I'm your host, Jade Horror and this is true crime Horror Story. And
it's my favorite time of the year, October. That means Halloween is right
around the corner. And I'm going to take the opportunity to take our mid
season break a little early this season because my month is filled with getting ready
for my family's annual haunted house over thirteen hundred square feet, so it takes
a lot of work to put everything together, but it brings smiles to a
lot of kids' faces. We'll be back in November. Until then, enjoy
this compilation of Halloween episodes. Happy Halloween. True Crime Horror Story contains extreme
violence and adult subject matter. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host,
Jadie Horror and this is True Crime Horror Story. Season one, Episode nine,
The Halloween Murders. Who are you writing, Julias? This is the
time of year to write to the Great Pumpkin on Halloween nights, the Great
Pumpkin rises out of his pumpkin patch and five for the air of the Sang
of Ye for all the children. You must be crazy? When are you
going to stop believing in something that isn't true? When you stop believing in
that fellow with a red foot and a white beard who goes ho ho ho.
They are obviously separated by denominational differences. Part one, The man who
Almost killed Halloween. It is Halloween, and children will be out to the
trick or a treat, and we hope that the treats will be many and
the tricks ingenious. But sometimes people give children bad things on Halloween. In
Shreveport, Louisiana, an old legend that actually happened this time. Halloween is
on Sunday, and there's a spreading fear that this year the real Halloween scare
will be many more cases of contaminated Halloween is my favorite time of the year.
It always has been. As a child, I didn't have many friends,
so I found my escape amongst the racks of VHS horror movies at my
local mom and pop video store, something that no longer exists in today's society.
Halloween was horror night, and it was the one time of the year
when all the other kids were just like me. I can easily slip amongst
the mobs of massed children as they made their route in search of tricks and
treats. It was the one night of the year where you could be whoever
you wanted to be instead of the pick you drafted in the DNA lottery.
Whether it be rumors of Satanists searching the autumn night for virgins and black cats
to sacrifice, wiggs made of spiders, or headlight based gang initiations, there
were plenty of urban legends surrounding all Hallow's Eve, most famous a razor blade
hidden inside of a candied apple, the best depiction of this being the brief
razorblade scene in nineteen eighty ones Halloween too, though it wouldn't be an apple
nor a blade. One man took these urban legends all too seriously. As
a result of the incident that occurred here. The mayors of Pathadena and several
other nearby towns have been suggesting that there be alternatives to trick or treating on
Halloween. The pain say they are not willing to accept that they want Halloween
stopped. All play say sickly not worth it. Halloween of nineteen seventy four
was a cold and misty night, but that didn't stop the O'Brien children from
having a great night of trigger treating, Donning raincoats as they went house to
house trigger treat. It was getting late, so the Obrians were about to
depart from the group. After all, it was a Thursday and the kids
had school the next day. But before they headed home, father Ronald Clark
O'Brien gave his daughter Elizabeth and son Timothy, as well as three other children,
some pixie sticks. It was eight year old Timothy who reached for the
treat first. As he plucked the staple from the plastic tube and dumped sweet
and sour sugar candy from the foe drinking straw down his throat, he began
to gag. You, this is gross, something's wrong with it. Timothy
threw the pixie stick to the ground after discovering the tubes smelt of bitter almonds.
Another adult encouraged the others to do the same and not in justice spoiled
treat, which turned out to be a trick. Moments later, Timothy was
in pain, and lots of it. He wretched and heave half digested twizzlers,
candy, corn, and cyanide onto the wet pavement and began a convulsant
spasm. Within an hour, Timothy O'Brien was dead. He died a tragic
and excruciating death at the hands of a cyanide lace pixie stick. As the
poison prevented his body cells from using oxygen, killing them one by one,
his heartened brain began to slowly die. Though the tortuous ordeal lasted only an
hour, eight year old Timothy O'Brien fell every moment of the process of death
from inside out. The amount of cyanide contained in the candy was enough to
kill the entire starting line of a Texan high school football team, let alone
a small boy. It was every parent's worst nightmare come to fruition, an
urban legend come to life in the form of death, that is, unless
that parent was Ronald Clark O'Brien, who took out a thirty thousand dollars life
insurance policy on his own children shortly before he attempted to murder them. O'Brien,
I haven't gotten the pixie sticks from a stranger's door, as he claimed
during the trial. You have them shoved up the sleeves of his ring slicker
the entire time. Most of today's testimony came from Jimmy Bates, a close
friend of the O'Brien family. Bates said that before Halloween, O'Brien asked if
he could bring his children over to trick or treat with the Bates children.
On Halloween night, both families ate dinner together and then the fathers took the
children trick or treating. Bates said O'Brien went to one house where no one
appeared to be home, and after the children had scampered ahead to in the
next house, O'Brien came off the pump porch carrying the pixie sticks. He
gave the pixie sticks to the children and then later took them back and said
he wanted to stop at his call for a moment. Bates said when O'Brien
came back into the Bates house, he returned the pixie sticks to the children.
Later that night, Timothy O'Brien died from eating a poisoned pixie stick.
The death of Timothy O'Brien created Halloween havoc in the Greater Houston area, with
countless bags of Tassey treats flushed down the toilet like there were pieces of shit.
Similar to Ronald Clark O'Brien, Some parents vowed never to let their children
trick or treat ever again, or even stopped celebrating Halloween at all. This
is Ronald Clark O'Brien. Mister Bryan is thirty nine years old. It looks
like you're going to be executed. Would you agree with that. It's a
possibility. I've been aware of that possibility since the sentence was handed down.
It doesn't make it right. It's fair to say that nobody gets any joy
out of executing anybody. But it is also clear that most Americans want to
get on with this. They are upset that you're alive. I can see
that point, sure, But here again, I don't think so revenge.
He's right, I don't think society is entitled to revenge. You are accused
of ruining Halloween for everybody. Well, that's a mayor of opinion. By
the time Ronald Clark O'Brien was executed on March thirty first of nineteen eighty four,
most people had forgotten the night that Halloween almost died. The story would
reverted back to an urban legend. But those who are close enough to hear
the boys cries and his dying gasps still remember, and on October thirty first,
their porch lights remain off. You are accused of ruining Halloween for everybody.
Well, that's a matter of opinion. Part two, Son of Sam
during nineteen seventy six. In nineteen seventy seven, New York was gripped in
terror the hands of a man by the media as the forty four caliber Killer
and later the Son of Sam Low from the gut is in New York City,
which I filled with dog manua, vomit, stale wine, urine,
and blood. Hello, fund the sus in New York City. We'll just
swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweep of trucks.
Hello, from the cracks in the sidewalks of New York City, and from
the ants that dwell in these cracks and feeding the dried blood of the dead
that has settled into the cracks. JB. I'm just dropping you a line
to let you know that I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous forty
four caliber killings. I also want to tell you that I reach a column
daily and I find it quite a formative. Tell me, Jim, what
will you have for July twenty ninth. You could forget about me if you
like, because I don't care for publicity. However, you must not forget
Donna Lauria, and you cannot let the people forget her either. She was
a very very sweet girl. But Sam's a thirsty lad, and he won't
let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood. Mister Breslin,
Sir, don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that
I went to sleep. No. Rather, I am still here, like
a spirit, roaming the night, thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest,
anxious to please Sam. I love of my work. Now the void
has been filled. Perhaps we shall meet face to face someday, or perhaps
I will be blown away by cops with smoking thirty eights whatever. If I
shall be fortunate enough to meet you, I will tell you all about Sam,
and if you like, I will introduce you to him. His name
is Sam the Terrible. Not knowing what the future holds, I shall say
farewell and I will see you at the next job, or should I say
you will see my handiwork at the next job. Remember Miss Lauria, Thank
you and their blood and from the gutter Sam's creation forty four. Here are
some names to help you along. Forward them to the Inspector for use by
NCIC the Duke of Death, the Wicked King Wicker, the twenty two Disciples
of Hell, John Wheatie's rapists, and suffocata of girls. PS. Please
inform all the detectives work in the slang to remain PS JB. Please inform
all the detectives work in the case that I wish them the best to luck,
keep them digging, drive on being positive, get off your butts,
knock on coffins, etc. Upon my capture, I promised to buy all
the guys work in the case a new pair of shoes if I can get
up the money. Son of Sam, David Burkerwitz, was convinced that his
neighbor's dog was actually an ancient demon who commanded him to kill. Burkerwitz was
convicted of six murders as well as seven attempted murders, and later a series
of arsons, who sentenced to serve six consecutive life sentences in addition to his
claims of being commanded to kill by his neighbor's black labrador Harvey. Years after
a sentence, the Son of Sam old authorities that he was acting in conjunction
with an underground satanic colt. Burkewitz claimed that this secret society, orchestrated additional
murders and influenced his own crimes. After a brutal, unsolved double murder on
Halloween night of nineteen eighty one, the police received a phone call from a
jailhouse informant. This inmate claimed to have been told about these murders before they
happened. The man who prophesied the killings could describe details that had not been
released to the public. The informant's mysterious psychic acquaintance none other than the son
of Sam David Berkowitz. The champagne and cocaine were flowing on the third floor
apartment of photographer Ronald Sisman. At just a year under forty, ron thought
he was at his peak. He was spending Halloween doing lines off of his
nineteen year old girlfriend's hits and snapping shots of reposing while the song Endless Love
was droning on about hearts and eyes in the background. Ronald Sisman hated Halloween.
The only candy in his house was sitting on a mound on the coffee
table next to a rolled up dollar bill, and he damnsure didn't like being
interrupted when he was playing with his hot little piece of ass In a cocaine
fueled rage, Ronald stormed towards the door. When he opened it, there
stood a couple of would be trigger treaters, complete with masks. But these
weren't skeletons, ghouls, or goblins or things that go bump in the night.
These were three adults in black hoods. They proceeded to beat the ever
living shit out of both Ronald and his girlfriend while tearing apart the house and
as if in search of some phantom item. After being beaten and tortured for
a few hours, ultimately Ronald Sismond and his nineteen year old girlfriend, Elizabeth
Plattsman were both shot in the back of their heads, point blank, execution
style. No evidence was left to the scene of the crime. Birkwoodz had
told the informant that members of a satanic colt were going to perform a ritualistic
killing and torture and a sacrifice to the dark Lord on Halloween night of nineteen
eighty one. The forty four caliber killer would prognosticate about a photographer who would
be slain in response to his involvement with a snuff film of one of Berkowitz's
own murders that could potentially implicate the cult in the Son of Sam killings.
Though David Berkowitz's claims he might be interesting, no evidence has been brought forth
to formally implicate him or a secret Satanic society. And the murders of Ronald
Sisman and Elizabeth Plattsman. The only item was missing from the scene were both
Ronald and Elizabeth's driver's licenses and Ronald's twenty five caliber pistol. As to the
recording of this episode, no arrests have been made regarding the double murder of
Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Plattsman that occurred on Halloween Night of nineteen eighty one.
Could it be that a cult continue to stock New York even after David Berkowitz
had been locked away. It's possible. More likely, though, would be
something involved in Sisman's ties to the drug trade. Home invasions do happen with
or without the aid of a demonic dog. Just listen to season one,
episode two if you want to know what I mean. Even so, throughout
the eighties, the residents of New York City still in high alert, still
in the grips a terror at the hands of a phantom gunslinger, A demonic
dog and a villainous society of devil worshiping maniacs. Invisible Choir a true crime
podcast that explores the most egregious and heinous murders through primary source audio and investigative
storytelling. These are the tragic stories of the missing and the dead, their
voices reaching out from beyond the grave, seeking peace and yearning for justice.
Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Go to Invisible Choir dot
com to learn more. Part three Maybe Missing Maybe, Michigan is the best
little town in Michigan. According to their welcome sign. It's a small farming
community of less than six hundred resident. In small towns like that, there
wasn't really much to do, so when something big came around, like Halloween,
specifically Big Mike's annual Halloween Bash, the locals had to make the most
of it. Twenty two year old Chelsea Bruck was beyond excited for Halloween.
She had saved up her tips as a waitress down at Olga's Kitchen in order
to construct the perfect costume. It took her a painstaking three weeks of sewing,
but by party time, she was a spitting image of the Batman comic
villainists Poison Ivy donning a green leotard flat with leaves and flowers, an auburn,
red and purple wig, black leggings, and a giant wine bottle with
a skull and crossbones used to represent the poison. She gazed at herself in
the mirror, Satisfied with the fruit of her labors. She was guaranteed to
win the annual costume contest. At approximately ten PM, the familiar sound of
her friend Laura Taylor's horn signified it was finally time to go. With a
smile, Chelsea grabbed her bag and headed out. Though the giant wine bottle
was a prop, it did contain cheap wine, which the girls in Dulcian
far too much on their trip out to the rural area near Frenchtown township that
held Big Mike's annual Halloween bash. As they approached, they could see the
stories were true. This was no ordinary Halloween party. There was a stage
of bands, fireball twirlers, and a forty foot bonfire. There were also
a lot more people than she expected, over six hundred. After parking and
heading towards the gates, they noticed people fighting in the parking line, which
was covered in puke and trash. It wasn't even midnight, and the party
was already getting out of hand. By the time they parked the car,
Chelsea realized this wasn't at all what she had built up in her head so
far. It didn't help that she was already tipsy from the shitty poison ivy
wine she had consumed on that pumpy route to Big Mike's. Despite expectations not
met, Chelsea and Laura were having a good time and laughing until about twelve
to thirty, when they became separated amongst the crowd. There was nothing more
frantic than a drunk girl at a party trying to find their friend. The
higher the level of inebriation, the more urgent the matter is. I have
seen many a tear flow in my time from the spout of a hammered twenty
something who assumes that their missing friend ended up in a ditch somewhere, when
most often than not, it's not the case. Unfortunately, in this story,
the anxiety Chelsea fell to the separation from her friend and ride was justified,
though it wouldn't be her friend who ended up on the evening news.
After about fifteen minutes of searching for Laura, Chelsea round smacked ab into a
wooden post knows first, her eyes began to swell, and a mixture of
blood and wine stained her prize poison ivy costume, ensuring she would never win
the competition. She sat defeated. The night she had anticipated it had gone
to shit and fast. All Chelsea wanted to do was go home. Sometime
after one am, Laura left the party, leaving Chelsea's cell phone and bag
with another friend, Becky Brinson. Becky and Chelsea also never connected. Amongst
the swarm of drunken partygoers and haybells, multiple witnesses reported a bloody and drunken
Chelsea approaching them to use their cell phones, though there wasn't any reception out
in the middle of nowhere. The party slowly died down as the sun rose,
and everyone had either passed out or gone home, except for Chelsea Bruck.
She never made it back from the party. Her parents reported her missing
in October twenty fourteen, and over a million leaflets were distributed by her friends,
family, and volunteers in the community, but Chelsea had vanished without a
trace. As the days turned into weeks, months, and finally years the
Bruck family felt no sense of closure. No developments were made in the case
until March twenty second to twenty fifteen, when Cheryl ruts Laugh found a woman's
shoe on her property. Rats Laugh phone three and a half acres partially wooded
property located a little over two miles from the party location. The shoe was
in a ditch near a pile of trash. Something about it stuck out as
off to her, though, so she took it home. Cheryl had kind
of forgotten about the mysterious left shoe until her husband reminded her about the girl
who went missing last Halloween, Chelsea Bruck. After Rutzloft took the shoe to
the police, they sent a picture of it to Chelsea's mother, who immediately
identified it as being hers. About a week later, Chelsea's leotard and wig
were found in an abound in building by the railroad tracks by a man looking
for scrap metal, Eric Cassab. Cassab initially thought what he was looking at
was an artificial plant, but soon discovered the grizzly truth. He didn't initially
report his strange findings, though, because he was worried about his fingerprints being
discovered at the scene. The Bruck's family's worst nightmares were confirmed on April twenty
fourth, twenty fifteen, when partially skeletal nude remains were found by a man
developing a plot of land on Briar Hill Road. Dental records confirmed the corpse
belonged to Chelsea Bruck. The police had a body, but they still didn't
have a suspect or a motive. That was until Eric Cassab finally came forward
about the leotard and investigators were able to test a small brown stain for DNA.
The DNA was tested against their catalog and they found a match. Experts
placed the odds of their match at one in a billion, and the DNA
evidence belonged to Daniel Alfredo Clay, an unemployed high school dropout with a history
of violence. Clay was brought in for questioning and subsequently arrested on July twenty
second, twenty sixteen. While he admitted to being at Big Mike's annual Halloween
bash, he denied ever talking to or even seeing Chelsea. As the interrogation
continued, he relented and admitted he saw her, but he didn't speak to
her. As the night went on, Clay claimed the two had consensual sex
in the back seat of his car. After they were done, the two
parted ways, but as Clay was leaving the party, he saw Chelsea stumbling
along the side of the road drunk, so, like any gentleman, Daniel
said, he offered her a ride. According to Daniel Clay, the two
had sex again, but this time it was much rougher and took a dark
turn in the throes of passion. A drunken an aggressive Chelsea bit and slapped
Clay and asked him to choke her. Daniel wrapped his hands around her throat
and began to squeeze, how wall, continuing to pump in the most ancient
of rhythms. Less than a minute later, Daniel realized that Chelsea had lost
consciousness and she had went limp. He withdrew his penis and began to give
her mouth to mouth and pound on her chest. His efforts were futile,
though, and when he knew she was dead, he went into a panic.
Daniel drove to a secluded wooded area off of Briar Hill Road and dumped
her body, covering it with several heavy logs in an effort to conceal her
remains, so I thought first something that wasn't. That was the story of
what happened, according to Daniel Clay, but not according to the medical examiner,
who testified that Chelsea had died from blunt forced trauma to the head and
that erotic asphyxia could be completely ruled out. In addition, the damage share
HER's skull was so severe that investigators knew that her injuries could not have been
caused by a fist, but some large and heavy object. There were multiple
fractures to Chelsea's orbital bones, caving in her face, and her jawbone and
teeth had been obliterated. They tried to explain these injuries away as its clumsiness
and dropping her body multiple times when he was trying to dispose of it,
while Hamburg trunk Forends account apologist doctor Megan Moore called his theory somewhat of a
stretch. I think the thing is, Daniel, all right, you're telling
me there's a possibility you had sex with a girl in the back seat of
that car. It was a back seat, right, You had sex with
a female that had dark hair and the back of your car, all right,
you're telling me you left alone. There's a possibility, all right,
a likelihood, And I say likelihood, which I'm ninety nine point nine percent
sure that it was Chelsea that you had sex with, Like I don't remember
when it sect with that night. I know that's actually someone I've always wondered
if it could have been her or not. And then you guys called me
in for well, I didn't want to say everyone sex with somebody and then
find out it's her, and then you know, she disappeared. I know
I left alone. I know I didn't do anything. I don't even know
where the costume was found out. I don't know where that spot is.
I don't know the other spot, like the area, I don't know where
you time, but I don't go on there. See. But the thing
is, is you remember, I mean it's coming back. It was skin,
all right, from forest from tear. Your DNA cells were on where
her crafts was torn and where her top was torn from grabbing her or something.
Okay, so that's where your DNA was. That's all right. I
know that you tore that. We're passing it off or whenever, so,
but it was torn. You had to tear it I didn't tear, but
I'm not getting I had have done somebody, So there was and near the
thing. All right, there had to be somebody to listen to me,
Daniel, We're past all that, all right. I ever your DNA where
her stuff was torn? Nobody others, nobody else, nobody, no one.
This is where we're at. Okay, this is where it's time self.
And happened when you left with her listening when you left, either something
happened where it was intentional, unintentional, accidental. Man, you so listen
to me. Now is the time for you to tell us what happened?
Because are you that monster murder? It wasn't you intentionally? You know I'm
not intentionally hurt her. Okay, then we need to know what happened.
She did get freaky okay, and we sat there and then she's like,
all right, well let's go because we had sex there and then we left.
Okay. I had sex somewhere else where where. Sometimes don't right drive
right, It wasn't right. We were just driving around, okay, having
sex Because she did like leave and I've seen her as off pone out She's
like, I'm about the walk about the walk, so I'm tied, like
stopping and we'll go. She's like, okay, okay, that says it
got rough, like and I know, choked and stuff. Yeah, and
then she gotta I freaked out. I was wasted. Okay, so hold
on, let's stop now this. You feel like a lot of just went
off your chest, don't you. Yeah, because it's something that it's something
that eats you up all right much. I don't know. I'm telling you,
I don't remember without an explanation. You realize you're gonna look like an
animal. And I know you know that, but I don't look if my
explanation said, like you remember details, I remember in details, remember game,
I remember parts. I remember parts, so that part we need to
remember. I don't know, like I remember going with this and hitting on
it and trying to wake her up after I couldn't give her a sipt car.
I couldn't get the ones here jopp thing. I literally have no idea
how I did that unless like I was getting on a car hit at the
doors. Not maybe and you know, would have had to have a smash.
I mean, not on purpose. I can see that I could understand
if I did it not on purpose. I was upset and I was losing
my mind. The straps of Chelsea broucks green leotard were twisted and mangled.
The crotch area was ripped wide open, indicating that none of the sexual activity
had been consensual. Daniel Clay himself would even corroborate this theory. In a
sickening plea for mercy representing himself, Daniel argued that there was no evidence that
Chelsea was alive at the time of their sexual intercourse. In an effort to
dodge the rape charge, as criminal sexual conduct requires a live victim at the
time of penetration, police it eight hundred and forty interviews and simply threw over
a thousand tips before DNA evidence placed Daniel Clay right into their laps. Had
it not been for Eric Kasab finally coming forward and leading the police to the
leotard, he might have gotten away with it. At Daniel clay sentencing,
Chelsea's mom gave him a Bible and said, though she forgives him, that
doesn't mean that Chelsea will ever be forgotten. There has never been a day
or a moment that goes by that we don't think about her, and we
talk about her this picture sits right in a prominent spot in the house,
like she is there, and I will talk to her in my mind.
You don't forget somebody, especially a mother, has carried that child. He
responded. I thank you for the Bible, and I'll keep it as long
as I'm able to. And I'm sorry for everything. Daniel is also charged
with the rape of another woman, autom Miller, which occurred just one month
prior to his arrest for the murder of Chelsea Bruck. He met Autumn through
mutual friends and they had some drinks at her home. After the group left,
Daniel returned all alone and uninvited, and raped after dragging her into the
shower by her hair, perhaps in an effort to avoid leaving DNA evidence like
that which would eventually lead to his capture and an y'all' killing. Twenty two
year old Chelsea Bruck has been charged with another incident. Daniel Clay faced a
judge this morning where he was arraigned on two new charges. The Monroe County
prosecutors charge Clay with first degree criminal sexual conduct, which carries a life sentence.
He's also facing a charge of first degree home invasion, which carries a
twenty year sentence. Police say he went into an apartment in the city of
Monroe without permission earlier this summer and sexually assaulted a woman. The victim reported
the incident immediately. Clay was arrested on July twenty first in the Frenchtown Villa
mobile home park after DNA evidence linked him to the murder of Chelsea Bruck.
He has been charged with second degree murder in that case. They'll recall Chelsea
vanished after a crowded Halloween party back in twenty fourteen. Her body was found
months later. When handing down the sentence of life in prison, the judge
said, it's very clear to me, mister Clay, you're a liar,
rapist and a killer. Daniel Clay tried to appeal a sentence in Mark nineteen,
but it was upheld. It's very likely that he will never be released
and will spend the rest of his days behind bars. Trigger tread times in
Maybe, Wisconsin are now strictly six to eight pm. In fact, they've
instituted this time France throughout Monroe County in response to the death of Chelsea Bruck.
Halloween tradition. Will he some big changes in Anoka this fall, and
it is causing a king's size controversy. A nonprofit that runs the yearly Halloween
parades and Anoka has decided to ban handing out candy from the parade route.
No Halloween costumes allowed. The Malta Avenue Elementary School in Ballston, SPA.
Has sent a letter to parents asking them not to send their kids to school
wearing costumes on Halloween. The principal says students will instead be participating in a
number of harvest type activities throughout the month. Is just two weeks away,
but kids at one Wallpole School won't be marking the day with costumes and candy.
The Voidant Elementary School is following a Needham School's lead putting an end to
Halloween cells. There will be no costumes and no Halloween parade this year.
At the Lily B. Hayes Elementary School in Niantic, Connecticut, dressing up
with classmates not allowed on school grounds. Listeners, before we say goodbye for
this episode, I want to leave you with this. Don't succumb to the
fear of the candy man. Save Halloween. Fuck Trunk Retreat. Set up
a display, pass out some candy, make some kids smile. It's up
to you to save Halloween because it's dying. I hope you have a happy
Halloween. And before we wrap up this week's episode, I want to play
a few clips. We reached out to listeners on social media and people sending
several clips about what Halloween means to them. We've picked several and we created
this little mashup that we'd like to play for you right now. Halloween is
probably the most special time of year for me growing up. It was probably
the only time I got to truly feel like getting to be myself growing up
on monsters and horror, just loving the holiday in general. October thirty first
met I got to be myself and of course candy. Halloween is the one
day of the year where the veil between the living and the dead is the
thinnest, so the dad get to come back and visit their family. And
it's also the best season because you get haunted houses, you get spooky stuff
in stores, and it's normal to wear a costume, it's normal to put
out all that spooky stuff in front of your yard. Of course, lots
of horror movies on TV, and of course you get to go to people's
houses and get free candy. I think Halloween is important because I don't really
like all the gushy stuff, but and Halloween there's like no gushy stuff.
You just get free candy, and you can make haunted houses and scare people,
and no other holidays really do that, and I like it. You
know one thing about Halloween that people rarely talk about, it's how funny it
always is whenever you come across pictures of yourself as a kid wearing your costume,
like whether it's well thought out, well executed, or some thrown together
ghetto piece of shit, Like, it's funny every time you see those again.
So to any parents listening to this, dress your kids up, take
them out, let them run around and have fun, because here's the thing,
in twenty thirty, maybe even forty years from now, when they just
happen to stumble on these pictures again, it's gonna put a huge smile on
their face. And I mean, look, the parent doesn't want that Halloween
because the house has given me candy. But sometimes it's hard because some houses
don't give about candy. Well, Halloween means to me is it's the one
holiday year that you can express yourself creatively and not get judged for it.
It's a time to make memories with your friends and family that will last you
for the rest of your life. Halloween for me is probably the best time
of the year because you really don't have to dress to impress. I guess
you can express yourself with your costume and unique I'm Happy Halloween. Hello Halloween
over feature and from the book of clubat O Hive Podcasts. Just want to
test face with you and say, happy Halloween, be safe, be creepy,
have fun, stay away from from raise the Blade candy, and let's
keep Halloween on the thirty first. We don't need a change what has been
going on for ages. We love it the way it is. Kids still
go in trigger treat and you know for Halloween. For me, I cele
break three hundred and sixty five days a year, not just on one day
or just ten month. But it's just the baltom when it comes into the
month of October, because you know, we get to buy all kinds of
cool shit and decolator helps them even more on the inside. So that's what
I've up. Take it easy, everybody, and you have a take one
cheers. I love Halloween because when kids come up to the door to get
candy, they're so proud of what they chose that year to be and it
just makes them happy. You know. They'd like to see the candy that
they get, and it just makes them happy that they're out and about dressing
whatever they wanted to dress them. Hey, this is Danny from the Central
Coast Horror Movie Club. What do I like about Halloween? All my clothes
are in style, my tattoos are in style. And can go to the
big box stores and they've got all the good fucking count chocola. They've got
all the cool Halloween displays to look at. You can drive up and down
the street. You can see all the other neighbors putting up their displays and
stuff. They've got all the good shit on TV. You need to get
together with all your bros and go to Universal Studios the Halloween horror nights.
The shit scared out of you. It's something we do all year round,
but right now you just go extra a little crazy enjoying yourself watching the monsters
on TV, taking the kids out trick or treating. It's really what life's
about. Tricks, treats and the American Dream Dudes. Thanks for joining us
for another episode of True Crime Horror Story. We'll be back in two weeks
with another episode. Suggested movies similar to today's cases Halloween two in nineteen eighty
one, Slasher sequel directed by Rick Rosenthal and featuring the best depiction of the
Razor Blade, Cammy Apple, and Night of the Demons at Night teen eight
eight, Howling Horror Classic directed by Kevin S. Tenney, and the first
horror movie I remember seeing as a kid, Lipstick Boobs. If you like
what you hear you're on True Crime Horror Story, please subscribe and give us
a five star review. You can also think about joining our Patreon at www
dot patreon dot com slash true Crime HS and then stay tuned after the show
on Patreon for the True Crime Horror Story after show with Dom and JD,
as well as exclusive bonus content available only on Patreon. This episode features music
by Mechanical Ghost and Ason J. Von Doodsky, as well as artwork by
Nuclear Heat Graphics. It also features the debut of Lana McCall to our writing
staff. Lanna did the research on Ronald Clark O'Brien and Daniel Clay and is
really helping a lot of the season two as violent crime impacted you or someone
close to you. Send us your story at Truecrime Horror Story at gmail dot
com. Truecrime Horror Story. Sometimes truth is more brutal than fiction. Planet
Earth about to be recycling. We are all evil in some form or another,
are we not? Evil? Has always existed perfect world most people seek.
She'll never come from past, and it's going to get worse. And
all the members, including the children, were made to lay in the remains
of whatever was in the casket. Get a night casket with a decomposed body,
right, and the casket with clothes, and they would blow it into
the ground while they in the casket. My mom is shott and my dad
is shot. My brother's here it does anybody know what happened? I did
your brothers shoot your parents? I don't know if there's a role. This
is the True Crime Horror Story after show. I'm Dom and I'm JD.
And today it's Halloween. Is Halloween. So we heard from some of our
friends, our family and listeners about what Halloween means to them. Now it's
your turn down. That's Halloween mean to you. Halloween is the day that
people confront their own fucking mortality with open and honesty once a year. Yeah,
that's very true. It's you know, everyone like in casual, polite
society, quote unquote, death and the fear of death and the acceptance of
death and all of those things is such a taboo topic and if you bring
it up at any other time, people look at you like you're a fucking
weirdo. Yeah, but Halloween's the one day that it's okay to explore that
and kind of, you know, think about it a little bit more.
And you know, people had also said on the submissions that it was it's
the one day that you can sort of take off the mask and be yourself
even you know when you're wearing the mask, you know, or you can
put on the face paint and become how you feel on the inside wearing the
face paint, and that is sort of an extension of facing mortality or facing
anything that's taboo. You know, society makes these things taboo because they're fucking
scared of it, and then only one day a year that you can look
at it. On one hand, that's cool that there's the one day a
year that you can kind of celebrate it or accept it or understand it.
But on the other hand, like it's wipes, people are afraid of so
much shit. Yeah, I said it on the top of the episode that
to me, you know, Halloween was the one day of the year where
I actually felt like I belonged or fit in with the crowd. You know,
as a kid, you know, it's always a little different, always
a little weird, you know, as a fat kid who watched the horror
movies and quoted you some hell Raiser lines in first grade, and people thought
it were a little off put by that, right, absolutely, But I
think that also people like Halloween being the one day a year that people are
allowed to explore the aspects of society that are considered taboo. I think,
on the other hand, because we live in such a fear culture, I
think that's what people have the response to Halloween that they do, Like they
talked about in this episode, where there are people are always trying to shut
down or nerf Halloween a little bit. Yeah, they're so scared that they
don't even want to take the one day a year that it's fucking okay to
not be scared of that, And they still want to be scared. I
didn't include this in the episode, but I went down to major major Christians
against Halloween rabbit hole, and I almost put it in a lot of that,
But you know, I don't want to lean too heavily towards that.
I wanted to focus on the crimes more than that little part at the end
where I put all the different celebrations, oh, fall festival all inclusive.
You know what. I'm not a religious person, you know that. Yeah,
but I don't give a fucking celebrate Christmas or Hanaka or whatever the Easter.
I don't care, you know, be as pagan as you want.
My wife has a thousand animatronic Santas and Snowman and a fucking hutch that has
Santa's in it year round. Yeah, And I encouraged Nick Foley. I
encourage that, and that's okay with me. Yeah, same with the celebrations
at school. I'm not going to be offended that they wanted to do a
certain thing. You know. It doesn't have to be winter celebration or fall
festival or any of that. Ship And Halloween isn't one particular religious thing that's
the thing, Like Christmas is pretty fucking Christian. Yeah, that's true.
There is a different right there in the name, but Halloween is like,
I mean, every every culture has you know, there's diadelas muertos, so
there's you know, fucking harvest or saw in or you know, whatever you
want to call it. But like, it's something that's spread out through every
kind of religion and culture where it's not something specific. So it is the
most inclusive holiday that's out there. And when I hear these like I don't
have a problem with Christianity, there's some Christians that are some real fucking assholes
out there. And when they say shit like, oh, it's the Devil's
birthday, show me in the Bible where it says it's the Devil's birthday.
I guarant goddamn tee you it's not in there. And you're just fucking saying
that ship because some priests who's probably molesting your little brother is the one that
told you that if you're offended by Halloween, it should be because you're some
kind of pagan that would have been culturally appropriated by a spirit Halloween, not
that you're a Christian because that's where it came from, or maybe you're like
really diabetic. You should be offended by Hallow. Well, you know,
I think that The Peanuts said it best at the top of the episode in
that you know what, it's clearly just denominational differences. Yeah, all right,
Well we've talked a little bit about Halloween and the spirit of it.
Now let's get to the cases. Part one. The man who almost killed
Halloween. What a piece of shit. Fuck this mother fucker Ronald Clark O'Brien
maybe one of the worst human beings we've ever covered on the show. And
that's saying a lot because we just did a double header with Albert Fish and
David Parker. Ray did a deep dive on fucking the night Stalker. But
to kill your own child goes against nature. Then you throw them killing Halloween
and as well, and you get a perfect storm of douchebaggery. And it's
like, you know, people, people like the night Stalker, people like
Dahmer or whoever, like they are sick people. There is something wrong with
them. There's some kind of misfire in their brain that's creating this impulse to
kill, and they kill because of the sick impulse to kill. That almost
like, I'm not gonna say that's respectable because it's not respectable, but it's
more respectable than killing your own child for some fucking life insurance money. You
can relate to it more like, oh, this person has a problem,
Like, oh, Richard Merez, you know, had a psychosis, his
cousin Mike shoot his wife in front of him as a kid and teach him
how to kill over a period of years and took that with him into life.
You know, drugs as well. You know, there's there's things there.
Jeffrey Dahmer had obvious mental issues. A lot of these killers we talk
about if they were set on the right trajectory with the right medicine, maybe
it could have been prevented, or if they, like our fish, if
they lived in a time where mental health was even a consideration. Yes,
but Ronald Clark O'Brien is not crazy. He's just pure evil. Yeah,
you know, and life insurance policies exist because, like you know, you
get this life insurance policy because you work, you're part you're maybe you're not
the bread warner for your family, but you're contributing fifty percent to the existence
of your family and you die and then that income stops. Yeah, the
life insurance policy is made to cover that to help your family after you die.
Yeah, why even allow people to get life insurance policies on their children,
because really the only reason people do that, I think, is so
that they can kill them and collect the money. Yeah, and you know
what, I could see the argument for, oh, I can't afford a
funeral if something was to happen, and getting a okay, five thousand dollars,
five thousand dollars life insurance policy. But who thinks about the fact that,
oh, my kid is going to die. You're you're fucked already,
you know. I canna understand if you know, you had a kid that
had some some problems that you know you needed and you're not well off,
I can't understand that. Or if you're like a Macaulay Culkin and you're making
money, you know, and you're actually worth something. Yeah, but Ronald
Clark O'Brien had exactly thirty thousand dollars in debt and he took out fifteen thousand
dollars on each one of his kids, the sum of thirty thousand dollars the
bills he owed. Yeah, he was looking at this as a business transaction
to put Cyanide in a pixie stick and kill his own children and was willing
to kill his neighbor's kids in the process just to get away with it.
Collateral damage, right, what a fucking shit. And then oh the recording
that you played to him where you know he's got the death sentence now and
he's like, well, I don't think the vengeance is the answer. Fuck
you. Yeah, just to say society shouldn't be out for I don't believe
in the death penalty because I would rather have a million sick motherfuckers brought away
in prison for the rest of their life than have one innocent person get the
death penalty unfairly, I would, But I have exceptions. Here's one,
and this motherfucker is that kind of person is the top of my list of
exceptions. Yeah, that quote bothered me with the revenge thing, but not
nearly as much as the fucking smugness of you're accused of ruining Halloween for everyone.
That's a matter of opinion. He like laughs, he just a little
chuckle there, and that little chuckle it just enraged me. I became enraged
just listening to his little I know that Israel keys Is little chuckle was aggravating,
but this guy's Yeah, Israel Keys is bad and if you haven't heard
a true crime bullshit with Josh Hallmark, check it out a good podcast.
Israel Keys is little chuckle is bad, and it happens far too often in
his interrogation videos. But man, that one little laugh is all I needed
to see inside this man's soul. You know, you know enough with a
life insurance killing the own his own kids and everything. But that one little
chuckle was enough for me to see a window into his dark heart. And
I didn't like what I saw. Zero guilt, zero remorse for what he
did. Probably, if you were alive now to this day, did not
think he did anything wrong. In addition to the greater evil of this fucker
trying to kill his own children for insurance money, he almost ruined the fund
for millions of kids, and showed no remorse all the way up until he
was put to death. Ronald Clark O'Brien tried to turn an urban legend into
real life, but only succeeded in murdering his own eight year old son.
I can't imagine the pain of cyanide induced death, especially in a child.
It has no concept of what's going on. Yeah, your cell's dying from
the inside out as your brain and heart begin to slowly shut off, and
feeling this process the entire time until the end. It would be a horrible
way to go. And that someone could do that to their own child.
Yeah, yeah, to any child, but especially to their own child,
you know, because there's human beings have you know, pathways wired in their
brain that prevent them from killing their children. Yeah, So clearly this guy's
got something fucking majorly broken in his brain. From this Halloween going forward,
I'm going to dedicate my family's little haunted House to the memory of Timothy Clark
O'Brien, a little boy who loved Halloween and didn't deserve the fate he received.
A small plaque will eventually be made and hung by the entrance to our
haunted house, and going forward, when we eventually go pro with the haunted
House, it's gonna be there too. So may he rest in peace.
Timothy Clark O'Brien dealt a bad hand. You had the wrong father. Absolutely
anything else you want to say about Ronald Clark O'Brien do. I hope that
if there is an afterlife, he is in the worst part of it.
The part where you get pineapples round up your ass backwards every five minutes,
I hope, but a thousand albert fishes are doing horrible things for sure if
it exists. Anyways, let's get to part two. Part two. Son
of Sam so Berkowitz was one of the cases I never planned to touch here
in true crime horror story, but here we are. It's not that the
premise of a demon dog commanding the son of Sam to kill is just too
boring. I don't know. Spike Lee kind of proved that it's just the
actual killings don't have enough for me to expand upon based on them being quick
shooting kills. But I had never heard the story before I began research for
this episode. I had never heard it either. I took a little creative
license, said in the scene, but the facts are correct. It's another
story about the fear of a secret Satanic society, similar to many we have
covered in season one a true crime horror story. I don't believe the hype,
though, Alcam's Razor says that usually the simplest explanation is a correct one,
and a bad cocaine deal seems much more likely than a murderous underground network
conducting human sacrifices on all Hallow's Eve. Yeah, absolutely, it's I've said
this time and time again that it's never a Satanic cult. Satanic cults like
this don't exist. Satanic colts are a bunch of men who look like Henry's
or Browsie's sucking each other's dicks in a back rooms for real and lighting incense.
Satanic coult unwashed dudes and trilbies jerking off to Kenneth Anger while lighting red
candles. Yeah, that's pretty much again. Yeah, clearly with the Nightstalker
episode, we've proven that rogue Satanists do exist, or people who kill and
say they do it for Satan. Same with the assholes who killed at least
Baylor. You know, those people do exist. But this whole grand conspiracy
idea of a Satanic cult, it's just it's people trying to make the world
seem worse than it is, even though the fact that the world, the
real world, is much worse than that. Anyway. Yeah, there's not
a conspiracy. There's just fucking shitty people out there. Yeah, it doesn't
take a horned demon to influence people to be horrible people. And really,
all that Satanic panic bullshit does is it serves to misguide people and draw them
towards religion that they may not even necessarily need in their life. But you
know, like the whole the whole preschool you know thing where they said,
you know, the preschoolers were saying that, oh, the people are molesting
us, and they flushed us down the toilet and then yea, all that
shit that well, yeah, a terrible case. None of that shit has
ever been proven to exist in this world. Yes, there are weird people
out there who do weird shit, and sometimes they do it together. But
this whole grand conspiracy of Satanism thing is one percent completely an invention and tool
of the religious right trying to wrote people in using fear. And you should
never have to go somewhere where that if someone has to use fear to get
you to come to them and accept them, they're not something you should accept,
definitely. And you know what, a lot of this serves to muddy
up the waters to the real problem too. You're saying, oh, a
secret underground network of Satanists did it, when really we need to find out
who actually did it. Yeah, and usually it's someone within this person's own
life, not some secret underground society of thousands of people orchestrating their death.
Yeah, drug deal gone bad, you know, so someone who's doing it
for money, a jolted lover or things like that. The only thing that
kind of makes me go huh about this is you know, the Berkowitz prediction.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's what made this interesting. And that's the
only reason I covered it was the fact that it was tied to a massive
serial killer. It had the Halloween element and had a little bit of the
supernatural unexplained element that I love about Halloween. So I wanted to tie in
at least one case with some kind of unexplainable loose end. I think he
just nostre damist to that ship, you know. I think what he said
was just vague enough that it was plausible that something like that was going to
happen, and then he could say, Okay, there it is. Yeah,
definitely. Well, they did say that he did have some facts that
were never released by the detectives to the public, so that that's one thing.
But you know, like you said, who knows. At the same
time, you know, he was in gen pop in prison, He wasn't
in solitary confinement, So you know, maybe he heard from someone on the
inside who knew that the crime was going to happen on the outside. Yeah,
and then and then put put that out there, Yeah, as a
way to sort of also, you know, he was he was crazy,
but he wasn't an complete idiot. Yeah, he was cunning, and so
he probably saw that as an opportunity to bolster his legend and just ran with
it. All right, let's get to our third and final part of this
episode, Part three. Maybe missing a little play on words there, Maybe
Wisconsin get it. I see what you did there. Thanks a lottam a
call for the research on Ronald Clark, O'Brien and Daniel Clay. We are
sort of going to be working as more of a team in season two,
and I'm gonna lean a little heavy on our research staff since I've been going
crazy putting it in hundreds of hours towards the show in addition to working the
full time job remodeling a house and raising four kids. So if you like
to show the way it is, don't worry. The vibing presentation is still
going to be the same, and I'm still gonna put my spin on things.
I just won't have to be doing so much of the legwork getting the
fact straight going forward in the next season that she's going to really help me
out and it's going to help us produce more content. Absolutely, and it's
definitely good to be able to delegate that stuff out, and it's great that
we have such dedicated, capable researchers that are willing to help us out with
this. Yeah, this is a sad case, poor Chelsea Bruck looking forward
to this big party for months only to be strangled and her skull caved in
by a scum like Daniel Clay. I just saw something about this. I
don't think it was Forensic Files, but it was one of those kinds of
shows like ID Channel. Yeah, they were doing something similar to what we're
doing here with you Halloween murders, and that story came on and it was
a really infuriating story to listen to and to watch. But I did what
they didn't go into was the ripple effect of the community afterwards. I didn't
know about that, and when I heard about that, it made me even
more angry. In the interrogation videos, it's obvious that this guy's a fucking
dirt bag. Yeah, and he's a huge pussy as well. Big bad
Daniel Clay could kill a young girl but cracked within hours of being interrogated by
police with tears flowing like Big Mike's Halloween bashed tag beer. He almost got
away with it too. It's a thing Eric Kasab had a change of heart
and valued human life more than the possibility of a minor trespassing charge. Too
bad it wasn't sooner, though, because maybe the rape of Autumn Miller would
have been prevented. Yeah. Still, I'm almost sure Clay had more victims,
as this type of behavior isn't usually an isolated incident. If he can
do it and almost get away with it, like you never you know,
you never get that close to getting away with it with your first crime,
definitely, you know, time and time again, it's been proven that you
know people who do this. Of course, there are serial killer should get
away with it over time. But like, this situation was way too clean
and way too well thought out, especially when we know of at least one
other victim, and with his rapshet of over ten arrests prior to his conviction
a history of violence, it makes it very very likely that there's more out
there that never came forward if they weren't killed, maybe raped kind of like
Autumn, you know, that wasn't necessarily a murder, it was just a
rape. Yeah. I think Chelsea had a little bit more fight than he
wanted. Probably maybe he'd died in away with this in the past, based
on you know, how people who are a perpetrator can identify people who can
be a victim. It's like an unsaid vibe between the two to where perpetrators
know their victims and they know who they can get away with and who's not
going to say anything, and they know who is going to speak up.
Yeah, And I think with Chelsea, it was like the perfect storm of
circumstance more so than her being a natural victim, you know, being drunk
walking along the highway by yourself, you know, after not having cell phone
reception, to be scantily clad and then and none of this is to blame
the victim for this, you know, it's it's not saying you know,
she if she wasn't if she was at home with a baby in her lap,
you know, in the kitchen, she wouldn't have gotten raped and murdered.
Like no, no, Yeah, We're not trying to come across that
way at all. And it's it's not that because of her dressing up in
a sexy Halloween costume means that she's going to get raped, and anyone who
thinks that kind of way needs to be looked at. She got raped and
murdered because this motherfucker was a rapist or a murderer. Yeah, and had
the prime opportunity. It's a it's a sad situation, and that if she
was never separated from her friends, this probably would have never happened. Yeah,
So if you're going out to Halloween parties, girls, but use the
buddy system. Yeah. Absolutely, fucking hold your when you're going through the
crowd, hold your friend's fucking hand. Seriously, when you're going through a
big crowd, just do that. Shit, Who cares how it looks.
I kind of poked fun at, you know, the drunk girl, the
stereotype of the drunk girl trying to find her friend in the episode. And
we've all seen it at pout all seen it, you know, even that
bars restaurants when they're all hammered, coming in raves, you know, anywhere.
You know, we've all seen that. I kind of poked a little
bit of fun at it, but it's not really anything that we should be
joking about when it comes down to the real facts. Absolutely, Chelsea Bruck
didn't deserve what she had what happened here. And if you see a drunk
girl by herself, obviously scared and crying, don't consider that it should be
someone else's problem, and help her find her friend, help her find her
friends. Don't offer her a ride home because you don't want to put yourself
into a situation that is not good. But trying to get her a ride
home, try to get her friends, give her your phone, you know,
do something. And when you're a cab, yeah, call a cab.
Or when you're at a party, if there's a DJ or a band,
most DJs that are worth their salt, if someone's looking for a friend
in that situation, the DJ will get on the microphone and say, hey,
so and so, where are you at? Yeah. I think that
Big Mike's Halloween Bash consisted of a bunch of shitty metal bands though, so
I don't necessarily think they were going with DJ. It was like every time
I Die corn cover band number three hundred and seventy six. I just want
to say one thing about this case. I love DNA. I love DNA,
not like not to consume. But since scientific breakthroughs have made DNA testing
possible, countless killers have been apprehended as well as I believe many more violent
crimes prevented based on the fear of perpetrators being caught. This is why,
to me, true crime is a valuable form of education entertainment, not just
murder porn for sick people to get off while listening to as someone have you
believe absolutely. Yeah, we discussed this, I think probably on the very
first after show that we ever did for this. You know. The ultimate
value of true crime, and it really is it's education, you know.
And some people handle it more dramatically than others, you know, some people
try to get a little bit more salacious with it or whatever, but ultimately
it all boils down to the fact that it's a fucking important genre because it
shows people the reality of a world that they may be so innocent that they
don't realize that this shit happens. Yeah, definitely, Chelsea's mom is a
way better person than me. I can never forgive my daughter's killer, let
alone give them a Bible a court and give him a fucking middle finger in
court. It really reminds me of the recent case of Amber Geiger, who
shot an unarmed man while entering the wrong apartment. Though she's a racist piece
of shit, the victim botham Jean's brother Brandt, said God forgives her and
asked to give her a hug after she was convicted of his brother's murder in
court. Our friends over at Invisible Choir, who we aired a promo for
on this particular show, just did a great episode on the case and the
whole scenario, So check them out if you need some more listening this week.
Anything else you want to say about this case, don't. Yeah,
the ripple effect, how it affected, you know, the whole community,
and how they they ended trick or treating and they ended Halloween celebrations at the
schools because the ship went down. Yet trick or treating had nothing to do
with it. Yeah, it was just an excuse for these people who are
in perpetual states of fear and aren't willing to face that fear, to just
further deny it and bury it. It's Ammo and the crusade against Halloween,
That's all it is. Yeah, it's it's fucking disgusting, you know,
like, let let us have our day, let kids enjoy Halloween, let
adults enjoy Halloween. It's still you know, they're that whole thing of you
know, the razor blades and the candy apples or the poison candy or any
of that. The only time that shit ever had happened, it was a
father doing it to its own son. Yeah. There's a great documentary called
The Urban Legend, made by the people who made the documentary Cropsy, which
is also excellent. Yeah, that Urban Legends one's pretty good. Yeah,
and they go into that about how there's other than this one instance. There's
never been a proven case of someone trying to poison children on Halloween. It's
never happened to a stranger. Right, It's never happened to a stranger by
a stranger. It's always been someone parents. Yeah, And you know,
if you if you were involved in your kid's life and you take your kids
trick or treating, shit's gonna be safe. They're not gonna get kidnapped.
Don't let them meet the candy till you inspect it. It's an urban legend,
but still I inspect the fuck out of my kids candy. Oh yeah,
you know, I'm not trying to all kinds of samples to make sure
they're not poison. That's yeah, that's a good two line. Yeah.
But even you know, if you're worried about your kids getting getting kidnapped or
murdered or run over or whatever on Halloween, all of these things that don't
really happen anyway. But if you're worried about that, be a part of
your kid's life. Go out there with them, because I guarantee you that
your kid's not going to get kidnapped if you're standing right there actually actively watching
them and engaging with them. You know, if you want to stay home
and be lazy and say, oh, my kids can't go trick or treat
and enjoy Halloween because I want to sit at home and watch the Charlie Round
Christmas Special or whatever or Halloween special, fuck you you're a shitty parent.
Or if you need to go out party with your friends at the bar or
some costume party. Halloween is about the children, people. Yes, I
will be attending an adult Halloween party the day after Halloween, the Friday,
and having fund me and my wife. I have a couple of dreams with
friends, dress up, you know, do that kind of thing. But
Halloween night is strictly for the children. Give them your time a day.
And if you're a parent, all of the holidays are about your children.
That's just the way it is. It's what you signed up for when you
had kids, and so don't be fucking selfish. Let your kids enjoy it
and get your enjoyment through your children enjoying it. If you're listening to this
show right now, you probably love Halloween as much as we do. It's
the best time of the year. This year, my Hounded House is going
to be five rooms. We have clowns, skeletons, cannibals, spiders,
and scarecrows. I've invested a lot in Halloween over the years, and every
year something gets fucked up. But that's okay. All the smiles make all
the hard work and the costs worth it. I want to challenge you listeners
to take the time and if you love Halloween as much as we do,
just give a shit this year. It might be a little late since this
is coming out, just give a shit next year. Set up an awesome
display, dress out, pass out candy, Sand's raise your blades are poisoned.
Yeah, don't do that and help keep the spirit alive. And this
year, if you have an awesome Halloween display, send us a picture.
You're set up to True Crime Horror Story at gmail dot com. We'll mill
you out a sticker. How about that. Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.
I hope you have a good one. I hope your kids have a great
time, and listeners, stay safe, inspect your candy, and we hope
you enjoy Halloween. And when you're out trick or treating, don't forget to
Let the nights are, let the night roar. Planet Earth about to be
recycling. We are all evil in some form or another. Are we not?
Evil has always existed, perfect world most people seek. She'll never come
past, and it's going to get worse. True Crime Horror Story contains extreme
violence and adult subject matter. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host JAD
Horror and this is True Crime Horror Story Season three, Episode four, the
True Crime Horror Story Halloween Special. Happy Halloween, Listeners and with Me is
the co host of the True Crime Horror Story After Show and the creative force
behind Mechanical Ghost that does our theme music. Can you often hear during our
episodes as well as one of the main researchers and writers of the show,
Dom Hey, what's up? Don't forget that I also host ghost Song Radio,
premiering October thirty, first Halloween. Yes, so after you listen to
this Halloween special, pop over to the True Crime Horror Story Network and listen
to the debut episode of ghost Song Radio. I'll teach how to hunt some
fucking ghosts. It's gonna be awesome. We have kind of a special episode
this week. We're going to be examining the murderous career of one of the
most notorious slashers ever in American history. This is someone who has almost more
myth and legend than man. There's so much rumor and supposition surrounding his crimes.
You know, it was an extensive research on my part, so I
was like, if we're going to do this, I got to come on
to be here to maybe dispel some of the rumors. Yes, Tom,
thank you for your research for this episode. And now we're going to take
a little trip to a small town in Illinois to meet a murderer they called
the Boogie Man. Part one, a monster emergence. Michael Audrey Myers,
also known as the Shape and the Boogeyman, was an American spree killer who
committed his first murder in nineteen sixty three at the age of six, and
then went on a two night killing spree in nineteen seventy eight. He was
born in October nineteenth, nineteen fifty seven, to parents Peter and Edith Myers.
The Myers were an average, white, middle class family who lived in
a white two story house located at forty five Lampkin Lane in the suburb of
Haddonfield, Illinois. Publicly, there was no indication of the horrors to come,
but privately, Michael began to show signs of being incredibly disturbed as early
as the age of four. Michael's one of those rare cases where he actually
didn't have anything in the McDonald triad. There was no bedwedding, there was
no cruelty to animals, there was no head trauma, you know, none
of that stuff. He wasn't even known to set fires. It just like
all of a sudden, you know, around four years old, something just
clicked in his brain. Yeah, and seemingly coming from a normal you know,
meat and potatoes white bread American family. Yeah. Yeah, And there's
a lot of rumors about the family about how like the mother was like a
stripper and like, you know, sleeping around and all that, but I
couldn't find any evidence that any of that was actually true. In January of
nineteen sixty one, the ones quiet and polite Michael suddenly became hostile towards his
older sister Judith. He would often barge into Judith's room stealer diary and draw
ugly faces and write a scene words on the pages. Michael would sometimes hurt
himself and then blame Judith for it so that she would be the one to
get in trouble. At times, he would just stare at her with a
fixated expression for minutes on end. More than once he was caught spying on
her while she was showering or changing her clothes. Yeah, that's not so
good when that's your sister. I mean, it's not so good when it's
anyone. But it's strange though, because you know, if he did have
some sort of sexual fascination with her, it developed very very early in his
life. Because usually, you know, at four years old, you're you're
not thinking about girls, about being a peeping tom. Yeah. Around this
time, Michael was also having trouble in school. He was a smaller child
who was frequently bullied by larger kids. He would take the bullying for a
while, but eventually lash out with extreme shocking violence. Mental health being what
it was at the time, Michael's parents didn't know what to do about their
troubled boy, and often they fought about about it. While his mother,
Edith thought that family and church could solve the problems, his father Patrick wanted
to bring in professionals. These fights always ended in a stalemate and ultimately nothing
was done. This stalemate would tragically result in the depths of five humans and
two dogs and untold mayhem. It's very progressive that his father was actually like,
we need to bring in someone, you know, professional on this,
because this was the nineteen sixties. They knew things back then, you know.
But the diagnoses were very vague and there wasn't a lot of good medication.
It was usually just like either send them to boarding school, or send
them to church and hope they get better, or send them to a mental
institution and don't worry about him. But you know the fact that his father
was saying this kid needs therapy in the early nineteen sixties is really it's kind
of commendable. It just kind of sucks that his mom wasn't really on board
with it. Yeah, especially in a place like small town, suburban Illinois.
You know, people didn't talk about these kind of things for sure.
In nineteen sixty three, fifteen year old Judith was dating a boy named Daniel
Hodges. In May of that year, Judith and Danny went on a camping
trip to nearby Russellville, but Judith's parents insisted that she'd take young Michael along.
At some point in the trip, Judith encouraged Michael to go play in
the woods so that she did and Danny could have some time alone. And
that's one way to put it, I guess. Once they felt they had
some privacy, Judith and Danny began to fool around in a nearby field.
Michael disrupted a sister's lovemaking when he appeared before her covered in blood and holding
a dead rabbit in his hands, worst cock block ever. Judith was deeply
disturbed by this, but didn't tell her parents. She didn't want to have
to explain what she was doing and why she wasn't keeping an eye on her
little brother. Yeah, I don't think her parents would have appreciated it that
much. On October thirty first, the same year, the Myer's parents went
to a Halloween party, leaving Michael and his older sister's care. Judith sent
Michael out trick or treating by himself so that she could invite Danny over.
Michael donned his Harlequin costume. And that's not Harley Quinn either. No,
no, he didn't have on little booty shorts and a baseball back. It
is a six year old boy. But he didn't go out and collect candy
like the other kids. Instead, he peeped through the windows while Judith and
her boyfriend had sex. When Danny left around ten o'clock pm, Michael crept
back into the house, retrieved a butcher knife from a drawer in the kitchen,
and then barged into a sister's room. Judith was sitting at her makeup
table, still partially nude and brushing her hair. She barely knew what hit
her as Michael descended upon her, madly swinging his knife. He stabbed Judith
numerous times in the chess torso and abdomen. It's rumored that Judith's final word
was her brother's name, though there are no witnesses to substantiate this. Michael
left his sister to lead on on the floor, exited the house and stood
in the front yard, still cloud in his bloody clown costume and holding gore
splattered knife. Yeah. I read a forensic report on this and they actually
could not determine how many times she was stabbed. That's how badly that he
went overkill on her. But most of the wounds were actually superficial, and
it was the bleeding out that actually killed her. Yeah. The crime scene
photos of this murder are some of the worst I've ever seen. Yeah,
it's like someone just want to I don't want to make light of it,
but it looked like the aftermath of a guar concert. This is where his
parents found him, standing there, staring off into the distance and not speaking
a word. Michael was then taken to Smith's Grove Sanitarium, where he used
to be held until he was twenty one years old and could be tried as
an adult under Illinois law. There he became the patient of doctor Samuel Loomis
for the next fifteen years. Loomis did all he could to reach Michael,
who had fallen into a state of catatonia. Many armchair psychologists and conspiracy theorists
have attempted to diagnose Michael or explain his actions over the years. Theories of
rain from the more plausible idea that Michael had some sort of early sexual attraction
to his sister and was driven to murder because he had to repress his impulses
to the less credible idea that Michael's family was descended from a bizarre Celtic death
cult and he harpered some sort of demon inside of him and had to sacrifice
his sister to dark gods on Halloween aka Saalwyn. If you're dancing, it's
swine. There's some really really bizarre conspiracy sites out there, Like there's all
kinds of weird theories about how like incest was a necessary component of this ritual
to keep demons at bay from coming to the earth or something like that.
Doctor Loomis came to a much simpler conclusion after unsuccessfully treating Michael for a decade
and a half. In his book The Devil's Eyes, Loomis wrote, I
met the six year old child with this blank pale, a motionless face,
and the blackest eyes, the devil's eyes. I realized what was living behind
that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil. Michael Myers is most dangerous patient
I've ever observed. This canatonia is a conscious act. There's an instinctive force
within him. He's waiting. While moral questions of good and evil maybe debatable.
Loomis was right about one thing. Michael was waiting for something, and
in nineteen seventy eight, the instinctive, murderous force within him woke up.
Loomis is an interesting character. I think that treating Michael actually broke him.
I've read his book, and he doesn't write like a psychologist. He almost
writes like someone who's who's discussing religion and real like existential questions of good and
evil. You know, early on he was a pretty acclaimed psychologist, so
probably early on, you know, he was into you know, diagnoses in
medication and all that. But he seemed really, really convinced that there was
something beyond human consciousness happening inside of Michael, and that it would shut itself
off and turn itself back on. I don't want to speak ill of the
dead. But the way he kind of took this story and his interviews with
Michael Myers and ran with it, you know, throughout the American talk show
circuit, just try to capitalize off it as much as possible. It's kind
of scummy to me. Yeah, that's that's a little bit questionable. You
know. It could be that he was just saying that to dramatize the situation
a little bit and really kind of build up the story and the mythos a
little bit more. But there are things that he did in real life,
like you know, we're going to go into it about him, you know,
kind of taking it upon himself to actually get Michael back to Smith's Grove.
That kind of makes me think that he did, at some point,
or at least on some level, believe some of the things that he was
saying. Part two. The night he came back on October thirtieth, nineteen
seventy eight, Michael Myers broke out of his room at Smith's Grove Sanitarium and
release the other patients from their rooms. At the same time, doctor Loomis
and his colleague Maryon Chambers arrived at the sanitarium to escort the now twenty one
year old Michael tore for his trial for the murder of his sister. Michael
escaped by stealing Womas's car and driving off. Though no one was ever able
to figure out when or how the previously catatonic person learned to drive, it's
an interesting question. He watched people do it. I mean, there's stories
of little kids driving their mom to the hospital. You know, they've never
had to necessarily experience behind the wheel. But that's got to imagine there's a
lot of stopping and starting, and stopping and starting and hard jerky emotions.
Yeah. Well, and he probably had been transferred from place to place,
you know, at least a couple times. And who knows when he was
in his catatonic state what he was watching and absorbing. That's the only thing
that I could think of is maybe he was shut down and noncommunicative, but
he was still vigilant in that state and was just able to absorb it.
Michael returned to Haddonfield. On the outskirts of town, he killed truck driver
Christopher Hastings by snapping the man's neck with his bare hands. Michael then swapped
out his mental hospital patients clothing for Hastings mechanics jumpsuit. What made hastings death
all the more unfortunate was that he was not even supposed to be working that
night and was covering another employee shift as a favor to his boss. It
makes me think of Friday. How are you going to get fired on your
day off? How are you gonna get killed in your clothes stolen when your
day off? Yeah, and yeah, I actually did some reading on Hastings,
and his whole story is super sad. Like he actually wasn't even supposed
to be in Haddonfield at that point. He didn't live there anymore because he
had this this fiance that he on his bachelor party night, he got drunk
and fucked a stripper and he confessed to his fiance about it because he was
so guilty and she had to clear her head and went for a drive and
got in a car wreck and died. And so yeah, so like this
guy's life kind of sucked. So he left Haddonfield but continued to work for
this this trucking and mechanics company and had gone into Haddonfield to do a job
just you know, I think he lived in the next town over and he
had gone into Haddonfield to do a job, and then the other trucker called
in sick or probably just wanted to party because you know, it's the night
before Halloween or whatever, and his boss like, Halloween Eve. Yeah,
I'll Hallow's Eve eve, you know, Devil's Night or whatever, you know,
the night before Halloween. But whatever the case. The guy that was
supposed to work that night called in and he was like Hastings, was like,
I want to get out of Haddonfield, you know, and his boss
was like, look, I need you to cover this shift. I'll pay
you for the shift plus an extra fifty bucks. I mean it was nineteen
seventy eight, so like fifty bucks is different than it was now. That's
like two yeah right, But still like he wasn't supposed to work that night.
He was working an extra shift for a Measley equivalent of a couple hundred
bucks and fucking died for it. That sucks. Moral of the story.
Never take somebody else's shift, Yeah never. Michael's next stop was the Haddonfield
Cemetery, where he somehow managed to sneak in under the cover of night to
unearth Judith's headstone and remove it from the graveyard. From there, Michael drove
into Haddonfield Proper. He still some knives and a ghostly white William Shatner mask
from Nichols Hardware store. After obtaining his weapons in disguise, Michael returned to
his family home on Lambkin Lane, which had sat abandoned since the nineteen sixty
three murder of Judith Myers. Urban legends surrounded the house and it was widely
known as the residence of the Boogie Man to local children. Little did they
know the house had been on the market for a decade and a half with
no buyers. While vandals had smashed out the windows and spray painted graffiti on
the outside, no one was brave enough to go into the house. It
just sat there, rotting, the windows boarded up with a spider web covered
for sales sign now out front. Michael had no trouble breaking into the house
and setting himself up there. The later search of the house found a recently
killed and mutilated stray dog in one of the bedrooms. The canine corpse showed
evidence of having been eaten, likely by Myers, and there was evidence of
seamen duck Don Biff okay out of the yeah. So this house was that
quintessential creepy house on the corner, you know, where the witch lives or
the Boogeyman lives or whatever. And you know, usually when there's those houses,
you know, kids dare each other to go in and all that.
But apparently this house, like after you know, the murders and the Myers
family left, it just sat and everything inside was dusty, but like nobody
had gone in and messed with anything. It was just the legend around it,
even at that point, was just that scary to the kids. It
was at the abandoned Myer's house that Michael first said eyes and the teenage girl
that he'd intended to make his next victim. A police timeline puts Laurie Strode
at the old Myers place in the morning of October thirty first. Laurie was
the daughter of Morgan Pamela Strode. Morgan being a successful realtor in Haddonfield who
had recently been saddled with trying to sell the Myers house. Morgan and asked
Laurie to drop a key off at the house on her way to school.
Both Laurie and the local boy named Tommy Doyle, who was walking to school
with Laurie that morning confirmed that she had dropped the key in the mail slot.
If Michael had gone straight to his old house after stealing the items from
Nichols Hardware and fucking the dog got include the dog, that would have put
him on the scene at least thirty minutes before Lorie had dropped the key off.
It is believed that Michael saw doing this and immediately fixated his homicidal urges
upon her. There's much speculation as to why Myers became obsessed with Laurie Strode.
A popular urban legend is that Strode herself was Michael's younger biological sister who
was secretly adopted by the Strode family after Peter and Edith Myers were killed in
an automobile accident. According to legend, Myers returned to Haddonfield with the sole
intent of killing his younger sister and finishing when he had started all those years
ago. While it is true that Myers's parents had died in the accident,
there's no official record of them having a third child. Another theory is that
Michael saw Laurie and something about her reminded him of his older sister, and
this is what sparked his homicidal desire. Laurie and Judith were very different people,
however, in physical appearance alone, Laurie was a brunette with curly hair
and Judith was blonde with straight hair. Facially, there was little to no
similarities. Even their body types were different. In terms of personality, Judith
was an outgoing social butterfly with a rebellious streak, while Laurie was much more
reserved and studious. Judith was known to be promiscuous, while Laurie herself was
a virgin. Of course, Michael had no way of knowing what their personality
differences were because he had only seen Laurie at that point and knew nothing of
the person that she was. Beyond that, Michael very likely lacked the capacity
for empathy that it would take to notice any difference in personality. More plausibly,
Laurie was simply the first teenage girl that Michael had laid his eyes upon
once he ret her into Haddonfield, and he immediately conflated her with his sister,
and his mind to a psychopath like Myers, all teenage girls would likely
be the same. Part of the whole sister legend comes from the fact that
this is actually true, Like there are crime scene photos, not crime scene
photos, but I guess it would be a crimescen because he escaped. But
there are photos of Michael cell from the night that he escaped, and he
had used something to scratch the word sister into the back of the door of
his cell. So a lot of people think that Michael had returned to Haddonfield
to find his sister, and then because Laurie was his topic of obsession,
that she was the sister. But I think it was more likely that when
whatever tripped in his brain and activated did so, he was just thinking about
Judith and like carved that into the door. Much of those reports leave out
that above the word sister was twisted rock. That's all he wanted. He
just wanted to go back to Haddonfield to rock because you're unknown the blade.
Doctor Loomis, however, argues in his book that is pointless to ask why
Michael chose Laurie. In Loomis's opinion, Michael's thoughts, if there were any
thoughts at all, are completely alien to sane and rational people. Laurie Strode
had gone about her day, going to school like normal. That afternoon,
She told her friends Annie Brackett, the daughter of the local sheriff, and
Lynda vander Clock, that she had seen a large man in a mass staring
at her through the window while she was in class, and that she thought
that she was being followed. The girls were harassed by a mysterious person who
was pacing them in a car, and Laurie believed that she had seen the
stalker watching her from down the street. Her friends made a joke out of
it, not taking it seriously at all. Not taking the issue of Michael
Myers's return seriously would become a common thread among the people of Haddonfield. After
dealing with the red tape at Smith's Grove, doctor Loomis tried to warn people
that Michael would be returning home, but nobody would listen. Loomis took it
upon himself to stop the escaped lunatic. Armed with his trustee Smith and Weston
Model fifteen revolver, Loomas headed to Haddonfield himself. He stopped at a service
station to call Sheriff Lee Brackett and warned him that Michael was coming, but
Brackett took him for a crank and wrote him off. It seems like a
very very common thread through most of Michael's life. Is no one really believing
that anything was super wrong or being or willing to do anything about it.
It must have been those short shorts in the baseball bat and you know,
yeah, the red and blue makeup. I wouldn't believe that either. Though
Brackett was an experienced police officer and definitely not some kind of Keystone cop,
he failed to make the connection between Michael Myers and the theft of the knives
and rope at Nichols Hardware. He did start to suspect something though, when
it was reported that Judith myers headstone had been stolen, though he thought it
might have been related to the mysterious caller, doctor Loomis. It was around
this time that Loomis had arrived in town, and the two teamed up together
to investigate the Myers house, finding evidence that someone was definitely living there,
someone biting and fucking dogs like a Marve Albert treatment. As a throwback joke,
Marv Albert, huh, well, see that Saturday Live with Marve Albert.
Yeah, it's great to have the support of Rod. At that point,
Sheriff Brackett started to see the whole picture and went out to patrol the
town looking for Myers. Lomas opted to stay at the Myers house in case
Michael returned. Part three, The Boogeyman Comes Call Me. That evening,
Laurie Strode was babysitting young Tommy Doyle at his house when his parents went to
a Halloween party. Tommy, who was particularly afraid of the Boogeyman and it
had been harassed about it by some of his peers at school earlier in the
day, told Laurie that he saw someone standing across the street and staring at
the house, but Laurie saw no one there. Laurie was trying hard to
put her fears from earlier in the day out of her mind and didn't see
anyone when she looked out the window, so she chalked up the siding to
Tommy's imagination and the Halloween horror movies that two had been watching earlier that night.
Denial, that's the stage she was in at this point. It ain't
just a river across the street. Annie Brackett was babysitting another young girl,
Lindsay Wallace. She was unaware that Michael Myers was also on the property.
And then he had killed the Wallace family dog earlier in the evening. Two
dogs. That's how you know he's there's something wrong with that motherfucker. He
can kill as many people as he wants, but dogs. Now, you
keep your filthy hands off the animals. The dog was a German shepherd and
he apparently killed it with his bare hands. This dude's got some strength.
Yeah, that's pretty hardcore. Ye. Annie received a call from her boyfriend
Paul Friedman asking if he could come over to the house. Preferring to spend
Halloween with her boyfriend, Annie called Laurie and that's if she could watch Lindsay
for a few hours. Laurie agreed to this. Ever, the helping friend
and Annie sent the girl over to the Doyle house. While getting ready to
go pick Paul up, and he was assaulted by Michael Myers, who had
broken into her car and was hiding in the back seat. He strangled Annie
into submission before slitting her throat. That's another crazy crime scene photo. It
looks like someone just took a bucket of red paint and splashed it all over
the front of the car. Yeah, it's almost too red, Like it
doesn't even look real. Yeah, yeah, but apparently like he almost decapitated
her, Like that's how deeply he's lit her throat. Tommy Doyle happened to
be looking out the window and witness Myers carrying Annie's corpse back into the Wallace
House. Reasonably, Tommy lost a shit at this point and started screaming to
Laurie that he saw the boogey Man again, and once more, Laurie looked
out of the window but saw nothing. I bet Tommy Doyle's fucked up now.
Like, he's probably still alive, but I bet he's had to go
through a lot of therapy. Yeah for sure. Probably ruined Halloween for the
poor kid. Yeah, probably. Soon after Lynda vander Clock and her boyfriend
Bob Simms pulled up to the Wallace House, toxicology reports from their off topsies
found that the two had been drinking for some time. They entered the house,
likely looking at a party with Annie and Paul. While the actual events
that transpired in the house are not completely clear, evidence indicates that the two
had sex in the master bedroom before encountering Myers. You know who is lucky
and all of this, Paul, because he never made it to the house.
Yeah, he dodged I'd say he dodged a bullet, but he dodged
a butcher knife For that one. Michael stabbed Bob in the chest with a
butcher's knife with so much force that the knife went all the way through Bob's
body and pinned him to the wall like an insect. Linda was killed in
the master bedroom, strangled with a telephone cord. Myers wrapped a cord around
her neck so hard that a collapsed or trachea. Oddly, a white sheet
with two holes poked in it were found discarded on the floor of the master
bedroom, along with Bob's eyeglasses. This wouldn't be so strange as it was
Halloween and Bob could have been dressed as a ghost, but investigators found synthetic
hairs on the sheet which were determined to have come from the William Shatner mask
that Myers was wearing throughout his killing spree, indicating that Michael could have been
wearing the sheet at some point in the evening as well. That's fucking weird.
I can't even imagine, Like, I mean, I guess he had
a sense of humor. He's wearing a William Shatner mask, but then he's
wearing a sheet over him. Yeah, and possibly Bob's glasses and possibly Bob's
glasses. I'm a murderer. I don't know what I want to be for
Halloween, so I'll just be everything, Star Trek, ghost, tom or
glasses on. After putting Tommy and Lindsay to bed, Laurie went across the
street to the Wallace House to see how our friends were doing. She found
the house dark, without a living soul inside. When searching the house,
Laurie found Annie Brackett's corpse in one of the upstairs bedrooms, sprawled out on
the bed with Judith Myer's headstone at the head of the bed. And that's
actually an interesting one because I think if Michael did have any capacity for Athian
was able to like actually conflate two people together accurately, Annie would have been
more like his sister than Laurie would have, because Annie was apparently the outgoing
one. You know, she was kind of a stoner and of a skank
a little bit. Yeah, yeah, the spurs are dead, but well,
you know, you know how those kids the cops turn out, You
know, what happens in a small town rumors go around fast. Yeah,
it was said in the local media afterwards said Judith and Annie had a little
bit in common, you know, And that's actually kind of fucked up.
It's like they were trying to almost victim blame Annie, like if she wasn't
a slut, she wouldn't have died. But I don't think that's true.
Like, Michael Myers was in the house, he was killing anyone who was
there, and she was there. If she wasn't a babysitter, maybe she
wouldn't have died, but they're not going to say that in the news.
In a panic, Laurie fled and it was here that she came face to
face with Michael Myers, who slashed hat her with his knife but only managed
to cut her on the right arm. This caused Laurie to lurch forward and
fall over the banister and down the stairs, twisting her ankle in the process
litter. In her testimony, Laurie said that that Michael moved so slow and
methodic throughout this entire process, and her twisting her ankle might have been the
only reason that she couldn't get away from him, you know, she just
couldn't. She was limping around all night. You know, she couldn't break
into a run at full speed. Yeah, she slowly stocked an approach her.
And that makes me wonder, though, was he messing with her?
You know, if she's limping, he could have easily run and tackled her.
And he was like twice her size. He was a big dude,
so that kind of leaves me to think that maybe he was like a cat
playing with a mouse, you know. Undaunted, Lauria pressed on to escape
the house, but could not immediately get out the back door because Michael had
blocked it by leaning a rake against the outside of the door and pressed against
the door knob like some kind of slasher three stooges. Yeah again, you
know it shows you know, doctor Lewis wants to say that Michael has no
consciousness, no no ideas, no thoughts, but things like that show that
there was some premeditation and some planning on his part. You know, Home
Alone hadn't been made at that point, so he had to think of that
shit himself. Despite the obstacle, Laurie punched through the glass and moved the
rake, exiting the house as quickly as her hobbled ankle would let her.
She ran to a neighbor's house and banged on the door, begging for help,
but her pleas went unheard. Not wanting to stay in one place for
too long, she ran across the street and back to the Doyle house,
but found the front door locked. She pounded on the door, screaming for
Tommy to let her in, as Michael methodically pursued her across the street.
As she banged on the door, she was yelling, Tommy, can you
hear me? Unfortunately, Tommy was fast asleep at this point, and Laurie
had to throw a potted a plant against his window to wake him up.
Tommy let Laurie into the house, and Laurie told him and Lindsay to lock
themselves in the upstairs bedroom. Laurie went to the phone to call the police,
but found the line dead. Michael entered the house to confront Laurie in
the living room, but Laurie evaded his attack and stabbed him in the neck
with a knitting needle. This led Michael down, but it didn't stop him.
Yeah, the fact that the door was locked and the phone line was
cut and all that stuff, that kind of makes me think that maybe Michael
was in the house before Laurie went next door. Yeah, like maybe he
went in there and set some stuff up, but it also, yeah,
he didn't kill the kids, So was he not a child killer or was
he not in the house? I don't know, but something in there doesn't
add up to me. He continued his pursuit, chasing Laurie upstairs. Laurie
ducked into a bedroom and hid in the closet, and it didn't take long
for Michael a finder in there, and he began to break through the closet
panels. The ever industrious Lorie quickly straightened a wire clotheshanger and stabbed Michael in
the eye with a pointy end She's a fighter. This caused Michael to stagger
back and drop his knife, which Lorie scooped up and used to stab him
in the stomach. Finally, Michael collapsed to the floor. Laurie rushed to
the children and escorted them out of the house, telling them to go to
a neighbor's house and to call the police. The children ran down the street
screaming for help, and they encounter doctor Loomis, who had gotten tired of
waiting for Michael to return. Home and went out to look for him.
The kids directed Loomis to the Doyle house, screaming that the boogey Man was
there. It's crazy that doctor Loomis was out there on foot while Sheriff Brackett
and a couple of cops were actually driving around patrolling in cars, and Loomis
was the one who found him. Like the sheriff was on the other side
of town when all this ship was going down. It's almost like serendipity.
Yeah. Back of the Doyle House, Laurie was composing herself and getting ready
to leave when Michael, apparently have it recovered from being a stab, grab
her from behind and begin to strangle her. Laurie clawed at Michael's face,
ripping his mask off. This caused Michael to release her momentarily so that he
could pull the masks back down. You know, when you're a lutador,
you can never be seen without your mask. It's like a disgrace. Laurie
tried to put as much distance between herself and Michael as she could in the
split second. At this same time, doctor Loomis entered the room and unloaded
his revolver into Michael's chest, pumping six bullets into the maniac, causing him
to fall backwards through a window and over a second floor balcony. So he's
been stabbed in the neck with the knitting needle, He's been stabbed in the
eye with a coat hanger. He's been stabbed in the stomach with a knife.
He's been shot six times, and he's fallen through a glass window over
a balcony two floors. Yeah, pretty much. After checking on Laurie,
doctor Loomis looked out of the window that Michael had fallen through, finding that
Michael had once again escaped. After all of that, It's fucking crazy.
He has not been seen since. Many believe that Michael Myers crawled off into
the nearby woods to die like a wounded animal. Urban Legends says that Michael
survived and is once again waiting for the evil force within him to reactivate so
that he can return to Haddonfield and kill again. He's just in the woods.
They think it's big Foot, but it's him. Well, it's very
likely that Urban Legends or just campfire tales design to scare kids. There's one
final strange twist to the story following the nineteen seventy eight murder spree. Greg
Nichols, owner of Nichols Hardware, threw away the remaining William Shatner mass that
he had in stock and never sold them or any mass manufactured by the Silver
Shamrock Company ever. Again, the discarded masks didn't make it to the dump
though they were almost immediately taken from the dumpster. While it's very likely that
the mass were taken by local pranksters like Michael Myers, they've never been seen
again. There is a chance, however, slim, that Michael himself took
the mass and is still holding onto them and waiting. Wow. Dom,
that's an intense story. Yeah, crazy right, it's crazy that, you
know, you hear a lot about your John Wayne Gacy's, your Charles Manson's.
You're Jeffrey Dahmers. I mean, Michael Meyers should be a household name
by this point with this crazy killing spree. But I guess maybe because it
was just one night of Halloween and then what had happened to a sister that
it didn't become widespread knowledge. But man, they should really make a movie
out of this. They should, yeah, I mean, and there's enough
urban legends surrounding it. I mean, some of the urban legends totally like
like incongruous. You know, like Laurie was his sister and she died in
a car accident after surviving him, but she had a daughter and he he
went after her daughter. There's I mean, like all these conspiracy sites,
there's like a story about how Michael Myers got a hold of Lorie's daughter and
got her pregnant. And yeah, I don't know, man, it's there's
enough for a whole series here. It's guys. There have been a couple
books written about this though. Of course there's there's Loomis's book, but there's
another one that's almost more of like a biography. It's called Blackest Eyes,
and that's where I got the background information about him, like, you know,
all the stuff with his sister that kind of led up to it,
you know, with her boyfriend in the woods and all that. Like that's
not one of the more more commonly told stories. But if you get that
that Blackest Eyes book, it actually has a lot of really really good background
information in it that a lot of people don't talk about. And that's the
story of the boogeyman, Michael Audrey Myers. It's because he had the girl's
middle name also set him off. So set him off. I mean,
my name is Dominic Justine Balsamo. But like, I've only killed two people.
Not a lot has been heard about from Michael Myers since he escaped that
night, other than when he grew up to be a cast member in the
nineties on Saturday Night Live Party on Michael Party on Yeah. I think probably
the Love Guru was a bigger atrocity than anything he could have done in nineteen
seventy eight. Thank you for joining us listeners for our True Crime Horror Story
Halloween special. We hope you enjoyed it. A little something different out of
the Shop, a week in a nod towards the season, and one of
our favorite horror movies, Hell Yeah. This episode features music by Mechanical Ghosts
and The Quiet Type, as well as artwork by Nuclear Heat Graphics, and
was researched by dom That's me suggested movies similar to today's cases. Oh man,
I don't know. I don't know. I think there's about six of
them, and a couple of shitty secures and a couple of shitty remakes.
If you like what you hear here on True Crime Horror Story. Consider joining
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dollar a month. You can really support the show and get early access to
add for episodes, as well as exclusive bonus episodes and the True Crime Horror
Story after show where Dom joins me and we break down the cases in a
more lighthearted way. I'm also going to be uploading early episodes of ghost Song
Radio to the TCHS Patreon with no ads. I'm not going to start my
own patreon for it. I'm just going to kind of tag everything into the
TCHS patreon. Yeah, another reason to join the patreon and get some more
bonus content and check out ghost Song Radio debuting today. If you're listening to
us as it's new on October thirty first, twenty twenty, we hope you
enjoyed the episode Happy Halloween and like the Boogeyman Michael Wires, nothing can stop
Halloween, not even a pandemic. And if you're really really feeling the season
but you don't want to get out and you don't want to you don't want
to risk contracting a disease, that's cool. I understand that. Here's what
you gotta do before Halloween. You know you gotta well, obviously it's Halloween
now, but you know, maybe you can do this next year if they're
still COVID nineteen in Halloween twenty twenty one. God, I hope not.
But what you do is you take your your mask right, and you put
it on over your face so that you lower half of your face is covered
and you you're not potentially spreading any diseases. And you go to the dollar
store and you just buy bags and bags and bags of candy. If you
can't go out, all you got to do is sit in your house and
tear into that candy and just eat and eat and eat until you puke.
And that is what we call letting the night draw Planet Earth about to be
recycling. We are all evil in some form or another, are we not.
Peole has always existed perfect world most people seek. She'll never come from
pass, and it's gonna get worse. True Crime Horror Story contains extreme violence
and adult subject matter. Listener discretion is advised. I am your host,
Jady Horror, and this is True Crime Horror Story. Season four Bonus episode
five, The TCHS Halloween Special, the sequel Joining Me as always frequent writing
contributor and collaborator and all the things we do podcast related here on the TCHS
Network and music by Mechanical Ghosts my buddy Dom strap In. Guys, this
shit's about to get scary and Dom, just like the first Halloween special,
you research and wrote this episode, this one was a lot harder because there's
not a lot of information about this one out there. Well, this case
is shocking, to say the least, and just like our first one,
I mean, this is true crime, but it's something so scary and horrific
that it's almost like it's straight out of a horror movie. Yeah, there's
there's definitely the emphasis on horror and the horror story for this one. And
thank you to our new patrons, our current matrons, and everyone who's stuck
with us for season four. After Halloween, when my haunted house is all
wrapped up and all that giant workload is off of me, we're going to
do the season four wrap up and then we'll get into the new season.
So it's coming soon. But without further ado, let's get to the second
annual True Crime Horror Story Halloween Special. Our subject here today is s Quintin
Quail America's Doctor Frankenstein. S Quinton Quail was quite possibly the closest thing in
America ever had to its own Doctor Frankenstein. A mad scientist to the first
degree, Quail allegedly believed that he could create a race of superhumans through surgical
augmentation and engage in terrifying human experimentation to meet his ends. As he descended
into madness, Quell's experiments became a little more than ranked torture and murder.
Quill's story is the stuff of allegend. In fact, much of his tale
has been obscured by urban mythology, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction.
Quill himself never went on record to give up the truth about his terrific
deeds, so his entire story is fraught with speculation and rumor. What follows
is the best attempt we can make to separate fact from fiction, and all
of this based on the small handful of records and writings that are available.
Part one, A Monster is Born. S Quinton Quail was born on October
twenty fifth, in nineteen twenty two in Selina, Texas. He was born
into wealth and privilege, his family, coming from old European money and increasing
their fortunes in the fledgling American railway industry. Young Quintin had everything he could
ever ask for and was waited on hand and foot by servants. He was
an incredibly intelligent child, but developed problematic behavior after being thrown off of a
horse at age seven and suffering a head injury. It's the first sign that
something's going to go wrong. Very common in a lot of serial killers we
started here on this show, especially these like early nineteen hundreds ones where people
were riding horses a lot more often, and you know all of that.
People get kicked in the head, get thrown something like that, and it
causes lifelong problems. After that event, Quentin became temperamental and started savagely lashing
out, both verbally and physically against servants who displeased him. A little bit
of a bathrooy going on there. Yeah, A little bit of a fucking
spoiled rich kid going on here. Other children were not spared Quentin's wrath either.
At age ten, Quentin was expelled from a Dallas boarding school after stabbing
another student through the hand with a pencil over an argument in class. Little
shit, Yeah, Quentin's impatient and violent nature made it difficult for his parents
to keep him in any school, so he ended up being educated at home
by private tutors. For most of his young life, Quentin had a special
interest in anatomy. He would spend hours worrying over various texts on the subject,
learning the ins and outs of how the body functioned. It seemed to
be the only thing that he had an attention span for. On multiple occasions,
he was caught dissecting roadkill that he found along the highway, getting elbow
deep in the corpses of dead dogs and cats learning their inner workings Jeffrey Dahmer
style. This combined with violent tendencies, should have been a warning sign of
Quentin's parents, but they didn't seem to pay much attention to it at all.
They may have just been happy that he found something that held his interest
and kept him out of trouble with the servants, so instead of telling him
no, Quentin's parents would buy sheep, goats, and pigs and allow their
son to study them in a makeshift laboratory that he put together in a barn
at the back of the families. Two interred acres to line estate. This
is the absolute makings of a fucking monster right here. You've got wealth and
privilege, You've got a head injury causing problems with impulse control behavior, and
then on top of that, you have a predilection for cruelty to animals.
And instead of his parents saying, you know, maybe nah, guy,
you know, they say, okay, cool, here's some more fucking animals
to vivisect. Have at it. I don't know what they were thinking,
or if they were thinking at all, but it's more than likely that they
just didn't pay any attention to him, and he was just one of those
rich kids that was raised by the servants. That's pretty fun to have,
don Yeah. In an interview with The Sign of Gazette after Quail's misdeeds were
exposed to the world, a former servant at the estate named Vera Beauregard said
the worst sounds would come from out of that barn, shrieks and screams of
animals being tortured, sometimes for hours. Young Master Quail would emerge sometime after
the screeching stopped, wearing a butcher's apron and a doctor's mask covered headed tone
blood. I understand that God put the animals on the earth for men to
slaughter and eat. But whatever quinn and Quail was doing in that barn was
against both God and nature. Imagine how terrifying that would be to just see
a child, a child like coming him blood, teenager in a doctor's mask
in an apron, fucking covered head to toe and blood probably still has like
a gore covered scalpel in his hand, or some shit, just like going
out there to take a breather after he cut a pig to pieces, Part
two, Murder in the Name of Science. In twenty ten, the former
Quail estate was purchased by a land developer who unearthed the bones of thirty four
men, women, and children, all in various states of dismemberment. When
those corpses were carbon dated, it was found that all of them were killed
between nineteen thirty six in nineteen forty, which means that they ended up dead
and buried on the property while Quinnin was aged fourteen to eighteen and was residing
there. If Quinnin did in fact kill all those people, that would make
him the youngest and one of those prolific serial killers in history. Ron Austin,
author of the book Satanic Science The Life and Crimes of A s quinnin
Quail. Dug into police records from the time period, focusing on Salina and
its outlying areas and a few connections. At this time, the Great Depression
was in full swing and many people found themselves jobless. Laborers would hang out
in supply stores, train depots, and other areas of commerce looking for day
work. Sometimes these men would go missing. No less than fifteen reports were
filed with authorities reporting that some of these men were lasting, leaving the area
of the well dressed teenage boy. Could that boy have been quinning Quail learning
men to their deaths with the promise of day wages. Ron Austen thinks so.
And that's the bottom line. Apparently because Ron Austin said Du Dudu.
Also, during the time period of thirty six to forty five servants went missing
from the Quail estate. Families file police reports, but no major investigation was
ever performed. Law enforcement just figured that the servants found better work and moved
on. It also didn't help that three of the five missing servants were people
of color, and the police of the time period were not known for their
racially progressive ideas. One of the missing servants as a woman he would loosen
to May. Templeton vanished in May of nineteen thirty eight, never to be
seen again. Templeton had a husband and daughter who tried to go to the
authorities, and we're all but totally ignored. When the bodies were discovered in
twenty ten, DNA tests were performed on the corpses and one of the bodies
was deemed to be a definite match to a woman who would have been Templeton's
great granddaughter. So it seems like even if he's doing all of these things,
which when you've got bodies from that time period in there, I mean,
unless his dad was doing it, or some other servant or something,
you've got a fourteen year old boy in the nineteen thirties who's already figured out
the concept of the less dead. You know, he's praying on poor people,
he's praying on people of color. He's paying only fucked up, he's
preying on people from the lower social order because he knows. One, because
he's rich and white, he's going to get away with this shit. And
two, no one's going to look into it. A lot of parallels,
Like I said earlier, to Lady Bathory that we covered in episode two of
season four, that you know she started out when she was ten too,
Yeah, same age. It's like a switch gets flipped. Yeah. Ron
Auston speculates it these missing servants got curious about what was going on in Quail's
barn, learned a little too much and ended up on his slab, Part
three, The Last Years. In nineteen forty, at eighteen years of age,
Quil was drafted to serve in the US Army. Not much is known
about his military career, except that he was stationed in Britain, where he
worked in a military hospital, and that he never saw combat like mini serial
killers in the Armed services. Yeah, and I don't know, you know,
I mean, if you there are a few pictures of him out there.
He was not a large man. I don't think he would have done
well in combat at all. I think that as long as he can surprise
someone or however it was that he was doing it, probably like poisoning them
or drugging them or something, he can. Yeah. But there too,
Yeah, oh me travel across the country ching along my feet. I'm guessing
that his daddy probably bought him that position. The interesting thing about this time
in Quail's life is that its military records almost entirely sealed, and all requests
made by authors and reporters for it to be unsealed under the Freedom of Information
Act have been declined. This has led to a great deal of speculation about
what a. S. Quinn and Quail was really doing in World War Two.
One popular theory is that Quail was a spy who went undercover to see
what Nazi scientists were up to. Well, there's little evidence to back up
any of this. Quail did return from its military service speaking fluent German.
If this theory has any truth to it, wouldn't seem Nazi experimentation may have
influenced Quail's most notorious crimes. Another theory espoused by true crime and conspiracy blogger
Matt Strain on his blog The Killer Truth, is that Quail was not in
the army, but was secretly working with the US government on the early stages
of the project that would eventually become mk Ultra. I want to specify on
this one that Matt straight and is absolutely fucking batshit insane. The only reason
I put it out there is because it's kind of a popular theory among the
conspiracy people. But this is also a guy who's like, all, you
know, like the government is run by a cabal of Satanic pedophiles and shit
like that. So you can take what he's saying with a grain of sauces.
Are you saying it's not I'm saying they're probably pedophiles, but I doubt
they're Satanists. You know, for our money, I'd rather have a Satanist
than a pedophile running the show. Yeah, man, Satanists just want to
fucking eat a buffet. I don't want your little kid. Stran claims to
have received documents and reports from the time period that identify a researcher by the
designation as QQ, which he believes stands for as Quinning Quail. The only
problem with this theory is about joining the military. Quaila no graduate credentials and
is not likely that the government would bring in an untrained, unqualified person to
do high level scientific research. Shran refutes that, believing that the government doesn't
care about degrees or on terrifics when it comes to top secret projects. They're
more interested in recruiting and tell people with the right mindset and lack of moral
compass they can train however they see fit Clay to mold Yeah, exactly.
For I mean, I guess, I guess not everyone's capable of being a
mad scientist. So maybe if you find someone that you think is capable and
intelligence enough to do that, it does make sense to push them in that
direction. But I mean, science ain't easy, you know, like like
real science. Yeah, you know, it takes an understanding of a certain
methodology. And I don't think what Quail was doing in his barn in Texas
to sheep and possibly drifters it was anything like a scientific method. Science is
all about killing drifters. I remember that episode of Mister Wizard Build not the
drifter killer guy. Another popular and slightly more plausible theory puts forth the idea
that Quail was simply continuing his lifelong pattern of human experimentation, only this time
on wounded soldiers, and when he got caught, the military decided to discharge
him and cover it up rather than bring anything ugly to light a time when
so much of the world was already in turmoil. It's similar to Jeffrey Dahmer's
time in the military, where he was sexually assaulting people and they knew about
it, and they just sort of brushed it unto the rug and sent him
away. Well, you know, also, you know if the Nazi experimentation
and the rumors of that stuff, they don't want it to seem like it's
on our side too. I know. That's one thing that you know,
think about these monsters, the Nazis and the things they're doing. Are Americans
capable of that? We like to think no, But we did bring all
those scientists over during operating paper Clip after the war, so who the fuck
knows. Regardless of what he was up to during the war, Quail was
honorably discharge in nineteen forty four and returned home to Salina. During his time
overseas, Quail's mother had passed away and his father's health was also ailing.
Quinn returned home to a much different quality of life. Those families still own
their massive estate, their liquid funds were dwindling, Much of the servant staff
had been let go, and Quinn did not have a surplus money to throw
around his experiments anymore. Realized that he was probably gonna have to go and
get a job, which is the worst possible thing that can happen to someone
like him. Oh no, I can't kill drifters anymore. Yeah, I'm
not gonna get paid for it. Yeah. But as you will soon find,
this guy figured out a way to take lemons and make lemonade. Drifter
or lemonade yeah, Part four of maccabre Education. Quentin moved to Houston,
Texas to attend the University of Houston before transferring to the Baylor College of Medicine.
In his second year of med school, Quentin's father died and Quentin opted
to liquidate his family's assets. This allowed him enough money to live and focus
on his education. By all accounts, Quail was a dedicated student who showed
a preda natural knack for the subject of medicine, excelled in all of his
studies, and showed signs of being a promising surgeon. Doctor Raymond Hall,
one of Quail's college doormats, gave an interview to the news program Ros Story
in nineteen eighty and painted a slightly different picture. Quentin was a weird one.
Hall said he was intense, he never went out, he never drank
or partied, He had no friends. Hell, I don't think I ever
saw the guy blink. He just studied studied and studied. While other guys
were out of bars trying to meet girls, Quail was at the morbu doing
god knows what Hall went on. Quail could never keep a roommate. Some
poor shop would be assigned a bunk with him, and within days they requests
a room transfer. Nobody ever shown why, but people always came out of
the room. But people always came out of room, and with them a
bit haunted. He thank you, doctor. Now I'm gonna check your oil.
I'm a doctor and a mechanic, and a barber and a horse trainer.
In their book American Frankenstein, Yes quinnin Quail Story, author Belinda Brooks
notes that during Quail's time at Baylor, several police reports are filed regarding the
morgue being broken into and body parts being stolen from corpses, along with the
theft of various items of medical equipment. After Quail's time at Baylor, the
morgue break ins and thefts all but stopped, aside from the occasional isolated incident.
But then everything went to hell when doctor Herbert West came in afterwards.
Oh god, he went to Baylor too, That's very Herbert Wes esk of
hand in this little portion with the roommates Kat dead. Details later, Yeah,
but that's I mean, imagine being stuck in a real life version of
that. You know, it's funny and reanimator when it happens. But like,
who the fuck knows what those guys saw, you know, Like they
go to open a drawer and there's a fucking severed human hand in there,
with the tendons being poked at or something. It's terrifying. It's a hard
way to live. In nineteen fifty two, Quail moved to Willows County,
Texas to do his internship at the Willows Psychiatric Hospital, also known as We
Being Willows. The hospital is an imposing sight to behold. Originally built as
a tuberculous hospital for the wealthy, the architects designed the place to look like
a castle so that their rich clientele could recover or spend their final days being
treated like kings and queens. Oh how fucking sweet and touching. Over the
years, the building fell into disrepair and the woods surrounding it became overgrown,
making it look more like the Gothic home of a vampire than a place for
rest and recuperation. My Grandma had tuberculous to ever tell you that. No,
she had to go to the Santa Tarian for really, and she survived
in those days. Yeah, she survived it. She was a little off
though, Yeah, yeah, you know she caught the crazy in there.
If the crazy was always there. But my but the crazy is probably already
there because my other aunts sees people. They're looking at her, jacking off
in the windows constantly and all this weird shit. So, wow, what
I got a little bit of crazy in the family. What they're interdimensional jackers?
What if it's Yeah, they're just on a different plane of existence.
They don't even know they're being watched. No, the pervert, goddamn it,
you interdimensional pervert. It's rumored that even before Quila arrived there Willows was
a veritable house of horrors, with mental patients allowed to wander the halls freely,
often dirty and unclothed, with the maniacs who resided within the stone walls
allowed to rape, mame and murder with impunity, unsupervised by any kind of
carrying staff. Because of this dark reputation, the locals refer to the place
as Weeping Willows. It's likely that this is all urban legend. However,
according to several state and federal reports of the time, Willows was an exemplary
facility with the diligent staff and the highest standards of care. I mean,
imagine you've got this place kind of on the outskirts of town that looks like
a dilapidated old castle with an overgrown woods next to it. I mean,
of course you're going to and it's a mental hospital, you know. Of
course people are going to say, oh, that's a place where patients are
getting murdered and tortured and allowed to roam free. Likes. It's ample fodder
for you know, for horror stories, for urban legends. Yeah, but
you know, with those examplar reports, you know, who knows. You
know, they could also just be that those reports were getting forged because people
were lazy. But you know, I just kind of wanted to make sure
that that both of those sides got thrown in there, because I don't want
to completely throw the people who round that place under the bus. What's not
disputed is that when Squint and Quail arrived at the Willows County Psychiatric Hospital,
horror followed Part five Diseased Minds and Mangled bodies. Quail initially did his best
to keep a low profile at Willows. He did it as he was told,
focused on his work, and never rocked the boat. Who was that
Willows that Quill struck up an unlikely relationship with an orderly named Earle Firefly.
Earle was a hulking man that, though not entirely simply minded, was not
what one might call the sharpest tool in the shed, who was not a
planner a forward thinker in any manner. But he's one of those people that,
when given clear instructions, could follow them to the letter every single time.
Basically, he was perfect henchman material. Yeah, this is an alpha
goon right here. Quail integrated himself to Earl and dug into the man's life.
He discovered that Earl lived with his father, Hugo, on a derelict
farm on the outskirts of a nearby town of Rugsville. Hugo as a bootlayer
during prohibition and use that farm as a front for his operation. After a
prohibition, Hugo and Earl tried to work the farm legitimately, but did not
have a lot of success. The farm had fallen into total disuse after Hugo
injured his back and could no longer work. The land bank records from the
time indicate that the farm was about to be before closed upon when all of
Hugo and Earl's debts were suddenly paid off. The name on the check that
paid the bill was as Quintin Quail. So Quentin is at a very dangerous
stage in his life at this point, because he's still a psychopath. He
still wants to do horrible things to people, but he has learned patience,
and he has learned to virtue. Yeah, and he's learned how to manipulate
people, and he still has you know, like when when his father was
ailing and his mother was dying, to say that they didn't have the same
opulence they had before. That's like saying, you know, oh, we
have to give up our house and the Hamptons were so poor, you know
something like that. You know, as a single guy who had his parents'
liquid assets, he was able to do what he wanted with the money and
basically buy the loyalty of these people. And you know, when you've got
kind of simple people who are also a little bit kind of morally ambiguous and
you do them a huge favor like that, like either they're going to totally
take advantage of you or you've got them. Yeah, like you've got they're
your people. Yeah, they're your goon squad. Believe it or not,
it's planned b for this family to be someone's goon squad. This is where
the timeline gets a little murky and speculation starts to obscure things. Before we
get into the wild theories too much, it's important to lay out a timeline
of documented events that we know took place. So this is the concrete stuff
that records actually back up happening. None of this, as far as I
know, based on the sources that I gathered the information from, is speculation.
March eighth, nineteen fifty three, a truck bringing new surgical equipment to
Saint Barnabas Hospital in Deacon Hill, Texas, is hijacked by three maps men.
According to the police report, the hijacker giving the orders is a small,
potbellied man with a noticeable with a noticeable limp, who complains about his
back when he tries to get into the truck. The second hijacker is a
large man who says nothing and only takes orders. The third hijacker is described
as being a man of strong build whose foul mouth and smells of fried chicken.
Odd detail, they're so specific. Yeah, he was robbing me and
he smelled like chicken. March twelfth, nineteen fifty three, the hijack truck
is found in a ravine on the outskirts of Rugsville, Texas. The medical
equipment that it was transporting is still missing. April eighth, nineteen fifty three,
two patients from the Willows County Psychiatric Hospital named Joseph Carradine and Milton Hicks
go missing. Their disappearance is initially reported as a breakout. A three day
all points bulletin is put in place for the two missing men, but they
are not found. April twenty fourth, nineteen fifty three, a local outlaw
named Johnny Lee Johns is arrested for the March twelfth hijacking. Will plead not
guilty of the charges brought against him, but will eventually be sentenced to ten
years in prison, of which he'll serve five. He never gives up the
names of his accomplices. May fourth, nineteen fifty three, two more patients
named Rutger Bright and Gus Herring go missing from Willows Once again chopped out to
an escape. Hospital administration notes that both escapes took place when the same three
orderlies were in charge of the floor, Bobby Miller, Hector Chavez, an
Earl firefly. The three orderlies are questioned by police and an inquiry is made
by the administrators, but nothing comes out of it. The three orderlies are
split up and moved to different shifts. So they're assuming at this point that
one of these three orderlies is doing either something negligent or something intentional to allow
these people to break out. We didn't know that their nicknames were Larry,
Curle and Moe. June nineteenth, nineteen fifty three, three local teenagers are
arrested for trespassing on the grounds off Willows County Psychiatric Hospital. According to the
police report, the boys were dared by friends to run across the hospital grounds
and the Dead and Knight, a common game played by the local teenagers at
the time. The reports stated that the boys seemed shaken up by something and
that they heard scary sounds like moaning coming from an abandoned building near the far
southern corner the grounds. The police disregard what the teenagers had to say,
believing that they're trying to deflect from their own misdeeds. July eighth, nineteen
fifty three, a Willow security guard named Frederick James goes missing. His wife
reports that he left home to work as night shift, but he never returned.
There's a record of him clocking in when he goes to work, but
never clocking out. August twelfth, nineteen fifty three, another patient, rous
Zamora, goes missing from Willows. This time a patient report sings Zamora being
walked down a hall by Earl Firefly at around one thirty am, long after
the patients would have been put to bed. Earl was not assigned to work
the night shift. The police look into it, but Earl de Knight's being
there that night. His father, Hugo, offers an alibi to the police,
stating that Earl was home with him the whole night. The police conclude
their report by stating that they believe Earl's alibi and that the mentally ill witness
was probably hallucinating. So they've got a total lead going on here. But
they're like, ah, you know, we're gonna we're just gonna ignore this
person because they're in a mental hospital. What Curly he was home. Yeah,
yeah, he was here. I was drunk. He was here with
me. He was drunk too. I didn't I didn't put it in there.
I don't know why I didn't put it in there. But like the
text of the police report is funny because Earl's dad, Hugo, is like,
yeah, I had the chili shit that he owes me off in the
yard, Like that's what he tells the cops. So I guess that's like
the whole thing. Like when you call in sick and your boss is like,
are you're really sick, and you're like, yeah, I've got diarrhea,
and that ends the conversation right there. It's probably just the crime cover
up version of that. You're playing YouTube video sounds of diarrhea sounds in the
background while you're calling in sick, the terrible movie sound effect from postmortem.
Guys call in my work all the time, and the excuses I think I
ate something bad, Yeah, food poisoning or something like that, because you're
instantly better than next day and it's convenient. Looks Agus eighteenth, nineteen fifty
three, a local teenager, Ruthie Ames, is reported missing. According to
her friend who spoke to the police. Selma Smit's Ruthie was dared by her
friends to run across the Willow's Grounds by herself at night. Not advisable toime,
No, not at all. But you know, like this is this
is a game that the local teenagers play all the time. And for the
most part, if you're doing it in the dead of night, the patients
are in their rooms locked up, so it's totally safe. It's just like
a headfuck, like, oh, go knock on the haunted house door at
night. You know, like kids have been doing it for ages and coming
back safe. So you know, she probably had no reason to believe that
she wouldn't. August nineteenth, nineteen fifty three, es quint and Quill unexpectedly
and immediately resigns from his internship at Willows. That same night, a fire
breaks out in the abandoned building on the south side of the Willow's Grounds.
The building is consumed quickly, as if an accelerant was used. Firefighters make
two discoveries in the rubble left behind. Number one, someone had set up
the place a makeshift surgery room using medical equipment that later identified as a gear
that was stolen in the March eighth truck hijacking number two. More gruesomely,
the firefighters discovered the charred remains of seven individuals in various states of dismemberment.
General records later identify him as the five missing patients, security guard Frederick James,
and Ruthie Ames. This is where Quail fucked up. He killed a
white teenager, Yeah, winning against his own rule. Yeah, the security
guard. I didn't mention it, but like the security guard was also a
black man, so you know, like they're going to kind of look into
it. But like then the cops are gonna be like, oh, yeah,
you know whatever, we're fucking we're fucking honky, asked Texas cops nineteen
fifties Texas, like rural Texas. So, yeah, but you kill a
white teenager who a white female teenager named named Ruthie. But I think Quail
knew he fucked up at that point. That's why he resigned. Yeah,
that's why he bailed. August twentieth, nineteen fifty three. Some of Smith's
confesses to her sister, Jean Smiths that she was actually with Ruthiemes trespassing on
the Willows grounds on the night of August seventeenth, she didn't admit anything to
police because she didn't want to get into trouble. Someone tells Jean that she
and Ruthie heard the sounds are drilling and moaning coming from an abandoned building at
the far end of the grounds. They then went to investigate. I hear
drilling and moaning sounds from an abandoned building. From an abandoned building on a
mental hospital. Let's see what it is. Someone there. They probably tripped
her or three times in the way there, tore their shirt. Yeah,
Ruthie peeked through the slats of a boarded up window and saw something that made
her scream. The two girls took off running and were chased by two men.
One of them grabbed Ruthie and dragged her off. Someone was able to
scramble over the fence and escape. That's gotta be fucking terrifying. Though some
of us wears her sister to secrecy, but Geane is not about to keep
the secret. She tells Ruthie's sister, Rebecca, and Rebecca immediately goes to
her father. Victor aims with the story, and Victor Ames is a dude
who gets shit done. August twenty fourth, nineteen fifty three, please start
connecting dots and realize that since he resigned from his position the same day that
the fire broke out, as Quinn and Quail was probably a person of interest.
It took him fucking three days figured out the dirt, dirt dirt.
They then begin to search Willow's County for him, though through unknown means.
Victor Ames gets the word that Quail might have some involvement in the disappearance of
his daughter. He assembles his own posse of drinking buddies to help him search
for Quail. And no one finds shit faster than a bunch of drunk Texas
vigilantes. Yeah, and can often lead to tragedy and listen. August twenty
seven, nineteen fifty three, Victor Ames gets word that Quinn Quail has left
Willow's County and is hiding out in a hotel in the neighboring town of Rugsville.
Instead of notifying the police, Ames and his gang go to Rugsville themselves.
They burst into quails hotel room, put a bag over his head to
throw him in the back of the truck. They drive him to the outskirts
of town for a little vigilante justice, The gang hangs Quail from a tree
by his neck and leaves him there for dead. August twenty eighth, nineteen
fifty three, a member the Ames vigilanti mob has a crisis of conscience and
goes to the police with the story of what happened to Quail the night before.
The police and Willows that formed the Rugsville Police that there might be a
dead man in the woods, and Ruggsville p D goes to investigate and finds
a hanging tree with a cutoff rope tied to a branch, but no body.
The body, in fact, is never found. With no body,
the police feel that there's no actual crime to charge anyone with, and the
vigilanti gang organized by Victor Ames, is never investigated. These guys are literally
like, hey, we killed a guy, and they're like, yeah,
but there's no body and there's beer over there, so nobody no cris exactly.
This is, you know, nineteen fifty Texas justice. I'm sure there
were probably some cops in that mob. You know, that's just me assuming,
but it seems like the kind of thing that would happen present day.
S Quinn and Quail has never heard from again. Officially, at least,
those are the facts as we know. But what actually happened in Willows County
in nearby Rugsville, Texas in the spring and summer of nineteen fifty three There
are as many theories as there are unanswered questions. Part five. Death of
a man, Birth of a legend. Nobody living knows what truly happened in
the makeshift lab set up by s Quinn and Quail at the Willows Psychiatric Hospital.
While the mountain of evidence is circumstantial at best, it's hard to ignore
all the pieces when you put them together. Quail was definitely disturbed violent child.
Thirty four bodies were placed in thirty four unmarked graves at the Quail estate
when Quinn was living there, he departed suddenly from his internship at Willows.
This departure was followed by the immediate burning of abandoned building, where there remain
into seven dismembered bodies and a bunch of stolen medical equipment were left behind.
Whether or not any of this would be enough evidence to convict Quail of a
crime would ultimately depend on the skill of the attorney's prosecuting and defending him.
Go ahead, I'll say in a minute, and the minds of the jury
who judged him, just picture his judge as John Lovetts, like, so
you've got bodies and it was burned coincidence? Maybe I picture him as a
judge from nothing but trouble, dan Ack, writer of his notes Fallen Off.
I mean, who hasn't burned a building full of corpses at least once
in their life? We will never face a court date, however, a
vigilanting mob s out of that. All that's left are urban legends and their
personal opinions of a small group of dedicated true crime researchers who've tried to put
the pieces together and make some semblance of sense out of all of this.
The urban legend of s Quinn and Quail remains so largely regional, whispered among
those who live in Willows County and Ruggsville, Texas. In the folk story,
Quail was a mad surgeon trying to build an army of superhumans by surgically
augmenting the bodies and the minds of the patients that will is psychiatric. This
story depicts Quail as a raving mad scientist ben on world domination, who stopped
by a group of heroic good guys with guns. It's like he and Earl
were pinky in the brain. All this makes for a great horror story,
but like any good horror story, this one ends with a twist. Some
believed that Quail was too evil to die. He escaped his bonds and fled
to the Firefly Farm, where he continued his experiments on drifters and unweary travelers
who strayed too far off of the beaten path. Some even out of a
supernatural blend to the story, claiming that Quail sold his soul to the devil
and in his final moments and returned as a revenant being or perhaps even a
demon, that this version of the mad Doctor was imbued with powers that allowed
him to turn corpses into the walking dead. Of course, most of this
is just camp fire tales, but every good legend has a colonel of truth
in it, depending on who you ask, Some believed that Quail's story did
not end to the Hanging Tree on August twenty seventh, nineteen fifty three.
They even claim that there's evidence to back this up. The farm owned by
Hugo and Earl Firefly has a bit of as sordid history. After the quail
incident, Earl was fired from his job at Willows. The police declined to
pressing he charges against him for lack of evidence, but he and his father
became social outcast and rarely left the farm. After that, Earl did manage
to find a wife, a local prostitute named Gloria Teasdale. He adopted her
son r J. And then two had a second child named Matthew, who
was born with pituitary gland disorder that caused gigantism. When their son was eight
years old, Earl had a mental breakdown, leaving that a son was a
demon and tried to burn him alive. Matthew survived, but lived out the
rest of his days covered in burn scars. Earl, however, disappeared.
Gloria told the police that her husband had run off, but no sign of
him was ever found. Gloria remained at the farm with her children to take
care of her elderly father in law. She soon hooked up with Johnny Lee
Johns, who returned to Rugsville after serving his present sentence. The fleeting was
brief, but produced a daughter named Vera Ellen, a homicidal drifter on the
lamb from the police named Otis Driftwood also took up residence at the farm in
nineteen seventies, becoming an adopted member of the Strange family that lived there in
October. In nineteen seventy seven, a group of college students traveling through Ruggsville
in a road trip vanish. Their last known whereabouts were Johnny Lee John's gas
station, where he told them about the legend of es Quinn and Quail and
the supposedly haunted tree that he was hanged from. While investigating the disappearance,
two police deputies, George Wydell and stephen Naish, went to the farm to
see if the denizens had seen them. The two deputies were never heard from
again. This led w Wydell's older brother Sheriff John Quincy Widelle, to bring
a posse a Deppees to the farm, resulting in a bloody shootout that led
to the death of Glorious Suns, possibly the death of Hugo, and the
farm being burnt to the ground. Of the process, Glorias survived, was
arrested and ended up mysteriously dying in jail by being mysteriously stabbed by someone.
Even though the only other person there was John Quincy Whitel and Vera Ellen and
Otis and Johnny Lee Johns ended up going on the lamb And that's a whole
other fucking story. Yeah, we might get to that in another house.
Special that one. It needs to be examined all on its own, because
there's some weird shit that those that got into. In the wreckage of the
farm, a network of underground tunnels and chambers were discovered. All throughout were
the corpses of an unknown number of people. Some believe the remains of upwards
to a thousand people may have been hidden in those catacombs, though it's unclear
how many of them died in the tunnels or if the bodies were brought there
from other places. There were a lot of grave robbings in Rugsville over this
time period that will always that went unsolved. So it kind of stands to
reason that if these weirdos have a bunch of dead people in the tunnels under
their farm, some of them probably came from those grave robbings. Among the
dead was a single survivor, an unidentified elderly man who appeared to have several
bizarre surgical augmentations. To his body. The man was not able to talk
due to smoke inhalation, he had no teeth, and his fingerprints had been
long burned off Yarially, he was found in the middle of what appeared to
be a makeshift medical lab, surrounded by the bodies of several people in various
states of dismemberment. The unidentified man died of smoke inhalation when taken to the
hospital, but not before he managed to rip a erse his throat out with
his bare hands. According to urban legend, that man was all that was
left of a s Quinny Quail, but perhaps you know him by his other
more famous name. Doctors Saydan And that's it for the second annual True Crime
Horror Story Halloween Special as Quinn and Quail America's Doctor Frankenstein or Doctor Satan.
Yes, it was definitely someone who knew how to night. Yes, definitely,
and thank you patrons for all your support. We hope you enjoyed this
little deviation from our standard format here and what we typically do on the show.
A little bit of true crime, a little bit more of a horror
story, though emphasis on story, and um, you know we usually do
some suggested movies similar to today's cases. But since we might continue this one
later at a different time, I'll just have to say, if you figure
it out, figure it out. Yeah. If you don't figure it out,
don't figure it out. If you don't figure it out, then you
do figure it out. Don't get mad at us. And I hope you've
been googling these names curiously trying to I need to know. I've I've never
heard of this before. How do I know know about this guy? Yeah?
I know when we last year when we covered the shape Killer, Yeah,
a lot of people were like, uh yeah, the Boogeyman. Yeah
yeah, a lot of people that one was on the free feed and a
lot of people message saying, hey, this sounds like a movie. Yeah,
yeah, I didn't know that it was real. And and to that
we say happy Halloween. Yes, and Halloween. It's a time for tricks,
it's a time for treats, it's a time for making memories for kids.
I've said it before. I do a massive free hunted house for the
local kids. I've also created a community map of my town blastroom map all
over the place of all the other local haunts and really cool decorated houses,
making some memories, some safe and scary memories. You know, these kids
could be out there drinking and smoking weed at age twelve and thirteen and stuff
like that on Halloween nap, but they can run it across the grounds of
a local mental hospital and investigating moans and drilling sounds. But you know,
do your little part to keep this spirit of Halloween a live and um.
By keeping the spirit of Halloween alive, I think that's truly one way to
let the night roar. Oh. I remember now doctor Satan, God,
damn it. Everybody got to know about doctor Satan. You know what I'm
gonna do, Boy, I'm gonna do you a favor. I'm gonna let
you meet the old bastor. It's all true, the Boogeyman's feel and you
fad aka a doctor sit murder, torture, the most of all Mansesty.
Surgeon mister Quayo's an internal Willows Counting mental hospital. It Dave, we've been
Willows Neberhood cries of Kave. Through primitive brain surgery. Mister Quayo belaves that
he could create a race of super interacamentally ill jilany justice prevailed that difficause adds
out other, and that influencing no more. The stone so away from where
y'all ask and mouth be. The next day your body was not being sick.
Until today you trace got the same has ever been discovered the moves.
Maybe it's next door to you.