Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I am so glad that y’all could join me today. Y’all aren’t going to believe this, but I totally forgot Valentine’s Day was on a Monday so I did our standard Missing Person Monday. Once I realized my error around 9:15 Sunday night, I knew I had to do something special.   So we will continue Missing Person Monday on Friday and today I’m going to tell you about love, betrayal, and murder.    —   Morris, Alabama is a town of 1,860 outside of Birmingham. The town is named after an early female pioneer named Mary “Mae” Hunter Morris. Three famous people are from Morris including U.S. Softball Olympian, Haylie McCleney, former NFL Quarterback, Peter Tom Willis, and actor Pat Buttram. I’m not big into sports (weird for where I live, I know), but I have been a huge fan of Pat Buttram for as long as I can remember. For those of y’all who don’t recognize the name, he voiced a ton of Disney characters and he was Mr. Haney on Green Acres.   Anyway, let’s get into today’s story. Michael Reese was divorced and hoping to find love again. He went to church, was well-liked in the community, and was loved by his friends and family. When he met Cindy Henderson, a young widow after her husband committed suicide, everyone picked on him for taking her to Milo’s on their first date. Milo’s is a legendary fast-food restaurant in Alabama that is known for its hamburgers, french fries, and sweet tea. He brushed them off saying that they both really loved the food and neither had a problem having their first date there.   The couple married in 2009 and Michael joined her church, Sardis Baptist because she was the music director and he was baptized into membership there in 2013 by Jeffrey David Brown.   Michael and Cindy Reese lived across the street from the police department in Morris and were having a room built on by a local contractor. On January 18, 2015, Michael picked Cindy up from work and the couple went to Sardis Baptist Church for Bible study. After church, the couple stopped at their favorite restaurant, Milo’s. When they arrived home, Cindy remembered that they were out of orange juice and Michael didn’t have lunch meat for his sandwich the next day. So she left her food to get cold and ran to Piggly Wiggly.   When she returned home, the front door was open, a coffee table had been knocked over, and some valuables were missing. She called the police and waited outside.   The police were immediately suspicious. First of all, who breaks into a house across from the police department? Second, the house wasn’t ransacked, just a few things had been moved. Last, who leaves their food to get cold knowing fast food is inedible if you don’t eat it right away? Even one of the investigators said that the bag of Milo’s getting colder by the minute on the counter was more suspicious than the overturned coffee table!   Michael had been shot in the back of the head, execution-style, near the backdoor. Being a small town, the police knew who it was as soon as they saw his lifeless body lying beside a ladder on the floor. They told Cindy who immediately played the part of grieving widow.    The next day the rumor mill started up with people whispering, “Did you know his wife was sleeping with the preacher? I’ll bet she did it.”   Michael and Cindy were close friends of the Browns. They spent a lot of time together and they watched the preacher’s two children often. Then Michael discovered his wife was having an affair with their preacher, but he forgave her and took her to Disney World to reconnect with his wife. Brown called her every day that she was gone, but she claimed the affair was never physical after that.   —   Cindy made the funeral arrangements while hugging Michael’s family, who had heard the rumors and suspected her but had to bite their tongues. If you watch the show Southern Gothic on Hulu you will see Earl Reese, Michael’s father, saying, “Michael liked Boar’s Head luncheon meat. They don’t sell it at Piggly Wiggly, they have it down there at Publix. The Publix is across the street from Milo’s. They were already there; why didn’t she get it then?”   After getting cellphone records, police discovered that Cindy had been on the phone with Jeffrey when Michael was killed and several times the day after. They found out that he had recently divorced his wife to be with her and both of their names were on important documents, like a joint savings account, his truck title, and his apartment lease.   The couple was arrested a month later, but Cindy bonded out. The rumor was that she used the money she and Michael had borrowed to renovate their home. She bragged to a neighbor that her lawyer had told her that she had nothing to worry about. He warned her that an old police saying was, “First one to squeal gets the best deal and you’re out here talking to me. What do you think your boyfriend’s doing up there at the jail?”   He was squealing and confessed that she had killed Michael and given him her .38 pistol and jewelry to get rid of, which he did. As a result, he’s up for parole next year, which seems ridiculous to me. If he isn’t paroled then he will serve his full twenty-year sentence.   Brown said that she met him at a gas station, where she handed him everything along with $15 for gas. Then she went to the Piggly Wiggly to grab groceries. She got home, made her “discovery”, and called the police while he was still on the phone! The 911 dispatcher heard her say, “My phone’s dying, I’ll call you back”!   Not only did the evil duo kill Michael, but the stress they put on his mother who had started chemo the day before he was shot likely killed her as well. She saw Cindy arrested, but died before she could be convicted and sentenced.   Cindy Reese is still in prison and will be eligible for parole in 2030 so eleven years after she was sentenced! However, and this was a real WTF moment for me, she was moved from Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women to a work-release facility near the detectives who solved Michael’s case and his grieving family without any of their knowledge. Once it was discovered, there was so much outrage that she was sent back to Tutwiler.   —   I hope y’all enjoyed today’s Valentine’s special! If you did, please leave us a like and a review on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods. Also, come back on Wednesday for our weekly paranormal episode! I hope y’all have a great Valentine’s Day and a wonderful, safe week. God bless, y’all!   —   Credits   https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2020/10/cindy-reese-morris-alabama-woman-convicted-in-husbands-killing-to-be-featured-on-nbcs-dateline.html   https://thecinemaholic.com/where-is-jeffrey-brown-now/ https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2016/12/morris_woman_charged_with_husb.html#:~:text=Earl%20first%20met%20Brown%2C%20a,two%20children%2C%20she%20testified%20today.

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! Thank y’all so much for tuning in today for True Crime Friday. Today I’m going to tell y’all about a solved case from Texas. I’m going to try to spare y’all the graphic details, but y’all may not want your young’uns listening in. * While I was recording, I got a notification on my tablet that I have set to say, "I'm your Huckleberry" an infamous line from the movie Tombstone. Due to when it occurred, I left it as it seemed fitting to me. There is a note in the transcript when it happens on the recording. * ----- Dean Arnold Corll was born December 24, 1939 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, but moved to Memphis, Tennessee after his parents, Arnold and Mary Corll, divorced. His father was stationed there with the U.S. Air Force and his mother wanted him to still have contact with both of his sons, Corll, and his younger brother, Stanley Wayne Corll.   His parents reconciled, remarried, and moved to Pasadena, Texas. It didn’t last long and they divorced on good terms and Arnold maintained contact with his boys.   After this divorce, Mary married a traveling clock salesman named Jake West. They moved to Vidor, Texas where his half-sister, Joyce, was born. Mary and Jake started a family-owned candy company in their garage and Jake would sell it to his clients. Corll worked in the candy kitchen all of the time, even though he was still in school. He and his brother were responsible for the candy-making machines and packaging.   The family moved just outside Houston in 1958, when Corll graduated, to help the popular candy company, Pecan Prince, grow. In 1960, Mary asked Corll to move in with his elderly grandmother, which he did.   During this time, he became friends with a local girl. She proposed marriage to him in 1962, but he turned her down. He returned to Houston in 1962 to help with the candy shop that had moved to Houston Heights by then. He moved into an apartment above the store.   Mary divorced Jack in 1963 and opened Corll Candy Shop. Corll was appointed vice-president and Stanley was secretary-treasurer. That year, one of the teenaged male employees told Mary that Corll had made sexual advances towards him, so she fired the employee.   On August 10, 1964, Corll went to Fort Polk, Louisiana after being drafted by the U.S. Army. He was then assigned to Fort Benning, Georgia where he was trained to fix radios. His permanent assignment was Fort Hood, Texas. He was honorably discharged after ten months of service so he could go back to Houston to help with Corll Candy Company.   Corll reportedly told close friends that it was during his time in the Army that he realized he was a homosexual and had had his first homosexual experiences during that time. Others noticed how he acted around teenaged boys after he came home and wondered if he was a homosexual.   He returned to a fierce competition between Pecan Prince, his former stepfather’s company, and Corll Candy Company, his mother’s business. He increased the number of hours he worked in order to meet the demand for his family’s candy.   In 1965, Corll Candy Company relocated across the street from an elementary school. Corll earned the nickname “ The Candy Man '' and “Pied Piper '' because he would give free candy to children, especially teenage boys.   The “Pied Piper” title was a bit prophetic as the legend says that the Pied Piper lured children to their deaths and their families never saw them again.   Only a few people worked in the candy store and he was seen to behave inappropriately with several teenage male employees. He bought a pool table which he set up at the back of the store where employees and young people would hang out.   In 1967, he befriended a sixth grader named David Owen Brooks, one of the many who received free candy from him. Brooks would spend a lot of time with Corll and the other teenagers he associated with. He joined Corll and many other teenagers on excursions to South Texas beaches. Whenever Brooks said that he needed cash, Corll would give it to him. Brooks began to view him as a father figure.   Corll pressured him into a sexual relationship and began giving him money and gifts in exchange for Brooks allowing him to perform oral sex on the boy.   Mary got divorced for the third time and the candy shop closed in 1968. She and Joyce moved to Colorado that year. Corll took a job at the Houston Lighting and Power Company as an electrician.   In 1970, Brooks dropped out of high school and went to live with his mother in Beaumont, about 85 miles away. He visited his father, and Corll, every chance he got and Corll allowed him to stay at his apartment whenever he wanted. He moved back to Houston later that year.  ----- Before we get into his murder spree, I want to let y’all know that I’m not going to tell you the graphic details I read while researching this case. I found them deeply disturbing, beyond anything I have ever read or heard. If you want to know exactly what he did to his victims, you can read about it in the Wikipedia link in the credits. I hope y’all understand why I am choosing not to share these details. If not, read what he did and I think you’ll see why I made this decision early on. I will say, as a Christian, an eternity in hell is too good for this monster.   Corll killed his first known victim, 18-year-old college freshman Jeffrey Konen, in September of 1970. Jeffrey vanished while hitchhiking from the University of Texas to his parent’s home in Houston. He was dropped off alone near Corll’s home and was offered a ride, which he evidently accepted.   Brooks led police to his body at High Island Beach in August 1973. Forensic scientists said that he died of asphyxiation caused by manual strangulation and a cloth gag being placed in his mouth. Jeffrey’s body was buried under a large boulder, covered with a layer of lime, wrapped in plastic, naked and bound. The position suggested that he had been sexually assaulted. ----- Around this time, Brooks walked in on Corll sexually assaulting two teenaged boys he had strapped to his four-poster bed. He offered Brooks a car in exchange for his silence, the boy agreed, and Corll bought him a green Chevy Corvette. He later admitted to killing the boys to Brooks and offered him $200 ($1,437 today) for each teenaged boy he brought to him. On December 13, 1970, Brooks lured two Spring Branch 14-year-olds named James Glass and Danny Yates from a religious rally being held near Corll’s apartment. James was an acquaintance of Brooks who had been to Corll’s apartment before. Both boys were strapped to Corll’s torture board and raped, strangled, then buried in a boat shed Corll had rented in November.   Six weeks later, Corll and Brooks met Donald and Jerry Waldrop as the brothers walked home. The boys were lured into Corll’s van and driven to his new apartment where they met the same fate as the previous two boys. They, too, were buried in the boat shed.   Between March and May of 1971, Corll abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered 15-year-old Randell Harvey, 13-year-old David Hilligiest, and 16-year-old Gregory Malley Winkle. All three were buried in the boat shed. Brooks was involved in all three of their disappearances and deaths.   Of course the family members were searching for their missing sons along with the boy's friends. A lifelong friend of David named Ruben Watson Haney was one who was putting up missing posters in hopes that David would be found alive, not knowing it was already too late.   Brooks invited Haney to a party at Corll's new apartment on San Felipe Street in August. Sadly, he met the same fate as his friend.   Corll moved to another apartment in the Heights in September of that year. Brooks admitted to killing two victims there just before a second boy was recruited to assist them. These two victims have never been identified. ----- In the winter of 1971, Brooks introduced Elmer Wayne Henley to Corll. He probably intended Henley to be the next victim, but Corll liked the boy and told him that he was the head of a "white slave ring". He offered Henley the same deal he had made with Brooks, but Henley turned him down. At first.   In early 1972 he accepted, saying that his family was in a severe financial bind. Henley said the first abduction he participated in occurred after Corll moved in February of that year. He and Brooks lured the boy to the apartment with the promise of smoking some weed with them. Once there, Henley cuffed his own wrists behind his back and freed himself with a key hidden in his back pocket. Then he tricked the boy into handcuffing himself. Henley then left the apartment thinking the boy would be sold in Dallas. This victim has never been identified.   A month after that, the trio came across 18-year-old Frank Aguirre as he was leaving a restaurant. Frank was an acquaintance of Henley who called the young man over to Corll’s van. He invited him to come back to the apartment to smoke weed and drink beer, which Frank accepted. He followed them to Corll’s apartment in his Nash Rambler. Once inside, after smoking some pot with the others, Frank picked up some handcuffs on the coffee table. Corll pounced on him, handcuffed, and gagged him.   Henley said that he had not known Corll’s intentions when he had called Frank over to the van - he had just thought the man would be sold into sexual slavery. As if that wasn’t bad! In a 2010 interview, he claimed to have begged Corll not to do anything to Frank and that’s when Corll told him what he had done with his other friends who had been brought to the apartment. Henley helped bury his friend’s body in the boat shed and continued assisting Corll.   Corll continued to move every so often throughout 1972 and his number of victims continued to grow. — In 1973, he stopped killing for a little over four months because Henley had temporarily moved to Mount Pleasant and he had a hydrocele, a pocket of fluid building up in a body cavity.    When he started killing again in June, his murders became more violent and more frequent. On June 7th, William Ray Lawrence was murdered followed by Raymond Stanley Blackburn two weeks later. Homer Luis Garcia was killed on July 6th and John Sellars on the 12th. This continued until August 3, 1973 when Corll killed James Stanton Dreymala. — Henley invited 19-year-old Timothy Cordell Kerley to Corll’s Pasadena residence on August 8, 1973. Kerley, who knew Corll, accepted. Brooks was not there that night. They sniffed paint fumes until about midnight, when they asked to leave and promised to come back quickly.   They parked near Henley’s home when they heard a bunch of noise across the street, which was where his friend, 15-year-old Rhonda Williams, lived. She had been beaten by her drunk father and accepted the pair’s invitation to go back to Corll’s apartment with them.   They got back to Corll’s apartment at 3am and he was furious that they had brought a girl with them. Corll told Henley that he had, “ruined everything” which is when Henley told him what had happened to her. He seemed to calm down and offered the three beer and marijuana until they passed out.   When Henley awoke, Corll was handcuffing him and he was gagged and bound. He had been stripped naked. Corll shouted that Henley had blown it bringing Rhonda and that he was going to kill them “after he had his fun”. (In the audio you will hear Doc Holliday say, “I’m your huckleberry”. This is how I get notifications on my tablet so I did not add this in, it was completely random and unplanned. I left it because this is how he responded whenever someone threatened to kill him in the movie Tombstone. You’ll see why it’s fitting in a moment.) Henley promised to assist with raping and killing Timonthy and Rhonda if Corll would release him from his bonds. After thirty minutes of discussion, Corll agreed and gave him a hunting knife to cut off Rhonda’s clothes.   There was a fight and Henley ended the murder spree by shooting Corll six times with a .22 caliber pistol. He then called the police and told them what he had done. — Corll had killed at least twenty-eight boys and young men in three years with the help of Brooks and Henley. At the time, he had the highest kill rate of any American serial killer. To prevent being caught, at some point he started having his victims write letters to their families saying that they had run away and not to look for them, which worked. I only read about one parent who questioned the letter because her son had left in a bathing suit and she knew if someone was going to run away they would have more clothes on.   Brooks and Henley are serving their life sentences in separate Texas prisons, as they should. I know I didn’t go into great detail due to the nature of this case, but they didn’t just lure the victims to the apartment, they participated in the rapes, tortures, and murders. They were just as guilty as Corll. — This case was extremely hard to research and write due to the nature of it. As always, the links are below if you want to read what these three did to their victims or if you want to read all of the names of their victims.   If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter, I’m Aeryn Gray, or on our Facebook page, just search Southern Macabre.   Thank y’all so much again. I hope y’all have a wonderful safe weekend and I will talk to y’all again soon. God bless, y’all! Dean Corll - Wikipedia   The Legend of the Pied Piper (bookstellyouwhy.com)

Hey y’all and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I am so glad y’all are listening today. Before I tell you today’s paranormal story, I have a couple of announcements to make. First, Southern Macabre is officially a month old! It happened Monday, but I didn’t realize it until, well, let me make the second announcement. So, we are the #74 Independent True Crime Podcast out of 100 on Goodpods – that is because of YOU! So, thank YOU for listening and telling your friends about this podcast. I never would have thought anything like this would happen, especially not this quickly. Y’all are awesome and I love y’all! The problem with this accomplishment is I wanted something unique for this episode. Something unexpected. It took a lot of time, but I think it was worth it. Today I’m going to bring y’all down to my neck of the woods, kind of. Same state, just a lot further south. ----- Our story takes place in Mobile, Alabama, a fascinating city filled with rich history and beloved southern traditions. Did y’all know you can hop on a boat to watch the Moon Pie drop at the Moon Pie Factory on New Years Eve? Or that the very first Mardi Gras parade happened here and not in New Orleans? It’s true. Or that Carnival Cruise Line and Naval Ships are built here? You can see some of their daily operations from that boat tour I mentioned before. Speaking of ships, today’s story is about the 680-foot battleship, the USS Alabama BB-60 that rests in Mobile, Alabama. My family and I visited the battleship back in 2015, so I will post some of our pictures on the website and our Facebook page. Unfortunately, none of us experienced anything paranormal, but none of us were brave enough to go down the steep, narrow stairs. My oldest is clumsy, I was wearing my daughter in a baby carrier on my chest, and my husband…well, he has his reasons. Here’s a hint: Swannanoa. If you aren’t familiar with that episode, please listen to The Blue Dog Ghost after I get done telling you today’s story. We southerners don’t like being interrupted when we’re telling a story. The ship is awesome, and so is the military museum next door, so you should definitely visit if you ever get the chance. Unless you are physically looking at her, you can’t understand how enormous this ship really is! As we were driving up to her, we were impressed, but once we parked and started walking towards her we were awestruck! So, the USS Alabama was ordered in 1939 and was built at the Norfolk Naval Yard in Norfolk, Virginia. She was the fourth and last member of the South Dakota class of battleships built for the United States. She was launched on February 16, 1942 and sent to strengthen the British Home Fleet during World War II. Her primary use was to protect air craft carriers from surface and air attacks. After the war, she brought about 700 people home from the war zone. She was decommissioned in 1947 having never seen a casualty caused by enemy fire. That’s impressive! So, then, how is she haunted? We’ll get to that in a moment, I want to tell you more about her and her history first. Just be patient. When she was decommissioned, she was assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet until 1962 when she was set to be destroyed. A campaign to save her was launched and enough funds were raised that she was brought to Mobile to act as a museum. The USS Alabama had guns upon guns on board and a technologically superior radar system. She was designed well to do her job, protect our men so they could kill the bad guys. Anyway, on to the reason y’all are here. So, while she was being built, two men died and some people claim to hear them still working on her to this day. Also, I said no one was killed by enemy fire. I didn’t say anything about friendly fire. The guns onboard were supposed to have safety features that would prevent turrets firing on each other, but they failed and eight men died. People hear footsteps when no one is there and one visitor claims to have had her earring tugged. Spirits have been seen in the officer’s quarters and in the cook’s galley! At night, people have heard popping and banging noises and even heard the heavy steel hatches slam shut! I don’t know about y’all, but that would freak me out! Many claim to feel like they’re being watched and women in particular feel uneasy. It is dim inside, not dark, so I kind of attributed any weird feelings to that. Maybe I didn’t feel uneasy because I’m fat and guys in the 1940s weren’t into big gals. I should go back and ask! Unfortunately that’s all I could find on the ghosts at the USS Alabama, so let me tell you a quick tip right quick. If you are ever down in Mobile, after you tour the ship, go to Bluegill Restaurant. They have been in business since 1956! I don’t like oysters, they’re disgusting. I actually hate them. However, I love the grilled oysters with parmesan at Bluegill. You sit on this huge deck in the water, listen to amazing live music, get you a local craft beer, and it is heaven on earth. Seven years later I still remember that night like it was last week. ----- Surprise! Since that didn’t take as long as I like I’m going to tell y’all a bonus story today. Plus, y’all have been so good to me, I want to do something for you. So, we’re going to head back up towards Tuscaloosa and to McCalla, Alabama. There’s a museum, campground, etc. at this place called Tannehill. It is spelled T-A-N-N-E-H-I-L-L, but it is pronounced Tannehill. That’s your Alabama word for the day. Anyway, Tannehill is where they mined iron ore way back in the 1800s and the furnaces are still standing, even though the Yankees tried to destroy it during the Civil War! Before 1860, Tannehill was known for it’s cast iron. Woodstoves, pots, pans, etc. were made right here and sold all over the United States. During the Civil War, they made cannons and cannonballs along with other types of weapons. My husband and I went camping here in 2015 and set up our tent alongside the bubbling springs. Seriously, y’all have to come down here and see this! The creek bubbles like the water’s boiling, but it’s cold all year long! It’s the best thing in the summer because it provides some natural air conditioning, but it’s far better if you just get in it. Snakes and gators don’t like cold so you’re safe. It’s also shallow so you can let your little ones play in it. Anyway, we went to the Iron and Steel Museum, which is a lot cooler than it sounds. It is filled with the rich history of the area and Civil War facts that even I didn’t know growing up in Fredericksburg! Afterwards, we visited the General Store which is the best thing, in my opinion. It has a beautiful front porch and inside is like a real, old general store. You can actually buy flour and corn meal that’s ground on site. As you make your way to the Ironworks, you’ll see four or five old cabins from the 1800s. They were brought to Tannehill, restored, and are used as shops for crafters on weekends. I bought a beautiful handmade quilt for $40 here! There are also weavers, glass/metal carvers, etc. So, at the top of the hill, you will see the massive stone Ironworks. I’m not sure how tall it is, but my son who is 6’5” tall looks like an elf standing beside it. We, of course, spent a lot of time looking around before hiking into the woods. We didn’t get to finish our hike, I think it was getting dark, so we went back to our tent to fix dinner. It was October so nights were chilly compared to daytime and we forgot our air mattresses. I cuddled up with my daughter, who was a year old at the time, in two of our camping chairs. I had my upper body and her in one with my feet in the other.. It started storming in the middle of the night, but I went back to sleep. As I was sleeping, I heard a deep gravelly voice say in my ear, “Yought not hold dat baby dat away, y’gonna hurt it’s little neck”. I woke up quick and my daughter was dangling off the chair, head first. I may have been dreaming and maternal instincts kicked in, but it still creeped me out. I resituated her, but I was wide awake. For those of you who don’t have kids, she was fine. I’ve seen them dangle off the sides of their own beds like that and wake up happy. My neck would kill me for a week. Anyway, around 4:30AM the storm got worse and my husband woke up because the ground was rumbling. I don’t remember it happening in Virginia, but down here when it thunders it can feel like a minor earthquake – especially in a tent or in a trailer. That’s when I heard chains rattling and an old iron gate creaking open in the distance. I woke my husband who was angry at first, but when he saw the lightning, he decided we should probably get out of the woods. Remy was already awake so I got him and Baby Girl into the SUV while hubby got the tent. I watched him smoking as he carefully pulled the tent stakes and put them in a bag. Then he paused and looked off to where I had heard the chains rattling and the gate opening. Y’all, he nearly swallowed his cigarette before picking up the three-room cabin tent and throwing it into the back of our SUV! It still had the tent poles in it! He leaped in the car and sped away screaming, “You weren’t kidding! I heard the gate!” ----- Fast forward to last year. We took my mom up there because she’s never been and we had told her how awesome it was so she really wanted to go. As long as we weren’t camping because she doesn’t do tents. It was the last weekend for the craft fair so we started at the amazing museum, visited every cabin, and hiked to the ironworks. We took a lot of pictures that day and we all had the best time. We decided to pick a hiking trail and complete it this time. I have a special affection for old cemeteries so I really wanted to see the old slave cemetery, plus as a homeschool mom I thought it would be a good opportunity to teach my kids American history. No one would go with me because that trail is longer and it was getting dark in a couple of hours. Lame. So, we start hiking and the farther in you go, the denser the trees get making it darker as you get to the middle of this trail. That’s when I started hearing Mr.Ballen from YouTube in my head. “They were just your average family, heading into the woods of Alabama to enjoy a serene, beautiful hike. They had no idea what awaited them on this fateful day”. Yes, I said it out loud like that, only my husband laughed. The rest were on edge. When we got close to the end, I realized we had just walked around the backside of the campground, which made it less creepy. We came off the trail at a “Y”. Straight ahead was the biggest craft fair I have ever seen in my life, but to the right – Y’all, it was an old metal gate with a chain through it that had been deadbolted. I’m not even kidding. My husband and I looked at it, looked at each other, and started laughing. My mom looked over, too, and laughed saying, “Well there’s your old metal gate!” ----- Is Tannehill haunted by workers who died mining iron ore and soldiers who were killed defending the ironworks? Probably, but I don’t think we really heard them opening a gate to go to work. It was probably a living employee opening the gate to drive up the access road. Now I actually want to go camping up there again, but we have a dog who can’t be left alone and who doesn’t hike. He’s either a pit bull, an American bulldog, or some combination of the two. He prefers food and naps over strenuous activity beyond five minutes a day of tug-o-war. If you’re wondering, his name is Kimber and he’s the best dog we have ever had. I will tell y’all about him in a bonus episode when we reach 25 reviews on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods. ----- Thank y’all so much for tuning in today – I appreciate each and every one of you! If you want to read this transcript, you can go to www.southern-macabre.com. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter, I’m Aeryn Grey. Our Facebook page is just Southern Macabre. I hope y’all have a great rest of your week and I’ll be back Friday with a true crime story. God bless, y’all!   Credits   USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park USS Alabama (BB-60) - Wikipedia The 8 Most Haunted Places in Alabama | Haunted Rooms America Historical Park | Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park | United States (tannehillstatepark.org)

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I am so glad you could join me for Missing Person Monday. I’ve got a crazy episode for you today and I would love to read your comments. I was planning to tell you about five or more cases like I usually do, but this case took hold and so I’m just going to tell you about Ms. Audrey Alta Moate today. ----- Audrey Alta Moate, age 31, was picked up by her “friend”, 46-year-old Thomas Hotard, at a café near Laplace, Louisiana. She rode with him in his blue, four door 1953 Nash Rambler until he parked about five yards from Lake Pontchartrain. One of them had brought along a picnic basket for their weekly Saturday meetup. They both worked at Kaiser Construction Company in Gramercy. Thomas lay the front seat down until it met the back seat, forming a bed. Then the two spread out a sleeping bag and pillows, making a cozy spot in the back of his huge car. A hunter saw the two of them in the backseat that morning, startling Thomas, but didn’t think much of it at that time. You see, it was 1956 and Thomas Hotard, Sr. was married with two children and Audrey was a divorced single mother with three children herself. One child, Jacqueline, was actually their child. No one knew this until after November 24, 1956, though. So, Thomas told his wife that he had to work every Saturday so the two of them could spend time together. A different hunter than the one who had seen the two of them that morning, passed by the car that afternoon. He saw a man, “sleeping in a strange position” in the backseat and noticed the rear passenger door was open, but he didn’t check it out. He decided to just go home. The next morning around 10:30, the first hunter started to pass the car again, but he decided to stop and investigate. He found Thomas laying on the sleeping bag and pillows. He had been shot through the rear window with birdshot and had been dead for 7-30 hours when he was discovered. He still had his wallet with his ID, a credit card, and a small amount of money. They found the partial contents of a woman’s purse, a woman’s clothing, a woman’s shoes and Audrey’s eyeglasses inside the car. Small footprints, like a woman’s bare feet, lead from the car to the woods nearby. They were spaced far apart, indicating that she was running. Let me take a moment to break this down for y’all. So, they’re both in the backseat, she’s naked and he probably is, too, when someone presses a shotgun to the back glass and pulls the trigger.  She probably realized quickly that Thomas was dead and fled – not caring that she’s as naked as a newborn baby. She tries to run, but this person is wearing boots and catches her before she can get away. Okay, so some of this is speculation, but they did see a set of men’s boot prints behind her bare ones and a single tire tread – like a motorcycle would make. Also, there was evidence of a struggle five feet away from the car. This was where police discovered the keys to Audrey’s 1949 Oldsmobile, which was still parked at the café where she had met Thomas the day before. So, this is the time Thomas and Audrey’s family tell police that the two were only friends and Audrey’s mother brings up that a couple of years prior, Audrey had gone to Missouri because of a nervous breakdown. In fact, she was living in an apartment one mile away from her mother in Baton Rouge. She gave birth to Jacqueline at a local hospital, naming Thomas as the baby girl’s father. She told her mother a year later that she had adopted a one-year-old in Missouri while recovering from her nervous breakdown. We know all of this because Audrey had Jacqueline’s birth certificate in a safe deposit box, which police gained access to seven years after Audrey’s disappearance. Audrey’s two older children went to live with their dad’s mom, Norma O’Reilly Moate, in New Orleans. Jacqueline stayed with Audrey’s mother in Baton Rouge. Two weeks after Audrey disappeared, on December 6th, a woman called Norma. She said, “Mom, this is Audrey. I’m in very bad trouble and I need help.” Norma reportedly asked where she was, but the call was cut off. Police were never able to verify if it was Audrey, but Norma knew it was because she recognized her California accent and Audrey always called her mom. The call was traced by police to the French Quarter of New Orleans. They canvassed the area with pictures of Audrey, asking if anyone had seen her. A couple of servers at Café Du Monde said that they had seen a woman matching her description the day before Norma received the phone call. The woman looked rough and had ordered coffee with donuts, but left before she finished eating. This is actually why she stood out them, because she didn’t eat all of her food. For those of y’all who don’t know, Café Du Monde is almost a religious experience. They are world renowned for their coffee with chicory and their beignets. This is in no way a paid advertisement; I am not getting anything for telling y’all any of this. If you can, go visit New Orleans and stop by Café Du Monde, they have ten locations in and around the city. If you can’t get down there, you can buy their coffee and beignet kits on Amazon, I’ll include a link in the description below. The next day, according to a housewife in New Orleans, a woman who looked like Audrey came to her door asking about a room for rent and to use the phone. She invited Audrey to stay for dinner with her and her husband, which she did. The housewife stated that woman gave her name as either Mrs. Moate or Mrs. Moore, she wasn’t sure because of her accent. She also said that her mother lived in Baton Rouge. Police didn’t believe Audrey was involved in Thomas’s murder because she had a savings account and her last paycheck was in her purse. I’m guessing they assumed that because she hadn’t cashed it before she met up with Thomas that morning. Her paycheck and purse weren’t found at the crime scene. They also interviewed George Moate, Sr., Audrey’s ex-husband. He said that the divorce had been amicable, and he hadn’t seen her since it was final. He had a solid alibi, so the police kept looking for who killed Thomas and where Audrey went. ----- Two and a half years later, in March 1959, Frank Martinez was fishing near Frenier Beach while his wife, Leonie, sat in the car. A man fired a .38 pistol into the car window, wounding Leonie in the shoulder. She pressed the car horn and Frank ran towards the car, scaring the man away. The Martinez’s were able to get the license plate number and an hour later, police arrested Edmond Joseph Duhe. He had actually been one of the people who volunteered to help find Audrey when she went missing.  When they searched his house, police found a large collection of pornographic pictures, over a dozen sex magazines, fifty lipstick applicators, and five purses. They found even more purses in the trunk of his car, including a cloth black one that looked like the purse Audrey carried. Duhe admitted to shooting Leonie and was able to lead police to the pistol he had used and threw out of his car window. He said that he didn’t have anything to do with Thomas’s murder and he didn’t know where Audrey was. He also admitted to owning a shotgun in 1956, when Thomas was murdered, but had lost it by the time he was arrested for shooting Leonie. He failed two polygraphs regarding the case. He was never charged and it’s not clear if he’s still a suspect. ----- Before his death in 1980, Ernest Acosta told relatives that his late wife, Caroline Schloesser Acosta, had killed Thomas and Audrey outside their home in 1956. They lived less than a mile from the crime scene. Ernest claimed to put Thomas back in his Nash and drove him back down to Frenier Beach. Then he and his wife had put Audrey’s body in a metal fish trap until people stopped searching for her. The next day, they stuffed her body into a nine-foot Civil War cannon and sunk it in the swamp. To me, his story doesn’t match police evidence. If Ernest drove the car back, then how did Audrey’s things end up where the car was parked? Why was the back glass shot through? I don’t know what Ernest was hoping to accomplish, taking credit for an old murder, but I don’t think he did it. Ernest’s daughter, Caronna, went to police with the story in 1989. Only one thinks that Ernest did kill Thomas before raping and murdering Audrey, he just thinks he either lied or embellished how he did it. ----- There is a memorial for Audrey in Oregon, where her mother moved with Jacqueline after her disappearance. It describes her as, “a woman before her time” and I would have to agree. Think about it, in 1956 most women were married with at least two kids and didn’t leave the house unless she was running errands. Here’s Audrey, a beautiful, independent divorcee in New Orleans, Louisiana taking care of her three children, working a fulltime job, and having an affair. I’m not condoning the affair, but I’m guessing that her being different from most other women in the area, maybe seeming a bit exotic, may have been what attracted Thomas to her. Unfortunately, it may have also attracted the wrong person’s attention. I will post pictures of Audrey on our website and Facebook page, but to me she looks like a movie star from that era. She definitely would have stood out in a crowd, in my opinion. ----- Thank y’all again for listening today – you are awesome! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods. You can read today’s transcript at southern-macabre.com and also see pictures of Audrey. If you would like to reach me, I am on Facebook and Twitter as Aeryn Grey and the Facebook page is Southern Macabre. We also have a Patreon page, that link will be listed in the description. If you think you may know something, please call the Saint John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office at (985) 652-9513.   Audrey Alta Moate – The Charley Project   Audrey Alta Smith Moate (1925-1956) - Find a Grave Memorial   Café Du Monde Gift Box on Amazon   Southern Macabre Patreon Page

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I’m so glad that y’all could join me for True Crime Friday! Today’s case is crazy and it took me a long time to actually find information about it, even though I know this case well. Stick around for the surprise ending!   -----   It was July 2, 2006, which was a Sunday. My husband and I were going to a small Baptist church in Sperryville, Virginia with a couple of our friends who were newlyweds. I worked with them in Shenandoah National Park and my husband and I would spend every evening with them. Anyway, as soon as we parked, we heard murmurs about a murderer on the loose in the area.   A man had gone crazy and stabbed his roommate to death at a house in Sperryville that morning and fled into Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah National Park is massive and the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, runs through it. Many people said that he was headed straight for Elkwallow Wayside, off Skyline Drive. Skyline Drive is part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a scenic road with beautiful overlooks and waterfalls that stretches for hundreds of miles. Now for those unfamiliar with Elkwallow, it’s a gas station, convenience store, gift shop, and lunch counter heading north on Skyline Drive. It’s not a big building and it’s remote. You will see more deer, bears, and squirrels than people when you take a right instead of heading straight towards Skyland Lodge and Big Meadows Lodge.   Seriously, if you dream of seeing black bears, this is the place to go. Just remember that you can’t touch the adorable cubs or Mama Bear will eat you. There’s a trail that starts at the edge of Elkwallow’s parking lot and I remember one day a group of hikers ran in, slamming the door behind them. They were oohing and ahhing over three cubs when they noticed mama on the other side of the trail, putting them in the middle. That is not where you want to be!   Getting back to our story, the two friends I mentioned worked with me at Elkwallow at the time so we were on high alert. We pretty much stayed inside unless we needed the restroom, which was on the other side of the parking lot by the gas pumps. Fortunately, that’s where my friend’s husband worked so he kept an eye on things for everyone.   We were all wondering if this “kid” would turn out to be a serial killer and who his next victim might be. Should we stop hikers from entering the woods? Or maybe close the Park down until this madman was arrested? It was terrifying!   With it almost being Independence Day, there were a lot of hikers and campers in the area. Some knew about the murderer in the woods, but we warned several who didn’t. The crazy thing was, that none of us knew what the guy looked like, we just knew he was like a nineteen-year-old kid who had lost his mind. The four of us were young, basically broke, and preferred to have beer and gas money over TV. All of our information came from others who watched or read the weekly newspaper.   Within a few days, we heard about a naked, wild man living off squirrels and road kill off one of the hiking trails near Elkwallow. Several hikers told our manager who would call the ranger’s station, but the man was gone by the time they got there. There were K-9 units, helicopters, FBI agents, U.S. Marshalls, and the Park Rangers all searching for this guy from day one.   It seemed like a lot of time passed, but I think it was actually that Wednesday when the manager of Elkwallow, Mike, was making his rounds outside and found a knife on the ground. I had the day off, but my friend said the assistant manager stood guard over the knife while Mike went inside to call the Rangers. The knife was bagged by law enforcement, but the man still wasn’t found.   Just down the mountain lay the small town of Luray, known for Luray Caverns. There’s not much there except Walmart, the Luray Zoo, and some antique stores. It’s about two hours from Washington D.C. so a lot of Northern Virginians retired there at the time.   Anyway, it was around this time that rumors began spreading that this murderer was seen around Luray and even at Walmart. He always seemed to disappear before law enforcement arrived. This wasn’t too surprising considering the cops made front page news when all of them parked at the 7-11 at the same time. In all fairness, not much happened in Luray so it wasn’t really as big of a deal as the newspaper made it out to be.   Elkwallow was closed after 5:30PM and on Sundays. If I remember correctly, that’s when the crazed murderer was arrested near a hiking trail, one week after he had run into the woods.   -----   This story was really hard to research even though I remembered so many details. I asked our friends who worked with me at Elkwallow and they didn’t even remember it! Was there some kind of cover-up? If so, how far had they gone to bury this blemish on a tiny community who thrives on tourism?   The answer is far simpler.   You see, when things like this happen in small towns (and probably everywhere else, to be honest), people speculate and pass their assumptions off as fact. Then the person who hears their speculations forms their own and tells someone else. It’s like the game “Telephone”.   People love to feel like they have some kind of “insider information” and storytellers thrive on embellishing the truth. It’s not lying. It’s taking a decent or good story and making it memorable. I think that’s what a lot of people did in this case and what I’ve seen happen in many others.   Plus, let’s be honest, we southerners love a good conspiracy theory.   Now I’m going to tell you what really happened according to newspapers and court documents. It’s still a crazy story without all of the fluff, but the fluff did add excitement and intrigue, honestly.   -----   Washington, Virginia, better known as Little Washington, is a small community in Rappahannock County. It’s filled with large Victorian and Colonial houses that wealthy and famous people visited regularly. Honestly, it looks like Main Street in Walt Disney World, but it may be a little prettier. Especially at night when the street lamps are lit.   Way back in a holler near Little Washington, early on the morning of July 2, 2006, Ira Wayne Cloniger was drunk in his truck. He had just pulled into his driveway and sent his friend, Edward C. Fletcher into his home to wake his pregnant girlfriend. Then he passed out in his truck. Instead of waking her, Fletcher raped her.   After the rape, she ran out to Cloniger’s truck screaming, waking him. She told him what Fletcher had done and in a drunken rage, Cloniger ran inside and stabbed Fletcher to death. Then, while Fletcher lay dying and gasping for air, Cloniger kicked and peed on him.   Then he ran into the woods surrounding his house that happened to be Shenandoah National Park. Elkwallow was about ten miles northwest (at the most) from his house. It wouldn’t have been an easy hike, that’s the Appalachian Mountains and there weren’t any trails near his house.   Cloniger wasn’t a kid either. He was 46 years old when he stabbed his friend and eluded police for nearly a week.   We never learned if the knife was the murder weapon or even if it belonged to Cloniger, but it’s still a crazy story. Am I right?   I don’t doubt that hikers saw a man in the woods, but I do doubt that he was naked in a forest filled with thornbushes, venomous snakes, etc. Unless it was that first day and he was washing the blood off of himself. There wasn’t any mention of him being nude in anything I read while researching this case.   Also, Luray is a long way down another mountain so I doubt he went down there for any reason and then ended up back at Elkwallow. Cellphone reception was spotty at best in that area back then, so he couldn’t call someone to give him rides.   The part about him eating squirrels in the woods is plausible. You’re not going to survive a week without food, especially when you’re constantly moving in the mountains. I’m not sure how he would catch them, but a lot of people in the hollers were skilled at making traps out of almost nothing and he had a knife.   He was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for pre-meditated murder. He has been appealing stating that you can’t plan to murder someone when you’re intoxicated. So far, the judges in Virginia have stood by the original ruling. Which is probably a good thing since Cloniger has a history of violence, including multiple charges of assaulting a police officer. Most of them include DUI and drunk in public charges.   -----   I told both parts of this story to demonstrate why I try to stick to facts when I tell y’all about a case. Once rumors get mixed in, they become fact in people’s minds and that can really hurt an investigation. Cloniger may have come into Elkwallow and we would have never known because we were looking for a nineteen-year-old   It's okay to speculate, wonder, and let your imagination run wild. However, it’s best not to spread rumors in an open investigation. I chose this case because it has been solved and Cloniger admitted to stabbing Fletcher, but he denies kicking or urinating on him. Here I’ll speculate that if the Commonwealth’s attorney entered those details into evidence during the trial, they’re probably true.   -----   There’s another case from the area that is heartbreaking, but we’re going to start with the urban legend. Going west on 211/Lee Highway from Sperryville through Luray, you will come to a small parking lot with a sign for the Storybook Trail. It’s about 2,000 feet above sea level and there are round rocks where you can sit and read, listen to music, or listen to the sounds of nature. It’s a serene, majestic place.   School children would whisper about the murders there before the 1980s, including a man who killed his children by pushing them off the ledge. Ghost stories centered around the secluded half mile trail abounded. Highwaymen who robbed and killed their victims in the 1800s lurked in the dark forest along with other boogeymen-types.   There were also stories of suicides reminiscent of the Japanese Suicide Forest. You know, police going up there to remove victims discovered by hikers regularly. The first time my husband took me up there he was surprised that the Suicide Prevention Hotline signs were gone. I wonder if they were ever really there.   ----   Oddly, the only documented murder occurred on August 2, 1999.   Daniel Lee Zirkle, age 31, had just gotten out of jail for assaulting his girlfriend, Barbara Jo Shifflett. He allegedly told another inmate that he was going to kill her and her two daughters, four-year-old Christina M. Zirkle and fourteen-year-old Jessica L. Shifflett.   He went to their home in Rockingham County, Virginia, about 21 miles from Storybook Trail, when Ms. Shifflett was at work and the girls were home alone. He stabbed Jessica in the neck and kidnapped his biological daughter, Christina.   On his way to Storybook Trail, he called his estranged girlfriend at work to tell her what he was doing. When he and Christina got to Storybook Trail, they walked out to the overlook together and that’s where he killed her. With both girls dead, he cut his own throat. His suicide plans were foiled, however, because he survived and was arrested.   Zirkle was executed by lethal injection in Virginia on April 2, 2002. He asked to be executed for what he did and apologized for his actions before he died.   I remember my husband taking me up there and telling me this story when we were dating. It was daytime and the trail was still creepy. Don’t get me wrong, I would go back if we still lived in the area, but that doesn’t change the feeling that you’re being watched. Honestly, up there a half mile into the woods, it’s probably deer.   -----   I’m not saying that Zirkle was inspired by an old urban legend to do what he did, but the fact my husband heard a similar story a decade before can’t be overlooked. I personally don’t think he took Christina up there because she loved it, but I could be wrong.   I tried to find more information about why he chose that overlook, because there are several that are closer, but I couldn’t find any. My husband’s theory is that he was having second thoughts once he realized what he had actually done and what he was planning to do.   Also, if you’re wondering why my husband would take me up there on a date to tell me scary stories, well, we’re both a little weird. Now that we’re farther south he thinks it’s hilarious to drive me out into the swamps at night. We’ve been together eighteen years now so it doesn’t even scare me anymore.   If I ever do go missing, though, look into him first.   -----   Thank y’all so much for joining me today! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Goodpods so others can find us. If you want to see pictures of Elkwallow Wayside and Storybook Trail, visit the website. Also, be sure to join me again for Missing Person Monday. I hope y’all have a fantastic, safe weekend!     Southern Macabre   713cv00046.pdf (uscourts.gov)   CLONIGER v. CLARKE | Civil Action No. 7:13cv00046. | 20130403776 | Leagle.com   j._coleman_clips_-_cloniger_murder_trial.pdf (weebly.com)   Building the Devil | Worldview Weekend Broadcast Network   Daniel Lee Zirkle #766 (clarkprosecutor.org)   Man who killed 2 executed in Virginia - Washington Times

Hey, y’all and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and today I have a very special guest joining me. I’ll let him introduce himself and today’s free sponsor. [Remy introduces himself and ItsRemyTime on YouTube] ----- My husband and I bought our first piece of land and our first home shortly after our first child was born. Our credit was horrible and we didn’t have a lot of money, so my parents helped us with a small loan. I found a 1986 trailer with two bedrooms and a bathroom in our price range, but it had to be moved. It took weeks, but we bought a half-acre of land exactly where we wanted to be, the middle of nowhere. We got the trailer moved and setup on our land, but we were responsible for hooking up the electricity and water, which took months. It seemed like everything was working against and we couldn’t figure out why. We both got an uneasy feeling from the trailer at the beginning, but we had already paid for it and I felt anything was better as long as we were in our own home. One Saturday when my husband was running the electrical from the pole to the trailer, I was inside “piddlin’”. Remy was with his grandparents. I went outside to check on Hubby and he was not in a good mood! I happened to notice a little metal plate on the side of the trailer and the build date was ten years prior to when the seller said it was built. For those wondering, our state doesn’t require titles once a vehicle or trailer reaches a certain age. The trailer was supposed to be a 1986 so we just got a bill of sale. Instead it was a 1976 which meant the electrical in the walls was old and the insulation had fallen down into the walls. We called the seller and a lawyer, but we were basically told that if we wanted to fight and sell the trailer back we could. The problem was we may never get our money back and we would have to live with family again. We love them, but that wasn’t working for any of us. It took five months, but we were finally able to move in. The trailer ran north to south so all of the windows faced east and should have provided tons of natural light, which they did. Except the “master bedroom” at the back. It stayed dark no matter how bright the sun shone and required the light be turned on during the day. Weird and unexplainable considering there were no large trees or bushes around the trailer. Also, the closet in our room gave me the creeps, I felt like someone was hiding in there, so it stayed empty with the door closed. Or at least I tried to keep it closed. It seemed like every time I closed it and left the room, it was open again. Adding to its creepiness. ----- So, we moved into the trailer in March of 2008 and we were excited to be in our own place, but we already had a bad taste in our mouths over this trailer. Not long after we moved in, I literally fell through the kitchen floor because the seller put new linoleum over a rotted subfloor. This was when my husband learned how to build from a good friend who helped him put in a brand new, solid subfloor. Then I got to pick out new flooring, which was awesome. This was when I started to love our little place. We had a dog at the time, a rescued mutt named Ronnie. He was my child for three years until Remy came along so in 2008 he was only four. He loved going outside to play with the neighbor’s dog, but he didn’t like the trailer much. He was about 25 pounds and loved to run up or down the hallway and slam into us, causing us to fall. He didn’t do this to Remy, just me and Hubby. He would also trip us to get to Remy if he so much as whimpered. He rarely left his side and would wake him when he was sleeping, like he was making sure he was okay. Ronnie died in June of that year because of a freak accident. Not long after we buried him out back, I was going to the master bedroom and I felt him slam into me! Of course, I hollered at him, then I remembered he was gone. I sat in the floor and cried. This happened a lot! After Ronnie was gone, it seemed like the trailer became “active”. Hubby and I would stay up late watching TV and we would see shadows in the hallway. Sometimes we would hear small footsteps, but never saw anyone. Remy would be in bed asleep. Remy had this walk behind toy that played music when you hit the buttons. After he went to bed, almost every night, it would light up and start playing music. We took the batteries out and it still happened, but only at night. That is, until Hubby buried it out back. I think it was around this time that my idiot self decided to try something. I was alone in the master bedroom and I said out loud, “What happened to you?” I didn’t hear anything, but I felt a cold, metal circle pressed to my forehead and a second later the back of my head hurt unlike anything I have ever felt. I never asked any more questions. ----- In 2009, my husband was bored at work so he logged into the work computer to watch YouTube. For some reason he clicked on an article about the FBI’s top ten most wanted. He was scrolling through pictures when one stood out to him, so he clicked on the photograph. The man had murdered three women in a trailer in the small town where we bought the trailer. When? 1986! Remember when I said we were told the trailer was a 1986, but it was actually a 1976? That stood out to him so he told me about it. I found a newspaper article from 1986 and there was our trailer on the front page with the headline, “Triple Homicide Saturday Night” or something like that. I started shaking. These three women were shot to death by their friend so he could steal their car. He has never been found; in case you’re wondering. It seemed like all my husband and I did was fight after this and that fueled the ghosts. We saw more shadows, heard more weird noises, and our stuff started getting moved. I left with Remy and didn’t plan on coming back. Hubby decided that he would remodel the trailer while I was gone, thinking that may get me to change my mind and come back. He tore up the carpet first and y’all won’t believe what he found in our bedroom. The carpet from 1986 was under cardboard under the brand-new carpet. It was an ugly yellow shag carpet with brownish copper stains. One of them was huge! Can you guess what it was? Blood! Old blood. It was right under our window and looked like the victim had fallen out of our closet, the one I refused to go in. When he took down the closet walls, he found a small bullet hole in the wall inside the closet that lined up with the blood. I promise y’all, it was the exact size of what I felt pressed on my forehead! ----- Once the trailer was gutted, I went home to finish the remodel. It felt lighter at first and it seemed like it was going to be fine. We put down new linoleum throughout and bought some new furniture to make it feel like home. ----- A few months later, things got worse. Instead of shadows and noises, the three of us started having nightmares. I'm talking sitting up in the bed screaming nightmares! All three of us. Remy, do you remember that? So, at this point, we wanted out. An awesome neighbor gave us a house that had to be tore down in exchange for us visiting her church. Not a bad trade, am I right? It was even better because we loved the little church and the ten people who went there. The house was huge, but it was built in the late 1700s into the 1800s was the wood was hard. Hubby was having to replace circular blades almost every day! This meant that we didn’t get as much building material as we would have liked, but he was happy because he wanted a tiny house. It didn’t take long to finish the 12 foot by 12 foot house with a loft and I loved it! It was super cute and it wasn’t haunted. The nightmares stopped immediately, even though we were right behind the trailer. I guess they couldn’t leave? The size was fine because we couldn’t get pregnant or, the two times we did, I miscarried as soon as I found out. Do I blame trailer? Yup. At least the stress it caused. We were barely in our new house when our new pastor decided to retire from one of the two churches he was preaching at. He and his wife were raising their grandchildren so we decided to let them live in the trailer for free. ----- Of course, they knew what we had gone through so they knew what to expect. It was soo much worse! Kevin, our preacher, was epileptic, but he started having more seizures. Liz said that she would rebuke the spirits, but it didn’t work. This was when we started questioning them. Then their daughter, Jess, moved in. She was in her twenties, but wore all black and always wore a five-pointed star bracelet. I asked about it once and she said it was for protection, but she denied being anything other than a Christian. You know that polite Southern smile and nod? That’s what I did. A few weeks later we noticed the inside of the trailer was darker and Kevin was complaining about weird swirly portals in the walls. It turns out that their daughter had taken a Ouijia board into the back bedroom and made contact with something. Liz hung crosses over all of the doorways and Kevin blessed the trailer, but things were getting worse. He quit preaching and they moved about a month later. ----- They lived in the trailer for about six months which was enough time for me to get tired of climbing a ladder to get into bed. We moved back in and the trailer actually felt lighter, if that makes sense. I thought that the blessing had worked. No. ----- It didn’t take long for the nightmares to come back, but that wasn’t the worst part. We had three cats. Charlotte looks like a grey Siamese, Bonnie was a grey long-haired kitty, and Elvira was black with a white spot. The first time I saw the new black cat, it ran down the hall and disappeared. I assumed it was Elvira because that beat the alternative. I saw it several times out of the corner of my eye and I asked Hubby if he saw it. He thought I was crazy! Until he was looking for his shoes under our bed and saw two golden glowing eyes staring back at him. It was the black cat! He called it Elvira, but it vanished right in front of him! The worst instance was when I was washing dishes in the afternoon. That was the weirdest part, we never saw this thing at night – only during the day! I had finished washing dishes and I saw Elvira sitting on the dining room table, which was in the kitchen, and decided to pet her. Mainly to make sure that it was Elvira. When I turned around, there was the second black cat staring into the living room! This was the only time I ever got to study it. It was solid, like a real cat, not wispy or anything. After a moment, it turned and saw me staring. Its eyes got huge, y’all, and they were a weird shade of yellowish gold. It jumped up and ran through the living room wall into Remy’s room. I ran outside and sat on the front porch, shaking my head and saying, “Nope!” over and over again. ----- We decided to sell the trailer when it started messing with Remy. He was asleep in his bed when scratching on his bedroom window woke him. He looked outside and saw a man-sized bush with glowing eyes staring back at him. We didn’t have bushes or trees anywhere near the trailer! He peed his pants and ran to our room where he proceeded to bang on our door, but we didn’t hear him. Hubby woke up and ran when he heard Remy sobbing in the living room. He told him what he saw and we decided it was time to get rid of the trailer and do something else. The problem was that we wanted to tell a buyer about the ghosts, but then we would probably never get rid of it. ----- The next day I was helping our neighbor clean when she told me her cousin was about ready to fall through the floor in her trailer. My friend was concerned because her cousin was 70 years old and legally blind and deaf. My husband and I justified our decision to gift our trailer to her with, “she probably won’t hear or see the ghosts anyway”. We weren’t that lucky. This lady claimed to see a shadow man on the other end of our trailer and heard him calling her name, but it didn’t bother her. It turns out that she was lonely living by herself and she befriended the spirits. This made her cousin happy because it meant she didn’t bother her so much, but she didn’t believe her about the ghosts. She never mentioned the cat or the creepy plant man. I don’t know why she never had any issues, but I am grateful. I have often wondered if it was because one of the victims was older and didn’t want to scare her. ----- That’s going to do it for today. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, follow, and leave us a review on Goodpods and/or Apple Podcasts. Also be sure to visit ItsRemyTime on YouTube and like and subscribe there. I appreciate y’all listening and I will talk to y’all again Friday! Have a great week and stay safe.   ITS REMY time - YouTube

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! My name’s Aeryn and I’m so glad you decided to listen today. Today’s Missing Person Monday is different because we are talking about victims of a serial killer who have never been found or haven’t been identified. For those who don’t know, Samuel Little confessed to murdering 93 people all over the United States between 1970 and 2005! More than 60 of his confessions have been matched to victims through DNA evidence and/or extensively corroborated interviews. Little had a photographic memory and could accurately describe his victims and where he met them. I will be reading Little’s descriptions of his victims and they’re not always flattering, but if he saw them that way others may have as well so I’m including it. I would never refer to a victim as ugly, fat, etc. However, his dates and physical locations can be off by more than ten years and forty miles. Keep this in mind as I tell you about the victims who have still not been named and whose families still don’t have answers. He was adamant that he never shot or stabbed his victims. He claimed that he strangled them, but prosecutors say it was more like suffocation because the hyoid bones weren’t fractured or broken. Multiple victims' ​deaths were misclassified in autopsy reports and listed as drug overdoses or natural deaths. All unmatched murders occurred between 1970 and 1997. If you have any information, please call the Texas Rangers or the FBI. Their numbers will be in the credits at the end of the transcript.   Due to the number of cases, I’m only going to talk about the ones from the south, but there are a lot in other states as well. Little drew pictures of many of his victims and they are on the Texas Department of Public Safety website. Just scroll down to Florida if you want to see the victim’s I talked about today. Or you can scroll the entire website.   -----   We’re going to start with Little’s missing victims in Florida. The first victim was not using their legal name and may have used several names, which is why I put their name in italics on the blog and transcript.   In 1971 or 1972, Little claimed to have met an 18 or 19-year-old, good-looking, African American man in Miami. He said he was about 5’6” to 5’7” tall and weighed around 140 pounds. He said the man presented himself as a woman and was wearing women’s clothing. This individual asked Little to call them Marianne. Little first met Marianne at a bar called the Pool Palace near 17th Avenue in Miami, Florida.   Marianne allegedly told Little that they had an ex-boyfriend named Wes. Little said that Marianne lived with several other “drag queens” between Brownsville and Liberty City. When they arrived at the apartment, one of the roommates asked the two of them to pick him up a can of “Magic Shave” shaving cream. He was a transvestite with a long, hooked nose like a hawk. The roommates called this individual “Billy”.   The pair got back in Little’s gold four-door Pontiac and headed down Highway 27 until he pulled over in a driveway and choked Marianne to death in his car. He drove Marianne into the Everglades where he drug the body 200 yards into the thick muddy water. Little didn’t believe the body was ever found.   Later he stated Marianne hung out with a long-necked transvestite and he knew the person from the county jail. He claimed to have seen this person with Marianne at a bar on “Second Avenue”.   -----   In 1971 to 1972 or 1978 to 1979, Little stated he met an, “ugly dark-skinned Haitian woman” in Miami. She was between 26 and 28 years old, between 5’6” and 5’8” tall, and weighed around 120/130 pounds.   Little described her hair as being in a knot-style, “platted up”, short, “kinda braided”, and “straight…stiff”.   He couldn’t remember if he picked her up walking the street or at a bar, but he was sure he met up with her in Homestead. Little described the woman as a “big mouth rough talking…little, black, skinny girl” and “not feminine, but just a hard-working woman.” He also said she was tough. He believed she was a civilian employee, possibly a janitor, at the Homestead Air Force base, but also worked as a prostitute.   Little said that he took her into the woods on base. He left her in some weeds near the main road and believed someone would have found her.   -----   This African American woman was killed by Little in the early to mid-1970s. He described her as a “fine little pretty yellow girl” who was 23/24 years old, was 5’6” tall, and weighed 130 pounds. Little said that she was a prostitute who “had big legs” and wore a skirt with red heels.   He claims to have met her at Pool Palace on 17th Avenue in Miami, like Marianne. This woman had a University of Miami ID card and Little thought her name was Emily or something similar. He drove her down Highway 27 to a dirt road in the Everglades where there was trash, blankets, and mattresses laying along both sides of the road. Little claimed that he started fighting and wrestling with the woman and she hit him in the mouth. That’s when he snapped, hit her a few more times, and then strangled her to death.   Little dragged the woman out of his vehicle, onto a trash pile, and put a mattress over her body. He threw the woman’s purse/wallet into a nearby field with tall “elephant grass” in it.  He said a white man observed him discard the woman’s belongings, and he never heard of her body being found.   -----   Little stated in the summertime of approximately 1984 (or possibly 1990 or 1991), he killed an African American woman in Fort Myers, Florida.  He described the woman as being 26 to 28 years old, between 5’ 6” and 5’ 7” tall, and weighing 130 to 160 pounds. He said she had dark brown skin and a nice body.  Little stated he first met this woman two years prior when he and “Jean”, his long-time companion, used to go to her family’s house.   Little believed the woman he killed was the daughter of the woman he and “Jean” used to sell clothes to.  The woman lived with her mother (and possibly other family members) down the street from a liquor store.  Little stated he and “Jean” were staying at a hotel downtown when they sold clothes to the woman’s family.  On the day he killed the woman, Little saw the African American woman outside of a liquor store on Nelson Street “with the shorts on and nice looking…clean and nice looking…”  He said she was “mad about her husband or somebody.”   He said that the woman got into his vehicle and he took off and found the first [grass] island he could find around there, wooded area, and he thought the railroad tracks were around there, by a little section of cleared grass. Little stated he had anal sex with the woman and then manually strangled her to death.  He stated he left the woman right there in the island with the woods right next to it. He stated that he was careful not to run over her,  just backed out real careful, and left her right there in Fort Meyers, Florida. In the county somewhere.  Little stated it was “not that far” from Fort Meyers, “right there, just out in the suburbs, it wasn’t that far.”  Little later stated that he lit the woman’s pubic hair on fire.  ----- In approximately 1977 to 1978 (or possibly 1983 to 1984) Little met an approximately 23-year-old, 5’ 5” tall, 140 to 160 pound, short “chubby” African American woman in a bar in Clearwater or St. Petersburg, Florida.  He was driving a black Ford Thunderbird at the time.  Little stated the woman had a dark complexion (described her skin as “leather colored”) and was dancing in a bar when he met her.  He said she was wearing “some sexy shorts,” but wanted to go home and change. So, he drove to the woman’s residence so she could change clothes.    When Little arrived at the woman’s residence, she took her shorts off and put on a black skirt. Little stated “about five of her little siblings, sisters and brothers come running out” yelling his name “Sam, Sam.”  The woman entered Little’s vehicle and he told her that he was going to “Lakeland.”    He drove the woman to a beach, where he got his vehicle stuck in a barbed-wire fence and sand.  Little stated several “white boys” who were drinking beer helped get him out of the sand.    Little drove the woman to a grassy/wooded area not far from the beach with railroad tracks nearby, possibly outside of Tampa heading to Plant City.  Little stated when driving, he first saw buildings, and then saw vegetation.  Little drove the woman to “an island of grass, round, with a curb around it.” Little stated he “found this grassy lane…some grass and woods back over there…and we parked…I know there was a railroad track that run across this one…cause I’m looking right at the train go by. I waved when he went by.”    Little stated he dumped the woman “right there on the spot… by a railroad track, outside of Tampa heading toward Plant City.”  Little stated the woman was wearing “that bad…tight mini-skirt, and a blouse, and left her [underwear] in the car.” He started to keep them for a trophy. Little strangled the woman then left her body near railroad tracks, on the grass, out in the open.  Little believed this area was in the city limits of Tampa, possibly within a mile of downtown. Little stated that after he killed the woman, “I backed up and hit the highway.” He said that he drove through Plant City and arrived in Lakeland. Little also stated when he discarded her body that she had a skirt on “but it was way up over her waist, I think she still had her blouse on, think she was fully clothed, but I might have had her [underwear] off.” He said that he drug the woman by her arms.  He believed he left the woman lying on her back with her arms up over her head.  He said that he left this woman in the city limits of Tampa, possibly within a mile of downtown. Little stated he drove one to three miles from the beach to a wooded area in Tampa.  Little stated there were railroad tracks near the wooded area.  Little stated he could “hear the train” from the location he discarded the woman’s body.  ----- That’s all of Little’s unidentified victims in Florida, so now we’re going to head north to Georgia. The first unidentified victim was in Savannah around 1974. She was between 19 and 23 years old, 5’5” to 5’6” tall, and weighed between 140 to 150 pounds. Little described her as “thick with big thighs, dark skinned, and a pretty face”. He believed she was originally from Savannah and that she may have had mental problems.  Little met the African American woman at a restaurant in Savannah and she brought him to her house in a neighborhood near the Salvation Army, where she lived with a 40-year-old female that “chewed snuff”. The woman lived in the upstairs of a two-story residence, and Little spent the night there with her.  She showed him pictures of herself and another man near a pier and on a boat. The next day, he drove the woman to a park.  He referred to the area as an “island, with roads on both sides.” Little stated he had sex with the woman and choked her in his vehicle. He stated the woman was dazed but did not die.  He then walked the naked woman into the park/ grassy area and choked her while she was standing.  Then she became dizzy and fell to the ground. He stated “smoke” was coming off the woman’s body.  This, to me, sounds like it was cold out at the time. Steam usually forms when hot meets cold, like your breath on a cold morning or night. He immediately left and drove around the park.  When Little returned to where he left the woman’s body there was a red car there, possibly a police vehicle. He said he wasn’t sure whether he killed the woman or not.  He stated she called him “Cain” or “Kane.” He thought her name was “Katherine,” “Kat,” or “Jane.”  He may have bitten her. ----- In approximately 1981, Little stated he killed a woman in Atlanta, Georgia.  He described the woman as an African American female with “mahogany” skin the color of “leather.”  She was in her late twenties to late thirties, stood approximately 5’ 6” to 5’ 9” tall, weighed 130-160 pounds, and wore “shorts made to look like a dress.” For those too young to know, those were called culottes and they were very popular back in the day. He danced with the woman in a bar on Auburn Avenue, and he believed she was having problems with her boyfriend.  She agreed to leave with him, but didn’t want anyone to see them leaving together.  He went out to his vehicle, a 1967 Lincoln Mark III, and a few minutes later, she came over to his car and sat on the front right fender and began crying.  She eventually got into his car, after she looked around to make sure no one saw her get in. Then she laid down so no one could see her.  She directed him to I-75 and he headed south into the county.  Little didn’t think he drove very far before exiting the highway onto a side street that was under construction.  He described the road as “wide but lonesome…there wasn’t no houses, nothing but trees on the road, right off the highway.”  He followed the road until it dead ended and then parked in an area with woods on both sides of the road.   Little stated he choked the woman and that she defecated all over herself and inside his vehicle.  Once he was sure she was dead, he carried her body across the street and laid her down in the grass about ten feet into the woods.  He said that he left her clothes on and her eyes closed “like she was asleep.”  He then went back to his hotel and used a bucket of soapy water to clean out his car.  The manager of the hotel was wearing an Atlanta Falcons hat and approached him to ask what he was doing. Little said he thought he got disinfectant from the man. ----- Around 1984, Little killed another woman in Atlanta, Georgia. At this time he was driving a big, green station wagon. She  was African American, approximately 22-25 years old, “slim and tall,” standing 5’ 9” tall and weighing 120-130 pounds.  He met her at a quiet bar on the corner of Auburn Street in Atlanta.  He remembered when he entered the bar, she was sitting in a booth.  He thought the woman told him she went to college and was angry because something had happened in college. After he had murdered her, he went through her wallet and found her student ID for what he thought was Morehouse College.  He “made a date” with the woman, and they left the bar and hit the highway “way out” until he exited onto a little dirt road surrounded by canals.  He strangled her in his car, but then his vehicle would not start.  He said that a “white boy in a hot rod” gave him a jump start, then he drove a long way down a side road next to the main highway.  The road led into the woods, ran adjacent to a canal, and was so narrow that two could barely go past each other.  There weren’t any houses in that area at the time.  He placed the woman’s body in the canal, and he thought she fell into the water.  Little said, “it wasn’t like she was floating down the river, she hung up on something down there, they probably seen her the next day.”  Little believed she was still wearing her dress and that he threw her “boxy” purse into the water with her. ----- Next, we’ll head west to Louisiana. There are only two victims here who have not been identified. Little killed an African American woman in Monroe, Louisiana sometime after 1987.  He had taken a Greyhound bus into town and stayed at a shelter downtown for two or three days.  He stole meat from a supermarket in Monroe and sold it in an area the locals called “the embankment.”  This area was across the street from a large graveyard and near some railroad tracks.  He described the woman as being 20-24 years old, standing 5’ 6” – 5’ 10” tall, weighing between 150 and 160 pounds, and being “yellow” or light-complected. He said the woman was a prostitute who worked for a madam named “Mammy Wae.”  He took the woman to a hotel where she signed her name on the hotel registry for either room number 8 or 9. Unfortunately, he didn’t remember her name. The next day he convinced her to go with him into a wooden shack/garage across the street from a McDonald’s and just down from the big graveyard.  He said the garage was near a bus stop, and approximately one mile from the bus station that was located in the county on the outskirts of town.  The garage was locked, so they had to crawl through a dog door to get in.  Inside the garage were paint supplies, ladders, and tools.  Little stated he strangled the woman to death and left her body inside the shed.  He said that he left the woman’s body on the floor of the garage between several ladders, and “bit her” causing her to bleed.  A day or two after he killed the woman, he saw yellow crime scene tape around the garage, so he immediately headed out of town.  When he returned to Monroe a long time after, he noticed the garage had been torn down and the area was now a vacant lot.  He stated they were in the process of tearing down a lot of buildings, but the McDonalds was still there. ----- In approximately 1982, possibly in the autumn, Little met an African American woman in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He described the woman as approximately 30-40 years-old, 5’ 8” – 5’ 9” tall, weighing 160 pounds, having “honey-colored” brown skin and medium-length straight hair.  She was wearing a “pretty dress” with buttons in the front.  Little met the woman in a club where she was attending a birthday party with a friend who he described as a small, light-skinned “Creole girl.”   While at the club, he met the woman’s sister (she may have had more than one) and several of her friends.  He remembered that while dancing with his victim, he saw her sister dancing with another man.  The sister left the party with a man at the same time he left with the woman in his vehicle, a Lincoln Continental Mark III. She told Little she lived with her mother, who was sickly and possibly an invalid.  She then gave him the keys to her house.  He drove her to the “Little Woods” exit where he turned down a dirt road along a canal that was being cleaned out with heavy equipment.  The couple exited his car and he pulled her towards the canal.  There, he held her face-down in the water, choking her while sitting on top of her back.  Then he left her body there with her head in the water and her body on the water’s edge.  She was still wearing her dress, but it was pulled up.  Immediately after killing the woman, he drove back to his motel off of U.S. Highway 90 in Pascagoula, Mississippi.  Shortly after, he realized that he still had the woman’s keys, so he threw them on top of his motel. ----- Between 1980 and 1984, or possibly the late 1970s, Little met a “pretty, dark skinned” woman at a bar in Gulfport, Mississippi about two blocks from Highway 49. At this time he was driving a black Ford Thunderbird. The woman was between 22 and 25 years old, she was “short but wide with pretty legs [and a] pretty body” who was between 5’3” to 5’5” tall, and weighed 120-130 pounds. Little said that she was soft spoken, “sophisticated”, “clean, and intelligent looking” with a “beautiful personality”. While he was parked outside, the woman approached his car and asked if she could get in. He thought she had argued with her boyfriend because she was angry. Once inside his car, she asked him if he would take her to get something to eat, so he drove to a restaurant on Highway 49 and bought her dinner. Afterward, he drove down Pass Road toward Biloxi. When they got to the Jitney Jungle supermarket, he made a right toward the ocean. If you’re not from Mississippi, Jitney Jungle was a supermarket that started in Jackson, MS way back in 1919. They went bankrupt in 1999 and Winn-Dixie bought them out. Anyway, then Little drove a few blocks until he came to an isolated area where the grass was cut low, possibly a park. He strangled her there in his car and drug her to “an island of grass encased in concrete. Little said that she carried a butcher knife that fell out in his car. He put it point-down in the ground beside her until it disappeared. He believed she was wearing a blouse and a skirt. ----- There is only one unknown victim in Mississippi and this is the only one not recognized in South Carolina. She was killed by Little in Charleston either between 1972-1973 or 1977-1982. He had his black T-bird still and he described the African American woman as having a large “bubble butt”. He picked her up near the military base, possibly at Gate 7 where there were a couple of bars. She was 28 years old, 5’5” to5’6” tall, and 150 pounds. He drove her south on a road close to the city, possibly Highway 1, to a field with a concrete or an asphalt circle around it. It may have been a helicopter landing pad. He thought there was an abandoned hospital next to it. He strangled her and drug her to the tall grass near the pad. He left her face down with her dress pulled up. ----- This is our final story for today. In January of 1975, Little met an African American woman in Knoxville, Tennessee. He said she was 25 years old, about 5’5” or 5’6” tall, and weighed between 120 and 130 pounds. She was “medium sized” with “golden colored skin” and short “non-afro” style hair. He met her in a neighborhood, near or at a graveyard. Possibly around 4th Avenue. He drove her to a road that ran around a deep gully that was overgrown with trees and weeds. There may have been old refrigerators, stoves, and other trash as well. This sounds like a landfill to me. He thought it was within half a mile of Vine Street. He strangled her and rolled her body into the hole. He thought she was wearing pants and a blouse. ----- As I said at the beginning, Little drew pictures of many of his victims and they can be seen at the link in the description. That’s also where you can find the contact information for the proper authorities if you recognize any of these stories or if you look at the pictures and think you recognize one of the victims. ----- Well, y’all, that’s going to do it for today. If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to like, follow, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts I appreciate each and every one of you and I can’t wait to tell you a true ghost story on Wednesday. My teenaged son will be joining me so you won’t want to miss it. I hope y’all have a wonderful, safe week. Talk to y’all later!         Credits   Texas Rangers [email protected] or 1-512-424-2160   FBI 1-800-CALL-FBI or tips.fbi.gov   New Details Released in Unsolved Samuel Little Murders | Department of Public Safety (texas.gov)

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I’m so glad that you could join me for True Crime Friday. Today we’re going to talk about the victims, and possible victims, of a southern serial killer. You may remember I mentioned one of his possible victims two weeks ago. If not, that’s fine because I’m going to talk about her again today. ----- The National Park Killer was Gary Michael Hilton. He was born November 22, 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was arrested January 5, 2008 and is currently waiting to be put to death in Florida for his crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison in North Carolina and Georgia. As I said, he was born in Atlanta, Georgia and the earliest account we have of him is when he was thirteen and he shot his stepfather, Nilo DeBag, in the abdomen. I triple checked that that was his real name cause I wasn’t familiar with it in that sense. Anyway, Hilton was sent to a mental institution when his stepdad didn’t press charges. Understandably, his mom didn’t want him in the house when he got out so he went to live with Dawn and Mark Jeffers. I think they were foster parents, but I couldn’t find anything to confirm or deny it. When he was about seventeen years old he enlisted in the Army where he got his GED. Different sources say different things. One says he was a paratrooper while another says he was part of a small group in charge of a specialized missile that would kill all of them if it was ever used. Either way, it was during his Army career that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a military mental hospital. Afterwards he was honorably discharged. Between his discharge and 2008, he was arrested for drugs, theft, possession of a firearm without a license, and DUIs, but never served time. He also got married, and divorced, three times. He was arrested in 2008, bringing his killing days to an end. Hilton had a higher-than-average IQ of 120, and he either had attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Different sources say different things, but he was on Ritalin for the disorder. For those who are not familiar, ADD is often classified as the inability to focus, but most people with it actually hyperfocus. We’re the best multitaskers you will ever see. ADHD is like ADD, except you tend to be more energetic. You might drum your fingers on the table or tap your foot while listening to a lecture, as an example. I’m bringing these things up because they were a part of Hilton, but he didn’t commit these crimes because of this disorder or even because of the Ritalin. His untreated schizophrenia may have played a part, but he has never blamed that. I haven’t found anything where he has ever said why he did what he did, but maybe it doesn’t really matter. I know a lot of people are interested in the psychology behind serial killers, or there wouldn’t be so many documentaries about it. ----- Hilton’s first victim was Rossana Miliani. She had traveled from Miami, Florida to Cherokee, North Carolina on vacation in December 2005. She was 29 years old at that time. She spoke of hiking the Appalachian Trail and spoke to her father that day. She then went to Bryson City, North Carolina where she rented a small storage unit. In 2009, a store clerk saw an article about Rossana and remembered selling her a backpack around the time she disappeared. She remembered seeing a man appearing to be in his sixties with her and she appeared nervous. Hilton told the store clerk that he was a traveling preacher, which is what made him memorable to her. Hilton resembles the sketch a private investigator made and according to Murderpedia.org, Hilton admitted to beating Rossana to death. Police have evidence that he used her debit card after she went missing. Unfortunately, Rossana’s body has never been found. ----- On December 1, 2006, Hilton came across 46-year-old Cheryl Dunlap reading beside her car near Leon Sinks, Florida. She was a nurse and a Sunday school teacher. She was reported missing the next day when she didn’t arrive at church to teach her class, something she never would have done. He used her ATM card on December 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, withdrawing money each time. This told detectives that the masked man knew Ms. Cheryl’s pin number. Her body was found in Apalachicola National Forest by hunters about two weeks later. She had been decapitated. ----- On October 21, 2007, 80-year-old John Bryant and his 84-year-old wife, Brenda, went hiking in Pisgah National Forest located in western North Carolina. The couple were avid hikers living in Horse Shoe, North Carolina, about ten miles away. They parked their maroon Ford Escape at Yellow Gap Road near US-276. Their family members reported them missing after not hearing from them for two weeks. A search party was organized and police gained access to the couple’s cellphone records. Irene had tried to call 911 the day the couple went missing. The search party located a woman’s body covered with leaves on November 10th. She was found on the Barnett Branch Trail. Suspecting it may be Irene, they sent her body to Chapel Hill where it was determined that she was Irene and she had been bludgeoned to death with a blunt instrument. Since this was now considered a homicide carried out on federal land, the case was handed over to the FBI. They quickly offered a $10,000 reward. At the same time, the Bryant’s debit card was used to remove $300 from an ATM in Ducktown, Tennessee. Ducktown is about 130 miles from Pisgah National Forest. The surveillance cameras at the ATM showed an older man wearing a rain jacket obscuring his face. John was still considered a missing person, possibly kidnapped by his wife’s murderer. On February 3, 2008, a hunter accidentally discovered a skull in Nantahala National Forest. It’s between Pisgah National Forest and Ducktown. After calling the local deputies, they found a spine and pelvis about twenty yards away. They would later be identified as the remains of John Bryant. ----- I’m going to mention Michael Scot Louis, but I don’t think he was killed by Hilton. A fisherman discovered Michael’s dismembered, decapitated body on November 21, 2007 at Tomoka State Park near Ormond Beach, Florida. Hilton was deemed innocent because of DNA according to a source I will link below. I think his girlfriend, Nelci Tetley, is a more likely suspect because about eleven years later she did the same thing to another boyfriend. She was arrested and charged with murder when she allegedly cut up her 55-year-old boyfriend, Jeffrey Albertsman. She left his head and torso in his house to be discovered by his friends who called law enforcement. Both men had similar cuts and stab wounds on their bodies. ----- On New Year’s Day of 2008, 24-year-old Meredith Hope Emerson arrived at the entrance of Blood Mountain in Georgia. She lived in Buford, Georgia. Meredith grew up in Colorado and loved to hike, so she was experienced. Unfortunately, there was no way for her to know Hilton was camping at Blood Mountain. Multiple hikers saw Meredith and her dog, Ella, walking with Hilton and his dog. One source said that she was trained in martial arts and fought Hilton for as long as she could. Unfortunately, he was trained in hand-to-hand combat and was able to subdue her. Hiker, Seth Blankenship, stumbled upon the crime scene where Hilton tried to abduct her. There were two water bottles, dog treats, a silver hair barrette, sunglasses, and a police baton. Once Hilton had Meredith captive, he demanded her banking pin number many times. She gave him the wrong number every time, prolonging her murder. Three days passed where Hilton attempted to withdraw funds using her debit card, but each time he was unsuccessful. Hilton claimed that she fought him for four days before he finally killed and decapitated her. At this time, Hilton attempted to get cash from his contacts, including his former employer, John Taber. He threatened to kill Mr. John if he didn’t give him $10,000 so Mr. John called police. Other sources say Mr. John had seen the news, which is what prompted him to call. He described Hilton and his 2001 Chevy Astro van to them. Police traced the call to a Huddle House in Marble Hill, almost sixty miles from Blood Mountain. Soon the local news featured Meredith’s abduction and a good Samaritan called in stating that they had seen Hilton and his van at a gas station. He was throwing away evidence when police arrived. I know my fellow animal lovers are wondering about Ella, Meredith’s dog. He turned her loose and she was found in a Kroger parking lot. After murdering Meredith, he couldn’t bring himself to kill her dog, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he didn’t hurt the dog, but it strikes me as odd when he didn’t have any regard for human life. ----- I don’t think Hilton started killing people at the age of 59 years old, I think that’s when the first murder occurred with enough evidence to convict him. He was a drifter who spent a lot of time in the national parks after he was discharged from the Army. Many in law enforcement also think he started much earlier, but stopped covering his tracks as he got older. If he did commit other crimes, I hope he confesses before he runs out of time. I find it interesting, and suspicious, that in 1995 he produced a movie called Deadly Run. It’s about a Georgia man who abducts attractive females and flies them to a secluded cabin. Once there, he releases them into the woods where he hunts them and murders them. It’s not exactly his MO, but it’s close enough that it makes one wonder. ----- I want to thank each and every one of you for listening today. If you’re interested in true crime and the paranormal then you have come to the right place. I talk about true crime every Monday and Friday. Wednesdays are strictly paranormal stories. Be sure to tune in on February 2nd because my son and I are going to tell you about a haunted trailer we used to live in. If you enjoyed today’s episode please like, follow, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. I can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and southern-macabre.com. You can also email at [email protected]. If you would like to support my endeavors, you may do so via Buy Me a Coffee. ----- Microsoft Word - Hilton, Gary Michael.doc (radford.edu) Gary Hilton - Wikipedia Gary Hilton And The Grisly Crimes Of The National Forest Killer (allthatsinteresting.com) The Haunting Crimes Of Gary Michael Hilton | Talk Murder To Me Rossana Miliani – The Charley Project Nelci Tetley: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com Gary Michael Hilton- The National Forest Serial Killer – Hometown Horrors (wordpress.com)

Hey, y’all, and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and I am so glad you’re joining me for Paranormal Wednesday. Today’s episode is a story my husband has told for years, much longer than we’ve been together. I am going to do my best to describe this place to you, but since I can’t do it justice there will be links to pictures and video tours. Honestly, I don’t think pictures and videos can do a place like this justice. You have to visit a place like this in person to see just how incredible it is. I’ve never been there myself, as I already said, but it’s definitely on my bucket list. ----- I think most of us interested in the paranormal are also interested in the history of the place that is supposedly haunted. If you’re not into history then you’ll just have to bear with me for a few minutes while I entertain those who are. Don’t skip because I’ll also be describing the palace in as much detail as I can. You see, once a “house” has 52 rooms it is no longer a house. It is a palace, a lavish abode the average millionaire can’t even afford. Major William Dooley, a millionaire lawyer and financial genius, was an executive with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company. He and his wife, Sally, had a home built near Richmond in 1886 that combined Romanesque and Queen Anne architecture. That home, a 12,000 square foot, 33 room mansion was named Maymont and it is open for tours in 2022. Maymont was one of the first homes in the area to have central heat, indoor plumbing, telephone service, and an elevator in the 1890s! Around 1904, the childless Dooley’s decided to build a summer home somewhere quieter than Richmond. Major Dooley purchased land on Afton Mountain and began building the palace that would be Swannanoa. Swannanoa is an Italian Renaissance Revival-style mansion completed in 1912. It reportedly took 300 artisans eight years to build the structure with Georgian marble imported from Italy, a 4,000-piece Tiffany window crafted in Ms. Sally’s likeness, and terraced gardens. It cost Mr. Dooley $1 million then to build the elaborate palace. Today it could cost as much as $50 million! Ms. Sally named the estate for a Native American tribe. It means, “Land of Beauty”, which is certainly fitting of the palace as well as the area it dominates. The palace is 21,215 square feet with twelve bedrooms, seven full baths, and two half baths. There are 52 rooms in total. The taxes run about $22,000 every year; in case you were wondering. This means their vacation home was nearly twice the size of their regular home! Not only is the exterior marble, but so are the walls, floors, and fireplaces inside this 52-room mansion. The red marble is my favorite as I imagine it must have been Ms. Sally’s. She adored swans, so you will find them throughout the house and gardens as well. In addition to this, the home had electricity and air conditioning in 1912! These things were unheard of in the area at that time when most people were lucky to have indoor plumbing and not require shoes and a flashlight to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. The Dooley’s had their own power plant on site! There was also an elevator and a dumbwaiter used to bring food from the kitchen in the basement up to the first floor. The Dooley’s were extremely generous and upon their deaths, Maymont was given to the City of Richmond to be used as a museum, $3 million was donated to an orphanage, and when Ms. Sally passed she donated money to build the Richmond city library in her husband’s memory. ----- Swannanoa wasn’t made into a museum like Maymont, probably because it was so secluded. Several attempts were made to turn it into a country club, but those plans were dashed when the Great Depression struck the area. There is a golf course there today, however. It was bought by Dr. Walter Russell and his wife, Lao, in the early 1940s. Twenty years of weather and vandals had all but ruined Swannanoa, the couple had visions that would not be deterred, however. Dr. Russell was a sculptor, painter, architect, composer, author, philosopher, and doctor of science. Lao was an author, philosopher, sculptor, and scientist. Together they formed The University of Science and Philosophy where Dr. Russell lectured that all knowledge should be self-discovered and not taught. The direct opposite of what was being done in the nation’s schools and universities at that time. Dr. Russell’s theories were very similar to the mysterious Illuminati’s at that time. Dr. Russell’s theories and Lao referring to herself as an Illuminist, propelled rumors that Swannanoa was the new home of the Illuminati, a highly secretive group who has been orchestrating world events since 1776. ----- Swannanoa had fallen into serious disrepair by the 1990s and lots of local teenagers would sneak up there for various reasons. I lived too far away, so I’m not talking about myself. My husband and his friends thought it would be fun to sneak up there between midnight and one in the morning with their girlfriends. Don’t worry, the statute of limitations for trespassing are certainly up, but my husband swears there weren’t any signs around the property anyway. He told me that there was a tree beside the house full of hanging cats and covered in symbols, which freaked him and his friends out. He decided to steer clear of the house and just headed through the gardens with the girl he had taken up there hoping to scare. Apparently, he and his dumb friends thought terror would lead to cuddling. Anyway, near the woods he found what looked like a grain silo made of marble.  That’s when he saw a faint blue light coming out of the woods. He said that he was just looking around, kind of on edge because they were in the middle of nowhere with an enormous creepy castle looming over them. He tried to act tough for the girl’s sake, but I know how that went. I go in haunted houses with him in October and he always follows me in. It’s hilarious to see this huge guy behind his smaller wife trying to hide. Back to our story, this is when he noticed a blue light. As his eyes focused, he realized it was a huge blue dog! So, of course, he ran. He ran past his friends and their girlfriends (I think he abandoned his date back by the woods with the dog) and hopped in the bed of the pickup truck. His friends, not knowing why he was running, piled in with him and waited for someone to start the truck. It's a good thing the truck didn’t start, or these five rednecks would have needed new britches. Needless to say, the girls were not happy and their plans for the evening were ruined thanks to that blue dog. When they went back, with new dates cause women are smarter, they saw a man in one of the windows. They asked around, but no one was living there at the time. Besides, he was wearing an old-fashioned suit and was somewhat transparent, so definitely not a new caretaker. ----- A local paranormal group went to Swannanoa to conduct an investigation, but were scheduled to leave around midnight to avoid disturbing the current owners. They reportedly got pictures of apparitions and recordings of voices. You will find their article in the credits. Supposedly, the current owner has seen Ms. Sally roaming the halls, but she prefers to stay on the third floor. That’s where her rooms were when she stayed at the palace and is where some say she passed. According to the current owner, she hated cats in life and none of his will go near the third floor. ----- If you are interested in haunted houses in Virginia, L.B. Taylor, Jr. has written outstanding books, including The Ghosts of Charlottesville and Lynchburg, where you can read more about Swannanoa. I have apparently read this story so many times that my copy opens straight to that page. If you would like to support my endeavors, you may do so via Buy Me a Coffee.   Swannanoa (mansion) - Wikipedia Swannanoa (virginia.org) Swannanoa Palace, Afton, Virginia - Colonial Ghosts https://youtu.be/r4GJjg-kJ7I - Tour of Swannanoa Maymont Mansion | Maymont Foundation

Hey, y’all and welcome to Southern Macabre! I’m Aeryn and today is Missing Persons Monday. Since it’s so dang cold in most of the south, I thought we would travel down to the Sunshine State, known for its citrus, Disney World, and the Golden Girls. I’m not going in any particular order with these cases and all of their pictures will be on our Facebook page like last week. There are a lot of missing people in Florida, about 1,600. Obviously I can’t talk about all of them in one episode, I wish I could. I chose eight cases where foul play is suspected and, at times, proven. Several of these cases are old, but they still have family waiting for answers. I pray that each of these, and all of the cases I couldn’t cover, are solved. ----- Yessenia Ivette Suarez, twenty-eight years old, and her two children, nine-year-old Thalia Ivette and eight-year-old Michael Elijah Otto, were last seen on October 22, 2013. She had gotten into a fight with her husband, Luis Toledo, that day and took the kids to her mom’s. It’s assumed that her husband, Luis Toledo, murdered Yessenia, Thalia, and Elijah that night. It is known that he murdered the three of them brutally and coerced a neighbor into helping him clean up the crime scene. He attempted to blame the neighbor for the three murders, but that didn’t go anywhere. He is serving a life sentence for murdering his wife and two step-children, but refuses to tell anyone where he hid their bodies. The four of them lived in Deltona, Florida, about thirty minutes north of Orlando. He may have sent a letter to a friend stating that he sent Yessenia’s body to Mexico, but didn’t hurt the children. However, he didn’t say where he may have sent them. If you think you may know something, please call the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. (386) 254-1537 ----- On August 20, 1974, Teresa Armanda Alfonso and Cynthia Gooding were dropped off at the Marathon Movie Theater in Marathon, Florida. They had planned to hitchhike to a party, but neither of them showed up. Teresa was twelve and Cynthia was sixteen. If you think you may know something, call the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office at (305) 296-2424 ----- Yalitza Garcia was last seen at work on July 2, 2009. She was twenty-four years old and lived in Deerfield Beach, in Southeastern Florida. When she didn’t show up for work on July 5th, her co-workers went to her apartment where her live-in boyfriend told them she wasn’t home. Her co-workers reported her missing on July 7th. Yalitza left all of her belongings in the apartment and her boyfriend used her credit and debit cards after she went missing. Yalitza was living with her boyfriend, Jason Allen, their young son, and Jason’s mother. Yalitza had just deposited a $20,000 insurance settlement in her bank. Jason admitted to withdrawing $1,400 himself. When police searched the apartment, they found a large amount of her blood in one room and evidence that someone had attempted to clean it. Her boyfriend was arrested and charged with first degree murder in May 2010. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2013. If you think you may know something, you should call Broward County Sheriff’s Office at (954) 321-4268 ----- Susan Basile was only twelve years old when she was abducted by serial killer, Gerald Stano, on June 10, 1975. She had just gotten off her school bus and was walking up a long, deserted road to her house. She usually had a friend with her, but was alone this day. Gerald claimed, in 1982, that he offered her a ride to the skating rink they both frequented and she climbed into his van. Once inside, he strangled her and dumped her body. Police looked in the area, but it has been built over. If you think you know where he may have left her, please call the Port Orange Police Department at (386) 506-5894 ----- Harry Lewis Israel would be about 108 years old now. He was 83 when he went missing on December 8, 1996 from his home in Pinellas Park. Pinellas Park is near Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Harry ran a storage unit, Hanson Trailer Storage, adjacent to his home. He had evicted a tenant for nonpayment around the time he went missing. His neighbors became concerned because he never stayed out after dark or spent even one night away from his home. There was no sign of forced entry, nothing was missing, and his car was in the driveway. His disappearance was deemed a homicide after police found his blood on a piece of carpet in his home. If you think you may know something, please call the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office at (727) 582-6200 ----- On August 17, 1996, Jefferson Blanton was found murdered inside his home in Myakka City, near Sarasota and home to the Sarasota Sea Lion Preserve. His live-in girlfriend, Linda Louise Fledderman, was missing and has never been found. Both of their trucks were parked nearby and Louise’s had her ID inside. There were no indications of a struggle, the doors were locked, and nothing was missing. Linda had left her four-year-old son with her sister that night and didn’t return for him. For years Linda was the primary suspect in Jefferson’s murder. The police tried to get a warrant for her arrest for murder, but there was insufficient evidence, so instead they got a warrant on the charge of deserting her child. Louise and Jefferson had a troubled relationship and police were called out for domestic disturbances many times in the eight years they were together. Both of them drank excessively. Jefferson was arrested once for assaulting Linda, but formal charges were never filed. Linda obtained a restraining order against him in 1993, but went back so it was dismissed. Investigators began looking into the theory that Linda is actually innocent and may have met with foul play herself. She had a stable job as a technician at L-3 Aviation Records and was a good mother. According to those who knew her she would never stay out of contact with her family. There was a man at the same bar on the same night named Larry James Parks who plead guilty to murder in 1999. He worked as a landscaper and he killed a woman and her two daughters. Then he sat nearby and watched police work the case. Police say they found his fingerprint in Linda’s car, but he has never been charged. If you know anything, or simply think you might, please call the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office at (941) 747-3011. ----- Dallas Clifford Basham was murdered by John Edward Ballas on February 27, 1984 at around 10PM. It was two days after he was released from jail on theft charges, John Bellas plead guilty and said he struck Dallas on the head with a hammer, bound him with copper wire, and transported him to Burks Rd Area, north of Clear Lake in Dade City FL, 33525. He then buried him in a shallow grave in an orange grove. He attempted to show police where he buried Dallas, but was unable to find him again. His reason was that he thought Dallas had “snitched” on him while he was in jail. If you think you may know where Dallas is, please contact the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office at (800) 706-2488 ----- I almost didn’t talk about this case because there aren’t any pictures of the man or much information. It broke my heart to the point that I felt I had to. I will keep looking for photos, but if you happen to be listening (or reading) please send me a picture so I can share it. Matthew Petterson was beaten to death and two men charged claimed to have put his body in a landfill. He was 21-years-old when he went missing September 24, 2000. He was white, 5’8” tall, and weighed 130 pounds. He had strawberry blond hair and blue eyes. If you think you may know something, contact Delray Beach Police Department at (561) 243-7888 ----- Bryan Dos Santos-Gomes was a baby, just six weeks old, when he was kidnapped December 1, 2006. It has been fifteen years and he has still not been found. Bryan’s mother, Maria de Fatima Ramos Dos Santos, and her friend, Janice Duarte, were waiting for a bus when a woman stopped and asked for directions. She then followed the bus until it stopped and the two women got off and she again asked for directions. She managed to convince them to get in her car and demanded $500. The woman eventually dropped the two women off and told them to wait ten minutes before calling anyone. Then sped away with Bryan. Maria and Bryan’s father, Jurandir Gomes Costa, are from a village in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Paid human traffickers helped them move to the United States, but both insisted that’s not why their son was taken. Bryan's parents admitted to their illegal status and to owing hundreds of dollars to the smugglers, but denied that this could be the reason their child was taken. Investigators now believe that this was a random crime and the perpetrator may have been looking for a baby after suffering a miscarriage. ----- A family is still hoping for answers after forty-six years. Margie Lee Phillips was dropped off at First Federal Savings & Loan in Fort Myers on April 22, 1976 by her boyfriend, Willie Lee Battles. He says he fell asleep while she was in the bank and when he woke up, the bank was closed and she was gone. However, bank employees said they never saw her and there weren’t any transactions on her account that day. Also, witnesses reported seeing the couple in her car heading north on US-41 . Investigators believe Battles murdered her, but they don’t have enough evidence to get a conviction. You can call Crime Stoppers at (800) 780-TIPS and remain anonymous if you prefer. ----- I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please like, follow, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Also, join me for Paranormal Wednesday and True Crime Friday. I love and appreciate each and everyone of you! It warms my heart to know there are so many people who care about the missing and victims of crime. If you would like to support my endeavors, you may do so via Buy Me a Coffee. Our theme music is the Power of a Heroic Epic Story by LesFM. -----       Credits Yessenia Ivette Suarez – The Charley Project Teresa Armanda Alfonso – The Charley Project Yalitza Garcia – The Charley Project Susan Basile – The Charley Project Harry Lewis Israel – The Charley Project Linda Louise Fledderman – The Charley Project Bryan Dos Santos-Gomes – The Charley Project The Doe Network: Case File 1949DFFL