America’s First Serial Killers

Warning. This episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. 1799 Mikasa and Wily Harp were in the midst of a notorious killing spree throughout much of the new country, the United States of America. The Harp brothers, as they refer to themselves as, are now part of the American frontier legend and folklore being called America's first serial killers.

Though much of their exploits are more fiction than fact, the harp brothers were indeed river pirates, thieves, kidnapers and murderers. They've inspired tales, stories, books and movie characters. But their crime spree left a trail of blood and terror wherever they went. No one was safe that crossed paths with the harps. This is a study of strange. Joy added in. This part. Trippy. Now, welcome to the show, everybody.

I'm Michael Mann. And I couldn't do a seminar because I laughed too much during it. And my guest today is trying to turn my podcast into an Acima podcast, which I would I would probably be more popular if I did that. So you have a good point. Popular. This is Amy Shark away or is that how you say that? We've been married for almost ten years and you still don't know how to pronounce it. She just gave away the secret. This is my wife, Amy. Sheila, everybody, welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's nice to be here. I feel like I'm having déja. Vu, but you are a little bit. So Amy was my first guest ever. When I did a test episode, I covered that Burmese island, which is an island that disappeared as a little fun test episode, and I still haven't released it. I will release it on Patreon. That is my plan. I was really good in it, so maybe you should just release my part of it. It would be better. You could come knocking a lot out. Of the whole thing. Just. Because my audio.

So the reason Amy is on today. Why is on today. Is I had a couple of people back out. So she's being very nice to come on my show. I'm not even second choice. No, you're probably not. Third, fourth, fifth. What number on the list was I? Maybe 12th? No, no, no. Not that far down. But the truth is, is that you don't listen to your husband's podcast or your husband's wonderful. Podcast where you. Because Amy famously does not like anything remotely somewhat scary or or suspenseful.

How would you describe your. I have a very active imagination. Images and ideas stick with me very, very easily. And so stuff that famously my my husband might say, oh, this is not scary. I will say, oh yeah, but it's I don't like having that image or that idea in my brain while I'm trying to go to sleep, basically, Right? It's that kind of thing.

And y you actually may be perfect for this episode tonight is because we will be dealing with subject matter that I would normally keep you far away from. Great. But these the two men we're going to be talking about, they're America's first documented serial killers. They are so horrendously bad that I need somebody on to kind of make fun of the situation and the people. We got to lighten this up a bit.

Before we dive into this, though, Amy, why don't you tell everybody about who you are and what you do? So so as much as you want to share, last time you were on to my test episode, I. Know and heard that. So it's not. Like no one heard it. But I did not do. Any of. That. I did not do a good job explaining the kind of things that you do. So I would love for you to explain. Explain yourself. Explain myself. Okay. Hi, I'm Amy Blurb and I am famously not into scary things.

In addition to that, I am an actress and I am also a life coach, so I help people make intentional change in their lives through the match trick of personal development. They go and at the end of the show I'll have you share places where people can find you and I'll have links in my show notes for everybody interested in that.

Yes. So today, Amy, as I already kind of started, we are going to be talking about America's first documented serial killers, which is an important distinction, because as long as there are humans, there have been serial killers. So these are the first documented American serial killers known as the Harp Brothers, which included the Kaja Harp. His he was nickname was Big Harp. And Wylie, who is known as little Harp. And you have a look of either confusion or, well.

I was going to call little harp. Well, I wrote it down as a little thing, and sometimes I. Read it. That says, Yeah, absolutely. Little. Harp. So like a lot of tales, I've I've been drawn to uncover on this show. The legend around the harp says kind of outgrown the reality, the fact the truth of the matter.

And in all honesty, this is the hardest story I've researched on my podcast so far because it is so much folklore and legend that it's actually it was just really tough to even figure out a timeline because there's so much contradictory kind of anecdotes and statements and names and times and stories. So what I've done is I've whittle it down to what I think is as close to the truth as we can probably get today.

I am happy to be wrong with that and listeners, if you are interested in the story of the Harp brothers and you've done your own research and you've done a lot of writing and reading and whatnot, I am more than happy to be wrong and I would love to learn more so you can message me at a study of Strange at gmail dot com and then let me know. Don't email me though. Don't don't want to. Know anything more. No, no she's she's not going to want to that is that is certain.

And while we're on that call to action I should also say that if you like the show and like these topics, please make sure to follow the podcast wherever you listen to, wherever you listen to follows, wherever you listen to podcasts. Amy is making me nervous and messing up tonight. You know, I just wanted to say you should also subscribe. Yes, you can. You can subscribe, but not everybody calls it subscribe anymore. That's what I learned.

Sometimes it's just a plus button and it just means like follow. But it's the same thing. That plus smash. That plus button, everybody. And if you really want to support the show, check out our Patreon where you can get additional exclusive content. All right. Like half hour later. So the harp brothers, their terror, the harp brothers, terror spread out across the new country of the United States because this tale takes place during and right after the Revolutionary War in the late 1700s.

And they committed crimes in Mississippi, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, amongst other places. And the terrifying thing about the Harp brothers is that it seems that they were drawn to violence. At least that's the way the tales are told. They weren't killing people to rob them. They were killing people just for the good old fun for. Fans. Labels. Yes. And every decision we know that they've made revolved around war, piracy, rape, pillaging, the pruning of hedges. And many small villages.

This delightful. So who were the harp brothers? It was. Tell me. That's what I'm about to do. Yeah. So Mikasa Harp, as I mentioned earlier, and wisely harp, sometimes you see Wiley's name is Willie. They were born in Orange County, North Carolina in the mid 1700s. And their story the way it starts is symbolic of the rest of their story, which is it's really hard to figure out what is the truth and what is not the truth, because they may not have actually even been brothers at all.

They may have been cousins, but told everybody that they were brothers. They always refer to themselves as brothers. However, a comment I heard from a present day descendant of the Harp family who's written books about them. He made a really good comment that I liked, which is that there's no proof that they were cousins and they called themselves brothers.

So unless there were proof that prove it, proof that proved unless there was proof that proved that they were cousins and not brothers, you kind of have to take them at their word for it, because there's just no evidence that they were cousins at all. It's just people decades and hundreds of years later, kind of trying to deduce who they really were. And that makes sense to me. So I'm going to refer to them as brothers.

There's also debate about when and where they were born, because most accounts say that their father immigrated from Scotland and settled in North Carolina in like 1760s or fifties. And the boys were born in 68 and 70, however, and that 1768, 1770. However, some accounts say that the brothers were born in 1748 and 1750 and emigrated with their father into the country. Again. I'm kind of making my own assumptions about their tale and my own deductions, I guess I should say.

I believe they were born around 60 and 70 for reasons that we will come across in the States. But I'm going to be calling out these kind of contradictory facts in their facts, contradictory anecdotal statements about the history of the harp brothers. Now, Mikasa was the oldest. He was born likely in 1768. That's big Harp because he was bigger and Wiley was actually born Joshua Harp, but he went by Wily and he was likely born in 1770 and he was known as Little Harp.

Their name was originally Harper, but they dropped the E and the R. Today we always spell it with the E, but they actually might have taken the E off themselves. No one actually knows why they did this. There's a lot of assumptions. Almost every article I read has a different story about why they changed their name to harp from Harper.

It could have been that their family was they were loyalist to the British during the Revolutionary War and they may have changed their name for safety in a lot of Harper's, may have been Tories, may have been British loyalists. That's one of the accounts. But there are many, many, many other, again, anecdotal stories about why their name changed. So the brothers didn't change their name, like they didn't get into serial killing and be like, you know, a better brand for us.

No, that's actually some of the stories we don't know. We don't know if the father changed the name or they changed the name. It depends on what you read, but we do know that their name changed. That's the important thing. We just don't know when or why or who even did it. Yes. So because the family were loyalists to the crown, their father likely fought for the Tories, for the British during the war of Independence in America.

And there are accounts that the brothers fought in the war, some witness accounts, including that they fought during the battle of Blue Licks, where they helped defeat an army that included American folk hero Daniel Boone. But that is most likely not true at all. That is just history. Trying to lump the brothers into these things. Again, in my deduction of their story, they were too young. They were kids during the Revolutionary War, as likely their father fought for the British, though.

How old, though, when you say kid? So if they were born in 1670. So like Wiley would have been six around the start, Mikasa would have been like eight. And then the war ended in 1780, if I have my history, correct. So yeah, they were like 12, ten, 12 when it ended.

Now there is folklore that the harps were if, if you believe that they fought in the war, which a lot of people do, there's these legends that they were part of so-called rape gangs that would go around and raping and pillaging all the American villages and settlements. Again, I think that's just total legend that has spurred from this. I do not believe that is true at all.

And the reason there's a lot of this contradictory information, I'll point out right now, including that they were part of rape gangs during the war, is most accounts written about the harps came about almost half a century later where they were interviewing people that were like 90 years old at the time. But they were, you know, far younger when the harps were around. And there's there's their own confirmation bias and their own.

The way I equate it is it's like people trying to look cool on Instagram. Now. This is like the 1850s way of trying to look cool was like, Oh, yeah, I knew the harps. Yeah, yeah. I saw them in the war and I hung out with them one time and I was like, You better not be killing people. And they were like, Oh, we won't wink, wink. Like, it's these kind of tall tales that people are weaving. And that's why we don't know the truth around these things, because people told

tall tales. How are you doing? Good. So far, so good. Good. Their father. No one knows what happened to their father, but he might have been hung by the British boy. Excuse me. For the British. No, no, no. That was. That was a British. I totally misspoke there.

He was likely hung because he fought for the British after the war ended, because there were a lot of accounts of new Americans going around and and rallying up, not rallying up, but grouping up British loyalist after the war and killing them. Yeah, like that is that is the thing that happened and that may have happened to their father. And so this takes us actually to the perfect time. The war ends. And so the harps they've lost their dad, their dad may have died in battle or pong.

Yeah, that is sad. But they were teenagers, they were young and they come from a family that were British loyalist, so they were not feeling too safe and they had to fend for themselves. So the boys left home at an early age to try to survive. No, no, no. Survived, survive and. Survived at this point. Absolutely. So the left, North Carolina, the folklore around, I'm going to say folklore away too often tonight, That's one Oh, I've said it like six times already, but keep count from now on.

So the folklore around the brothers this time is that they were looking to start anew and they moved and lived around the the Appalachians, the Appalachian, Appalachian Appalachians. Appalachian. Appalachian Mountains. Thank you very much. And they traveled with a tribe of Cherokee who would attack colonist settlements from time to time. And the harps lived with the Cherokee for around 12 years.

Now there's a key point that I want to make right now where most of anything you read about the harps has one thing that I think is very untrue and wrong. In most accounts, the legend says that wily harp, little harp abused a girl in some fashion, depending on the story you read and was shot by a captain, James Wood. Not the the. Actor, not the actor James Woods, but James Wood, who was governor of Virginia from 1796 to 1799, by the way. And he lived after he was shot, but he was pierced.

So the boy's piercing. The boy's decided to take retribution in their hands and they kidnaped Wood's daughter, Susan Wood, and Susan's friend Maria, or Maria Davidson, forcing both of them to become their wives. And then they were traveling around to I believe they were traveling towards Chattanooga at the time. Chattanooga, Tennessee. Now, according to the book, though, Harp's Last Revenge, This is not true. The info came from James Wood, again, like half a century after the harps were killed.

Spoiler alert, they they die. And and other sources that were likely trying to tie themselves. Like I said earlier, it was like people trying to like, sound cool, to tie themselves to famous bad guys of the time. There's no evidence, there's no records that Susan Wood or a mariah Davidson were ever kidnaped by the harps. Dark harps were, however, known to travel with two girls, sisters Susan and Betsy Roberts.

And this is these are likely the two women that traveled with the harps for many, many, many years that people referred to was not James Woods daughter. It was Susan and Betsy Roberts. And yeah, it was that's just one of the most interesting things I come across in there. So when you see videos, when you read accounts, when you read blogs about the harp brothers, Susan Boyd I'm 99.9% sure was never part of the harps life and was not kidnaped and not forced to become a wife of one of them.

Were the other ladies in on it. That is up for debate. You're going to find some interesting stuff about the ladies in this story. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Hang on to that thought. Noted. Yeah. There's also no record of Wylie getting shot by James Wood, which you would think there would be some sort of record of within the military of the time. So, yeah. So again, feel free to disagree with me listeners out there that know the story, but that is, that's where my reasoning is at at the time.

So the brothers, they're traveling with the Roberts girls, they're trying to survive. And one of the stories goes that a man named Moses Doss sees the group meets the group, and it's like with these these women and they don't seem like they're happy traveling with these two dudes. So he starts to suspect something. The brothers are like, He's starting to suspect something. So the harp brothers kill him? Yeah, as as you do.

And there are some accounts that say, again, this is none of this is like, provable. This is all just anecdotal stuff. One of the accounts I read says that Moses Doss actually assaulted one of the women and that's why the harp's killed him. That's why they were unhappy. Yeah, okay, maybe. But so there's differing accounts.

But a guy named Moses Doss likely could have been killed by the harps and the story goes that they they that his body was found cut open, filled with rocks to wait him down in the water. And this becomes a bit of a calling card for the harp brothers, because apparently a number of other other victims of theirs were cut open and filled with rocks. Why are you laughing? We're a pebble band. Are you thinking of the wet bandits from home alone? You know the wet bandits? Well, they could call it.

The Pebble. Bandit. Which makes me think one of them was like. Like big harp was like, Hey, yeah, hold up. We got to put rocks in their body because that's a calling. Card for the rock band. Yeah. And Wiley's like, what? No, no, we're not Stop step. We're the why leave rock harps. They go, Well. We rock the harp name with rocks, indeed, and bodies.

So somewhere during this time period, which is like we're in the 1780s into the 1790s, the brothers and the women, they're living with the Cherokee and they were likely part of a raid or maybe multiple raids that preyed upon unprotected settlements with the Cherokees. And in retaliation for one of these raids, the government attacked the Cherokee town of Nick Jack in 1794 and the regiment massacred family, kids, anybody that was in there, they they massacred. It's a really terrible thing.

And it kind of shows you that the harps, they've now grown up in a war and now they're growing up in raids in the town they've been living in for likely like 10 to 12 years, is now been massacred. They're just surrounded by not so happy things. So this. Is just normal for them. Honestly. Death and destruction and violence. Yes. Now, the harps were either not in Nick at Jack when the massacre happened or they escaped.

No one really knows. But they because of the massacre, they were like, we're getting out of Dodge. We need dodge. Excuse me. We're getting out of Dodge. We just got to keep traveling. We got to try to survive somewhere else because this this is not going to work anymore. And they likely moved next to Beaver Creek in Powell County, Tennessee.

Now, folklore and legend will continue to be an issue trying to solve the story, but things are starting to get more clear in the in the sort of the timeline of the harps in 1794, including the little love affair with the Roberts girls, the lovable foursome that's I'm just going to call them right here. They played golf. They played golf. Famously. They would go on double dates to movies. I think you said folklore at least twice. Yeah. You're going to keep count. What am I now? Like five?

Oh, that's far fewer than I even thought. Nice. So I don't know, I. I didn't count the first one. It's true. It's true. So Wylie gets married in this time period to a Susan Rice, so he breaks up the little lovable foursome. That bastard. Well, we don't know if they were actually married to the two. That murdered anybody yet. Well, most. Salter yet right now. No, I think they've murdered 50 people. They murdered Moses Doss at least him.

And maybe I'm keeping track of how many people they've murdered. And how many times do you say folklore? Thank you. So thank you. So far, your worse than the serial killers said folklore more times. Got it? Got it. I guess that's the way it's going to have to be. I don't know. So Wylie gets married to Susan Rice in 1797, and she is a minister's daughter. So good for him and good for the minister, Good for Wylie, good for Susan. It's all good.

Now. No, I don't think so. Good. Oh, there's a thing called sarcasm. Oh, yeah? Well, there's a thing called delivery. You snap. It's not. I don't know. It sounded like you were actually thinking, like, Oh, this. Isn't a good. Yeah. No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. So. And very soon after, then the same year, I think it's September of, of 1797, if I remember correctly. Big harp Mikasa He gets married to Susan Roberts who they've been traveling with and living with for years.

They've been living in sin this whole time. They've been living in sin this whole time. How dare they? Those serial killers. Those serial killers, Yeah. Additionally live in sin with women that are like, lukewarm about them. Yeah. And what's interesting about these marriages is we know for a fact that they happen where a lot of their the rest of their story we don't know for a fact that any of it happened.

So really because there's there's marriage certificate sorry there's there's a historical record. Yeah. Okay. But so really all you know about these guys is that they got married. You don't actually know that they killed people. No, we do know that. We do know that later on. So we're coming up to some of that stuff. It is not all crystal clear how many and who exactly, but we definitely know they killed a lot of people.

And there was they were they were wanted by the government for killing a lot of people. And yeah, so now we're coming into a time where we actually know a lot more about what happened. So, yeah, they get married and in 1797 or thereabouts, around the same time, they try to make a go of a normal life in Knoxville, Tennessee. They try to play house. They're like, Hey guys, we're going to do this the right way.

But they quickly become suspects of stealing hogs, cattle, horses, so they weren't doing a good job of contributing to a healthy society. They were taking from it. It sounds they. Were taking from it, and they were either ran out of town or left because they didn't want to get arrested or a combination of those things. They went back onto the trails around the the mountains and the trails of the times and tried to make a go of it there. And this is where their reign of terror really begins.

And it may be a bit late for this, but I'm going to paint a picture of what these two dudes look like, according to accounts. So Mikasa was big. I mean, this is big, so he's a big dude, beardy, matted, thick, dark hair. He was described in the wanted posters and the wanted statements from the from the governor at the time to be around 30, which is also why I'm deducing he was born in like 68 and not like 48. Like some accounts say Wiley Harpe was much smaller.

He also had sort of matted long hair. Neither one of them wore hats often, which was not the normal way. That is not in style at the time to go hat. Less that was a thing like that was a way to describe people's like doesn't wear. Yeah I mean that's the way people described men until like the 1960s. Like they'd be like, Oh, he doesn't like to wear a hat as he goes out their there to the day. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. Wiley The younger one and smaller one was considered

the brains of the operation always. Yes. And one terrifying aspect of big harp is that it's said that he loved to use a tomahawk as a weapon to commit his murders and murders. They are about to do a lot of. So hold onto your britches. You. Amy's giving me some kind of weird look that I can't quite figure out. Well, I'm trying to go back in my brain about that. You said something about that. It was like, weird that he used a tomahawk to on his victims there.

You said something about that being rough. It's weird. It a note of of like it was important or it's. An important because that's his like it's almost. Like another. Calling it's another calling card like they preferred the tomahawk. Almost anyone. And so the legend say that they that came across the harps hiding out or staking out people and the trails and passages of the Cumberland Gap, which is where they were for a long time, were killed and robbed.

And one of the few people to survive was a guy named Reverend Lambeth. Lambeth, I'm going to say who was sure he was going to die when these two knotted hair, non hat wearing people stepped out of the trees and the brush too. It's always been non hat wearing. Always, always be scared of the people without hats. And the stories say that they the harps saw inside the guy's Bible like either you know they were collecting his things and inside the Bible was George Washington's name.

Like George Washington had signed it for this reverend and they actually liked Washington, even though their dad was a British supporter. So they're like, yeah, George Washington is he's cool. Cat. That's pretty cool. You got a it. That's awesome. You got a signature. Way to go, dude. Here comes the general Sam Wilson reference. Never going to get it. No, that was for anyone on this podcast that knows Hamilton. Vega which is probably a lot of people.

Most people do by myself. Now. So anyway, the harps were let the reverend go and they crept back into the darkness of the brush and shrubs along the trail. And this is the way as much as this reverend survived, this is what they would do. They would kind of camp out almost like Robin Hood, except they weren't a nice Robin Hood. They were like hanging along the trails in the Cumberland Gap, wait for people to come around, jump out and be like, gotcha. And then like, kill him and stuff.

Rob From there, anyone get them say to themselves, Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's honestly a very nice way to describe the harp brothers now all three women because big harp little harp, they're married to both both named Susan, by the way. And there's still that third woman, the other Robert's sister, who has been with them for all these years. They're all traveling with the harps. All three women. Dead. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, of course. Oh, just just wait, Amy, Just wait. There's more.

But all three women became pregnant around the same time, and big harp apparently killed one of the babies because it was making too much noise. This is just a sign to show you how. Even though you did not say there was anything about infanticide in. This. I did not. And but that is, again, why I have you on so we can make fun of these idiots and terrible people. Great. There are rumors that he, like, killed all the babies, but that apparently is not true at all.

He did confess to killing a baby. We know this because he made the confession before he died. Spoiler alert again and he apparently regretted it. So good for him, right? I mean, good guy. Yeah. Great. Again, sarcasm, sarcasm. She did that? Yeah. I. Now, outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, the brothers fell under the the eye of suspicion when a man named Johnson disappeared. And this man's body was soon found in a river chest cut open body filled with stones. Again, the stone.

Stone boat barrows, or what did you call them? I called them. The pebble banded. You go the Pebble Band. I think that's. That's fun. Yes, indeed. So they had to move away from this area because people started looking for those. The old harp brothers. The pebble banded. Yep.

The Pebble Bandits were on the radar of the local Parsis, so they traveled up through the Cumberland Gap towards Kentucky, where they killed more people, including a man for a horse, and they killed another man who they suspected had money. And one of the victims along the way was a guy named Peyton. I only include that because we don't know the names of all their victims. And depending on what you read, they're different.

So I'm just going to kind of drop in some of these names to add the historic record. You know, they killed a guy named Jim. They killed a guy named Jim and then Latham and then one James Sassafras and then another one named Jim Bob, Jim, Which. Might be more true than most of what we hear about the ups. So there you have it, folks. Add that to all the rumors and folklore of the harp brothers. They killed someone named Sassafras. I'm just going to jump us all the way to 13.

We're at 13. Nice. Thank you. Count. Now, tales of killing a handful of other men in this time exist as well. And all babies and babies. They killed a baby. And this is where a lot more of the accounts of, like, bodies filled with stones come because apparently some of these victims were found with stones in their bodies weighted down in rivers. And again, big harp typically using the tomahawk to to kill people. Now, one of the men that they killed during this time was named John Langford.

Some accounts refer to him as Stephen or Thomas Langford. Because those are real common. Similar are the real similar name is John. Stephen. Yep. Thomas But they all refer to him as Langford, including old newspaper accounts from back then. So I do think it is Langford But you know, no one, no one's Collin, everybody. There's no telegraph. There's, you know, like word travels slowly, people.

Get what are three Like what if it was three that they killed and it was all in the same family and they killed all three of them over. The rest of this episode, I would normally say, Yeah, maybe. There you go on this one. Now we actually know a little bit more, so I'm going to say, nope, it was just the one. Langford And that is. Because you're wrong. Amy You're wrong. Wrong.

So the story behind Mr. Langford, as I refer to him, is that they were hanging out in an inn and having some drinks, having some food, and they meet this guy and they noticed that he had money and he was traveling along the, you know, the Appalachian Trail or Cumberland Gap or whatever area this is. Do they not come across a lot of people that like and not assume that they have money? Like most people, I would think at that time traveled with at least some money.

Now, it's not because it's not like today. No, no, you don't have. Baits, you know. And this is the new this is also the new United States of America. So there's not a lot of infrastructure in place. There's not. Yeah, you're right. Like people are going to be if they're traveling from anywhere to anywhere else, they're bringing their valuables with them. Something. Yeah. So anyway, they hang out with a guy and they're like, Hey, hey, John or Thomas or whatever you said. Your name's. Langford.

Thank you. Langford. Steven. Mr.. Mr. Lane. Mr. Pickles. Pittsburgh is my your name. So, Mr. Pickles. Langford. You shouldn't be traveling alone because there's a lot of bad people that rob folks. So trust. You know. You should travel with. Us when you leave here. Little length. No, little, little wiley. Little wiley. Well. So, Harp. But this this little scene we're doing is kind of what they did. They were just like, You should travel with us.

It's so dangerous out there. We'll protect my brother is. Look at my brother with the tomahawk over there, like shaving his beard with it. No, you can't be. You can't be little. Oh, you're little. I'm the. Big. Ha. It's been years since we've done improv together. This is terrible over here. And you can be big harp. Okay, boy, this is Do not. Sully the name of Roy Kent. I kind of picture Roy Kent as big harp. No, a little bit reviews. All right. I'm sorry. You walk off this podcast.

There goes my marriage. All right, you all listeners, you heard it here first. You can't make fun of Roy Kent and not even. I wasn't even making fun of them. No, I was just using his over here in his guru up there. He's in every fucking way. Or Roy Kent. The name shall not be Sully. The grunt sound shall not. No. Stop it. This epic episode brought to you by Apple TV. Ladies and gentlemen, check out new episodes. Of you.

Which I know I do with. You. So. Which, I mean, not a sponsor, but could be good. Please get in touch. Please. Please do. Apple. So anyway, what do you think happened to Mr. Thomas? Stephen Langford has as he. Traveled with them. Mm hmm. They played a nice game of hearts, which I believe was popular at the time. And then I, you know, they exchanged information, Instagram and all this, and he went on his merry way, live a long, long, healthy, fruitful life.

The truth is, is that they quickly killed him. And because they had been with him that night at the end, everybody suspected the higher ups of killing him. So they formed a posse because that's what you did back then. And they caught the brothers and all three women, all of them arrested. Oh, the InfoQ did that. Well, that was like they were like, Wait a second, Langford. It's the way you set that up. It sounded like the Half Brothers formed a posse.

Oh, no, no. Okay, No. Okay, So the people in town. Were like, Hey, that Langford guy's been found killed. The Yeah. So there's two guys with them that were like, Hey, travel with us. They probably killed them. So a posse was formed. They cut the harps and they were arrested and put in prison in Danville, Kentucky. And again, the wives were arrested as well. However, the harp's they're a spry couple of fellas. They escape. Well, little harp, famously small enough to fit bars. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like my pet hamster I had when I was a kid who could squeeze out of the cage. Yeah, Yeah. A hamster? Yeah. I had a hamster squeeze out of his cage. They could get surprisingly small when they tried three things. I had a cat that was. He was enormous, But somehow he squeezed himself underneath a copy machine at the vet. Yeah. Rather than. Yeah, I can totally understand it. So the harps escape and the wives were acquitted.

They claimed that they were never trying to be like buddies and wives with the heart pleading. Kill anybody. Were they? Yeah. They claimed that they had always been forced into this relationship. They murdered my baby. Yeah. And so they're acquitted. The harps have escaped, but then the harps and the wives reunite at a at a pre-planned place so that it's. Harder to get out of these things. It is.

And honestly, this is sort of a bigger discussion to be have of like because we don't know a lot about them or their relationship. But this definitely happened and they again later, something else will happen in this story with the wives that we can talk about, but that that's kind of the big question in discussion around the behavior with these people. What else were they going to. I mean, this is not for your podcast, but it yeah, women don't have a lot of.

Yeah. Now it's it's in a weird way being separated from the women for a while allowed the harp brothers to really. Take their craft. Yes. Like they they apparently butchered and killed many, many, many people when the women were away. Like they just had free reign. They were like, well, ladies out here, let's do what we want to do. And that was just kill a bunch of people. Allegedly. Allegedly. So what you're saying is that had they not gotten married and had women around in general.

They might have been worse. Might have been way worse. It's possible. It's very possible. And this is when the governor, I think it's of Kentucky, puts out the wanted statement that you can still find for the harp brothers. He wanted 300 bucks a head. So it's dead or alive. Bring the head. What is three. Hundred bucks. Today? And that is $48 You. Want. It went backwards? You know. I don't. Know. I didn't I didn't do. Like, a nice gift card to Postmates.

Yeah, I didn't do the the what do you call that? The comparison, the conversion, the conversion. $300 in that time. It's also that's far enough away to that. The conversion also it's not as easy as it is to do from from even like 50 years ago. You kind of just have to to sort of make some jump. But I would if it's. A lot of money. $300 is a lot of money. It's definitely a lot of money.

So the brothers decided they should head somewhere that they can be safer get away from everybody looking for them. And they decide to go to a place called Cave Rock, which is in Illinois. It's a famous site. You can still go visit it. There's wonderful pictures online of it. It's a really cool cave along the Ohio River. And that's where they joined a group of outlaws led by a legendary river pirate himself, Samuel Mason.

And they camped out and buddied up with Samuel Mason for a while, living at Cave in the Rock and going out on the river and robbing fishermen and ferries and boats and stuff for a while. And they they don't tame. They're murdering around Mr. Samuel Mason. Why would you? He's a river pirate. By this point. Yeah. Why exactly. But they thought he's a river pirate. He gets us, right? We can do what we want. So apparently the harp brothers were too much for Mr. Mason, too.

Including they, like, pushed somebody off a cliff or had somebody jump off a cliff. And Samuel Mason is like, Guys, yeah, this isn't working out. And this is where our first scene comes in. Oh, we're going to. You didn't like the Improv, so now we got to go See, I. Love the improv, the improv scene and but now we're going to do a scripted scene. So let's have you read Big Harp. I'll do Little Harp and Samuel Mason, How about that? Does that work? Sure. Okay. And I'll read the descriptions.

So I'm just reading big. Just read big harp. All right, here we go. All right. So this is at Craven Rock in Illinois, along the Ohio River, and big harp and little harp stand next to a dead body on the bank of the river. A large cliff towers over them, and the harps are laughing. Oh, ha, ha. Did you see him flinging his arms like a wee little girl as he fell? The brothers laugh hard. Oh, I did. I did. Samuel Mason looks at the brothers from the entrance of Kevin Rock.

He walks towards the brothers. Then stops, turns around and goes back towards the cave. He does this dance a few times. Men in the cave wave to Sam, encouraging him to go talk to the hearts. But Sam is scared. He eventually puts on a smile and skips down to the harps. Hey, hey, hey. What's shakin, dudes? We were just talking about how we should push more people off the cliff. It's the most fun we've ever had. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It is fun.

But look, guys, the fellows and I have been talking about what? Big Harp's mood shifts. He's smart, his smile fades and his hand tightens its grip on his tomahawk by his side bow. Wow. All sorts of things, really. But the thing is, is we'd like you to go. It's been great. We've done great things as a team, Robin, and pillaging and the like, but it's it's time to move on. Pushing people off cliffs will draw too much attention to our operation here. Big harp growls. Growl.

And moves towards Sam, but little harp stops his brother. But I come back and visit. Yeah, I'm thinking to throwing a white elephant party for Christmas and you two should come. Yeah. Thanks, guys. See ya. Sam runs back to the cave where his men hold guns and are watching the harp brothers closely. The harps slink away knowing they're outmatched. A historical record of exactly what the big harp sounded like. It is the absolute antithesis.

Of Roy Keane. Roy Keane, historical documents, Historical day. All very true, very true. Not dramatized in any fashion. So in July of 17 nine, the Harp brothers leave Samuel Mason's gang and they they begin their own crime spree and they start. Pulling them back. Yeah, they were holding them back. They weren't able to kill even more people.

So now they start killing people in Kentucky and Tennessee, including a guy named William Ballard, who was disembowel, the guy named John Graves and his son were apparently decapitated near Adair Ville, Kentucky. I think I'm saying that right. The harps murdered a family called Tits Worse, which included eight adults and children, as well as slaves that worked for the family. And then in late August, the harp, such a shelter at a farmstead in, Webster County, Kentucky.

And this is the home of Mrs. Steagall. And yeah, she was too nice to these guys because they're evil, evil, despicable people. Did she know this? No, no, no, of course not. But she soon found out because they killed her baby. And to now they've murdered two. Babies, at least two babies, and then they kill her and her husband. Mr. Steagall was away when when this was happening. So when he returned and found out these guys, the harps had stayed there, and that's who killed everybody.

He forms a posse. He goes after them, and he's actually able to track them down and we don't know a lot of details about what happened in this moment, but they track the harps down and big harp is shot. And this is where he apparently he confessed to some of the murders, including one of his own babies. And they kill him. They behead him. They stick his head on a spike or stick or fencepost or something. And they put it on the street.

And apparently they've named the street like you can still find a street in this general area. I think it's called like Harp Street or Heart pay or it should be Harp Highway for Alliteration. Why the people don't people today don't realize by title card that and this is another call to action to listeners. I was actually trying to pinpoint exactly where this happened like where did they put it on the street. Where did it where was this pike? Where where does the death happened?

I can not find that information. So the street named after them or the area named after them today may not be entirely correct or where this happened. So Google Maps isn't helping you with that. Like what? When I'm like, Hey, where was Big Harp's head? You don't see the head now. It's not on there. They're meant to take him down. Apparently, it's in Union County, Tennessee.

So if any listeners know where this is, please give me a shout study of strange at gmail.com or send me a message on Instagram. Again, not contact me. No. Now, Amy is not going to want to talk about this story ever, ever again. I respect that. So the wives, I just call them wives, even though only two of them are technically wives. But the wives. Why would you why would you give them names? They're women. It's fine, but there's. Two of them are Susan. And one of them is Betsy.

Susan, Susan and Betsy. Yeah. So, Susan, Susan and Betsy were captured. They're put on trial and they're acquitted again. Again, because I don't believe they have actually murdered and. Know and ignored the history. I don't think history even assumes that they killed anybody either. And they're acquitted. And they did. Like we do know more about them after this happened because they are in census records and accounts.

And, you know, I think a few, if not all of them even remarried and had kids and all sorts of stuff. But they're. Happy. Yeah. Yeah. Wylie, meanwhile, got away. So. Wylie Little Wylie. Little Lily. Oh, that's right. His. He wasn't there. Last name is in. No, no, no. His hell little harp. Little harp. He traveled in Natchez, Mississippi, which is a beautiful town on the river. And he was there a while. And then he's like, you know. Honey, I figure. I miss killing more than that, though.

It's my own assumption. But I also think he was trying to find a way to make a living. And he heard that there was a bounty for none other than the river pirate Samuel Mason and his old buddy. His old buddy. So Wiley goes back to Cave Rock and is like, Hey, I want to join the gang again. Just kidding. Boom, boom, bang, bang, stabs, stab. However, he kills him and kills Samuel Mason and takes proof, which I in some accounts is the head.

So he takes Samuel Mason's head to whatever sheriff had the bounty out for him. Yeah. And was like, Hey, guys, I'm here to collect on the bounty. And this is where our second scene comes in. Hey, guys, I'm here to collect on the bounty. That's kind of what happened. So we're going to do a scene, which again. Do I get to be in this one? Because Big Kent is already not Ken. Roy, get cut back. Cut. All of. Us. Do you want to be Wiley or the sheriff? You know what? I don't care.

Do you have a preference? I'll be. I'll be a little harp. Okay. All right. So we're in the sheriff's office when Wiley Harp enters to find a deputy in the sheriff sitting behind their desks. Can we help you? I'm here to collect my reward. Wiley Harp drops a burlap sack under the sheriff's desk. The deputy looks at Wiley Harp. He recognizes him, but he doesn't say anything. Reward. Look in the bag, Sheriff. The deputy quietly steps behind Wiley nonchalantly, and the sheriff looks into the sack.

Good heavens. That there is the river Pilot. Pilot. The river pirate Samuel Mace. So it is. How did you come by this head friend? I'm a simple fisherman, and my boat was attacked on the Ohio River a few days back by Mason. But I killed him. I'll take my reward in terms. And the deputy out of sight takes his pistol out and pointed at Wiley's bag. And what's your name, sir? Uh, Kaiser. So, SAC. So say, I thought it was pronounced carp. Really?

Wiley moves to pull his pistol, but the deputy steps forward and shoves. It's gone into Wiley's back for someone that's escaped justice for so long. Mr. ARP, you're one giant idiot. And that is the true story of how Mr. Wiley was caught. I'm sure it happened exactly that same way.

Originally, I was going to before we started all of this, I thought about doing that as The Mandalorian, and now I'm really glad that I did not because, well, I don't think either of these men or you can't make him recant. And I don't want to make little harp. The Mandalorian Yeah, Yeah. But the Bounty Hunter thing, I was like, Oh, that makes sense. Like the Bounty Hunter. And now. All of. All of our listeners know the TV. We've been watching. It. You mean the TV? Everyone watch.

Yeah, exactly. Wow. We really outdid ourselves with that one. So this brings us to the conclusion of the harp story, because Wiley arrested at this point and hung in 1804, apparently between the two of them, they confessed to killing 39 men, women and children.

And some historians claim that it's probably closer to 50 people, which I would agree with because of all the accounts and after their deaths, rumors, as I've talked about, have circulated that the brothers had committed even more than that, they committed many gruesome and heinous crimes, including there's rumors that they were cannibals, which I actually don't believe, and that they skinned their victims, which I also don't believe, because there's no account of that. Deliver pebbles in them.

They put pebbles in them. However, it is unclear how many of these rumors are true, and it is clear that they did kill a lot of people, which is what inspired and created these rumors of the time. So that is this story of America's first serial killers. The duo they wet Pebble Bandits. Just the Pebble Bandits. If they're not, I mean, the pebbles are wet By the time you throw your victims into the water. But it is. True. Other than that. It is true.

So one of the things I want to conclude with here is, you know, if there's anything to learn from this story, my brain. There's a takeaway, there's a lesson. There's always a takeaway. There's always a lesson, even if you don't know it right away. The lesson comes later.

But for me, I'm always interested and listeners have heard me expand upon this too much in the past already, but I love how the farther back you go in history, especially pre sort of technology of lots of things, how rumors become believable fact including like the Susan Wood story that almost literally 99% of everything I read is like they kidnaped Susan Wood and she was forced to be a wife and then it's like, no, she wasn't. There's no record of that.

But there is record of Susan Roberts, who they were with for decades, who married big Harp says that's probably the. Marriage. Certificate. There's a marriage certificate. So it's things like that. How rumor becomes fact very quickly. And most of what we know about the harp didn't come until almost half a century later when people started writing about them.

So there's those 50 years there before things are being written about them, where tales are being spun in bars and taverns and between neighbors and whatever. So that's why this was so difficult to research, and I'm sure I've gotten some of it wrong. But hopefully the incredible terribleness, the terrible, terrible as I started the episode with of how evil these two brothers were came across because they're they're frightening, terrible people.

And I do think there is importance to learn how evil humans can be, because I think we can we can be better. But it sucks on your end. Well, as a life coach, the thought that came to me was, you know, could let's say at some point in their lives, the Harp brothers decided that they wanted to change their ways, and so they sought out the rapidly growing field of life coaching and. The. 1700s. And they they said, Amy, we really need to change our ways. What can you offer us?

I would say, Well, you know, the murdering, the killing, the the all of that, the pebbles in the bodies, is that working for you or what do you think? I think it would I think they would be like, yeah, sure, we should double up. So again, perhaps they didn't start that correctly because I mean, yeah, So now the other interesting thing is that perhaps serial killers aside, for the most part in life coaching, we assume that every behavior has a positive intent.

So I would perhaps sit with the harp brothers and say, what's the positive intent behind all these murders? Well, so so one of the quick things that that did come to mind while reading about them is there's all these anecdotes of they were just pure evil and they killed to kill. They killed for the fun of it. They wouldn't even rob their victims. But it's like, no, there actually is record that they did rob their victims. They did travel with Susan and Betsy for decades.

And there's a lot of talk about how life was so difficult and they had to live alone as kids because their father died during the war, right after the war. And they're surviving in a really hard time. Yeah. To survive. Yeah. So could the survival and the the hardships that people like that face, could that have been what led them into a life like this? 100%? Yeah. Yeah, I think so as well. Yeah. And you know, you asked the question, you know, what's, what's the positive intent?

So what do they get out of it? If they get out of it, money, they're going to keep doing it. They get out of it. Some kind of weird thrill. How the mind of a serial killer is not a normal brain. There's different things going on, so you can't really follow the positive intent logic of all of that. But yeah, you'd be looking for like, okay, well, how else could we get that thrill? Maybe, maybe we could. Uh, have you heard of podcasts? Podcast is not thrilling.

Maybe we can jump out of an airplane. Oh, wait, those don't exist. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe we could ride. Really fast on a horse. You'd start coming up with alternatives, alternative ways to get money and feel whatever they felt. And this is it's not going to work with serial killers. I'm now making myself sound like a horrible life coach. So. So where can people find information about your your business? Amy, There's a perfect tie in to a. Way. To plug yourself.

So yeah, my website is the aligned actor dot com because I am an actress and I am a life coach, but if you are a serial killer, please don't come to me. I have. I don't think I have anything to offer you. Your brain is special and unique in its own way, and I. Please find a psychotherapist. Yes, a psychiatrist. And if there are serial killers that listen to my podcast, please donate to my Patreon account and then turn yourself in. Thank you very much. Right, Right.

That's a good thing, right? It's going great. Yeah. I'm going to ask Bert to be able to listen to whatever I've said very readily, but maybe. I don't know how possible it's going to be. What do you mean? It's life? You know. I just may not have it fully edited until, like, very soon before it goes up. But yes, you could listen to it. Just don't make me sound horrible. Don't make me sound as terrible as these two dudes were. They were awful. No, you knew it. You're you're a little bit of both.

Thank you. Yeah. No, thank you so much for coming on. I know that you do not like these stories, but I've been in the back of my head. I'm like, When can I get Amy on? And so I appreciate you making this work out When. When I lost my other guests. This is so. Sad. Even third now, not even there, but only because of your your determination to not be involved. This you make it sound like I don't support your podcast at all. I don't know. I mean I mean, involved with these. Types of stories.

I don't like these types of stories. Famously, I'm against infanticide, famously. Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. And we're going to end the episode now and let's see, let's see when I get some food. Sounds great. All right. I'm really hungry now. After all of that. After all that killing, I need some food.

Thank you for listening to this episode of a Study of Strange, A special thank you to Amy Schuler, my wife, for joining me and dealing with this tale of blood and murder and mayhem and keeping it light, which I thought was appropriate for the heart Brothers, make sure to check out her information. It'll be in the show notes. And if you enjoy this type of content, if you enjoy stories of the strange and unknown and the mysterious, make sure to follow or subscribe.

And if you really want to support the show, check out our Patreon account, which you can find at our website. A study of strange Tor.com. I'd appreciate it. Coming up next week, we have a tale of murder and mystery that has truly stumped me. I'm not going to say what it is. I just want to encourage you to stay tuned because it's a doozy. Thank you again for listening and good night.