We’re jumping into our coverage on the hat man. So, there are many claims of dark figures that seemingly watch us from the shadows. One of the most prolific and widely encountered being what people refer to as simply, the hat man. This entity has appeared to thousands of people across the globe, primarily at night, and always wearing a hat of some sort. The primary tie in all of these stories is that people who experience an encounter are usually woken from sleep to find a shadowy figure standing over them. The figure is always tall with a cloak and hat. Somtimes that hat is widebrimmed, sometimes short, sometimes a cowboy hat, but it is always on top of his head. He’s always marked by shadows, but in some instances people even report seeing his eyes, red glowing things staring at them from the darkness, and his mouth, a wide, hungry smile eagerly feeding on their fear.

Sources:

The Hat Man: The True Story of Evil Encounters by Heidi Hollis
https://www.gaia.com/article/the-shadow-hat-man-story-superstition-or-a-real-phenomenon
https://medium.com/@chillinkristen/the-hat-man-whats-this-shadow-person-got-under-his-cap-863c0a12f95c
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/12/beware-of-the-hat-man/

Today, we’re covering the strange world of national park disappearances. According to the NPS, national parks cover over 84 MILLION acres of space across the US, that’s approximately 340,000 square kilometers. Not that any of us know what that means because we speak American so we measure shit in miles here. Tallies put the total cold case disappearance load at upwards of 1,000 disappearances, some as high as 1,600 since 1916. But here’s the thing, no one really knows because the National Park System doesn’t fucking keep track.. In many instances, these cold cases result in complete disappearances, but in instances where bodies are recovered, oftentimes they are missing shoes or socks, despite cold weather dictating that socks and shoes should clearly be worn. From disappearances to massacres, national parks may sound idyllic, but a relaxing camping trip may not always be what’s in store when you venture out on a natural adventure.

https://vocal.media/criminal/strange-disappearances-in-national-parks

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyjvdx/missing-persons-national-parks-paranormal-bigfoot-aliens

https://www.gaia.com/article/mysterious-disappearances-us

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2018/11/gone-missing-national-parks

https://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survival/wilderness/10-mysterious-disappearances-in-national-parks.htm

https://www.outsideonline.com/2164446/leave-no-trace

https://nypost.com/2016/09/02/the-6-eeriest-deaths-and-disappearances-in-americas-national-parks/

We're going CLAWS TO THE WALL- mixing it up with tequila and White Claws, no bourbon today (sorry guys) BUT we are covering the bloodshed.

Specifically, the story of Daniel LaPlante. This story blends an incredibly fucked up murder, with the type of folklorish stories that urban legends and nightmares are made of. He was arguably was a victim himself throughout his childhood, he was abused by multiple adults in his life, mostly by his father who was prone to torturing the boy, and by his late teens was exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior, behavior that’s almost on the level of being part of modern day folklore. He started with obsessively calling a random number he found, moved on to  burglary, and graduated to murder when he brutally assaulted 33 year old, pregnant Priscilla Gustavson, raping and murdering her in her own home before murdering her 5 year old son William and her 7 year old daughter Abigal. LaPlante did all this, at just 17 years old.

Sources:

https://www.swordandscale.com/a-scary-story-to-tell-in-the-dark/

https://www.sinisterhood.com/articles/59

http://www.parkaman.com/strange-case-daniel-laplante-real-night-horror-story/

https://www.lifedeathprizes.com/real-life-crime/murderer-daniel-laplante-73312

http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/416/416mass433.html

https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/volumes/416/416mass433.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-20-mn-297-story.html

We're currently in a ham coma and dreaming about the wonderful world of travel. Take a journey to the South Pacific Ocean with us, where we land on the 63 square mile island of Easter Island, full of nearly 900 Moai statues that are as mysterious as the people that made them.

We get off track a lot in this episode. You've been warned.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/easter-island-things-to-do/index.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-mystery-of-easter-island-151285298/

https://www.britannica.com/place/Easter-Island/Archaeology

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/world-heritage/easter-island/#close

Robert, or Bobby, Durst, was born in 1943 to one of the wealthiest families in New York. His father owned residential and commercial property in New York City and his father, Seymour Durst, was actually on the cover of New York magazine as a player in their feature “The Men Who Own New York”. Ironically, this story was in circulation when Robert Durst walked into a police station in 1982 to report his 29 year old wife, Kathie Durst missing. It was widely thought that Durst had a hand in her disappearance, but nothing was ever proven. In fact, it wasn’t until after the mysterious death of his friend Susan Berman, and the gruesome murder of his neighbor Morris Black that Durst even saw prison bars. But none of the time was served for the disappearance of his wife Kathie. That was until a documentarian named Andrew Jarecki invited Durst to tell his side of the story in a 2015 HBO docuseries called, ‘The Jinx’ that famously ended with Durst talking to himself in a bathroom, not realizing his mic was still hot and saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Sources:
Deadly Secret by Matthew Birkbeck
The Jinx – HBO Documentary
https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/03/robert-durst-murders-wife-susie-berman
https://www.biography.com/news/robert-durst-biography-facts
https://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/11/kathie-durst-lifetime-disappearance-case-theories-murder/

We're hanging out with some new friends, The Paraholics! They're talking to us about how they got together, past experiences and investigations, and we're all re-hashing the investigation we did together a while back. This episode right here is a labor of love. Several hours of investigating, a nearly 2 hour interview, and a solid 3 hours of Morgan trying to edit after her computer fried and she had to make do on a back up computer. Hope you enjoy this, and check out The Paraholics!

You can find them at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCDOfTsnOlqOBCM3-CtAoQ

paraholics.com

https://www.instagram.com/the_paraholics/

https://www.facebook.com/paraholism/

Robert, or Bobby, Durst, was born in 1943 to one of the wealthiest families in New York. His father owned residential and commercial property in New York City and his father, Seymour Durst, was actually on the cover of New York magazine as a player in their feature “The Men Who Own New York”. Ironically, this story was in circulation when Robert Durst walked into a police station in 1982 to report his 29 year old wife, Kathie Durst missing. It was widely thought that Durst had a hand in her disappearance, but nothing was ever proven. In fact, it wasn’t until after the mysterious death of his friend Susan Berman, and the gruesome murder of his neighbor Morris Black that Durst even saw prison bars. But none of the time was served for the disappearance of his wife Kathie. That was until a documentarian named Andrew Jarecki invited Durst to tell his side of the story in a 2015 HBO docuseries called, ‘The Jinx’ that famously ended with Durst talking to himself in a bathroom, not realizing his mic was still hot and saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Sources:

Sources:

Deadly Secret by Matthew Birkbeck

The Jinx – HBO Documentary

https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/03/robert-durst-murders-wife-susie-berman

https://www.biography.com/news/robert-durst-biography-facts

https://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/11/kathie-durst-lifetime-disappearance-case-theories-murder/

Robert, or Bobby, Durst, was born in 1943 to one of the wealthiest families in New York. His father owned residential and commercial property in New York City and his father, Seymour Durst, was actually on the cover of New York magazine as a player in their feature “The Men Who Own New York”. Ironically, this story was in circulation when Robert Durst walked into a police station in 1982 to report his 29 year old wife, Kathie Durst missing. It was widely thought that Durst had a hand in her disappearance, but nothing was ever proven. In fact, it wasn’t until after the mysterious death of his friend Susan Berman, and the gruesome murder of his neighbor Morris Black that Durst even saw prison bars. But none of the time was served for the disappearance of his wife Kathie. That was until a documentarian named Andrew Jarecki invited Durst to tell his side of the story in a 2015 HBO docuseries called, ‘The Jinx’ that famously ended with Durst talking to himself in a bathroom, not realizing his mic was still hot and saying, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Sources:

Sources:

Deadly Secret by Matthew Birkbeck

The Jinx – HBO Documentary

https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/03/robert-durst-murders-wife-susie-berman

https://www.biography.com/news/robert-durst-biography-facts

https://heavy.com/entertainment/2017/11/kathie-durst-lifetime-disappearance-case-theories-murder/

Anneliese was a young German girl born to working class parents in Bavaria. Over a span of seven years from 16 to the time of her death at age 23, Anneliese experienced what started as a seizure, developed into night terrors, and crescendoed as full-blown possession ending in a months long exorcism that spanned from 1975-1976, ending with her death. What catapulted this case into the spotlight was that in addition to being a real-life exorcism that took place around the time the Exorcist movie came out, the German courts also found some question around whether or not her cause of death was from possession, or from malnutrition and dehydration that resulted in negligent homicide on the part of her parents and the clergy that oversaw the exorcism. Ultimately, her parents and the attending priests would stand trial, and ultimately were convicted of the charges, despite adamantly claiming that it wasn’t a physical ailment that had killed her, but a spiritual one.