Creepy Shit

This week on Creepy Shit, we sit down with mentalist and mind reader Joe Diamond, the official mind reader of the Maxwell Mansion in Lake Geneva WI, to talk about Harry Houdini, the secrets  that go far beyond his famous magic tricks, and the strange story of how the escape artist in history really died. 

Houdini died on Halloween 1926. Thats exactly 100 years ago this month. But the story most people tell about his death isn't what happened. We dig into the real timeline, from the dressing room in Montreal to the hospital in Detroit and why historians still debate what caused it.

We also go beyond the handcuffs and chains: Houdini's crusade against fake mediums and the spiritualist movement, his friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that fell apart over the paranormal, his early aviation feats and the secret code he left his wife bess to rprove he could reach her from beyond the grave. 

Joe Diamond is full-time mentalist whose credits include 2024 appearance on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and who appeared on Netflix, WGN, ABC and Showtime. He's been billed as a world record holder for solving the worlds largest corn maze blindfolded. This Halloween season, he's performing The Houdini Experiment at the Maxwell Mansion in Lake Geneva WI. 

This one’s gonna mess with your head. I went down the Bell Witch rabbit hole and holy crow Batman, what I found completely broke my brain. We’re talking about the most well-documented supernatural case in American history, and it happened right in our own backyards of Tennessee in the 1800s.

This isn’t your typical ghost story bull-honky. The Bell Witch was a sassy, gossipy, absolutely unhinged entity that terrorized the Bell family for four years straight. She’d sing hymns one minute, then roast visitors with their own dirty secrets the next. Kate (yeah, she had a name) knew everyone’s business, predicted the future, and had Andrew Jackson himself running scared.

We’re diving deep into the original Bell property, the infamous Bell Witch Cave, Pastor Johnston getting absolutely destroyed, and why this thing was obsessed with killing John Bell Sr. Plus, all the wild antics that made Kate the most entertaining poltergeist in paranormal history.

If you’re into American folklore, Tennessee hauntings, documented supernatural cases, or just love a good ghost story that’ll keep you up at night - this episode’s for you. Fair warning though: after researching this case, I’m still not sure what the hell happened in Adams, Tennessee.

Are haunted objects real, or are we just attached to the stories? This week on Creepy Shit, a true crime and paranormal podcast, Ashley from Ghost Gossip joins us to talk haunted dolls, cursed objects, and the strange history behind some of the most famous haunted items in the world.

We start with the two most famous haunted dolls ever: Annabelle, the Raggedy Ann doll tied to the Warrens' occult museum, and Robert the Doll of Key West, the doll people still mail apology letters to. Then we dig into the history of real and allegedly cursed objects, from the Hope Diamond to the Dybbuk Box, Busby's Stoop Chair, the Crying Boy paintings, and James Dean's Porsche. We also ask who profits from the haunted object market, from eBay listings to museum tickets.

Then Ashley shares the story of her own haunted doll: where it came from, the moment she knew something was wrong, whether she's tried to get rid of it, and whether she believes a haunted object is truly evil or just attached to someone or something else.

Listen to Ghost Gossip for more paranormal stories from Ashley.

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New to the show? Creepy Shit covers true crime, unsolved mysteries, haunted places, and the paranormal, grounded in verifiable sources.

In 897 AD, Pope Stephen VI ordered the exhumed corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dressed in full papal vestments and placed on trial before the Roman public in the Basilica of St. John Lateran — an event historians now call the Cadaver Synod. 

In this episode of Creepy Shit, we break down the fully documented, real history behind one of the most bizarre trials in Catholic Church history: the exhumation, the corpse trial, the mutilation and disposal of the body, and the shocking downfall of the pope who orchestrated it all — strangled in his own jail cell within the same year. 

This is a true, chronicled historical event, not legend, told in full storytelling detail.

Mattoon, Illinois was gripped by panic when residents began reporting a sickly sweet odor followed by nausea, weakness, and temporary paralysis. 

Over two dozen separate attacks were reported to police in under two weeks, sparking armed citizen patrols and nationwide media coverage of the mysterious "Mad Gasser." 

In this episode of Creepy Shit, we dig into the real, documented history of the Mad Gasser of Mattoon — one of the most famous unsolved mass-hysteria cases in American history — the victims, the failed police investigation, and the theories that still divide researchers over 80 years later. 

Hidden in Italy’s beautiful Venetian Lagoon lies a small island that locals refuse to talk about. For over 700 years, Poveglia Island served as Venice’s dumping ground for plague victims, mental patients, and human suffering. An estimated 160,000 people died on this 17-acre patch of land, creating soil that’s literally 50% human ash.

But the dead didn’t stay quiet.

In this spine-chilling episode, we dive deep into the dark history of Italy’s most haunted island - from the Black Death victims burned alive in massive pyres to the sadistic mental hospital doctor who performed horrific experiments in the old bell tower. We’ll explore the modern paranormal encounters that have terrified every visitor brave enough to set foot on this cursed ground.

Why does the Italian government keep Poveglia locked away like supernatural nuclear waste? What really happened to the investigation team whose equipment mysteriously failed in 2014? And why do fishermen still pull up human bones in their nets centuries later?

Join me as we uncover the brutal truth behind Italy’s island of the damned, where shadow figures roam crumbling buildings and invisible hands still reach out from the grave. Some places hold onto their trauma - and Poveglia Island might just be the most haunted place on Earth.

*Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of historical violence and disturbing paranormal encounters.*

Bihl Manor, one of America's most talked-about haunted houses in Fremont, Ohio, is about to get the HGTV treatment in the new series A Very Haunted Renovation, premiering September 15th. 

In this episode, we cover the real, documented history of Bihl Manor — from its 1890s origins as a private family home to its decades as a children's group home — and take an honest, opinionated look at how the new show's ghost-story framing lines up against actual local historical records. 

This is a documentation-first breakdown of where the real history ends and the "TV lore" begins. Time to press play

In the 1980s, a sweet-looking grandmother ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California. Dorothea Puente took in the city’s most vulnerable residents—elderly folks on Social Security, mentally ill individuals, recovering addicts—and presented herself as a caring caretaker who gave them a safe place to live.

But behind the floral dresses and homemade cookies, Dorothea was systematically murdering her tenants, burying their bodies in her yard, and cashing their Social Security checks for months or years after their deaths.

In November 1988, police excavated her property at 1426 F Street and found seven bodies buried in the garden. The subsequent investigation revealed at least nine confirmed victims, and possibly many more. This is the story of one of America’s most chilling serial killers—a woman who weaponized the appearance of kindness to prey on society’s most forgotten people.

**CONTENT WARNING:** This episode contains detailed discussions of elder abuse, murder, financial exploitation of vulnerable people, and descriptions of bodies being discovered. Listener discretion is advised.

Belle Gunness — known as Lady Bluebeard, the Mistress of Murder Farm, and Hell's Belle — is considered one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. In this episode of Creepy Shit, we dig into the true, documented story of how a LaPorte, Indiana farm woman used matrimonial ads, insurance fraud, and a remote farmhouse to lure and kill more than forty men in the early 1900s. From two suspicious husband deaths to the discovery of the "murder farm" after a mysterious 1908 fire, to the unresolved mystery of whether the headless body found in the ashes was really hers — this is a fully documented true crime deep dive into one of the most disturbing and unsolved cases in American history. Keywords: Belle Gunness, LaPorte Indiana murder farm, Lady Bluebeard, female serial killer history, true crime podcast, unsolved murder mysteries, historical true crime, Gunness farm fire 1908.

Between 1907 and 1916, a charming caregiver named Amy Archer-Gilligan operated a quiet rest home in Windsor, Connecticut. But behind the respectable facade of the Archer Home for Elderly People, a nightmare was unfolding. At least 60 residents died under suspicious circumstances—many within weeks of paying substantial “lifetime care” fees. Their cause of death? Systematic poisoning with arsenic and strychnine.

In this deep-dive episode, we explore one of the most prolific—yet forgotten—female serial killers in American history. Amy Archer-Gilligan murdered vulnerable elderly patients for profit over nearly a decade, and her crimes directly inspired the classic play and film “Arsenic and Old Lace.”