Warning this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. Halloween A night where the lines between the living and the dead blur and we celebrate spirits, but playful and sinister. It's a time for costumes, tricks and tales of ghosts that make us shiver, but only in celebration. After all, the scariest stories are supposed to stay safely locked in the world of make believe. But not every story regarding All Hallows Eve is fiction.
Tonight, we explore the Halloween murder of Lillian Armstrong from 1963, a case where the tricks were deadly and the killer was never caught. This is a study of strange. Happy Halloween. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael Mann, and this week I'm joined by two people. It's not often I have two guests on this show. Why don't. What TJ's been on before, but can I have both of you guys introduce yourselves? Dee, why don't you go first? Okay. Hello. My name is Denise Montoya.
I am a producer, actor, writer. I'm a multi-hyphenate. I'm a real badass. Yeah, you are. I'm kidding. I'm not. I'm a total dork. No, we love that. We love that. And TJ, go for it. Yeah. TJ Rotel, writer producer, actor, host. Director, multi-hyphenate. Giant nerd. Got to be multi-hyphenate. And you got to be a nerd nowadays to make. So. Yeah, yeah. Got to have a hook, right? You know, listen. I was a dork before it was cool, okay? Yeah. Me, too. I'm.
I'm going too deep into that jack of all trades, master of none mindset here. Yes, and one of the reasons I thought of having you guys on, on Halloween is you've been doing some stuff online, you've been doing some streaming things. You do all this like hoity toity new age kind of new age is the wrong term that it makes you think it's something else. But you do talk about horror movies or horror movies. There's yeah, sound healing with sound.
It's now, I'm I'm standing at the sound ball right now. So tell us about channel 29 and blood and popcorn and everything else that you seem to have going on right now. I'll let you talk. Okay? Sure. Yeah. Well, channel 29 is our kind of digital network. It's part of our bigger company where we're developing, like, features and TV stuff. And this is our digital wing is channel 29, and we've got a fun, horror podcast that's coming up on its 50th episode, actually. Really? Already?
Yeah, it's a video podcast on, TwitchCon Amsterdam on 29 and most recently at, youtube.com slash at we are channel 29, and it's called Blood and Popcorn. And, it's myself, Denise, and our friend Glenn, and we're just a bunch of, industry nerds who talk about our favorite horror movies and some of our not so favorite horror movies and, have fun doing it. And, yeah, we're also getting, more into the scripted side of things.
We just released, our first horror short, Watch Till the End, which you can check out on, on our YouTube. And, yeah, we're we're leaning deep, lean and deep into or love that community. You directed that, right? No, I was, I wrote and I was in that. Who do Glen directed it. Awesome. Yeah, I do want it. Glenn's not here. So I can say this, but I referred to Glen for a while as grumpy. Beardy guy. Yeah. And, I, I don't know if he would appreciate that, but I meant it with a lot of love.
Glen is one of my favorite people, and I have not gotten to know him very well over the years. But a little time. I'm a random. I'm always in love with Glen, so I got to hang out with Glen at some point. I feel like it. When I first met Glen, he was being referred to amongst the cast and crew as like Ray of sunshine or something because he just, he's, you know, I love him. He's got that. He's why we love Glen.
Glen is Glenn is one of our best friends and yeah, like long time collaborator and fellow producer and, we've been working with him, for many, many moons now. And he's part of our core three. So we love when there's a. Slight, like, outer shell of cynicism with Glen. You know, like when you get a dip cone, you know, ice cream cone,
you just got to tap on that a little bit and you break it really easily. But, I love yeah, I love talking about somebody that my audience won't know, but, this is great radio, but I do. I, you know, if they check out blood and popcorn, they'll get. To know Glen. No. And, I will share one quick story about him just because you guys are here so I can do this. The audience doesn't care. They love this stuff. Why not? Us?
So I worked very briefly with Glenn on on my TV show autobiography, which both of you also worked on parts of that show over the years. And Glen worked on one episode with us where we had to go film out in like, the desert somewhere for a day or two, and I got very frustrated at the end of our last night and it was getting late. I don't remember exactly what was going on, but I was very frustrated and I don't remember what Glenn said to me, but he turned to me at one point.
It was like, Mikey's mad or something like that. And I was like, this is there was just a way he did it that was like, he gets me. He understands. I'm frustrated. And there was something about it that I just found really kind of comforting and like, oh, someone else can understand what I'm going through right now. And he kind of teased me about it, which is my favorite thing. It's like, yeah, I'm going. There's tease me about it, I love that. So, I was just like, I like this guy.
I like this guy a lot. So anyway, that's like, that's my goal. Yeah. He he tends to do that a little more with Denise than with me, but yeah. Yeah, it's, it's definitely it's definitely premium. Glenn. He's he's it. He runs on sarcasm. No, I loved it. It's like it's a way to get me to, like, settle in with myself. I really appreciated it. So anyway, that being said, guys, we are talking about something rather serious and terrifying and somewhat scary. And it is a murder mystery.
And this is a true Halloween story from Halloween night 1963. It's the death of a woman named Lillian Armstrong. If either one of you heard of this before. No, no, but I'm excited to be in the 60s. What a great era. I mean, you're just gonna. You're going to set me on a rabbit hole. I know. Oh, good. I'm like, you can hear you type. I'm gonna Google already. Yeah. No, I love it, I love it. And, I would let me specify as well before I dive into this. This happened in Newcastle in England.
And there are some differences of what you might expect Halloween night to be like there versus here in the States. And I'll cover some of that because it is important to this story. So Halloween is history is an amalgamation of timeless traditions and a blend of diverse historical beliefs. The holiday can be traced back primarily to Ireland and the Celtic celebration of sale. When I worked on that pronunciation guys, it failed because it's Irish, so it's not spelled like that at all.
Yeah, a lot of. People, a lot of people lean into Samhain. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Which Halloween franchise. Yep. That's right. Oh yeah. Good. Good connections. Man. Yeah. Loomis was named. Donald, but Donald. Pleasance Donald play those who say Donald Glover. But I don't think he was in those days. It was not. He was nine different time. Different time. But yeah, Halloween has a very interesting history, which I won't go into all of that tonight.
But the nerdy part of me kind of wanted to add the modern age. Halloween traditions vary depending on location, so trick or treating has not always been the go to celebration, but there has always been wickedness about. There are reports of violent crime, razorblades and candy, all those kind of things. And those reports are pretty much always over exaggerated and you guys probably know some of the stories behind the back, the background of some of the fears around Halloween candy.
It certainly set parents a flurry. Oh yes. Yeah. When we were kids. Candy as a kid. I always checked. Hammered into my I don't do it now. Yeah, I think it's, you know, older and don't care as much about eating a razor blade. I actually I actually took some candy outside of the polling place the other day after I voted. So I was like, yeah, it's fine. But wait, but you're not saying where you took it from. Did they have it as like, you voted you get candy or did you just from.
It was like when you walk in, each side has their own, you know? Here you go. Here's a quick candy guide. And they all had candy out there. And I was joking with TJ. I was like on to candy for them. And then I was like, I already voted. I was like, yeah, whatever, I'm going to roll the dice. So I picked up one of those sour. I think it was a sour straw. It was grape and it was delicious. And yeah, I'm still here. Not me. Yeah. I'm like, no, I'm. Not taking that. I don't trust political candy.
That's the quote of the show right there. Don't trust political candy. That's going to be the next Halloween. Sorry. Even though a lot of that kind of crime and candy and wickedness and pranks and stuff that happen on Halloween, a lot of it is overblown, overexaggerated. But there are real chilling incidents on this holiday. And one such story that we're covering tonight involves a brutal murder that has remained unsolved for over six decades.
Did I do my math right? I think so, it seems about right. Not, yeah, I guess, yeah. But it and investigators meticulously combed every inch of the crime scene, interviewed thousands of potential witnesses. Yet literally no clues have really ever been shed on who could potentially have been the perpetrator of this murder. And that all is to set up the hunting night of October 31st, 1963, in Newcastle, England, and the murder of Catherine Lillian Armstrong. Yeah, there we go.
That was my little intro for you guys. I got to do a good job. I'm a soothing voice. I'm listening to number one. And, you. Know, it's very like I want you to work for Tom. Nice. Well, I'm getting over a cold, which is, if listeners notice, I didn't have an episode last week, it's because I've been sick. So that probably adds to the sexy radio voice. Yeah, I think I'm coming through. It's either cold or allergies, but I've been fighting for about a week and change now myself. Yeah. Nice.
Nice. Well, you sound good to T.J.. Well, thank you. I worked on it a lot today. I wanted to make sure I was good for you. Like. Yeah. Well, you get your stream tonight, too. You got to warm up the vocal cords and everything. Yeah. I just changed my voice. It will. Is that. Is that good? That is really is good. I would stick with that. Yeah. That's great. So here we go.
Halloween 1963 I have to give a little background to this in Newcastle, England, Halloween was a quieter affair compared to Halloween that we see here today and probably there as well. In fact, England at the time, Halloween wasn't really celebrated. Kids, though, would often sort of dress up sometimes or just play this game where they would go up to people and say, Penny for a guy, give me a penny for a guy. And that's related to Guy Fawkes. The, what is the gunpowder?
Yeah. Which we call it the failed Gunpowder Plot. Right. But that's. It. Wasn't that the mask and V for vendetta? Yes it is. Yeah, that's the Guy Fawkes mask and. The November or something. Yeah, yeah. So it has to do with Guy Fawkes. I'm not British. I didn't dive into the Guy Fawkes holiday, so I'm not going to give a lot of information about it. I think it had to do. He was trying to overthrow the government to install a Catholic king, I think. I think that's what the Guy Fawkes was.
I could have that backwards. Feel free to write me at a steady of stranger gmail.com and let me know. But anyway, the point is, is that they didn't really trick or treat like here in the States. They would ask for a penny for a guy, and there was Halloween mischief where sometimes they would take the money they would get and they would go buy fireworks, start fires, set off fireworks. Little scamps. Yeah, people don't go as hard as we do. Yeah, we go hard for Halloween.
That's right, that's right. And so trick or treating? I looked it up. It didn't really catch on in the UK until I think the late 70s and early 80s. And the main reason I wanted to bring that up at first is because almost every article I read online when I was researching this is like, how come no one like, like none of the trick or treaters like, saw who the killer was because there's trick or treaters everywhere. It's like, no, there weren't there weren't trick or treaters everywhere.
So that's just something I kind of wanted to get out of the way. Before I dive into the story more in-depth. Did you say trick or treating didn't catch on until the 70s or 80s? Even in America? No, no, in in, in the in England. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Trick or treating here. Started I think in like the 20s, 30s. Yeah. And I don't think it was super popular until after World War two.
So that's. Right. That's right. Because there's like there's some of my favorite pictures to to look at or like creepy ass. But we had super creepy costumes, but they went hard with the creep when it all sort of. Yeah. And there were, there were a lot of celebrations around it because, again, the history of Halloween does tie in with a lot of other celebratory things, and it has to do with the changing of the seasons.
And, you know, spirits that can only come out on October 31st on All Hallows Eve before November 1st and, and all of this kind of stuff. And so a lot of the scary costumes you see in those old photos, they weren't trick or treating. They were more like communal parties they would throw and things like that. So trick or treating kind of came a little bit later. Or like scaring spirits away maybe, you know, or.
And I think it depends on where you live, but it's either like blending in to the spirits don't get you or tricking them or those kind of things. You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of cool stuff about it, and I apologize. I should have actually, I should do an episode about the history. Halloween. That's my next, let's do it. I'll have you on D. That would be amazing. Actually, that'd would be a lot of fun. I would love it.
So meanwhile, in her home on 12 Gold Spink Lane in Newcastle upon Tyne district of Newcastle, lives 70 year old Catherine Lane Armstrong, who went by her middle name, Lilian. I go by my middle name, so you know I'm a fan of hers. Way to go. And she she was a retired headmistress. She had been retired since 1957 from the Denton Road Junior School.
She was a proud independent woman, known for her regular attendance at church and choir practice, choir practice, which happened to be every Thursday night and Halloween that particular year was on Thursday. Just like for us, this year gets to and I think this episode's going to come out on Halloween. So if. You're listening. To this and then just try and like. Do it. I mean, you can I know well, one way for me. TJ will not allow him in the house. I like oh I just want to get a vintage one just.
On your own. That makes it even creepier. Build your own is creepier. Yeah. It's just. Human blood. That's it. That's how you. That's how you get it set up. That's a great way to pass. The human bladder. Sounds good. So Lilian Armstrong was a spinster, meaning she had no husband, no children, and she mainly kept to herself. But she was a person of routine. Besides church and choir practice, she would take care of her, her rather large home for a single person, and keep her chores on schedule.
Those kind of things. Questions real quick. We've covered a lot. We bounced around. I just wanna make sure I'm getting everything or covering everything or, I don't know, I mean. Listen, I'm in France. Oh, girl. And she's been, you know, she's she's she's single. She loves church. She's got a big place and she's, doing all right. So far, so good. So she's live in the UK. Adrian. There you go. There you go. So this Halloween night, how do I want to say this? You know what?
Let's just say she doesn't make it through Halloween night. There's no good way to say there's no good. Like there is. No good saying there's no nice way to say it. She did not make it through Halloween night, and the last confirmed sighting of Lillian was at around 6:30 p.m., when two children passing by her house spotted her looking out the window. Choir practice began at 730, but she never arrived.
The next morning, November 1st, 1963, Lillian's cousin Ada Ridley arrived at Lillian's house at 1030 or around 1030 for a similar semi-regular visit, but Lillian didn't answer the door and Ada noticed that the blinds were drawn, which was very unusual and not part of Lillian's routine. Every morning, Ada had a sense that something was wrong. She tried knocking nothing and no one answered. She tried knocking more. She tried liking louder.
No one ever answered the door. So she went to the police and they actually came pretty quick to check the house. They forced their way inside and immediately made a very grim discovery. Lillian's lifeless body was found inside her home near the bottom of her stairs. Her face was covered in blood and there was a nylon stocking wrapped around her throat. She was obviously dead. Those mid-century murderers really loved using nylon stockings.
Good lord. Yeah, that's that's a good. I hadn't thought about that. That's a good. Point. You get them for like a, you know, a farthing at the. AFA that. What do they want? I don't know, I don't know what it was. Money is like a. Pencil case I think. Get them from the victim. Yeah. Well you don't know. You have. Involvement. You could have. Maybe they could have brought their own. But why are you assuming it was a male killer? That's why I said they. I switched it up.
You're right. Good job. It could be. It could be anybody. That's right. But just because. It'd be. Me, They're just smarter. I'd kill him. I mean, listen, we could do an entire show about male versus female tendencies in the, murder subject. Yeah. So. And that's our special segment for today, didn't it? Yeah. Here we go with the males difference. Here we go to Anthony's. Take it out. Let's see what are your your points of view and your evidence on both sides. No, you don't have to do that.
I don't I'm already collecting. You. Should be teaching me. So did you say teeth? Teeth? Collecting teeth. Oh, good. This is. This is a good Halloween episode. We're getting creepy already. Getting pretty gross. He picked two very creepy people for the. We are dark. Yeah. No. It's perfect. So at the crime scene, there were no prints, no footsteps. Nothing was stolen that anybody could tell the investigators. Ada. Everybody started looking around for stuff. They couldn't figure out anything.
They couldn't even find, a murder weapon. There was blood all around the house, and some of it had to have come from the killer because Ada hadn't been moved. You know, they can tell through crime science that she had it. She had been killed there and had not been moved by yet. Blood was all over the house yet. No. No fingerprints, no footprints. What? And you would assume that she was strangled to death. But after she was, they they autopsy the body. It was.
Her death was from blood loss from around. Get this. 30 stab wounds around the head. Wow. From the head. Yeah. Holy shit. Which I've never quite figured out because I can't find crime scene photos or anything like that. And again, call to listeners if anybody has information like that, send it my way, please. I would love to see it. But it was it's almost like someone was trying to strangle her. And in that the, you know, she's fighting him off and then like a knife.
Yeah. Okay. It's a, it's. A. I know it's not a visual medium, but I was, reenacting the physicality of that. Really? Well, I might add that. You know, or. She was wearing the stockings because it was the fashion at the time. You know. Maybe. Maybe it's just to keep her neck warm. Yeah, yeah. So police comb the house, the comb the area for a murder weapon. None was ever found. Still, to this day, no murder weapon was found.
The home had no sign of forced entry, meaning Lillian may have known her attacker or, like someone knocked at the door and let somebody in. And. Yeah, there's no there's no explanation. Like, that's what makes this such a bizarre case is there's no explanation. She didn't have any known enemies. And there are theories out there to like, oh, she was a head mistress. Maybe she had, like, kids that didn't like her because she was the head mistress. But she's been retired for what?
It's like eight years at this point. Maybe they had just recently come out of a facility. An insane asylum. Perhaps. Perhaps. Now, here's the thing, too. And I don't know if I'm jumping ahead here and not to sound to Criminal Minds about it, but please, it does look like a a crime of such brutality that does lend itself more towards somebody she knew. Yeah, yeah, right.
Like it does in general. Yes. There are I know I'm jumping at a little bit, but there's not a lot of theories for the case, so I don't mind doing it. So one of the theories that people talk about is like an ex student that held a grudge against her, and the night of Halloween when people are playing pranks and people kids are buying fireworks, that's the night they're going to be able to pull it off. So that's one theory. Another theory is that it's somebody she knew because she let them inside.
It didn't necessarily have to be an old student. It could have been an acquaintance of some kind and somebody that had some kind of reason. Lover that maybe both. Maybe it was an old student who happened to love it. Holy crap. And after she jilted him, cause or her or her or. She just jilted them. Yeah. We don't know. It was the 60s. A bug just flew across my face. Sorry. I'm scared. I wasn't reenacting the stabbing. I guess I was. Oh, he's really into this stabbing scene.
Yeah. Know all over the place. We should get there. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, maybe it was like a former student who was like, you know what? You don't want me. No one can have you. And here's 30 some stab wounds around the head. Yeah, and there is. There's a frenetic nature to that, too, because there's, like, some kind of strangulation going and then stabbing, which I would assume was happening at the same time.
But I could be wrong, which does bring up part of other theories, which is maybe it was multiple people, sort of a prank gone wrong on All Hallows Eve where they wanted to prank the old headmistress and like, tie a nylon around her throat and think she's going to be killed and then laugh it off and run away. But it kind of got out of hand and she started fighting them and. Right, you know. Who knows why there's other blood around? Because they were injured.
They were injured. And that's that actually is an important thing. I should just clarify. She did fight back in some capacity because they do think some of that blood was theirs. And this is 1960. So if anybody's like DNA, blah, blah, blah, they didn't have that back then. So there wasn't as much that they could do. Was there any collection of I mean, I guess what what would they have done with it? Right. Because DNA was was not a thing then.
But did they collect any. Stuff like I would assume they did. So that actually is a nice to because they this was such a gruesome, brutal murder that the police in Newcastle were like, we need help right away. They didn't wait on it. You didn't have a local cop that's like, I'm better than everybody else. I got this, I figured they called in Scotland Yard, which you actually you have to do. He would be like, I'll figure this out. Exactly, exactly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Newcastle's not.
Newcastle. Leeds? Well, no, this is a I'm glad you're doing that day because this is when we're going to do a little reenactment here. So I'm going. Hey. What if it was like, some sort of, like, clan, like the whole class got in on it and it was like a like a, like a some sort of ritual, like a Halloween ritual. Or like a murder on the Orient Express where everybody's at a killer. The whole neighborhood, even her choir members, like, they're like, oh, we had practice.
She never showed up, but they were there. Yeah, maybe, like she she was going to get the Halloween solo. And they were like, we're so tired of you get all the solos. He's 30 stab wounds and all dead. So, excuse the sort of informal nature of how that's written. What we'll do, I'll read the scene descriptions, which is only like 2 or 3. And we have a detective, which I guess they would call them inspectors over there, but a detective and an officer who who wants what? Tea. Dale let you choose?
No. I'm kidding. Listen, as a female victim, I want to give. It's Halloween. And you, of all of us in this two person relationship, I think you definitely have more of a, an SVU, Criminal Minds stance. Okay. So. Okay, you know what? I'm gonna go with the detective. Denise always wanted the lead role. All right, well. Look, I actually was kind of hoping for that, so I. I'm glad that worked out pretty good. Yeah. So you'll be the detective. You'll be the officer and. Need to be Scottish.
You can do whatever you want. You can even be from Alabama. This is a recreation. But bring your own creative. I'm just going to have juice to it. Also, is Scotland Yard all from Scotland? No no no that's in it's their headquarters is in London. There's a reason why it's called Down American. You know. That's all right. I don't think most people I didn't know that forever. I think I learned because of, like, Sherlock or something.
No. Scotland Yard is kind of like the this the main national police organization and the hub is in is in London. And there's a reason why it's called Scotland Yard and I forget what it is. I literally think it may be like the plot of land. The original building was built on West Scotland Yard, so they call it that, I can't remember. I don't remember respect tradition. Yep. There you go. All right. You guys ready for this? Oh I'm ready. Are you ready? I think so, I'm so nervous.
Yeah. A local police officer waits eagerly by Lilian Armstrong's front door. A few days after the murder, a black car pulls up and a pompous I misspelled that detective exits the vehicle and approaches the police officer. No. Never know. I'm Inspector Reid, Scotland Yard. Let me inside. Yes, sir. Thank you. They enter and the inspector comes over the scene of the crime, noticing blood at the base of the stairs and around the interior of the home. Still no murder weapon? No, sir.
I'm guessing no suspects either. No, sir. It's worse than you think. I'm afraid this case reminds me of the like. Mrs. Barrett, Mrs. Barrett. Good God, man, do you not know about the murder of Mrs. Barrett, a 71 year old shopkeeper murdered just like this some five years ago. Near here. No suspect. No weapon. Oh, my. It's a good thing I'm here. Put the kettle on. We have work to do. I'm afraid you have a serial killer, John. Done. So can we just said.
Can we just talk about how many times my accent changed in that? I'm so sorry, everybody. That's when this show started. Now, look, I'm. I'm a classically trained actor. I am. When the show started, I was like, oh, these recreations are going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to nail them. It's going to be fantastic. Yet every time I ever try to do an accent, I have a different accent almost every three words. So I just stopped. I don't do accents anymore.
See, this is why we rehearse though, right? Exactly. Because you have the script and you go over it over and over and over again, and you get it down over and over again. And that link would tell me, he's like your accent switching a lot when we would do like D and live play and I'm like, listen, just go with it, okay? Yeah. Just go. That's just I'm working on it. Yeah.
So I wanted to include this because there, there are some, even though it's kind of a hokey little scene, there are some true bits to it. They did call Scotland Yard Scotland car, Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard invested a lot of resources, a lot of money. People help to the local community to investigate this case. I actually do think it was Inspector Reid who was in charge of the case from Scotland Yard, and a mrs. Barrett had been killed.
A 71 year old shopkeeper, like in the scene had been killed not super recently. It was like some years before this. But the initial investigators saw some commonality because no murder weapon was found. It seemed to be completely random. It's in the same area, and so they suspected it could have been the same killer, though it eventually something came out along the lines. I couldn't figure out what the specifics were, but something of it ended up coming out during the investigation.
I know it was probably not the same killer, but it is an interesting possible twist to this story that makes it even more, What a. Devilishly colorful. All right, that's a listen. The original headquarters of the new London police force were in Whitehall with an entrance in Great Scotland Yard, from which the name originates. Scotland Yard was so named because it stood on the site of a medieval palace that had housed Scottish royalty when the latter went London on visits.
The more you know, that's great. Oh, yeah, there you go. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, you can't, you can't, I Google I'm just. Going to have this solved by the you know, I. Hope so. That's, that's the world. But I will know everything about it. Good, good. We need it. Because this case, this case is hard to even speculate because there's just like, there's nothing. There's just a murder, and it's gruesome and it's crazy and there's such a lack of information, but, sorry.
Do we know exactly how many years prior Mrs. Barrett was killed? I think it was 4 or 5. So it wasn't even like that. Recent. Yeah. And but it was still like they were. They were pulling at straws. They were trying to figure out anything they could. So it's like, oh, that lady, you remember that lady from five years ago or whatever? It was like, maybe she was killed by the same person, but what do we know about that? Here's the thing. They they worked hard.
This isn't one of those cases where it's like, police just kind of like stopped. They worked really hard. They questioned thousands of people, and by January they had interviewed 16,000 people. Were, So there was a lot of time spent trying to figure this out and talking to everybody, including the the potential witnesses that saw her around 630.
It was two kids outside saw her in the window that came from all these, you know, all these interviews and stuff around town, but nothing like literally nothing emerged that got people any closer to potentially solving this case. What was the time of death? I don't think submitted. I know. Right, because that was the choir practice. Yeah, it was before 730 is what they they say, but I don't remember seeing a specific like saying. But it had to be between that 630 and 730.
So it was within that hour and she wasn't accounted, but said. That it was the two kids that, that I'm sorry. But who are they? How old were they? TJ we don't know. They could have been like four. We insinuate themselves. Four year olds, murderous rampage. They can they can get it done. I believe in them. You've seen tantrums, Mickey. Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed they are. They are, they are terrifying.
So, a few nights after the murder, a man called the police station and said that he was the murderer and then hang hung up so high that matter. Oh, did it? Excellent. So that, to me, doesn't like I'm not one of those people that's like, oh, my God, the killer called in because some you know, killers like the attention, so they want to do that. But that also happens a lot on murders and in just crime in general, where people do the fake confession or like prank call about it.
So I don't really read too much into this call. TJ, looks like you're going to say something. Well, here's the thing. Yeah. Sometimes. And I just I listen, I know this from experience not murder experience but like buying experience thank goodness. Sometimes like overtly telling the truth is a good way to lie. You know. I know what you mean. Yeah. In high school, when, like, my, my parents were like, what did you do last night?
I'd be, like, drank a bottle of Wild Turkey at Justin's and I had they were like, you're so silly. And you'd be like, no record of that. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I, I, I get that like, probably statistically that's not how that works. But, you know, it was the 60s, man. It was wild. There could have been drugs involved. Maybe a bunch of kids got got doped up on Mary Jane and psychedelics and were like, walking Jack O'Lantern. And then just.
I'm going to stab Moesha now because this is horrible for me, but, you know, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab for those listening at home, but, great description. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. So I don't know.
I mean, that's that's tough because, you know, it is that is like a bit taunting too, like, especially if they're interviewing all these people and you know, I mean, listen, if there was blood everywhere and they knew it wasn't just her blood, you know, I don't know, maybe maybe someone did call in and they were like, oh, I did the matter. Well, I kind. Of think. It was me. It was my. Eye. And I, I used to be good at. So I used to as well. I feel like I'm getting worse at it as I get older.
I do think there's something to be said about the kind of random murder like that that does appeal to me in a way of like a potential like that, to me, seems even better than, like a former student or something like that. Like to me, there's the randomness of it, and that's kind of what makes it hard to investigate.
You know, so yes, just people going around drunk high, whatever it may be, or just some literally someone that just had bloodlust and was like, you know, some potential serial killer on the rise that just wanted their, you know, their kicks and try to get their first bone in or whatever it may be. Just the randomness of this, I think, makes it really difficult to make. Have there been any similar crimes since that they've been? That's a great question.
Not that I could find, but it isn't the easiest to, research. Even though this was the 60s, which is, you know, modern age, and there's a lot of newspapers and stuff and a lot of people have written about it.
It got kind of difficult to find those kind of details, like, I even wanted to find out who the kids were, because sometimes who witnessed her in the window, because a lot of times in these kind of cases, you'll find like 20 years later there, like some journalist will be like, oh, I wanted to find out who the witness was. That's all, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you'll see, like follow up interviews with them years later. And I couldn't find anything like that.
Listen, here's here's some more evidence to support my the kids to that theory. So like, you watch horror movies and you watch like the Michael Myers is and the Jason Voorhees in the Freddy Krueger's and typically and again this was a different time typically. They don't it's it's pretty precise. Like Michael Myers with a kitchen knife. Like, gets you like gets you in one or might get you. It's not very stabby, stabby, stabby, stabby, stabby, stabby stabby.
But if you look at, like kids coloring where it's just all over the place, it's erratic. It's. Yeah, scribbles. It's here and there. It's everywhere. If you're a couple of kids looking at, you know, Menendez brothers, the shit, you know, that type of erratic, like stabby, stabby, stabby, stabby stabbing behavior where it's not like, precision, like Michael Myers can get you with one blow, like he'll put it, there's accuracy there. You know, there's there's precision, there's intent. He's motive.
You're just going wild trying to, you know, decapitate somebody with, you know, with stab wounds. You're, you know, it's a it's a lack of finesse. Yeah. You know, because you can look at it and say it's rage, you know what I mean? Or it's. Yeah, lobster. It's just scream of passion. Yeah. But like that, like that kind of erratic just over and over and over again, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's my that's my $0.02 on why the kids murdered that that way.
Yeah. Yeah. And look if there are there again. You get sued for slander by the estate of these two children. There were people out and about, but there weren't just to reiterate, there are not trick or treaters out because, again, a lot of the stuff I've read is like, there had to have been like it was a trick or treaters or like they should have like someone probably saw the killer because they were out trick or treating. They weren't.
But there still were people out and about because it is still a lively night. There's still people doing the painting for the guy thing. There's people going to choir practice, you know, there's all this kind of stuff. My point is, is that I do think the randomness thing kind of also leads to someone could have just knocked on the door.
I mean, like, oh, sorry to bother you, but, you know, you know, they just, I mean, but she she was killed at the bottom of the stairs, which is by the front door of her place. So it could have just been coming into that little foyer or entry area and something random and terrible. So, yeah, but, the story does not quite end there, thank goodness, because I would love to add something to the story.
Apparently there's a little more Halloween left in this story because the house at 12 Gould Spink Lane in Newcastle is apparently haunted. It's still there. I've pulled it up and it was apparently it was, sort of not abandoned, but kind of no one lived there for a handful of years after. I can't figure out exactly what year some people moved in, but by 1973, a new family had lived in the house. They allegedly quote unquote, thought it was haunted and moved out. They lapsed it. Yes, exactly.
Now, besides the typical comment or paragraph in articles or Reddit sayings about this case, I wanted to find more specifics about the haunted ness of it. Is it just people saying it online like, oh, the house is haunted or like neighbor kids? D when is your find? What did you find? So there is a comment from a newspaper article and oh god, I should have written down the year I, I think it may have been like 1975 or whatever, but it was from a mrs.
Joan Black who was a new tenant, and she told the Chronicle, this is a quote, the family who were here before said the place had a ghost, and it was spooky. They had, since the presence and more than once had claimed to have seen a figure stood watching out the corner of their eye, but that there was no one there when they turned. We don't believe it is true, although the first lodger we had was convinced there was something unusual about the place, it was always at the bottom of the stairs.
We need to go. Lillian wants her murder to be solved. Exactly. Now get out the Ouija board. Come on, Denise, come on. I have one on a wallet. Does that work on a wallet? Like a tiny one? Well, it's like a it's like a like a billfold more than anything. It's like a bigger wallet, and it's, you know, just got, a design on it. Yeah. Yeah. The design everyday.
There was a question I asked, when, when I was active, more active on my social media, Glenn and I were actually talking about before we went to a haunted house. And I'm like, well, what about decor? Because it's all over the place now, right? You've got like, here's a here's a charcuterie train. It's got a nice Ouija board on it, or like towels or stuff like that. Do those count too? And I want to know, Mikey, do you believe those count?
And I want to know if your listeners think that that counts as well. Yeah. Like, make a plan, Chad, out of, like, some Brie and a piece of pepperoni wishes. Delicious aroma. Yeah, well, I look my opinion is I don't believe in Ouija boards. I don't think they actually work. I think there's a lot of there's a lot of human mental aspects that go into making that work. But I love the history of them.
And if I had to start true to report that was a Ouija board, I might be like, that is going on my Christmas list. That sounds like the coolest thing ever. So that's my opinion. These ghosts are delicious. I do believe in ghosts. I I'm I'm open to the idea, but I have yet to fully, fully jump into that world. I've talked a little bit about it on my podcast. Even this last month.
I'm open to it as my point, but of all the experiences I've had in my life and I've had some weird ones, I've eventually been able to explain through the real world things. But I want I want to believe. So I'm open to. Yeah. What about you guys? Firmly, I think I think I might have mentioned this last. I think I think you did. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because you've you had experiences. I've never had something personally like that.
Really told me. Okay. Yes. But I, I think I, I think I believe, you know, I'm open to it too. I don't, I don't have firsthand proof, or anything like that. Although I will say when we moved, when I came to, get the keys to this place and I started moving stuff in from storage, I did not like to go upstairs by myself at night. I just did downstairs. And then dark place. Mad haunted. Yeah. TJ like one day he was like, yeah, this place is super. I was like, no, what? And then I've caught the cats.
Kind of like looking up. Oh yeah? Yeah. Certain places. And I'm like, no. Are you trying to tell me this is not it? Don't tell me that. Then I was like, well. I don't want to look it up to see how many. Yeah, it's part two. Yeah, yeah. And you can I mean, Amy caught me one night looking up there, like, has anybody died in our house before? Because you can just look that stuff up very easily. And she saw me before it. I like, got it. And she's like, you know, you're never going to do that.
And I'm like, yeah, maybe I should. Don't ever. Stop right now. I was just curious and. Yeah, but I, you know, I like the creepy stuff. That's why I host a show, like, a steady stream. So, you know, that way, but, no, I'm open to it. And, the thing that I don't like about the it's very, very general term, but the ghost world is, I don't like when people are very specific about, like, ghost do this. That's Samantha over there. They do that. And this is the way you communicate.
And I'm like, no one knows 100% if if even ghost to real, no one knows 100% of what they're doing, how they exist, how they keep me like I don't like people that get very specific about stuff, because I feel like those are usually the charlatans that are trying to make money on it somehow. And so if, if they are real, I think there's so much more to learn. I don't think anybody is that clued into it. So. Right. Yeah. Well yeah. Because if you were.
Yeah. Yeah I'm with the psychic community would call Claire audience and what my psychiatrist would call schizophrenic. Yes. So, you know, it really all depends on who you ask. Yeah. But. Yeah. Which professional do you want to go with? Yeah. What do you want? You know. Yeah. Like I've, I've heard things, not seen them so much as, like, seen like ghosts and orbs and things, but my, my, experiences have come, from, ghost podcast basically. Yeah. Yeah. Visuals.
I get the yeah, I get the audio track. Oh, nice. That's where my, my my spooky story I'll come from. Very cool, very cool. Well, thank you guys for being on the show again to talk about it. It's a relatively I wish there was more depth about who could have potentially killed her, but it is a a fascinating mystery. And it happened on Halloween night. So I thought it was, a good Halloween episode to have. So I really appreciate the time. And I will provide links to show, links to 29, channel 29.
Excuse me. And Blood and Piper or anything else that you guys want to promote. Is there anything you want to say before you go? Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, like the I still think that maybe there other than my kids theory, maybe, the the inspector was right, but maybe it was like some sort of ritualistic thing. Oh, I just add more spooky to the show. Like. Like maybe this was, like, every 4 or 5 years this cult or something needed. Don't blame the same, you.
Know, some sort of ritualistic sacrifice in a very specific way. So I'd be curious to know, like if they moved on or if there's any, like that specific style of erotic stabby horror. Or if about five years later there was another one. That's. Yeah, the random and. Strange similar doesn't necessarily be the same person, but if it's style, like if you have to like 33 wounds above the nape, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you know, rituals or rituals are wild in general.
When we get to the, the murder side of them, when you, you know. Yeah. And that connects into Halloween nicely because even you know, they there is in the UK your your history of the Celtic world and all of that. And you know, maybe there is some kind of tie in to a ancient celebration of some kind. Right? Yeah, man. Go watch. Him. Here's the thing.
I would be interested to know if anybody has done any research on honestly, because you you hear about serial killers getting away, generally speaking, because states didn't previously share information, you don't cross-reference. So if anybody cross-referenced throughout Europe, throughout even the states because, like, listen, travel was a thing, right? Maybe somebody was getting their feet wet. Like, that would also be an interesting kind of thing to look at. But, Yeah, I mean, wow.
Go unsolved. Let's, Yeah. But yeah, thanks for thanks for having me. This was fun again. And and chat with you about this, fun, spooky stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It was a pleasure to hang out with you guys, and, I really appreciate it. And again, check out channel 29, and I'll provide links to everything. Thanks, guys. Thank you for listening to our special Halloween episode of A study of Strange. If you like all sorts of mysterious and weird and strange content.
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