We continue our journey through the woods deeper into the darkness. We still hear its soft and ticing, an unmistakable voice calling to us. We keep walking as we ponder how to respond. We can hear the sound of something moving in the bushes. We cannot see what it is. We quicken our pace, eager to reach the clearing where the final six podcast hosts are waiting. We finally reach the clearing and we see them gathered around a campfire.
They are the ones who alleed us into those darkest corners of the human psyche and the supernatural realm. So gather round, dear listener, as the forest darkens around us. Sandy from Twisted Travel and True Crime is who we see first. She specializes in unsolved murders. A host whose voice is a chilling breeze on a moonless night. Her stories will take us down dark and twisted paths where we will learn about the dark side of human nature. Rebecca Gay loved the spooky season.
Her home in Mount Pleasant, Trailer Park in Michigan stood out among the sea of tiny homes because it was covered in scarecrow. With 13 of them adorning her mobile home in tiny yard, Rebecca was excited to take her three-year-old conway, trick-or-treating for the first time. It was a season of first for her, as she had recently acquired her own home, a place she could decorate to her heart's content. And for Rebecca, scarecrow's were a must have for all Hallows eve.
Her journey hadn't been easy, but at age 24 things were looking up for her. She and her fiance, Erin, were finally going to move into their very own home. Rebecca and her son Conway bid farewell to the comfort of Erin's parents' house in August. With the help of her extended family, they moved into the mobile home she was renting. The move brought her closer to her workplace and to her mother's home, which was a blessing for both of them.
Erin planned to join them once he found a job closer to Rebecca. Although she lunged for Erin's presence, Rebecca knew she had to be patient. She relied on her side of the family for support, and they were always there for her. They attended Christ community fellowship church together, where Rebecca's mother was engaged to John White, the pastor. John became involved in Rebecca's life babysitting Conway and assisting both Rebecca and her mother whenever he could.
He even helped Rebecca set up her new trailer. They teased her about her spooky decorations and listened to her excitedly talk about Conway's Halloween costume and their plans for the holiday. Rebecca had arranged to work the earliest shift on Halloween day. That way she would have plenty of time to pick up Conway and get him ready for trick or treating. However, when Rebecca didn't show up for work that morning, her co-workers grew concerned. She was always punctual, so her absence was unusual.
They chide calling her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. When she was afraid, they decided to check on her at her house. Her car wasn't in the driveway, but they saw it across the street, backed into some brush behind a local bar. The bar was locked, as was Rebecca's home. Growing increasingly worried, her co-workers contacted her landlord who came to unlock the door. Rebecca was nowhere to be found, but her purse sat on the kitchen table.
It was one of her prized possessions, and she wouldn't go anywhere without it. Her cell phone and keys were missing. As they searched the house, they noticed the living room carpet was mad at down, except for one small area, and there were small red stains on it. Alarmed, they called the police and informed Rebecca's family and friends, who immediately joined in the search. Thankfully, they discovered that Conway was safe and with his biological father.
The police interviewed Rebecca's family and friends, starting with Aaron, who had last spoken to her the night before her disappearance. He mentioned that they had a pleasant conversation, but when he texted her on Halloween morning, she didn't reply. It seemed as though the message hadn't gone through at all. This was unusual as they hadn't been fighting, and Rebecca typically charged her phone, and was responsive. The police believed Aaron's genuine concern, and cleared him of suspicion.
Next, they turned their attention to Chad, Rebecca's ex and Conway's father. He cooperated with the police, stating that he and Rebecca had been co-parenting well without any major issues. He grew frustrated with the constant questioning, as he wanted to join the search for the person who had taken Rebecca. The police tended to believe him, too, leaving them puzzled.
There were no signs of forced entry at Rebecca's home, so the police concluded that Rebecca had likely been abducted by someone she knew and trusted. As they built a timeline for her disappearance, they discovered that Rebecca was supposed to meet Chad at a Myers department store parking lot to exchange custody of Conway. However, John, her soon to be father-in-law, had dropped off Conway instead, without Rebecca informing Chad about the change in plans.
The investigators turned their eyes towards John, who had been actively involved in the search efforts for Rebecca, and had willingly cooperated with the police. They discovered that he was the pastor at the local church, and that he had reached out to his congregation that morning, urging them to assist in the search for Rebecca, and pray for her safe return. He said that he had gone to Rebecca's trailer to Baby Sit Conway that morning.
He arrived at 630 and heard Rebecca getting ready for work. He fell asleep on the couch and was later woken by Conway, and Rebecca had gone. Given that John was the last person known to have been in Rebecca's presence, the police requested that he take a polygraph test. Initially hesitant, John eventually agreed to undergo the test.
Since the police department in Mount Pleasant, Michigan didn't have its own polygraph machine, they planned to take John to the nearest one, in Lansing, approximately an hour away. During the drive, the officer who was accompanying him, engaged in small talk, hoping to ease his nervousness. The officer asked John about his background in personal life, eventually broaching the topic of his concerns about the polygraph.
John admitted he was worried because he had a criminal passed, revealing that he had been involved in an attempted murder case that was ultimately dismissed. It resulted in a two-year prison sentence. The thing was, John wasn't telling everything about his past. Unlike the scarecrows that decorated Rebecca's house, this officer had a brain.
He pulled up John's criminal record, and to his astonishment he discovered the man who presented himself as a devoted preacher, had a far from saintly passed. In 1980, when John was just 22 years old and living with his family in Battle Creek, Michigan, he invited his 17-year-old neighbor, Teresa Atherton, to his basement, under the pretense of showing her his racetrack. Teresa, being a kindhearted girl, likely fained interest out of plightness.
However, as she turned to face the racetrack, John viciously stabbed her under the right shoulder blade. With a chilling smile on his face, he continued to stab her a total of 14 times, before choking her, and callously uttering the words, "You're going to go now." Miraculously, Teresa survived this brutal attack, and John White was arrested. He did go to jail, and he did only serve two years. Passed forward to 1994, John was still married to his first wife, despite his troubled past.
Yes, I can't explain that one. His wife was pregnant with their third child, when John started an affair with a co-worker named Vicki Wall. When Vicki suddenly disappeared, suspicion immediately fell on John. He initially denied any involvement in her disappearance, claiming he had no knowledge of what happened to her.
However, when he was confronted with surveillance footage showing Vicki getting into a large pickup truck with a bearded man in the Meyer parking lot he admitted to meeting her, but insisted he was alive when he left her. As the detectives continued their investigation, Vicki's relatives looked for her body, convinced she was buried nearby. Their worst fears were confirmed six weeks later, when a resident stumbled upon a gruesome scene.
Her body was decomposed and partially covered by a shirt and bra around her neck. Thoughtopsy couldn't determine the cause of death, but the pathologist believed it was a homicide. John was charged with murder, however, due to the lack of conclusive evidence and the difficulty in determining the cause of death, he ultimately pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Police believed that John's motive for killing Vicki was that she was pressuring him about their affair and maybe she threatened to tell his wife. The judge recognized John's dangerous nature and sentenced him to the maximum term of eight to fifteen years in prison. After serving nearly thirteen years he was released and relocated to Mount Pleasant, where he took on the persona of Pastor White, fiancee to Sally, and all around good guy, except he wasn't.
If there was good in John, it was that he would eventually admit to police what he had done to Rebecca that Halloween morning. Behind closed doors he had scoured the darkest corners of the internet, immersing himself into poverty and feeding his dark desires. The screen flickered with images that fascinated and repulsed him, murder and necrophilia, or consistently on his mind.
That night as Rebecca checked her son into bed and kissed him good night, she had no idea that it would be for the last time. At two in the morning she was sleeping peacefully when she was startled awake by a chilling sound in a sense of panic. She walked out of her room, her heart pounding in her chest, worried that her son was up, or something worse. In a horrifying instant John pounced on her, his face contorted with the mixture of madness and sadistic pleasure.
He held a rubber mallet in his hand and with brutal force he struck her repeatedly. Her cries for help were drowned out by the sickening thud of the mallet as it connected with her head. Rebecca in the midst of the brutal attack recognized her assailant. She managed to utter the words "I know you" before John tightened a zip tie around her neck, strangling her. Then he had his way with her.
John's true nature came to the surface in the early hours of Halloween morning, leaving Sally Rebecca's mother in a state of profound shock. Not only had she lost her beloved daughter, but she found out that she had fallen in love with the murder. In the courtroom as the judge pronounced the sentence, John gazed around the room with an unsettling detachment, seeming unaffected by the pain he had inflicted on Rebecca and her loved ones.
The judge handed down a severe sentence, condemning him to between 56 and 85 years in prison. You are safe from John Douglas White this Halloween, but be aware of all the other ghosts, ghouls, and things that go bump in the night. If you'd like to hear more details about this case, I'd like to invite you to listen to the extended version called The Devil Disguise, the murder of Rebecca Gay.
Thanks for listening to Twisted Travel on True Crime and for all the good things you do to support these podcasts. I wish you all fair winds following seas in the safest of Halloween nights. Niki and Mariah, the hosts of Body to Vereal, speak each week to experts who have seen and heard things that will make our blood run cold.
Their tails are like a pair of haunting eyes, ever watching in the darkness, ready to reveal the truth behind the unexplained incrims, in death, and in what might happen after. Last week's episode, I think you're just going to be so excited about it. I feel like it speaks to your soul and I'm really excited for you to hear it and participate. We have two gentlemen joining us today, which I guess is actually another Body to Vereal first for us. We have a duo. We have Matthew.
Matthew is a Chicago Fire Department firefighter. We have David who is a Chicago police officer. I'm sure you're wondering why do we have a firefighter and a police officer? Why am I so stressed about that? Yeah, right. Right. Well, the dynamic duo of Matt and David, they also have a little side hustle, which you know I love. Uh-huh. Hair and normal investigators. I love that. You know I love that. Yeah. What? Mary, all the fun stuff. All I want to do right now is sing the Ghost Busters.
The fun, but I won't do that for listeners, but it's literally on loop in my brain right now. Oh my God. No, that is really a different side hustle than what their normal job is. That's incredible. Right. Actually, yes. So, super pumped. Oh, you know I love ghost stuff. Okay. Yeah, I'm excited. Well, let me go grab them. Oh, okay. Hello, Matthew, David. Can you hear us? This is Dave. Can you hear me? Yay. Yes. Hello. Hi. And I'm on to.
Yay. Hi Matt. Thank you both for taking the time to talk to us. I appreciate you indulging in our request to have you guys. Nikki is obsessed with paranormal shows. Yeah. All the shows. And so this is really exciting for her to have you guys. Yeah. I really am. Awesome. I think the first question we have to get out of the way is how did this come about? I call it a side hustle, but how did you guys go from being firefighter, police officer to deciding to investigate paranormal activities?
How do you even get into that? What sparks the idea? Well, Matt, do you want to start? Yeah, sure. So me and Dave met Dave had already been investigating and I was actually out on the street with the fire truck. And I was acting for Make a Wish, you know, Shake the Bood, collect the money for kids and stuff like that. And David rolled up in the what we call Misty, which is our command center. I saw his police shirt.
Now you know, like what kind of special, I thought it was like a special unit with the Chicago police department. So I'm like, Oh, what's going on here? Who are you? And he goes, I'm not sure if you believe it or not, but I'm a paranormal investigator. And I'm like, get out of here. You know, we had like two, like maybe 30 seconds to a minute to actually converse because it was like the light had turned green. He was off to his, one of his other jobs.
I went back to collecting and I thought about it later. I sent Dave an email. I looked them up. I looked up all his evidence and I had been interested in the paranormal. Never really did any investigations. So I looked up his stuff and looked them up, sent them an email, say, Hey, I'd love to join you. You know, check out an investigation. And I think maybe a month or two something came up and yeah, so it's been, I don't even know how long that's been maybe eight years. Dave. It's right.
Yeah, last track, but something like that. So then how did you, I know, it's going to sound like what is that six cents like I see dead people, but like, how did you even get into that like where you could know how to do it? All that stuff. I've become, we've kept, I'm still skeptical of course, because that's what I have to be. You know, I got to be even even I am at times. You can't be all in paranormal. You got to look at both angles. But I have to see it to believe it.
And then one of the first full body apparition that we captured on camera was like, it put my mind. I like it. I couldn't believe it because I was like, yeah, like I was there. I knew what was going on. I mean, we didn't see it physically with our eyes. Actually, I wasn't even in the room when it happened, but David took it to take a series of pictures with full spectrum camera and later on through evidence review, he finds this like full body shadow.
No. Yeah, it almost looked like a civil war soldier or somebody in a jumpsuit. It was an old, it was a building that used to be used. And that's right. Yeah, the, the, the angle would alarm office. Yeah. That is so interesting to me. Do people call you and say, Hey, I think my house is haunted or you just kind of go to different, kind of known both. I've been in a lot of, a lot of emails all the time from Facebook messages to the website, emails, word of mouth.
And you know, when I first started this, I used to try to go to all of them, but it just can't do it because with Matt, myself and some of the other members, you know, sometimes we've got to take off work. It's costing money, you know, using a vacation day or we can do it. So we try to pick and choose which ones are important or which ones we would really like to go to. And then after doing an investigation, it takes days, weeks to go through everything and match everything up.
So we try to pick and choose the ones that need help, you know, the good ones. So because I had, I, I told Mariah this a really long time ago, but I had an apartment. I moved out of it two months early because I swear I was haunted and then one of my, it really was, I swear. And then one of my friends from work, she was telling me to like, sage the place and then she was telling me to tell it to go to the light.
So I turned on the TV as loud as I could because I was afraid it was going to tell me no. And so I did that and nothing happened, but I got, I got a dog and after I got my dog, things kind of settled down a little bit, but I still moved out early. And then when you guys like say you went to my apartment and you're like, yeah, there's a creeper in here. What would you do to get them to try and go away?
Well, you know, depending on what your beliefs are, there's different things you can do, but when it comes to like apartments, you might have to do a daily, weekly, monthly, you had to see what works, but usually when we cleanse our self, our equipment and stuff after an investigation, we use white sage, we use polisanto, holy wood. And then I have what is called dragons blood is basically sage, but it's, it's like a, has a reddish tint to it and it's a little, little more kick to it.
Okay. I'll use anything. I'll use it all. It doesn't. I also have a frankincense and mirth that that's what a lot of the churches use, you know, especially when it comes to like a, you know, a funeral in a body pass. And if you see like the priest of the pastor with the incense going around the body and it can't, most of the time that's like frankincense and mirth. So sometimes I'll use that maybe for a spirit to go into the light to go to the next step.
Have you ever encountered evil, I guess, because they're probably just like, you know, grandma that passed and she likes her house and she's hanging out or, you know, but then there's also the dangerous see type ones, I guess. Yeah. A few, in two I experienced it myself and like just met pretty much the same way, correct, until we experience their self, you know, I'll keep an open mind, but sometimes I'll be like, oh, that's full of beep, you know, I don't.
But once I experienced it or it comes something close to it then I'm like, oh my God, there's something to that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few cases that open my eyes that there's, looks like there's evil out there. And from my experiences dealing with different psychic mediums that I trust and stuff, you know, whatever the reason is, there's, you got earthbound spirits and then you got more sinister or evil stuff if that's what, you know, that's what you believe.
That's what I'm telling you to believe now. Okay. But earthbound is just for whatever reason, the spirits did not move on to the next step. Whatever you decide that next step is they just stayed earthbound and then they say if you haven't moved on to the next step, you know, in your earthbound, you're going to be that same person you were when you were living. So if you were a crevio old man or only in your house, they might be treating you the same way, you know?
Yeah. So I do get a lot of getouts, get out of here, get out. So that's probably the old man thinking I'm trespassing. How is that? Oh, yeah, like where you can hear, like where you can hear something that says like get out. Yes, they get that a lot. No, that has helped me and a lot of getouts. And when you hear, like weeks later, when you do your finish the investigation, that's when you're listening to the getouts, or can you hear it right then and there? You know, there is times.
It's not often, but there's times, especially if you're a little more sensitive, like sometimes it seems like I'm able to tune in a little more than some of the other people where I could hear my own ears, but there's times you get to hear stuff with your own ears, disembodied voices that comes through strong where you don't need the frequencies of the voice recorders or, you know, the mics picking it up sometimes were able to hear it, but there's something out there.
You know, I think it's spirits, but if not, maybe it's another dimension of some type or we're tapping into something, but there's definitely, you know, I say you would agree Matt, there's intelligent spirits or whatever you want to call it out there that can you communicate back and there's a trapped energy residual energy that no matter if you there are not, it's going to make that same noise, same footsteps, same door open.
Is this for some reason some energy is being trapped in that area or that house or whatever one I call it that room? And you think that's they've already gone. Let's just say to the light or like beyond, but their energy a little bit of their energies there. So I'll give you an example of on a case that we handled.
I don't think you were at that one, Matt, but there was a house in Wisconsin where this lady was complaining about a male spirit, the wheeling against the fireplace from the fireplace that would go down the hallway to her room, stand over her and then back to the fireplace. That's the route it would take. And she could see him. Yes. I guess the physical thing. Yes. Okay. So she had the same spirit at the house you lived in before. So she moved to this new house.
She was our six months still experiencing that spirit among other stuff that I could get into later. But, but anyway, when we were there were investigating somehow we linked this fireplace. It was a fake fireplace and she was an artist. So she saw it on the curbside at her old place and didn't know really the history on it. She said, oh, this is a nice piece of art, you know, and she fixed it up and from that place brought it to her in her place and had this male spirit.
So we linked that this male spirit was attached to this piece, you know, the fireplace. Oh, yeah. So that night she had a skit rid of it and from that point on she never saw it again. But we found out later interviewing old neighbors that the guy who made this piece committed suicide and this was his favorite piece. And then when he once he died, you know, they removed all his belongings and put them on the curb and earns whatever and that's when she picked it up.
But so that that male spirit who committed suicide was attached to this favorite piece. This is a favorite piece. Yeah. Does that happen a lot? Because I've heard of that too. That's why my husband's like never get anything from a flea market. Yeah, I'm cautious myself when it comes to that.
But they say some of the mediums that we deal with and, you know, I can't say works 100% they preach that if you get it by anything you use any antics, aggride sales, have a bottle filled with water and sea salt, a spray bottle and spray the item before putting it in your car and they kind of compare it to like if you're cooking with a tough land pan, how nothing sticks to it. So when you coat it with the sea salt and water, that energy is supposed to slide.
Yeah. That's because that just reminded me of what I was going to ask you before was can anything come home with you like get attached to you. Yes. I wasn't a believer in that. I thought that was full of crap. Excuse my expression. But until I experienced it myself, at least a handful of times and it took that to get me into staging and protecting myself, family, you know, all their team members with, you know, staging after an investigation because it's been a handful of times.
I think I had nothing bad, you know, even one time I had a family over from out of state and they experienced it too and never had a problem in my house until I, you know, started this and it's just something like my very first investigation where I had something follow me. I think it's something that I knew they knew I saw it or heard it and just wanted to continue to communicate. So it's tugging me, tugging my shirt. This is all new to me. I've been like a little baby to my wife.
You know, I remember I was in the kitchen and we just had the basement already done with a nice family room and stuff put down there and I'm in the kitchen. I think I was cooking dinner and I get like three or four tugs on my shirt.
I mean, really hard where it's pulling them like and I jump and I look, you know, and I look and there's no one around and there's nothing I could have got hooked on and I was like a Scooby-Doo, you know, running down and this is just having a meeting, you know, and you know, you're only human until you start experiencing it, but I was in the shower and I hear a male voice whispering in my ear and this was from the same investigation. But I jumped out like a little kid.
I hate to admit, but I turned down the shower curtains and I was just stunned. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? So, yeah, it took that for me to start learning, you know, through the help of the psychic mediums we deal with how to protect myself, you know, the house, my wife, daughter. Yeah, the last thing I want to do is bring something home and then have them, you know, being bothered with stuff. So, you know, it's a matter of telling them, okay, I know you're here.
You're not welcome. It's time for you to leave. You know, very respectful because you know, it could be someone's mother, father, grandfather, whatever. And also, talk to you like you and I are talking and just, you know, sometimes you have to give it demands and then go through the process of the staging every room, every corner of the room and, you know, there's certain ways of doing things and, you know, tell it to leave and it was no problem. I never experienced it again.
Does it usually leave? Like, well, is that normal? Like for it to go with doing all those steps? Yeah, it depends. They say, and like I said, I can't prove this, but this is what I've been told, you know, for people in that field, the psychic mediums that go to cleansing, you know, cleansing homes and stuff, they say you can't force an unwilling earthbound spirit to leave. Either things you could do to decrease its energy with staging.
You might maybe force it out of the house, but it could possibly come back. This is why you got to continue. Melissa and Daniel from Tildeth, DOS Partt podcast, study the murders, myths and legends of the world. They bring revealing tales of restless spirits that drift through the darkness, like this one, yearning to find their way home. Hello, and welcome to Tildeth, DOS Partt. I am Daniel. And I'm his lovely wife, Melissa. Yes, she is.
Now I usually tell Daniel and our 11 listeners true crime cases involving couples whose love story eventually turned into murder. But today I'm going to share with all of you a haunting, the haunting of the Banff Springs Hotel, which is now known as the Fairmont Banff Springs. Banff. Say that without spitting. Banffa. I want to go. Is that expensive? Yeah. Nope, I don't want to go anymore.
This majestic hotel is located in Canada's Rocky Mountains in the heart of Banff National Park in Banff, Alberta, Canada. How many more times are you going to say Banffa? Hopefully no more because I can hardly say it. Oh my gosh. It was opened in 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a retreat for traveling businessmen. The original structure was a five-story wood frame and was able to accommodate 280 guests. The hotel drew its water from the nearby natural springs.
The pipe system filled the hotel's pool with thermal spring water. Oh, that's kind of awesome. That sounds lovely. A luxurious oasis for only $3.50 a night. Deal. What is it $120 a day to stay there? It is not. I just looked it up. It's about $500 to $600 a night. What? But it is Halloween. It is October. Yeah. But in 1926, there was a devastating fire that burned the wooden structure to the ground. A new steel structure was built in its place using limestone rock from nearby Mount Rundle.
The Banff Springs Hotel was built by the workmanship of hundreds of Italian stone cutters and Scottish stone masons. So it's quite a structure now. It's gorgeous. Yeah, like it's not going to blow away. No. And this has helped to give the hotel its nickname of the castle in the Rockies. Nice. It very much looks like a castle. In the last few decades, the hotel has given way to a few ghost tales. And I'm about to tell you those. That's good because I believe in ghosts. No, you don't.
No. Don't lie to these good people that are listening right now. That's fine. He does not believe in the paranormal or anything of that nature. No, so I would gladly stay in a haunted hotel because it's not going to be haunted and it's probably going to be my best night's sleep ever. Well, first we have the ghost bride. She's been seen dancing in the ballroom or walking up one of the marble staircases. Her face shrouded behind a white veil.
It is said that this spectre is the ghost of a young woman who is due to be married on the hotel grounds in the early 1930s. When, as she was walking down the staircase to the waiting arms of her soon to be husband, her gown caught on fire by one of the many candles that adorn the stairwell. The bride stepped on the hem of her dress, causing her to lose her footing and fall forward to the bottom of the marble staircase. The bride snapped her neck in the process and died.
The ghost bride has never left the grand hotel and she spends her night searching for her lost love. Okay, so she not only catches fire but she trips, falls and breaks her neck while her dress is on fire. It's like a triple threat. Holy crap. I already forgot, but when did the thing burn to the ground? 1927. Okay, so this was after. This was after. This was in the 1930s.
The bride's haunting is so well known that in 2014, a collector coin and stamp were distributed to commemorate her story, but she doesn't have a name, so that's interesting. Their resident ghost is known by his Christian name, a Mr. Samuel McColley, a Scotsman. Mr. McColley was the lead Belman at the hotel in the 1960s up through the 1970s. He loved the hotel so much that on his deathbed in 1975, Sam said that he would return to the Banff Springs after his death to Haunt its halls. Please don't.
Guests of the hotel have encountered this helpful and friendly bellhop, wearing an out-of-date bellhop's uniform with a strong Scottish brogue. But when offered a tip, he just vanishes. One of the most famous tales was that of two women who had locked themselves out of their hotel room. They headed down to the front desk and waited for the bellhop on duty for 15 minutes. The women decided to walk back up to their room.
Once they were back at their door, a man in an older-looking bellhop uniform approached them and unlocked their hotel room door. They thanked the man and he happily walked away. I have a serious question. What's that? Okay. I come out in an old bellhop uniform, walk around the house. What do you think? Is that work for you or no? I'm not giving you a tip for that. Really? Maybe. All right. Okay, but it kind of is scary that he can just get into any room, right? Yeah, because there's no privacy.
No, there's no privacy at this hotel now. One is also seen in his old office on the mezzanine floor, which has been converted into an actual guest room. But the saddest tale of all is that of room 873. I also read that it was room 875. Well, they're next door to each other. I think so. A young family was staying in the room and one night the husband and wife began arguing. The husband went down to the hotel bar and became intoxicated.
He grabbed a large knife from the kitchen and stabbed his wife and daughter to death in room 873 or 875 and then turned the knife on himself. Guests of the room have complained of hearing disembodied screams and shrieks in the middle of the night. If they dared turn on the light, they would see bloody handprints on the bathroom mirror that could not be washed away. Due to the paranormal activity within those four walls, management made the decision to brick up the entrance to the room.
Recent guests who are permitted on the eighth floor have said that there is no room 873 or 875, even though the baseboard is cut where a door used to be. There is a light hanging over an empty space on the wall where a door should be. It is also said that if you knock on an area of the wall, you hear a hollow sound. A few guests have even reported seeing a young girl standing outside of a room, looking as if she is lost.
Okay, so if you had a hotel, and allegedly there were a couple of rooms that were haunted, wouldn't you leave those open? And then the word would get out that those are haunted rooms? Yeah, I'd charge more. You would get a line of people wanting to stay in those, I would. Yeah, I'd totally keep it open. I did go down the Reddit hole and came across something very interesting. Okay. Reddit user TJ Smudger92 said that he used to work at the Banff Springs Hotel.
TJ claims that all the ghost stories and paranormal activity are made up by the previous staff. There it is. The versions of the ghost bride were told to TJ by the hotel's former vice president. In 1986, a group of the hotel's colleagues set out to see who could come up with the best ghost story and one of them came up with the story of the bride. And it is still told today. Sam The Bellman is based on a real former bellhop who worked in the hotel for 20 years.
The ghost was made up by the old head of the bell desk. It became a sort of joke. If a bag ended up in the wrong room, it would be blamed on Sam The Ghost. The haunted room, 873 or 875 cannot be found on the 8th floor any longer because the room next to it was expanded. I was totally going to say that. And compassing the room. Yeah, why don't they just expand the room next door into a bigger room and then if they wanted to, someone wanted a bigger room, they didn't have it available.
Because I had read that on the 8th floor, the rooms are tiny. Yeah. So they wanted to have bigger rooms so they were expanding these rooms. If you happen to stay in the expanded room, you will be awakened all night by people knocking on the wall where the door used to be. Oh, no, that I could believe. That's annoying. Because I at 100% would do that. You would knock on the wall? No. So is the Banff Springs Hotel haunted or not? Yes. No one knows for sure, but it sounds fun.
All right, we hope you enjoyed a little snippet of us. Check out our podcast that till death do us part and be careful. For marriage is life's sense. And divorce is always the better option. It is. Bye. Bye, bye. We turn our attention next to two of the three hosts from unethical podcast. It's a lest and Christy specializing in a study of fear and the human psyche, but in ways that will have you laughing maniacally as you do so.
Their stories tell of the evil entities lurking in the Inquisitos, our mouths curve up at the humor until we realize that the darkness they speak of still surrounds us. I'm Sarah Dinges and I'm from unethical podcast. And Celeste is here with me today. Hi, I'm also from unethical podcast. And today I have a spooky little story coming from Tennessee in 1804. John and Lucy Bell started a farm near the Red River in Robertson County, Tennessee, which is right outside of Nashville.
They had nine children at the time. Oh, it's a lot. Right? Years after they had moved to this property in 1817, they began experiencing some strange things and it all happened after John Bell shot at a dog like creature and it disappeared after he fired the shot.
But then the children began seeing more strange creatures and hearing and explain noises in the house such as knocking on doors and windows, wings flapping on the ceiling, sounds of choking and strangling heavy objects moving around, chains hitting and dragging on the floor. And these people have ever seen a dog before because the wings and the chains, none of that sounds like a dog to me. No, I like the best description we have as dog like.
So like maybe it was some demonic looking thing, but like it could have been a coyote who the fuck knows. Okay. All right, Bat Yodi, the wild chained Bat Yodi, their native to Nashville, Tennessee. They escaped the caves. All right. Continue. And sometimes these sounds were deafening the family members that they were so loud. And originally they just referred to this as the spirit and eventually it became known as the bellwitch.
And the bellwitch would even speak to the family in a disembodied voice and eventually it became violent and it started beating and pinching and pulling hair, especially aimed at John Bell and his daughter, Betsy. They were the two that the bellwitch absolutely hated. Yeah. This sounds like sibling rivalry. Mom, a job pulled my hair. No, I didn't.
It was the bellwitch, Mama. It wouldn't mean it does sound like some shit that kids would have like stuck just to like get out of it with the out of things. Sounds like they they broke Paws favorite smoking pipe and they were like, one thus got got thing bellwitch again. But Lucy Bell, wife of John Bell was least affected by the spirit. And the spirit even proclaimed her to be the most perfect woman living. After nine kids, that's no slow. Right?
And I guess if you're going to have a spirit in your house, at least have it, think you're a bad bitch. You know? Right? Where are my complimentary spirits at? And apparently the bellwitch would even sing to her when she was sick and just hang out and care for her, which I don't know how much a spirit can care for someone, but hope she doesn't ghost her. But I'm sorry. However, Betsy Bell endured the most torment from the witch.
For years, the bellwitch tormented her and she wouldn't find relief from the spirit until she married her former school teacher and moved to Mississippi in 1820. Quick question. The mom is being like, caressed and having sweet nothings whispered in her ear and fed soup when she's ill by this spirit. But her daughter is getting like her hair pulled and being called a fat bitch and all that other stuff.
And the mom is just like, she's taken a second to be like, which, how come you're torturing my daughter? I have no idea. And so Betsy was previously engaged to another man, but the bellwitch hated that man. And so that's how she ended up with her former school teacher and marrying him and moving to Mississippi. And when she moved to Mississippi is when finally the torment stopped for her. That would have been a much better time to use ghosting as a pun for breaking up with someone.
She ghosted her first lover, move John to her teacher, fired a dollar. The bellwitch referred to John Bell as old Jack. He wouldn't be so lucky to be able to escape this. And after years of physical violence and threats, John was bedridden on December 19, 1820. And his son, John Jr. was caring for him and went to get medicine bottles out of the cabinet to help his father. And when he opened the cabinet, he only found one vial of a mysterious liquid.
And the bellwitch told him it's useless to relieve old Jack. I've got him this time. And upon hearing that, John Jr. threw the bottle into a fire and it burst in blue flame. And John Bell died December 20, 1820. And supposedly the bellwitch crashed his funeral service by obnoxiously singing drinking songs. Okay, this is the husband of the one that the bellwitch loved. Yes. Okay. Okay. So was she trying to smash or like, did she was her husband just not a nice man? No explanation. Oh, wow.
Just the bellwitch hated John. Loved Lucy. Had a problem with a couple of the kids. Okay. So the bellwitch poisoned him to death. Yes. And then took all the medicine away so he couldn't be fixed. Yeah. And was basically telling John Jr. Hey, don't even try to save your father because he's going to die. Like I got him this time. I don't know, man. I don't know. Seems a little suspicious. I feel like I've heard this excuse before. Wasn't me a witch did it? That leads me to the next point.
So it was as best as it could have been in 1820, somewhat investigated and went court. And this is where Tennessee became the first date to contribute the death of an individual to the supernatural because even the court was like, yep, bellwitch. Ghost did it. Ghost did it. First or only. I think first and only. All right. Well, I would have expected more from Tennessee. So that's surprising. So that's it. Open and shut. Pretty cruel as far as state of Tennessee was concerned.
Yeah. Bang the gavel judge. Ghost did it. Everybody go home. Did they try hanging her? But they set up like invisible wire and they just like, whoo. Like the real fire like we're just going to burn the witch. Well, the bellwitch in the spring of 1821 told the family that it would be back in seven years, which Lucy and two of her children reported that it did come back in much of the same way that it had before as far as strange noises and all of that.
But shortly after it returned, it left again claiming that it would haunt the bell family descendants again in 1935. And while some people report strange happenings still on the family land, it's never been to the same severity as what the original bells reported in the 1800s. Today you can tour a replica of their cabin. And you can also tour the caves.
And the caves is where people believe the bellwitch may have retreated to during the times that it said it was leaving and it would be back or whatever. And so you can tour the bellwitch caves that are on the old bell property. Right. Because the life cycle of course was that and then bat yoddy and then which. So she was returning home to her birthplace, the caves where the bats are born. I assume. Right. Right. That all checks out. I have no questions. Yeah. She came. She murdered a man.
She left. As one does. Thank you guys for listening and happy Halloween. Happy Halloween. Thanks guys. Cassie and Caitlyn, the host of PNW Haunts and Homicides, descended deep into the unknown to bring tales of murder, the ghastly and the otherworldly. Their stories will reveal hidden horrors of the past and show us how the darkness waits to ensnare the curious wanderer. They'll also have you questioning every rustle in the leaves and every creek from the forest. Hi Cassie. Hi Caitlyn.
Hi creepy people. Hello. Hello. This is PNW Haunts and Homicides. Can you imagine what it would be like if the frivolity of your youth, presuming that you were permitted any was cut short by a horrific event? For more than one family, that sentiment is all too real. Emanuel Fair was imprisoned in King County, Washington for nearly a decade for a crime that he says he did not commit. He told the Seattle Times about being incarcerated for so long without a conviction.
I always knew I was going to get out. I just didn't think it would take as long as it took. 10 years you said? He was imprisoned, yes. At the Valley View Apartments near Lake Samamish, #NeverBundey. Ooh, if you know, you know, Ikea, can all that. Emanuel was one of dozens of people, both other residents of the complex, as well as their guests that were in and out of one of several apartment units during the Halloween party that took place nearly 15 years ago.
Okay, can I just say that sounds like a lot of fun? Yeah. Like a whole apartment building party. Yeah. That sounds great. I think it sounds fantastic. Reminds me like a dorm kind of situation. I think it very much had that kind of a vibe because it seems like there were a lot of people that were in their, you know, early to mid-20s. So maybe recent college grads or, you know, people kind of getting their lives started up. So great.
No. The gravity of the situation didn't really hit until later though, when a young woman's body was discovered in her very own bedroom. Arpana Jinaga was a 24-year-old immigrant who worked as a software engineer at a company called EMC in Bellevue. And though she lived less than a dozen miles from her workplace, she had been born nearly a world away from the state of Washington in Hedira, bad, India. That's a whole world away? I mean, yeah, basically. I feel like it's in the same world.
Yeah. I know what you're saying though. It's probably a whole different world. Definitely. And most of her family was still there. She was an alum of Rutgers University, but her accolades didn't stop there because I'm pretty sure just getting into Rutgers is an accomplishment in and of itself. She had won an International Software Award and was a rising star in her Bellevue workplace. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
She was an active and friendly outgoing young woman, but she also had an eye for promising volunteer opportunities, such as those that she took on both at an animal shelter, as well as with the local fire department. Oh, well, isn't she the sweetest? I know. She'd lived in the area for less than a year and signed up to volunteer her time to both in the Redmond area. Oh, I know that area.
Yeah. Nearly two years later in October 2010, Emmanuel was placed in a Seattle holding cell for the 2008 sexual assault and murder of Arpana Jinaga. At the time, they were continuing to gather evidence against him. For reference, DNA found at the scene of the crime would be linked to three men in total, but only one would ultimately be charged in connection with her death. Whoa. So they ran a test on the DNA and it matched three different people?
There were a number of samples taken from various items in the apartment and that were discovered in another area, and we're going to talk about that in a second. Some of the samples matched one guy, some of the samples matched another. There may have been some co-mingling of samples. Well, yeah. We don't like co-mingling of samples. Don't love that. It's not a good time. No. The evidence used against him was collected from a dumpster on the complex property.
According to prosecutors, Emmanuel's DNA was discovered on multiple items that they believed the killer touched, including tape in the apartment, mixed with Arpana's blood stains on a red robe found in a dumpster. Oh. Also, on a swab taken from Arpana's neck. Oh, okay. Yeah. We've got some different places where it's being found, but we're going to come back. Put a pin in the DNA evidence for our full-length episode in the PNW Haunts and Homicides Podcast feed, because we're going to get to her.
I'll be there. Okay. When Arpana's body was found in her apartment back in 2008, a few specific sensory details stood out to those working the case. The smell of bleach for one, but also how her bedroom seemed to be completely saturated with an oily substance, which was later determined to be motor oil. Oh, ew. Yeah. Okay. I imagine that's very smelly bleach and motor oil. And what the fuck is going on with motor oil? I had a lot of questions. Maybe.
They think it was flammable and they wanted to like, push the plate. Well, that's the place. Well, that's the place. Which would also later explain the burn marks on her bedroom carpet, as well as the satin sheets pulled from the garbage dumpster. Absolutely horrifying. They were burned, like, not chemical burns, like fire burns. That's my understanding.
Ooh. Yeah, because they say burn marks, the way that it's phrased in the source material, yeah, does sound like fire burns, not like a, like, ooh,ouch, that's going to blister in a weird chemical way. But I guess they probably wouldn't say chemical burn if it wasn't on a person. I would assume. Neighboring tenants would also say that they heard what they described as muffled moaning, but didn't indicate that they had any reason to be particularly concerned about the noise at least on that night.
It does sound like a party house, so I'm sure noise is common. Yeah, I mean, it's a Halloween party. Right. I feel like enough said, you know what I mean? Except maybe not. However, it wouldn't take long for serious concern to develop. By November 2nd, our Arpana's family had not spoken to her for a couple of days. This was extremely unusual, as they typically spoke to her every day. Daily. granting her father to ask a family friend that lived in the area to check in on her.
Whether they expected anything was truly wrong or just wanted to check on her in an abundance of caution, the scene that the family friend, along with one of our Arpana's neighbors, walked into, was the absolute worst case scenario imaginable. Unimaginable, but... And you said her family isn't local, right? Right. Oh, gosh. They found Arpana at the foot of her bed. Her autopsy would later show that she died of esphyxia by ligature strangulation.
No. Ligature strangulation occurs when an external object is placed around the neck and provides compression. Oh, God. The compression is usually applied to the neck by using the deceitant's own body weight in what would generally be described as either a partial or complete hanging. Oh, my God. That sounds violent. Yes. Her manner of death was obviously brutal, but within the report, it was also noted that she had sustained multiple blunt force injuries.
Prior to leaving the scene, the killer or killers had used bleach, blue toilet bowl cleaner, a common household type of soap, and motor oil to strip away forensic evidence linking them to the crime. Man. Traces of the various cleansers were found on Arpana's body, the carpet, her comforter, the bathtub, as well as the bathroom counter and her mattress from which the comforter had been removed.
Now it's important to note that depending on who you ask, Arpana's killer was already imprisoned, but has since been released. Others believe that one of the other persons of interest is the likely killer, or even that a combination of multiple killers is most likely. Some have even speculated about other high-profile, violent maniacs such as Israel keys, and he's not the only one.
Oh, usually that's a theory that could be easily dismissed, especially if we're not sure that it's coming from an entirely reliable source. However, in this case, it does seem that Israel keys was in fact in the Seattle area between October 31 and November 2. Oh, that makes me really uncomfortable. Because it should. So while it may be far-fetched, it's possible that you may not want to roll that one out entirely.
Okay. Emanuel Fairs' trial would begin in February of 2017, more than six years after he had originally been charged, and more than eight years after our Panna was murdered. After the rest of the story and this episode's tarot reading, you'll have to join us on our regular feed. Well, I'm not really that interested in hearing the rest of the details, but I'm really interested in the tarot. Yeah. That's what I'm here for. I know. I know. To everyone listening. Have a creepy ass Halloween!
Finally, we turn to Jamie and John from True Crime Cast. As we huddle close to the fire. They share tales of both visible and invisible terrors, of voices that invade your very soul that lead us into the heart of terror. Listen closely, and your heart will race with each whispered word. Hey, True Crime Cast fans. Jamie and John here are super excited to be a part of this Halloween collaboration.
In darkness falls, we were excited to be contacted by Allison from Coffee and Cases, and we've got our own spooky little tale to tell here today. So get us rolling, John. We are going to be talking about Teresita Baza, who was born in 1929 in the Philippines, and was the only child to her parents who were well off and very wealthy. She went to college there and then moved to the United States in 1960 to earn her master's degree in music.
However, she would become a respiratory therapist at Edgewater Hospital located just outside of Chicago. Fun fact, this was the same hospital that was the birthplace of both John Wayne Gacy and Hillary Clinton. What a club. Teresita was a kind, hard working lady and lived a simple life in which she kept to herself. She wasn't the type of person to make enemies or make anybody angry.
On February 21st, Teresita worked a normal day, and then at 7 in the evening she got a phone call from a friend who was a doctor at Edgewater Hospital. They spoke about concert tickets and trying to sell some. They were on the phone until about 7.20 and she said a friend arrived and she had to go. She got another call at 7.30. This was from Ruth Moib, who also worked at the hospital.
They talked for about 20 minutes, and Teresita stated that she had to run because somebody was there to fix her television. At 8.40 pm, neighbors and their apartments smelled smoke in their units and they opened the doors and saw smoke coming from Teresita's apartment. When firefighters got there, they found the source of the flames was a mattress that had caught on fire. When they had put out the fire, they found Teresita's body under the mattress, laying down with her hands over her head.
She was in just a horrible situation and it very much seemed as if foul play was involved. Was Teresita lived alone? Please weren't able to find out if anything was missing from the home. Was this a burglary? Was this personal? Was this a sexual assault later on? We would find out that there was no sexual assault. But so many questions. Police did find a note that said get tickets for AS, AS being initials.
Police didn't know who had come to repair the TV because Teresita hadn't told anybody a name or a company of anybody that was supposed to be coming to the house. So all police know is we have this note, we have these phone calls and we have somebody fixing her TV and that's all they got. This case would basically go nowhere for months. However, in August of 1977, six months after the murder, police would receive a fairly strange tip.
Another department around Chicago, Evans Town, called the CPD to ask if they had looked into a man named Alan Schahery, who also worked at Edgewater Hospital. The police department had not looked into this man and of course they wanted to know why they were even asking. In Evansville, police department gave them the name of Dr. Jose Schau as someone that they could call and speak with and that's when the story gets really spooky.
Yeah, Dr. Schau's wife, whose name was Remy, also worked at the Edgewater Hospital. Dr. Schau worked elsewhere. So detectives went to their home to learn why they would even ask about Alan Schahery and what connection they had to Teresita. They seemed shy or kind of ashamed almost at first, didn't really want to talk, but during the home visit, Dr. Schau asked one of the detectives if he believed in the occult and demonic forces. That's got to be a question as a police officer.
You're there to get a report and get some facts. That's got to put you on your heels, I would think. Dr. Schau said that he's a physician, but he had seen some things in his life that science just would not explain. He went on to say that he didn't know Teresita or even know about her murder until one night when his wife, Remy, had become possessed by the spirit of Teresita, Bassa.
Dr. Schau said that the first time he saw this was in their home, Remy had got up from the couch, walked into her bedroom, and was just sitting there on the bed, staring with a blank face. He asked her if she was okay, and she began speaking in a foreign language. This language was tagalog, and her voice was not his wife's. Now tagalog was a national language of the Philippines where Teresita and Remy are from.
Obviously Dr. Schau was concerned for his wife, and just like a doctor, he wanted to make sure that she was oriented. So he asked her if she knew who she was, and the voice said, "I am Teresita, Bassa." The voice told him that she needed help solving her murder, and that the man who murdered her was Alan Shawery. The voice explained that Alan showed up to work on the TV, but instead she was stabbed by Alan.
After Schau then said that once the voice left, Remy was back and had no memory of this experience. When Dr. Schau asked Remy if she knew Teresita, she said that they may have met once during orientation at work, but they worked different shifts and really didn't know each other. They certainly weren't friends. He stated that another time it happened in the middle of the night while Remy was asleep. The voice woke her up and asked why he hadn't gone to the police yet.
Dr. Schau said, "I am a scientist. I need proof of this before I go to police." The voice then described two pieces of jewelry that had been stolen from Teresita's house by Alan the night of her murder. He went on to give those to his girlfriend. The voice also told Dr. Schau the names of relatives of Teresita who could identify the jewelry as hers. Remy told the police that sometimes in the hospital locker room she would look around and see visions of Teresita with Alan's face behind her.
All kinds of supernatural imagery and claims of voices, not our typical leads. They asked some of his co-workers about Alan and Teresita and one of them had mentioned that he remembered Alan saying that he was going to work on her TV at some point with this and the note from her home about having tickets to give to AS. Police paid him a visit as well as his girlfriend. At first he said he didn't know her. But when confronted with the testimony about working on her TV, his story began to change.
He stated that he had went there for just a short time but didn't have the right tool that he needed to fix the TV so he left fairly quickly. They asked his girlfriend if she had been given any jewelry and she showed them two pieces that were a perfect match to the ones that were described from the ghost and she stated that he had given them to her in January as a late Christmas gift. Police showed these pieces of jewelry to Teresita's family and they confirmed that they were indeed Teresita's.
You mentioned you got chills when you quoted the quote unquote ghost earlier. I just got chills that the jewelry claim was right. How on earth could Remy have known about this other than this being possessed as she claimed to be? Eventually Alan would confess when he was confronted with all this evidence. He said he got there that night and he killed her looking for money. He only found $30 and he took two pieces of jewelry so that's what her life was worth to him.
He was charged with murder and this trial in the public was nicknamed The Voice From the Grave. Four weeks later there was a hung jury because of the ghost witness. A lot of the jurors while they thought he probably did this were so hung up on the unlikely hood of Remy knowing this from a ghost that they couldn't commit to a guilty verdict. Before there could be another trial, Alan pled guilty for a shorter sentence of 14 years for murder.
After everything was said and done, he only ended up serving four years before he was released. That's the most insane part of this story and I know that I just said a ghost told somebody who murdered her but the fact that he only got four years for this is mind blowing to me. It is. Yeah. They have this information I can't think of a logical scenario where she knew this unless somebody around the hospital was talking about it. I guess that's possible.
But I think that's the story you go to police with. Not the story of she was possessed by a ghost of a dead person that woke me up in the middle of the night. They were reliable witnesses. Everything they said proved to be true though so it is what it is. Yeah. I legitimately think that the ghost of Tarrasita helps solve her own murder and that we as society and the justice system were the ones that dropped the ball. Again, we're thrilled to be a part of this Wind Darkness Falls collaboration.
You can find true crime cast anywhere you find your favorite podcast with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Until next crime, this has been true crime cast. And happy Halloween. We look at each other and we know what we must do. We must listen to their stories. We must learn about the darkness that lurks in the world both inside and out because that is the only way to escape it.
Be sure to subscribe to all 13 participating podcasts listed in our show notes so you don't miss a single episode or tale of terror. And again, listen. Remember. Wind Darkness calls. Answer at your own payroll. [MUSIC]