been in close proximity to black eyed kids report a feeling of “unease” that washed over them. While nothing about the children’s appearance (aside from the eyes) genuinely frightened the people, they still reported feelings ranging from anxiety to terror at their presence.

Some people have also reported seeing black eyed kids that have “talons” for feet or other demonic attributes, but most sightings are of seemingly normal children.

Black eyed kids are also commonly described as wearing dated clothing or dressing in a manner that is not typical of a normal child of their age.

The strange thing about the black eyed children mythos is that it's a fairly recent phenomena.Some people claim that these children have existed since the 1980s, however, most sources say that the legend actually originated in 1996 by Brian Bethel, a journalist from Abilene Texas. The following is his account of his original encounter as he recalled it in the Abilene Reporter News:

" Near as I can figure, this happened in 1996. I’ve managed to pin down the date that far. I feel like it happened in the spring or summer, since I remember wearing a pair of shorts, but one of my great regrets is not recording the actual date of the event.

After you hear the story, you’d think it would be something you’d never forget. But given enough time between, not the case. My memory, while good, isn’t quite eidetic.

I had gone down to the former site of Camalott Communications, one of the area’s original Internet providers, to pay my bill. At the time, Camalott was located on North 1st Street, near the movie theater, in the shadow of what is now Chase, then Bank One.

I was using the light of the theater’s marquee to write out my check, which I planned to put in Camalott’s night drop-slot. Involved in my work, I never heard them approach.

There was a knock on my driver’s side window. Two young boys, somewhere between nine to 12 years old and dressed in hooded pullovers, stood outside.

I cracked the window a bit, anticipating a spiel for money, but I was immediately gripped by an incomprehensible, soul-wracking fear. I had no idea why.

A conversation ensued between one boy, a somewhat suave, olive-skinned, curly-headed young man, and myself. The other, a redheaded, pale-skinned, freckled young man, stayed in the background.

The “spokesman,” as I’ve come to think of him, told me that he and his companion needed a ride. They wanted to see a movie, “Mortal Kombat,” but they had left their money at their mother’s house. Could I give them a ride?

Plausible enough. But all throughout this exchange, the irrational fear continued and grew. I had no reason to be frightened of these two boys, but I was. Terribly.

After a bit more conversation, I looked up at the theater marquee and down at the digital clock display in my car.

Mortal Kombat’s last show of the night had already started. By the time I could have driven the boys anywhere and back, it would practically have been over.

All the while, the spokesman uttered assurances:

It wouldn’t take long.

They were just two little kids.

They didn’t have a gun or anything.

The last part was a bit unnerving.

I noticed that my hand had strayed toward the lock on my door. I pulled it away, perhaps a bit too violently.

In the short time I had broken the gaze of the spokesman, something had changed, and my mind exploded in a vortex of all-consuming terror.

Both boys stared at me with coal-black eyes. The sort of eyes one sees these days on aliens or bargain-basement vampires on late night television. Soulless orbs like two great swathes of starless night.

I did what I feel any rational person would do. I full-on freaked out inside while trying to appear completely sane and calm.

I apologized to the kids. I made whatever excuses came to mind, all of them designed to get me the hell out of there. Fast. The aura of fear was now a palpable, black-hanging thing, almost as if reality itself was warping around me.

I wrapped my hand around the gearshift, threw the car into reverse and began to roll up the window, apologizing all the while.

My fear must have been evident. The boy in the back wore a look of confusion. The spokesman banged sharply on the window as I rolled it up. His words, full of anger, echo in my mind even today:

“We can’t come in unless you tell us it’s OK. Let us in!”

I drove out of the parking lot in blind fear, and I’m surprised I didn’t sideswipe a car or two along the way. I stole a quick look in my rearview mirror before peeling out into the night. The boys were gone. Even if they had run, I don’t believe there was a place they could have hidden from view that quickly."

This is widely considered to be the earliest written account of an encounter with the black eyed kids. Creepy for sure.

There are many theories as to what black eyed kids actually are. One of the more interesting theories we've found is the following, it was listed as a psychic answer to what they are, it also involves religious overtones:

"Black-eyed Children are elementals called CHILDES. They are, & have always been, agents of God. In earlier periods, they wore the local costume or dress of human children. North & South of the equator, they now wear 19th century children's clothing: Dark-haired boy wears black velvet blazer & knee britches, wide lace-edged collar, lacy ruffles down front of white shirt, lacy sleeves. Girl wears white ankle-length satin dress with white sash at waist; a large white satin bow in her dark hair tilts to one side. Both are pale with dark circles around eyes. Distinctive giggling laughter as if playing a game together.

Children who ascend (cross over to become angels) like to serve as CHILDES. Serving briefly as elementals helps all angels move up the ranks of the angelic hierarchy. But their soul evolution is halted if they are used in a hex (curse or spell). RED EYES indicate a CHILDE who is caught in a curse & needs help "going home" to the Light (5th dimension or higher).

CHILDE have nothing to do with blood or vampirism. The VAMPIRE legend lumps two or three kinds of elementals together: The VIPER (its victims have two tiny bite marks like a Tazer gun), the BACHALU (bat-winged cat), & the BLESSED=BLOOD= a pale, caped humanoid elemental who can help humans by giving them a complete cleansing of all their blood (like a medical blood replacement/ transfusion by machine).

CHILDE participate in official hauntings. (See my other Comments re sick houses with DHEBRO, a.k.a. Hat Man.) CHILDE are also sent to deliver the Common Cold -- mild Cold symptoms... all the way up to intense fever & CHILLS=CHILDES.

Anyone who sees a CHILDE with RED EYES should ask Archangel Michael for protection."

Interesting….

So another theory was briefly mentioned in that last theory. There is a thought that black eyed kids are actually vampires! There are several reasons that people like this theory. First the kids seem to be a nighttime phenomena. Every story we've uncovered takes place at night and who comes out at night… Boom vampires. Couple that with the uneasy soulless looks and pale skin and you're on your way to a vampire. Another reason people think they could be vampires is the fact that they always ask permission to get into your house or car. If you are currently up on your vampire lore you know that vampires must be granted permission to enter your house. Now another twist on this theory is the psychic vampire theory. If you are not familiar with psychic vampires here a brief synopsis. A psychic vampire (or energy vampire) is a fictional and religious creature said to feed off the "life force" of other living creatures. The term can also be used to describe a person who gets increased energy around other people, but leaves those other people exhausted or "drained" of energy. Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures and in fiction. Some people believe that BEKs are actually psychic vampires due to many people feeling drained and tired after their experiences with them.

Another theory is that of demonic possession. As found in an article about signs of demonic possession The eyes play a big part in determining possession. Since the eyes are the window to the soul, physical changes can affect the eyes of the person in question also.

Eye color (such as just the irises) can change to different but natural colors. Another way eyes can be a major sign of possession is when the entire eye itself becomes infected by black almost like a shark's eyes. Alterations in other physical colorings are possible through the changing of hair tones. Not only that another sign of possession is changes in the voice of the person affected. Many times in tales of BEKs the kids will have deeper than normal voices or voices of adults when they speak. In another article about possession it states Telepathic powers where the person in question knows what you are feeling or thinking without any indication from you can be a possible sign as well. Many people report that during an experience with BEKs they feel like the kids are using kind of mind control or telepathy to try and get the people to agree to let them into a house or car. Another thing that has led to the demonic possession theory involves the night time. As stated in the vampire theory, these stories always happen at night. According to many this starts online with demonic possession as the mind is most vulnerable at night therefore increasing possession activity leading to these encounters being at night.

So we have weird elementals, vampires, and demonic children. What else could there be? Oh yes, aliens, of course, how could we forget.

This one's gonna be fun.

The theory here is that BEKs are actually humanoid alien hybrids. The hybrids are not really aliens, but a mixed breed between the greys and humans. They came about when the greys started doing gene DNA manipulation many years ago starting in at least biblical times supposedly to replenish their own thinning gene pool after centuries of over cloning. Another theory as to why the grays started cloning is more cynical, being that they started to place the alien hybrids into Earth's society to help them overthrow the Government and take over from the inside rather than a full-fledged attack. Some even speculate that many of the alien hybrids on Earth don't know that they are of mixed nature and are like terrorist cells that can, and will be activated when the time is right for the master alien races (The greys and the reptilians). Alien hybrids have different looks depending on how their DNA was mixed by the grays and for what purpose they are being used for. These are the possible known alien hybrids from abduction accounts from around the world. One of the main differences is the eyes. We're sure you're all well aware of what aliens look like supposedly. Especially the greys. They have big black eyes. So the alien theory begins there. Some believe there are several classes of alien human hybrids. Some believe BEKs belong to one of these hybrid classes. They are the ones that are here on Earth and pose as humans. They are possibly everywhere and it can be impossible to tell them apart without DNA testing, and even then the grays do a great job of hiding the differences. They may be presidents, teachers, kings, the working class, or really anyone in power or not. They have been said to be put here for numerous reasons from research on humans and other life on Earth to control and the slow take over of the planet.

Some of the humanoid mixed breeds don't even know that they are a mixed alien breed and are being controlled without their knowledge. You can think of them as terrorist cells that will be activated when the time is right for invasion, the new world order, and the take over of Earth and its people.

That's a lot to unpack… We get it… But essentially… Prior are staying that the BEKs are alien human hybrids, which if you remember back to the very first encounter we read…it definitely has that vibe. The other thing that may tie into Aliens is that some believe there's a man in black connection. According to some, the description of the BEKs is astoundingly close to descriptions of the men in black. We couldn't find a ton of stuff on this theory, but again looking back to the first tale, the couple described the children's "parents" as two males and that both were very tall.

There are of course the rational explanations as well. And while they aren't as fun, we suppose we should talk about them. One is that the first initial report by Brian Bethel is indeed fabricated and more of a creepy pasta type story generated for gaining attention. The rest of the stories are just the same and follow the pattern of evolving into urban legend status. Stemming from this there's the possibility that since people have actually seen BEKs but that they are just hoaxes. With the availability of contacts that make your whole eye black, it's not crazy to think there are people out there having fun at others' expense.

There may also be a physical explanation by way of a condition known as aniridia. Aniridia is marked by partial or complete absence of the iris of the eye. Vision is preserved in some patients with mild cases of aniridia. This condition occurs when the iris fails to develop normally before birth in one or both eyes. Typically, aniridia can be seen from birth. Aniridia can occur as a single abnormality or can be one of many symptoms in an underlying condition. While aniridia did not make the entire eye black one could understand that encountering someone, especially a child, late at night with this condition could definitely give off some creepy vibes.

So now you know what they are and the theories behind them, how about a couple more creepy tales of BEKs to unsettle you the rest of the way.

"On March 17, 2008 I had my one and only encounter with a black eyed kid. Before my experience I had never heard of anything having to do with the black eyed kids. I was 12. I was sitting outside of a hairdressers in an old Chevy pickup waiting for my mom to get her hair cut. About 15 minutes had passed and I saw some kid walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of my parked car. At first I thought I recognized him as one of my friends from school so I banged on the front windshield until he looked my way. It was not anyone I knew. At this point I was not scared at all. Not yet. The boy walked over to the side of my car and just stared. I think it will let me get a good look at his eyes. To freak me out. Let me tell you.. If you have never seen a black eyed kid.. you have no idea what to imagine. Pupils black as the night sky. The boy whispers “You must let me in” and then I locked the car doors and ducked down into the space below the seats. Five minutes later he was gone. When my mother got into the car she told me a boy with black eyes had come into the hairdressers had insisted for my mother to give him the keys to the car. She refused……thank God she did."

Well maybe they just wanted to play...or kill? Who knows!

"Trick or treat?

This really freaked me out… Yesterday I noticed my neighbor hadn’t put out all his Halloween decorations/lights/etc. The past two years I’ve lived next to him he’s gone all out for Halloween. I don’t know him well, he’s younger, single, but I know he likes kids (not in a creepy way). His brother and sister-in-law and their kids are always visiting him and he plays with his three young nieces and nephews out in the yard. So anyway, I got home from work and was walking up my driveway and I saw him outside and said something like “Hey man, you better get your Halloween stuff up or that house up the street is going to beat you for best decorations.” He kind of smiles sheepishly and says that he’s actually going to keep his house dark this year and just put candy out. I asked if he was going out of town, but he said no, something happened last year that really scared him.

Now I was concerned for my own safety if some weirdos were coming around our neighborhood (which is a pretty safe neighborhood with tons of young families living here), so I asked him what happened. He said last year he had his brother’s family over so they could trick-or-treat in the neighborhood since they live in an apartment complex that doesn’t do much for Halloween. He had a bunch of kids come to the door like always. His family took off around 10:30 and there were only a few older trick-or-treaters, but by 11:30 they were pretty much done. So he was inside, watching TV and the doorbell rings. He grabs the candy bowl and heads over, noticing that it’s a little past midnight and that’s pretty rude for trick-or-treaters to still be out, but then notices he hasn’t turned off all his decoration lights yet, so his house is still a beacon. He swings the door open and is about to yell “BOO!” or something to freak them out, but stops dead when he sees the kids at the door.

He said one was probably around 13-14 and the other around 16-17 (both boys). They weren’t dressed up, but he remembers the older one was wearing a flannel checkered shirt. He was immediately overcome with uneasiness, like opening the door was a huge mistake. They just stared at him and he noticed they had really big irises and dilated pupils. He couldn’t even see the whites of their eyes, so he figured they were contact lenses. He was frozen there holding the candy bowl, like he couldn’t slam the door in their face as much as he wanted to. So he nervously tried to smile at them hoping they would “break character” and ask for candy or something. The younger one said they had gotten lost and needed to come in and use his phone. That was when he closed the door more than halfway on them and said “No, sorry” and the older one said something like “Can we just wait in your house until our parents come get us?” but by then he was convinced that his life was in danger and these kids must be high on something or intending to rob him and he just kept mumbling “No, sorry, goodnight” as he inched the door closed and locked it.

He told me he was so fucking scared at that point that they were going to try to break in through one of his windows or something, but he looked through the peephole and they had turned to leave. He watched TV with the volume really low so he could hear any sounds at all and he said he stayed up till like 5 am because he was too scared to go to bed and drop his guard. The whole time he’s telling me this I’m thinking oh my god, this sounds so familiar, just like the Black-eyed kids urban legend. Then I thought hey, maybe this dude is trying to scare me because after all, he does have the Halloween spirit…so I’m looking at him incredulously but trying not to seem too gullible. So I’m like “Man, that is really crazy, sounds like the Black-eye kids.” He just looks at me blankly, “The what, is that a movie or something?” and I said no, but told him to go look it up online.

Like an hour later I get a knock on my door (and admittedly, almost jump out of my skin thinking it’s a demon child). It was my neighbor and his eyes were freaking huge. He swears to me up and down that he had never heard of the BEKs before and it’s so similar to what happened to him. So we talked a while longer and I told him that quite a few people probably know about that urban legend and it’s possible it was just teenagers with black scleral contacts trying to freak people out on Halloween (which would be genius, by the way). But he said the fear he felt was so primal and came over him the second he opened the door for them.

Well… Happy Halloween to him I guess!

A gas station attendant in northeast Louisiana had a terrifying encounter in November 2012. The gas station was creepy enough to begin with at 3 am, but then the power went out. Led by the light of his cell phone, the attendant was able to get the generators going, but the backup lighting was dim and only lit up certain areas, like the cash area and the parking lot, while the rest of the isolated establishment was cloaked in black. Out in that darkness, he noticed movement: three children on bikes were heading his way.

They stood at the door and stared at the attendant. He felt creeped out, but they were just kids and it was way too late for them to be out. He opened the door and asked if they were okay. The young girl asked to use a phone, but as he handed his cell over to her, he realized her eyes were all black. “No, I need the real one!” She pointed at the landline inside. The thought of letting her inside sent chills up his spine. He shouted at all of them to leave as he slammed and locked the door.

The children stood there a bit longer, silently staring at him through the glass with their solid black eyes. Then, they got back on their bikes and disappeared back into the darkness. The next morning, the attendant was eager to go through the surveillance footage. Unfortunately, the power outage cut the cameras off and they didn’t boot back up with the generator. He had nothing to prove the events of the night before took place

So there's a couple more stories. Are they real? That's for you to decide. I suppose the best way to end this episode is with words from the man who brought the BEKs to light for everyone. The following are the weeks of Brian Bethel about his experience :

"I’ve never wanted the Reporter-News to be a venue for this story. It’s easy enough to find online, as I said. And call it a weakness, or maybe common sense, but I prefer to keep my encounters with the paranormal (ask me sometime about the ghost that haunted our newsroom back in college) separate from my award-winning journalism career.

But one of the provisions my bosses at the paper made in exchange for me potentially making a fool of myself on TV was for me to tell the story here. And so, I have.

Do I expect you to believe me blindly?

Of course not. I might not believe it myself if I heard such a story from someone else.

What did I see?

Your guess is literally as good as anyone’s. I’ve had everything from vampires to demons to ghosts to aliens to a somewhat-detailed hallucination posited as possibilities.

I do feel like I can say this with some authority: This was back in the day when freaky coal-black contacts weren’t widely available to a couple of kids in Abilene, Texas, for anything under a small fortune.

And there wasn’t enough time to even put such things on in the short time I broke the spokesman’s gaze, if they could afford them.

Will I ever know for certain what I saw?

Probably not.

Do I ever care to see them again?

Hell, no.

As much as I still don’t know about what happened that night and why, here’s one thing that I do know. It’s a gut feeling, but one that rises to a level of almost certainty.

If I had given the spokesman and his friend a ride on that long-ago evening, I don’t think I would be here to type this now.

End of story."

Whew… So there you have it. Blacked eyes kids! What do you all think?

There seems to only be a couple movies specifically about black eyed kids, so we're going with the top movies involving evil children!

Top movies involving evil children

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Monday Jan 04, 2021

83 - The Cecil Hotel, LA California. (What Happened To Elisa Lam?)

Monday Jan 04, 2021

Ep. 83

Cecil hotel/ Stay On Main Hotel

Welcome my friends to the first episode of 2021! We hope you all enjoyed our last episode of 2020, we did! We hope you all made it to the new year safe and sound. We're alive and well and we're going to take a much needed vacation. Where are we headed you may ask? Well we are going to head to sunny Los Angeles! Hopefully you passengers hang on and come with! Los Angeles, the city of angels, and tons of weird people and rich movie types that are better than we are...eh… Fuck em. We're not headed there for a tour of stars' homes, we're not headed there to further Jeff's acting career with casting couch auctions in some seedy office with a casting couch, no my friends were heading specifically to 640 south main street l.a. california! What sits at that address you may be wondering. Well it's none other than The Cecil hotel, aka The hotel Cecil, aka The Cecil, aka The stay On Main Hotel, aka whatever the fuck the next name is gonna be. That's right, the famous, or maybe infamous Cecil hotel. If this sounds familiar but you can't quite place it, well get to what's most recently made this place famous in a bit. But first buckle up cus here we go!

The Cecil was built in 1924 by hotelier William Banks Hanner with partners Charles L. Dix and Robert H. Schops. It was supposed to be a destination hotel for international businessmen and social elites. Designed by Loy Lester Smith in the Beaux Arts style, and constructed by W. W. Paden[7] the hotel cost $1.5 million to complete and boasted an opulent marble lobby with stained-glass windows, potted palms, and alabaster statuary. The three hoteliers invested about $2.5 million knowing several other similar hotels had been constructed and opened in the area. They had the utmost confidence in their venture. Unfortunately for them, only a few years after opening the hotel disaster would strike. Not only would it strike the three hoteliers, but the nation as a whole. The country was plunged into the great depression. The Great Depression started in the United States after a major fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, (known as Black Tuesday). Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession.[4] Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.

The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor countries. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade fell by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%

While this was happening the Hotel hung on as best it could to it's roots of being a destination for wealthy socialites, unfortunately those were heard to come by at that point. As the depression wore on, the area around the hotel became the infamous Skid Row. Now we're not talking the Sebastian bach fronted band that had so many great jams back in the day. To give you an idea of the area that the hotel was in and had to deal with while trying to keep clientele, here's a brief history:

At the end of the 19th century, a number of residential hotels opened in the area as it became home to a transient population of seasonal laborers.[13] By the 1930s, Skid Row was home to as many as 10,000 homeless people, alcoholics, and others on the margins of society.[12] It supported saloons, residential hotels, and social services, which drew people from the populations they served to congregate in the area.[14]

In June 1947, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) chief Clemence B. Horrall ordered what he called a "blockade raid" of the whole Skid Row area. Over 350 people were arrested. Assistant Chief Joseph Reed, who claimed that "at least 50 percent of all the crime in Los Angeles originates in the Skid Row area," stated that there had been no "strong arm robberies" on Skid Row as late as one week after the raid. Long time residents, however, were skeptical that the changes would last.[15]

In 1956, the city of Los Angeles was in the midst of a program to "rehabilitate" Skid Row[16] through the clearance of decaying buildings.[17] The program was presented to property owners in the area as an economy measure. Gilbert Morris, then superintendent of building, said that at that point the provision of free social services to the approximately one square mile of Skid Row cost the city over $5 million per year as opposed to the city average of $110,000 per square mile annually.[16] The city used administrative hearings to compel the destruction of nuisance properties at the expense of the owner. By July 1960, the clearance program was said to be 87% complete in the Skid Row area.[17] With increased building codes during the '60s, owners of residential hotels found demolition to be more cost-effective than adhering to repairs. The total number of these buildings is estimated to have dropped from 15,000 to 7,500 over the following decade.[18] Many residents of the area found themselves homeless with the loss of half of the affordable housing provided by hotels.[18]

1970s through present Edit

Skid Row was established by city officials in 1976 as an unofficial "containment zone", where shelters and services for homeless people would be tolerated.[19]

During the 1970s, two Catholic Workers — Catherine Morris, a former nun, and her husband, Jeff Dietrich — founded the "Hippie Kitchen" in the back of a van. Over forty years later, in March 2019, aged 84 and 72, they remained active in their work feeding Skid Row residents.[20]

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, many veterans of the Vietnam War found themselves drawn to Skid Row, due to the services and missions already in place there, and feeling outcast from other areas. Like those after World War II, many of them ended up on the streets. It was around this time that the demographics of Skid Row shifted from predominantly white and elderly to those here today

Now that only takes us through the 70s but we can tell you, it didn't get any better after that. The reason we went through a small history of Skid Row is to show how the area had changed and the type of people that inhabited the area. The reason to show this will become evident…. Right… about… Now!

By the 50s the hotel had become a place known to house transients and drug dealers and many unsavory types. This would lead to a history of murder, suicide and other tragedy. That would ultimately lead to takes of the hotel being haunted. The hotel would more recently become the location of a story that would capture the attention of the world due to its strangeness. So without further ado let's get into the craziness!

Murders and murderers at the Cecil:

One of several noteworthy guests of the hotel was Elizabeth Short, who you may know as the “Black Dahlia” after her 1947 murder in Los Angeles.

She reportedly stayed at the hotel just before her mutilation, which remains unsolved. What connection her death may have had to the Cecil is not known, but what is known is that she was found on a street not far away on the morning of January 15 with her mouth carved ear to ear and her body cut in two. Some people say that this sorry of Short staying or being seen at the hotel are untrue but we like to think there's a connection, however we cannot confirm nor deny the validity of this claim and there is much conflicting reporting on this. There are some reports of sorry saying at a nearby hotel and just doing into the Cecil bar from time to time.

Next up a confirmed and also unsolved murder at the Cecil. Georgina "pigeon" Goldie Osgood. On June 4th a 79 year old retired telemarketer named Goldie Osgood was found in her hotel room dead. The autopsy showed that she was beaten, stabbed and choked with a rag. Her hotel room was ransacked. Friends say they talked her merely minutes before her death.

She was known for feeding pigeons at a nearby park and that’s how she earned her nickname “Pigeon Goldie”. She was staying at the Cecil hotel, where she was very liked and was a long time residence.

Not much information can be found about her death. Only that a man named Jacques B. Ehlinger was arrested a few hours after her body was found. He had been seen walking in the same area Ms. Osgood would feed pigeons. He was covered in blood, but was later released due to lack of evidence.

Several serial killers have called the Cecil home as well. Chief among them… good ol Richard Ramirez, the fucking Night Stalker. Now if you're listening to this podcast and you don't know who Ramirez is, we question why you're here! But as a refresher:

Ramirez was a Satanist and a particularly awful human, even for a serial killer: He seemed to have no M.O. except to be as sadistic as possible.

His victims — men, women, children — were chosen randomly and killed in a variety of ways, with whatever weapon was handy, often after a sexual assault. Most reports suggest that he influenced as a teenager by his cousin Mike, a Green Beret who bragged of committing horrific acts in Vietnam, and who later shot his wife to death in front of Ramirez.

The Night Stalker was ultimately caught after a rape victim who’d been left alive got a look at his getaway car, a stolen Toyota that was found abandoned and connected to Ramirez by a single fingerprint. Once they had a suspect, police broadcast his name and face widely and Ramirez was recognized and beaten by a mob in East Los Angeles.

He was convicted in 1989 of 13 counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries, and sentenced to death. To which he said: “No big deal. Death always comes with the territory. I’ll see you in Disneyland.”

Ramirez spent the next 23 years on Death Row at San Quentin, but died of Lymphoma in 2013. He was 53.

“The Cecil and the Alexandria and the Twin Rosslyn hotels just become these giant coral reefs of the worst people in the world,” says Richard Schave, who runs Esotouric bus tours with his partner Kim Cooper, and makes the Cecil a featured stop on the “Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice” package. “By 1990, the LAPD won’t go into [t hese places]. It was like, ‘If we’re called we’ll go in. But we’re not patrolling.’”

That’s how a guy like the Night Stalker could operate there. Ramirez would return to the Cecil after a killing and ditch his blood-soaked clothes in the dumpsters out back, then walk into the hotel either naked or maybe in his underwear, none of which would have raised an eyebrow since the Cecil in the 1980s, as Schave put t, “was total, unmitigated chaos.”

After all, that dumpster probably contained far worse things, and it wouldn’t have been weird to see a half-naked man wandering around a hotel renowned for vice and where the police rarely ventured. Drug dealers worked openly inside. The bodies of overdosed residents could linger in the hall for days. “No one wanted to be the person who called the cops,” Schave says.

Another serial killer was known to live at the Cecil. In 1991, six years after Ramirez was caught and sentenced to death, a 41-year-old Austrian journalist named Jack Unterweger checked into the Cecil while he worked on a story about crime in L.A. for an Austrian magazine. Unterweger used his reporting work to secure ride-alongs with LAPD vice cops and those trips were revealed as scouting missions when it was later discovered that Unterweger was also a serial killer with a penchant for strangling prostitutes. It is suspected (but was never proven) that he chose the Cecil because of its connection to Ramirez.

When Austrian police connected the strangulation deaths of three L.A. sex workers with a series of six unsolved murders back home — all of them prostitutes who’d been sexually assaulted and strangled with their own bras, using a distinct ligature — Unterweger fled and was arrested in Miami in February of 1992. Unterweger, it turns out, had started abusing prostitutes in his youth, and at age 24 he was convicted of strangling an 18-year-old German woman with her own bra, and sentenced to life in prison.

Behind bars, Unterweger had been a model inmate, publishing poems, plays, and an autobiography that became a movie and his popularity made him a cause célèbre in the European arts community, which began to lobby passionately for his release. In 1990, after serving 15 years, Unterweger was granted parole, and almost overnight became a popular TV host and journalist. Within a year, he was in California, killing women again.

In June 1994, an Austrian court convicted Unterweger of 11 murders and sentenced him to life with no chance of parole. That night, he killed himself in his cell — with a poetic twist. “He tied the ligature,” Schave said. “The signature ligature by which he killed all the prostitutes in Los Angeles and Vienna. That was his confession.”

So those are murders and murderers connected and possibly connected to the Cecil. But the tragedy doesn't end there. There are many other crazy deaths from the Cecil. Mostly all suicides. During the Great Depression. Tens of thousands of Americans took their own lives during the late 1930s, creating the highest-recorded level ever—more than 150 per one million annually in 1937 and 1938, and In the 30s the Cecil had its share of suicides.

In 1931, a guest, W.K. Norton, 46, was found dead in his room after eating poison capsules. A week prior, he had checked into the Cecil under the name "James Willys" from Chicago. This seems to be the earliest case of suicide at the Cecil. The following year, 25-year-old Benjamin Dodich was found by a maid in a room, dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. In 1934, former Army Medical Corps sergeant Louis D. Borden was found with his throat slashed—he had written several notes about suicide while in the room including one that cited poor health as a reason for the suicide.

In 1937, the body of Grace E. Magro was discovered wrapped in the telephone wires around the hotel. She later died at the now-demolished Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Police were unable to determine whether Magro's death was the result of an accident or suicide. A year later, the body of 35-year-old US Marine Roy Thompson was found on the skylight of a nearby building after he also jumped from his room. He had been staying at the hotel for several weeks. In 1939, Navy officer Erwin C. Neblett was found dead after ingesting poison; he was 39 years old.

Moving past the thirties we find more craziness and fuckery.

In January 1940, teacher Dorothy Sceiger, 45, ingested poison while staying at the Cecil and was reported by the Los Angeles Times to be "near death." No further reports were published about her condition.

In 1944, one of the youngest victims at Cecil Hotel had their life taken from them. Dorothy Jean Purcell, 19 years old, was staying as a guest at the hotel when she threw her newborn son from a window. Purcell did not know she was pregnant and woke in the middle of the night with stomach pains when she was sleeping next to her partner, 38-year-old shoe salesman Ben Levine. Not wanting to wake Levine, she went to the bathroom and delivered the baby herself.

Purcell believed the boy was dead, and that’s when she got rid of the body from a great height. The lifeless baby was found on a roof adjacent to the building. Purcell was arrested, but after psychologists determined she was “mentally confused,” she was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity.

In November 1947, Robert Smith, 35, died after jumping from one of Cecil's seventh-floor windows.

On October 22, 1954, San Francisco stationery firm employee Helen Gurnee, 55, jumped from the window of her seventh-floor room and landed on top of Cecil's marquee. One week prior, she had registered at the hotel under the name "Margaret Brown."

On February 11, 1962, Julia Frances Moore, 50, jumped from the window of her eighth-floor room. We found the newspaper clipping announcing her death, it reads as follows:

"A woman leaped to her death from an eighth-floor window of the Cecil Hotel, 640 S Main St., early Sunday morning, her body landing on a second-floor roof in the light well of the building.

Police identified her from a hotel registration card and papers in her purse as Julia Frances Moore, about 50.

Det. Sgt. Paul LePage said the woman, who left no notes, had registered at the hotel on Wednesday. Her purse and a small over night bag were found in the room.

Although the purse contained only 59 cents, a bank book showed she had nearly c $1,800(around $15,000 today) in a Springfield (II.) bank.

Sgt. LePage said he also found a bus ticket stub in dicating she had come here from St. Louis. Other papers I containing two home ad dresses in St. Louis were also found.

The officer said he would contact St. Louis police in a an effort to locate the woman's relatives."

Also in 1962, October to be exact, another strange death occurred. On October 12, two bodies were found dead on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. One of the bodies was that of Pauline Otton. She was staying on the 9th floor of the hotel. She was 27 years old and had just had an argument with her estranged husband Dewey. The other body was not that of Dewey. It was the body of 65 year old George Gianinni. Initially police suspected the pair jumped together. After some investigation however there found that Ol George has his haha on his pockets and his shoes were still on. They said that if he had jumped his shoes would have fallen off during the fall or when he landed, also who jumps with their hands in their pockets? Well turns out that after her argument Pauline decided it wasn't worth living any more and jumped from the window of her room on the 9th floor. George however was just walking by the hotel about to have the worst, and last, day off his life. Pauline jumped and landed on George as he strolled by killing him.

Talk about your bad luck, no wonder some people think the place is cursed.

On December 20, 1975, a still-unidentified woman, approximately 23 years old, jumped from her twelfth-floor window onto the Cecil's second-floor roof. She had registered at the hotel on December 16 under the name "Alison Lowell" and was staying in room 327.

On September 1, 1992, a man was found deceased in the alley behind the Cecil. Authorities believe the decedent either fell from, jumped from, or was pushed from the hotel's fifteenth floor. At the time of his death, the decedent was five feet, nine inches tall and weighed around 185 pounds. He was wearing blue sweatpants and a black sweatshirt over a gray t-shirt. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office placed the decedent's age at twenty to thirty-two years. The decedent's true identity has never been established.

On June 13, 2015, the body of a 28-year-old man was found outside the hotel. Some conjectured he may have committed suicide by jumping from the hotel, although a spokesperson for the county coroner informed the Los Angeles Times that the cause of death had not been determined.

Now in between those last two there was another incident. This incident is probably the most well known one. Thanks to the internet the incident spread fast and there is tons of discussion and speculation about what really happened. The official cause of death was listed as accidental drowning although most people don't by that. If you haven't figured it out already we are talking about the death of Elisa Lam. Wwe could probably do an entire episode on this story so we'll just give you the basics and maybe hit the story a little harder in a bonus for our patreon.

On Jan. 26, 2013, Elisa Lam arrived in LA. She had just come by Amtrak train from San Diego and was headed to Santa Cruz as part of her solo trip around the West Coast. The trip was supposed to be a getaway from her studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she was originally from.

Her family had been wary of her traveling by herself but the young student was determined to go at it alone. As a compromise, Lam made sure to check in with her parents every day of the trip to let them know that she was safe.

That’s why it struck her parents as unusual when they didn’t hear from their daughter on Jan. 31, the day she was scheduled to check out of her LA hotel, the Cecil. The Lams eventually contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. The police searched the premises of the Cecil but couldn’t find her.

Police soon released surveillance footage taken from the cameras at the Cecil Hotel on their website. This is where things took a turn into the truly bizarre.

The hotel video showed Elisa Lam in one of its elevators on the date of her disappearance acting rather strangely. In the pixelated footage, Lam can be seen stepping into the elevator and pushing all the floor buttons. She steps in and out of the elevator, poking her head out sideways toward the hotel’s hallways in between. She peers out of the elevator another few times before stepping out of the elevator entirely. The last minutes of the video show Lam standing by the left side of the door, moving her hands in random gestures. Nobody else was captured on the video, except Lam.

On Feb. 19, two weeks after the video was published by authorities, maintenance worker Santiago Lopez found Elisa Lam’s dead body floating in one of the hotel water tanks. Lopez made the discovery after responding to complaints from hotel patrons about low water pressure and a weird taste coming from the tap water.

According to a statement by the chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, the tank in which Lam’s body was found had to be drained completely and then cut open from the side to remove her five-foot-four frame.

Nobody knows how Lam’s corpse — floating lifelessly next to the same clothes she wore in the surveillance video — ended up in the hotel’s water tank or who else might have been involved. Hotel staff told authorities that Lam was always seen by herself around the hotel premises.

At a nearby shop, eerily named The Last Bookstore, owner Katie Orphan was among the last to see Elisa Lam alive. Orphan remembered the college student buying books and music for her family back in Vancouver.

When the autopsy results for Lam’s case came out, it only served to ignite more questions. The toxicology report confirmed that Lam had consumed a number of medical drugs, likely to be medication for her bipolar disorder. But there were no indications of alcohol or illegal substances in her body. Soon after the toxicology report came out, amateur sleuths began poring over any information they could find in hopes of solving the mystery behind the death of Elisa Lam. One person noted that she seemed to not be taking her medicine previous to her death. It is an important finding to note given that the use of antidepressants to treat bipolar disorder can risk inducing manic side effects if done without caution. Some sleuths have understandably latched onto this detail and suggested it was a likely explanation behind Lam’s strange behavior in the elevator.

Hotel manager Amy Price’s statements in court strongly support this theory. During Lam’s stay at the Cecil Hotel, Price said that Lam was originally booked in a hostel-style shared room with others. However, complaints of “odd behavior” from Lam’s roommates forced Lam to be moved to a private room by herself.

David and Yinna Lam filed a wrongful death suit against the Cecil Hotel several months after their daughter’s death was uncovered. The Lams’ attorney stated that the hotel had a duty to “inspect and seek out hazards in the hotel that presented an unreasonable risk of danger to [Lam] and other hotel guests.”

The hotel fought back against the suit, filing a motion to dismiss it. The hotel’s lawyer argued that the hotel had no reason to think that someone would be able to get into one of their water tanks.

Based on court statements from the hotel’s maintenance staff, the hotel’s argument is not entirely far-fetched. Santiago Lopez, who was the first to find Lam’s body, described in detail how much effort he had to exert just to find her body.

Lopez said that he took the elevator to the 15th floor of the hotel before walking up the staircase to the roof. Then, he had to first turn off the rooftop alarm and climb up on the platform where the hotel’s four water tanks were located. Finally, he had to climb another ladder to get to the top of the main tank. Only after all that did he notice something unusual.

“I noticed the hatch to the main water tank was open and looked inside and saw an Asian woman lying face-up in the water approximately twelve inches from the top of the tank,” Lopez said, as reported by LAist. Lopez’s testimony suggested that it would have been difficult for Lam to make it to the top of the water tank on her own. At least, not without anyone noticing.

The hotel’s Chief Engineer Pedro Tovar also made it clear that it would be difficult for anyone to access the rooftop, where the hotel water tanks were located, without triggering the alarms. Only hotel employees would be able to deactivate the alarm properly. If it was triggered, the sound of the alarm would reach the front desk as well as the entire top two floors of the hotel.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Howard Halm ruled that the death of Elisa Lam was “unforseeable” because it had happened in an area that guests were not allowed to access, so the lawsuit was dismissed.

All of the talk of the difficulty on even getting to the water tanks, especially the fact that no alarms were triggered only fueled more conspiracies and speculation. We may never know what really happened and it's another feather in the crazy creepy cap of the Cecil!

There are stories of cold spots and shadowy figures. A news story went around a couple years ago of a ghost photograph, showing a shadowy figure outside of a window of the Cecil Hotel, looking like it was about to jump.

There are stories of people saying that they see a woman who looks like Elizabeth Short and feeling like they’re being watched in the hotel. It’s a creepy place even though there are renovations and rebranding (the Cecil Hotel was renamed the Stay on Main), but, well, it’s hard to shake the sort of stories of the Cecil. Also early in 2021 the discovery channel is kicking off it's streaming service with a new episode of everyone's favorite… Ghost Adventures… Those idiots are at it again.

The hotel and the Elisa Lam footage was the inspiration for the Hotel season of American horror story. It was also the inspiration behind the movie Barton Fink starring John Goodman and Johnathan Turturro.

The hotel can also be seen in two popular music videos. The streets have no name by U2, where the brand performs on the roof of a building next to the Cecil. And in Blink 182 video for The Rock Show. The band is shown throwing money off of a single story building next to the Cecil, which may or may not be the same building u2 played on… Probably was though.

Top hotel horror movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-horror-movies-about-hotels/ranker-film

Monday Dec 28, 2020

82 - The Hatfields & McCoys' New Years Massacre

Monday Dec 28, 2020

This here episode marks the last episode of a very tumultuous year. At Least we gave you the super upbeat story of the Dozier School For Boys for your Christmas listening. This week we are going out with a bang! You may think you know the story, you probably know the names, you didn't know that Moody's wife is directly related to both families, and lastly you probably want us to get to the point. So here it is…. This week we celebrate the new year by talking about none other than the Hatfields and the McCoys...and the new years day massacre.

The patriarchs of each family during the majority of the feud were William Anderson Hatfield and Randolph McCoy.

Hatfield was born September 9, 1839, in western Virginia (now Logan, West Virginia), the son of Ephraim and Nancy (Vance) Hatfield. His nickname "Devil Anse" has a variety of supposed origins: it was given to him by his mother; by Randolph McCoy; earned from his bravery during battle in the American Civil War; or as contrast to his good-tempered cousin, Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield.

A Southern sympathizer, Hatfield enlisted in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant of Cavalry in the Virginia State Line in 1862, a group made to protect the territory along the Kentucky-Virginia border where resident loyalties to the North and South were mixed. The Virginia State Line eventually disbanded in 1863 and Hatfield enlisted as a private in the newly formed 45th Battalion Virginia Infantry, before being appointed first lieutenant and later captain of Company B. His unit spent most of its time patrolling the border area against bushwhackers sympathetic to the Union as well as engaging in guerrilla warfare against Union soldiers. Devil Anse himself has been connected to battles and killings of several Union fighters, including trackers Ax and Fleming Hurley in 1863.

Devil Anse and his uncle Jim Vance later formed a Confederate guerrilla fighting unit called the "Logan Wildcats." One of the group's victims was Union General Bill France; killed in revenge for losing one of their members to France's unit.[ In 1865, he was suspected of having been involved in the murder of his rival Asa Harmon McCoy, who had fought for the Union Army and was waylaid by The Wildcats on his return home. Hatfield had been home ill at the time of the killing, which was probably committed at the instigation of his uncle, Jim Vance. This may have sparked the beginning of the notorious feud between the two families that claimed many lives on both sides.

Devil Anse was the patriarch leader during the Hatfield-McCoy feud. His family and Randolph McCoy's fought in one of the bloodiest and most well-known feuds in American history. He was instrumental during the execution of McCoy boys Tolbert, Pharmer and Bud, as well as being present during the Battle of Grapevine Creek before most of his sons and friends were arrested for the murder of the McCoys.

Hatfield was baptized on September 23, 1911 in Island Creek by William Dyke "Uncle Dyke" Garrett and converted to Christianity (he had maintained a largely agnostic or anti-institutional view of religion prior to this conversion). He went on to found a Church of Christ congregation in West Virginia. He was an uncle of the eventual Governor of West Virginia, and United States Senator, Henry D. Hatfield.

Randolph "Randall"(or sometimes Ol’ Ran’ll) McCoy grew up in the Tug River Valley, which marked the boundary between Kentucky and West Virginia. He was born on the Kentucky side of the valley, one of 13 children. There he learned to hunt and farm, two main ways people living in this part of Appalachia supported themselves. McCoy grew up in poverty. His father, Daniel, had little interest in work, so his mother, Margaret, had to struggle to care for, feed and clothe the family.

In 1849, McCoy married his first cousin, Sarah "Sally" McCoy. Sally inherited land from her father a few years after they married. They settled on this 300-acre spread in Pike County, Kentucky, where they had 16 children together.

During the Civil War, McCoy served as a soldier for the Confederacy. He may have even been a part of the same local militia as his later nemesis, William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield.

The Family trees of these men are huge. There are many descendants around to this day. This also made keeping track of some of the issues tricky. Lots of people involved. First cousin marriage. Romeo and juliet type relationships between the families...crazy shit.

The Hatfield–McCoy feud, also described by journalists as the Hatfield–McCoy war, involved two rural American families of the West Virginia–Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River in the years 1863–1891. The McCoy family lived mostly on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork; the Hatfields lived mostly on the West Virginia side. The majority of the Hatfields, although living in Mingo County (then part of Logan County) fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War; most McCoys also fought for the Confederates, with the exception of Asa Harmon McCoy, who fought for the Union.

The Hatfields were more affluent than the McCoys and were well-connected politically. Anse's timbering operation was a source of wealth for his family, while the McCoys were more of a lower-middle-class family. Ole Ran'l owned a 300-acre farm. Both families had also been involved in the manufacturing and selling of illegal moonshine, a popular commodity at the time. The first event in the decades-long feud was the 1865 murder of Randolph’s brother, Asa Harmon McCoy, by the Logan Wildcats, a local militia group that counted Devil Anse and other Hatfields among its members. Many people—even members of his own family—regarded Asa Harmon, who had served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, as a traitor. At the time of his capture, he was recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. During the early months of the Civil War, Asa joined a company of the Pike County Home Guards, under the command of Uriah Runyon, and it is thought he sustained the wound while serving in this unit. Asa's Company E was mustered out on December 24, 1864, in Ashland. He was killed near his home on January 7, 1865, just thirteen days after leaving the Union Army. A group of Confederate guerillas took credit for the killing and his wife's pension application states that he was "killed by Rebels". There are no existing records pertaining to his death and no warrants were issued in connection with the murder. McCoy family tradition points to James "Jim" Vance, an uncle of Anse and a member of a West Virginia Militia group, as the culprit.

Relations between the two families continued to sour over the next decade before flaring again over a seemingly small matter: a dispute over a single hog. In 1878 Randolph McCoy accused Floyd Hatfield, a cousin of Devil Anse, of stealing one of his pigs, a valuable commodity in the poor region. Floyd Hatfields’s trial took place in McCoy territory but was presided over by a cousin of Devil Anse. It hinged on the testimony of star witness Bill Staton, a McCoy relative married to a Hatfield. Staton testified in Floyd Hatfield’s favor, and the McCoys were infuriated when Floyd was cleared of the charges against him. Two years later, Staton was violently killed in a fracas with Sam and Paris McCoy, nephews of Randolph. Sam stood trial for the murder but was acquitted for self-defense reasons.

Within months of Staton’s murder, a heated affair of a different sort was set ablaze. At a local election day gathering in 1880, Johnse Hatfield, the 18-year-old son of Devil Anse, encountered Roseanna McCoy, Randolph’s daughter. According to accounts, Johnse and Roseanna hit it off, disappearing together for hours. Supposedly fearing retaliation from her family for mingling with the Hatfields, Roseanna stayed at the Hatfield residence for a period of time, drawing the ire of the McCoys.

Although they certainly shared a romance, it rapidly became clear that Johnse was not about to settle down with Roseanna. Several months later he abandoned the pregnant Roseanna and quickly moved on. In May 1881 he married Nancy McCoy, Roseanna’s cousin. According to the romanticized legend, Roseanna was heartbroken by these events and never recovered emotionally.

The real turning point in the feud, according to most historical accounts, occurred on another local election day in August 1882. Three of Randolph McCoy’s sons ended up in a violent dispute with two brothers of Devil Anse. The fight soon snowballed into chaos as one of the McCoy brothers stabbed Ellison Hatfield multiple times and then shot him in the back. Authorities soon apprehended the McCoys, but the Hatfields interceded, spiriting the men to Hatfield territory. After receiving word that Ellison had died, they bound the McCoys to some pawpaw bushes. Within minutes, they fired more than 50 shots, killing all three brothers.

Though the Hatfields might have felt their revenge was warranted, the law felt otherwise, quickly returning indictments against 20 men, including Devil Anse and his sons. Despite the charges, the Hatfields eluded arrest, leaving the McCoys boiling with anger about the murders and outraged that the Hatfields walked free. Their cause was taken up by Perry Cline, an attorney who was married to Martha McCoy, the widow of Randolph’s brother Asa Harmon. Years earlier Cline had lost a lawsuit against Devil Anse over the deed for thousands of acres of land, and many historians believe this left him looking for his own form of revenge. Using his political connections, Cline had the charges against the Hatfields reinstated. He announced rewards for the arrest of the Hatfields, including Devil Anse.

The media started to report on the feud in 1887. In their accounts, the Hatfields were often portrayed as violent backwoods hillbillies who roamed the mountains stirring up violence. The sensationalist coverage planted the seed for the rivalry to become cemented in the American imagination. What had been a local story was becoming a national legend.

The Hatfields may or may not have been paying attention to these stories, but they were certainly paying attention to the bounty on their heads. In an effort to end the commotion once and for all, a group of the Hatfields and their supporters hatched a plan to attack Randolph McCoy and his family. This attack would become known as the New Year's Day Massacre.

Ever on the offensive, the Hatfields staged a sneak attack on the McCoy homestad. On New Year's Day 1888, they set fire to the McCoy home in what was eventually dubbed the New Year's Night Massacre. According to some accounts, the fire was set while the family was still in the house, asleep, as a means of forcing Randolph McCoy to come outside where a Hatfield ambush awaited him. As the flames grew, the Hatfields opened fire on the house.

McCoy did come out, but managed to escape into the woods along with some children, who suffered frostbite. Other members of the McCoy clan weren't so lucky. Two of his children were killed during the blaze, and his wife was beaten so badly she was permanently disabled. With his house burning, Randolph and his remaining family members were able to escape to the woods; his children, unprepared for the elements, suffered frostbite. The remaining McCoys moved to Pikeville to escape the West Virginia raiding parties.

During the 1888 New Year's Night Massacre, the Hatfields set fire to the McCoy homestead in hopes of flushing the family out in the open. During the mayhem, Randolph McCoy's wife, Sarah, was so badly beaten her skull was crushed. His son Calvin and daughter Alifair were killed in the crossfire

Sarah McCoy had never participated in the violence of the feud, so beating her almost to death served no purpose other than sending a message. And send a message it did – to the local authorities. Sarah McCoy's gruesome beating, and the murder of her children, brought about the murder trial that judicially ended the feud between the warring families.

This incident led to the last great skirmish of the feud as tensions were at an all time high! After the murders and the burning of the house there was an outcry for the Hatfields to be brought to justice. This led to the battle of grapevine creek. On January 19 Devil Anse and a large party of his supporters faced off with Frank Phillips and his men in a large gun battle which entered local lore and the legend of the feud as the Battle of Grapevine Creek. Despite involving a large number of men, and despite being the single biggest engagement of the entire feud only two were killed in the battle, though a deputy who supported the Hatfields was executed by Phillips after the battle. Following the engagement Phillips withdrew to Kentucky, having succeeded in rounding up nine members of the Hatfield clan. Once there he learned that another Governor, E. Willis Wilson of West Virginia, had entered the fray, and at least to all appearances on the side of the Hatfields. Wilson demanded that the illegally taken prisoners be returned to West Virginia.

Wilson expressed outrage to both governor Buckner and to the federal government, sued the government of Kentucky for the illegal arrest of the nine prisoners being held there, and demanded reparations for the raids into his state. He also ordered the West Virginia Guard to mobilize and move units to the border with Kentucky to prevent further incursions into the state. In response, Buckner dispatched units of Kentucky’s guard to the border area as protection against retaliatory raids by either West Virginia troops or supporters of the Hatfields. Only two decades after the end of the Civil War the military assets of two states were facing each other over their shared border, as a result of the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Among the nine men taken to Kentucky to stand trial for the murder of Alifair McCoy and others was Valentine Hatfield, known as Wall and a man with some connections in the government of West Virginia. Through his ministrations, Governor Wilson demanded the return of the prisoners by arguing that they had been denied due process and had been illegally extradited by Kentucky. Kentucky argued that the prisoners were in custody, under indictment, and that the state had no obligation to release them to West Virginia or any other entity, regardless of the circumstances of their arrest. In April the case was appealed by Governor Wilson to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Court issued no finding regarding the legality or illegality of the arrest, but agreed with Kentucky in their argument that no federal law existed which would prohibit the prisoners from being tried for the crimes committed in Kentucky, regardless of the nature of events which resulted with them being in custody. The finding was 7-2 in favor of Kentucky. With the nine men in custody pending trial the feud was effectively over, at least as pertains to violence against the other family. But several questions over the feud itself and the many participants arose in the aftermath of the arrests. Devil Anse was not among the prisoners, and neither West Virginia nor Kentucky authorities sought his arrest, despite his physical location being well known. Nor was Cap Hatfield in custody. One of the prisoners taken to Kentucky for trial was Valentine Hatfield, and at his trial he was convicted of involvement in the murders of the McCoy children and sentenced to life in prison. Wall Hatfield may not have been involved in the attack for which he was charged, in 2014 his great-grandson, an Episcopal priest, told the Bluefield (West Virginia) Daily Telegraph that family lore was that Wall surrendered voluntarily and that he hadn’t been guilty of the crime for which he had been charged. He also recounted a story of another relative visiting the Kentucky State Prison to review the records of his great-grandfather and learning of a different cause of death than that recorded by most historians.

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According to most accounts of the feud, once he was convicted Wall communicated with his brothers, asking for their assistance in getting him out of jail, but they refused over fears of being arrested. Wall died in prison under circumstances which remain officially unknown. According to his great-grandson, an official of the Kentucky prison system reviewed the records at the request of a relative of the Hatfields, and reported to her that he was placed in a cellblock alongside several convicted members of the McCoy clan, who killed Wall Hatfield in prison. The cause of death and the location of his grave were never released officially to the Hatfield family, who still question the nature of his role in the feud.

According to the accounts of several historians regarding the feud, Kentucky Special Officer Frank Phillips captured a deputy named Bill Dempsey who had been supporting the Hatfields, and executed him on the spot, an act of outright murder, though he was not held accountable for the crime. Other accounts have Phillips similarly executing Uncle Jim Vance rather than taking him into custody. Phillips referred to himself as “Bad Frank”, and claimed to have ridden at one time with the James-Younger Gang. Whether or not true, he did name one of his sons Jesse James Phillips, and he was indicted at various times in several jurisdictions.

81 - Dozier School For Boys (WTF!)

Monday Dec 21, 2020

Ep. 81

Dozier school for boys

On our train ride today we are heading to sunny Florida. This is much more than a "Florida man" story. This is a crazy story of one of the worst boys schools ever to exist. There were many of these return schools around the country but this place has a reputation as one of the worst. It's been known by several names over the years but most people know it as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys . We're gonna talk about the history and atrocities that happened at this school that opened January 1, 1900 and just closed on June 30, 2011. A 111 year reign of terror! Here we go!

The school was located in Marianna Florida and covered 1400 acres. A second campus was opened in the town of Okeechobee in 1955. The school was first organized under an 1897 act of the legislature and began operations on the Marianna campus on January 1, 1900, as the Florida State Reform School. It was overseen by five commissioners appointed by the governor William Dunnington Bloxham, who were to operate the school and make biennial reports to the legislature. Some time thereafter, the commissioners were replaced by the governor and cabinet of Florida, acting as the Board of Commissioners of State Institutions. In 1914, the name was changed to the Florida Industrial School for Boys and in 1957 to the Florida School for Boys. In 1955, the Okeechobee campus opened. In 1967, the name of the Marianna campus was changed to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, in honor of a former superintendent of the school.The Marianna site was originally divided into north and south sides. South side was known as "Number 1" and was for white students only, while the North side was"number 2" and for black students only. The school remained segregated until 1966. Boot Hill cemetery was located on the north side. In 1929, an 11-room concrete block detention building, also containing two cells (one for white, and one for black students), was constructed to house incorrigible or violent students, the site at the time not being fenced. Students called it "The White House". In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the site of most beatings of students. After corporal punishment at the school was abolished in 1967, the building was used for storage. Shortly before the facility was closed, Dozier was a fenced, 159-acre "high-risk" residential facility for 104 boys aged 13 to 21 who had been committed there by a court; their average length of stay at Dozier was nine to twelve months. They lived in several cottages, with each boy having an unlocked room.

In 1903 an inspection uncovered that children at the school were commonly kept in leg irons. After this the school was investigated 6 times in its first 13 years. In 1914 there was a fire in one of the dorms. The fire killed six students and two staff members. During the spanish flu epidemic in 1918 it was recorded that eleven students died but they were not named and documented in the recorded burials of the Boot Hill Cemetery. A 13 year old boy was sent there in 1934 and died 38 days later. There's no record of what caused his death. In 1968, Florida Governor Claude Kirk said, after a visit to the school where he found overcrowding and poor conditions, that "somebody should have blown the whistle a long time ago." At this time, the school housed 564 boys, some for offenses as minor as school truancy, running away from home, or "incorrigibility", including cigarette smoking. They ranged in age from ten to sixteen years old. The White House was closed in 1967. Officially, corporal punishment at the school was banned in August 1968.

In 1969, as part of a governmental reorganization, the school came under the management of the Division of Youth Services of the newly created Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. There were 81 school-related deaths of students from 1911 to 1973. Thirty-one of these boys were said to be buried on the school grounds, with other bodies "shipped home to families or buried in unknown locations." There are 31 simple crosses as grave markers at the cemetery, installed in the 1960s and 1990s, but they have been found not to correspond to specific burials.

An inspection done in 1982 revealed that boys were hogtied and kept in isolation for weeks at a time! A lawsuit was filed by the ACLU over this issue and several other issues at this facility and three other juvenile facilities in Florida. At this point the school was housing 105 students aged 13-21. In 1985, the media reported that young ex-students of the school, sentenced to jail terms for crimes committed at Dozier, had subsequently been the victims of torture by guards at the Jackson County jail. The teens were usually hanged but handcuffs to the bars of their cells usually for an hour at a time. The guards said that this practice was approved by their superiors.

In 1994, the school was placed under the management of the newly created Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, which operated the school until its closure in 2011. By this time, the school had facilities to house 135 inmates. Many of the boys sent there had been convicted of rape or of committing "lewd acts on other children". On September 16, 1998, a resident of the school lost his right arm in a washing machine. A lawsuit was filed against the institution and the plaintiff was awarded an undisclosed amount in 2003.

In April 2007, the acting superintendent of the school and one other employee were fired following allegations of abuse of inmates.[24] The state officially acknowledged that abuses had taken place there; the White House Boys, a growing group of adult survivors who had been held there in the 1950s and 1960s, were speaking out to the press. In October 2008, several of them attended a ceremony to install a historic plaque at the White House that acknowledged that past. The news was carried nationwide.[14]

In late 2009, the school failed its annual inspection. Among other problems, the inspection found that the school failed to deal properly with the numerous complaints by the boys held there, including allegations of continued mistreatment by the guards. State Representative Darryl Rouson said the system was struggling to move on from a longstanding "culture of violence and abuse".[16]

The U.S. Department of Justice conducted a survey of 195 US facilities, including the Florida School For Boys. According to its 2010 report, 11.3% of boys surveyed at the school reported that they had been subject to sexual abuse by staff using force in the last twelve months, and 10.3% reported that they had been subject to it without the use of force. 2.2% reported sexual victimization by another inmate. DOJ said these percentages meant the home was deemed to have neither "high" nor "low" rates of sexual victimization compared with the other institutions assessed in the survey.[25]

In July 2010, the state announced its plan to merge Dozier with JJOC, creating a single new facility, the North Florida Youth Development Center, with an open campus and a closed campus. However, the following year, claiming "budgetary limitations," the state decided to close both facilities on June 30, 2011. Remaining students were sent to other juvenile justice facilities around the state.[4]

After Hurricane Michael, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office was given the property, now known as ‘Endeavor’, to relocate from their damaged offices.

So there you have a condensed history of the school and the site. Now we're going to get into the crazy shit that went on there. First we have the story of Willy Haynes and his experience with the school and the infamous Whitehouse. The story comes from an incredible article from the Tampa Bay Times. In the late 1950s, a 13-year-old kid who slicked back his long hair like Elvis stood in front of a judge in Tampa. A car had been stolen from the neighborhood. Someone said they saw Willy Haynes driving it. Willy didn't know how to drive, but the judge didn't know that. Here was a boy who grew up in a little house off Columbus Avenue, in Six Mile Creek, a scrappy neighborhood on Tampa's eastern edge, where a poor kid learned early how to protect himself. When the judge warned the boy to behave or he'd be sent to reform school in Marianna, Willy surprised the court.

Why can't I go now?

He had heard the Florida School for Boys had a band and a football team and maybe even Boy Scouts, and it didn't cost a penny to participate. He kissed his mother goodbye at the courthouse and left Tampa in the back of a state cruiser. Big, beautiful, oblivious Florida blurred by outside the window. Willy wasn't scared as the state car pulled onto the gravel road that led to the state's only boys' juvenile reformatory, the Florida School for Boys.

No fences. Manicured lawns. Tall pines and stately buildings. It looked like college. It had to be better than home.

Inside, he signed a ledger.

William Haynes Jr.

April 11, 1958.

A boy escorted Willy Haynes to Tyler Cottage and told him to keep his belongings in Locker No. 252. He was given a toothbrush and pajamas and his own military bunk. The poor kid from Tampa felt like he was finally home.

He was there barely a week when it happened. Some bullies caught him outside the showers, and the next thing he knew he was in the middle of a tangle of feet and fists. Willy knew how to fight, and he was choking one of his attackers in a headlock when a cottage father busted in.

The school's disciplinarian, R.W. Hatton, asked Willy who he had been fighting, but the boy would not give up the names. Better to be punished than be branded a puke.

You're going down, Hatton told him.

They dragged him across that manicured campus, toward the squat concrete building called the White House. They dragged him through the door. Willy Haynes, who had asked the judge to send him here, who had wanted to throw a football under the pines. Over 18 months, the men dragged Willy into the White House again and again.

Lay down. Hold the rail. Don't make a sound.

He could hear the strap coming. It started with the pivot, the shuffle of boots on concrete. The strap hit the wall, then the ceiling, then thighs and buttocks and back, and it felt like an explosion. When he got back to the cottage, Willy stood in the shower and let the cold water wash bits of underwear from his lacerations, as his blood ran toward the drain.

Many others suffered the same horrors as Willy. As the boys grew up the memories stayed with them as they became men. Many sporting both physical and mental scars. Some of these men gathered at the Florida School for Boys on Oct. 21, 2008. Again from the Tampa Bay Times article:

"The last time they had stepped on this sprawling campus, they were fresh-faced punks with the world before them. Now their hair was gray and their faces sagged. Their backs ached from a night in motel beds. They carried pictures of children and grandchildren in their wallets.

Dick Colon had flown in from Baltimore, where he owns an electrical contracting company. The 65-year-old was tormented by the memory of seeing a boy being stuffed into an industrial dryer. Next to him stood Michael O'McCarthy, a writer and political activist from Costa Rica, who was beaten so badly he was treated at the school infirmary. To his left was Roger Kiser, a Chicken Soup for the Soul contributor who had driven down from Brunswick, Ga., bent on retribution. On the end was a quiet man named Robert Straley, who sells glow lights and carnival novelties. He drove up from Clearwater. He had been having recurring nightmares of a man sitting on his bed.

Then there was Willy Haynes. He was 65 and went by Bill now. A tall, broad man, Haynes had worked for 30 years for the Alabama Department of Corrections. Haynes didn't feel good. There were plenty of places he'd rather be. But he knew he had to do this."

The men now called themselves the White House Boys. According to the article The men remember the same things:

"blood on the walls, bits of lip or tongue on the pillow, the smell of urine and whiskey, the way the bed springs sang with each blow. The way they cried out for Jesus or mama. The grinding of the old fan that muffled their cries. The one-armed man who swung the strap. They remember walking into the dark little building on the campus of the Florida School for Boys, in bare feet and white pajamas, afraid they'd never walk out."

According the the men boys were dragged to the White House in ones and twos and threes, and sometimes there was a line outside, and sometimes a white dog kept watch."

The white house boys are former students who had been held at the school in the 1950s and 1960s began to share accounts of abuses that they had suffered or observed against students. By the early 2000s, there were about 400 members, survivors of this school from the 1950s and 1960s. Since the early 2000s, members of the group began to speak publicly about their experiences to the media, and to challenge the state to investigate practices and personnel at the school. More than 300 men have publicly recounted abuse and torture at the school. The survivors have had some internal struggles and set up more than one website.

In 2009, the Florida School for Boys was the subject of an extensive special report. Allegations focusing on the 1960s included claims that one room was used for whipping white boys and another for black boys. The whippings were carried out by guards using a 3-foot-long belt made of leather and metal and were so severe that the victim's underwear could become embedded in his skin. One former student said that he had seen a boy trapped in a running laundry dryer at the school and suspected the boy was killed. One former student stated he was punished in the White House eleven times, receiving a total of more than 250 lashes. Others alleged they were whipped until they lost consciousness and that the punishments were made harsher for boys who cried. Some alumni also stated there was a "rape room" at the school, where boys were sexually abused by guards. The complainants said some of the victims were as young as nine years old.

In February 2010, the White House Boys filed a class action suit for damages against the state government, but it was dismissed by a judge in Leon County, Florida, because the statute of limitations had run out for such a suit. A bill introduced in the 2012 session of the Florida Legislature to provide compensation to victims of abuse at the school failed to pass.

There have been many positions throughout the years but no real investigations until 2008. On December 9, 2008, Florida Governor Charlie Crist directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to investigate the allegations of abuse, torture, and murder recounted by the White House Boys and their law firm. It took two years for the findings to be released.

The FDLE conducted more than one hundred interviews of former students, family members of former students, and former staff members of the school during the 15-month investigation, but no concrete evidence was found linking any of the student deaths to the actions of school staff, or that there had been attempts by staff to conceal deaths. None of the graves were opened during the investigation.(The investigation determined that the thirty-one graves at the facility had been dug between 1914 and 1952.)

A forensic examination of the "White House" was conducted. No trace evidence of blood on the walls was found. Some former Dozier students told investigators that they felt they had "needed the discipline." Troy Tidwell, who was a staff member at the school during that period, said that punishments in the White House were not excessive. He said staff used the leather strap because they were concerned that spankings with wooden paddles, as had previously taken place, might injure the boys.

Department of Justice, 2011

In its December 2011 report of its investigation at the Dozier School, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice made the following findings about staff at the school, who were cited for use of excessive force, inappropriate isolation, and extension of confinement:

The youth confined at Dozier and at JJOC were subjected to conditions that placed them at serious risk of avoidable harm in violation of their rights protected by the Constitution of the United States. During our investigation, we received credible reports of misconduct by staff members to youth within their custody. The allegations revealed systemic, egregious, and dangerous practices exacerbated by a lack of accountability and controls. . . . These systemic deficiencies exist because State policies and generally accepted juvenile justice procedures were not being followed. We found that . . . staff did not receive minimally adequate training. We also found that proper supervision and accountablity measures were limited and did not suffice to prevent undue restraints and punishments. Staff failed to report allegations of abuse to the State, supervisors, and administrators. Staff members often failed to accurately describe use of force incidents and properly record use of mechanical restraints.

The University of South Florida 2012-2014:

Dr. Erin Kimmerle is a forensic anthropologist and University of South Florida Associate Professor who had led a USF team of anthropologists, biologists, and archaeologists exploring the Marianna campus in a project authorized by the state. The stories of the White House Boys piqued her interest, as she had worked with international groups to identify remains and burials in areas of warfare. She thought the specialists at her university could aid the state in identifying undocumented areas of burial by using current technology and scientific techniques. She was especially curious why there are no records of the locations of the burials, as is customary at state prisons, hospitals and similar institutions.In 2012, the team used ground-penetrating radar and some excavation to identify where bodies are buried. However, in order to determine if the cause of death was from injury, illness, or murder, the bodies must be exhumed. Given the long history of reported violence at the school, many people believe that some students died because of abuse. Under existing law, exhumations can be done only at the request of a family member. But many of the burials are of students who were here in the early 20th century, and records make it difficult to identify their families.

By December 2012, the researchers indicated that they had located 55 graves on the grounds. Given that they had documented nearly 100 deaths at the school, the team believed that a second cemetery was likely to exist.

Thomas Varnadoe was sent to the Florida School for Boys in 1934 and died there a month later. His nephew, Glen Varnadoe, came forward in 2012 saying that he wanted to have his uncle's remains exhumed for reinterment at his family's cemetery near Lakeland. He had visited Dozier School in the 1990s, and a staff member showed him where his uncle might be buried. That location was not the same as the area where the most recent burials were found. The state originally limited the USF team to searching the existing, delineated cemetery grounds, saying they did not have the authority to order exhumation of graves. Researchers discuss work revealed that using the remains they did find on site, they made seven DNA identifications and 14 other presumptive matches. Many of the unmarked burial sites studied are thought to be of black students, who were segregated at the school. The team found that three times as many black students died and were buried at Dozier than white students, and that some of those boys were incarcerated for non-criminal charges like running away and incorrigibility. Black boys were less likely to be named in historical records, as well, reflecting the grim realities of reform school life in the segregated South. They eventually uncovered a students family had actually been sent a coffin filled with planks of wood after a boy named Thomas Curry died there under "Suspicious Circumstances while escaping". The ledger entry at the Dozier school said he was “killed on RR Bridge Chattahoochee, Fla.” Another document at Old Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia says he was “killed by train.” No one from Dozier ever reported his death to the state. He was returned in a casket to his family, who, in turn, buried him in Philadelphia. Or so the family thought. It wasn’t until a state investigation beginning in 2008 that Curry’s death certificate was found at Dozier. It said he died of a crushed skull from an “unknown cause.” And it wasn’t until 2014, when University of South Florida anthropologists who have been working to unearth and identify remains on the former campus visited Philadelphia with Pennsylvania authorities, that the family learned Curry wasn’t in the casket – no bones, no clothing, no sign of him at all.

“Wood. Layers of pieces of wood,” said anthropologist Erin Kimmerle, explaining what she and her team found in the casket. “It was completely filled with wooden planks.”

At first, the team thought they had the wrong grave, but then they found Curry’s great-grandparents beneath the wood-filled casket…

Definitely some weird shit going on here.

In January 2016, the USF team issued their final report. They had made a total of seven DNA matches and 14 presumptive identifications from the 51 remains found at the site. A total of 55 burials were identified, but only 13 were made within the cemetery grounds, and "the rest of the graves were outside... in the woods, including under a roadway, brush, and a large mulberry tree." While they had documented 98 deaths at the site, they were unable to identify any more burials on the grounds. Some bodies may have been sent home to students' families. The USF team will continue to work with other organizations and families on DNA and other means of identification of the remains that were found. They created computer facial approximations from remains to help with identification. A number of families, including the Glen Varnadoe family, have filed requests to have the remains of their children or relatives repatriated.

In March 2014, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill authorizing up to $7500 per burial for those families who wanted to reinter the remains of relatives identified in unmarked graves at the Florida School for Boys. This followed the University of South Florida's report in January, which said they had been able to make matches of 21 sets of remains to known families. In addition, the bill proposes creating a task force to establish a memorial, "as well as deciding how to handle the remains of bodies that have yet to be identified or claimed by families.

The white house boys also fought to have the bodies of orphans and those that were unidentified to be reinterred far away from the ground at Dozier.

In as late as 2019 they are still finding what could possibly be unmarked graves. Dr. Erin Kimmerle again began an investigation of 27 "anomalies" discovered by an engineering firm hired by the state's Department of Environmental Protection to help clean-up following Hurricane Michael, according to Florida's Department of State.

Though the 27 anomalies discovered by radar are "consistent with possible graves," according to Governor Ron DeSantis, only fieldwork will determine whether human remains are present at the site.

The 27 "anomalies" are located less than 200 yards from a section on the Dozier school property known as Boot Hill Cemetery, where, previously, USF researchers found 55 graves.

Unfortunately in an update we found it turns out Kimmerle's team said those anomalies were mostly roots from pine trees moved from the area years ago.

Survivor Charlie Fudge and friend Rachel McCoy pleaded to be allowed on the property during future surveys.

Fudge said he remembers a graveyard being on the east side of a set of buildings on the property, near Old Air Base Road.

"I could sit on my cottage bench and see that cemetery," Fudge said. "My mind at 12 years old remembers that cemetery."

Kimmerle said her team did not find anything abnormal in that area, but nearby there is an established, fenced-in historic cemetery.

McCoy, who attended the presentation with Fudge, said letting the men on the property to assist is "what they need."

Fudge said he hopes the White House does not get bulldozed over when the property is cleaned up in the future.

"That's very meaningful to me and the other men," he said. "I'm just an old guy, who went there 60 years ago, and went through hell."

John Bell, who spent eight months at the school, also spoke and said the school was managed by "corrupt officials of the state of Florida" and "it's been going on for way too long."

In 2017, the state formally apologized to the survivors and families for the abuses and deaths that happened at Dozier. More than 500 former Dozier students have come forward over the years to report physical, sexual and mental abuse at the hands of those who worked there.

On June 29th 2020, Neil Davis, the oldest member of The White house boys passed away in a nursing home. He never told most of his family, including his children, that he had been at Dozier and what he'd gone through.

The white house boys vow to keep fighting for the rights of the victims.

"There are still 180 people not accounted for," she said. "We could lay it to rest. They're not just public, they were there. Let them walk the property." Fudge said

"We the White House boys; we know what has happened in that school," he said. "It's not going to be over until we say it's over."

There are some really great news articles used for this episode. There was a really great series of articles from The St Pete Times that were reprinted by the Tampa Bay Times that we recommend checking out. Also NPR has a ton of good info as well.

Imdb list of 15 horror movies about school

https://m.imdb.com/list/ls022490849/

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