Dark and Devious

You wake up in the middle of the night and there it is: a menacing presence that you can first feel and then see when you open your eyes. Scared like the dickens, you try to scream and bolt — but you can’t. It’s like you’re paralyzed or being held down by the evil presence.

What in the world is happening? Three words: sleep paralysis demons.

As the legend goes, Bloody Mary is easy to summon. All you have to do is stand in a dimly lit bathroom, stare into the mirror, and chant her name 3 times. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary…” Then, a ghostly woman is staring at you from within the mirror and she will haunt your forever, or even worse! But how did this Urban Legend get started? Could Bloody Mary have been inspired by a real life woman? Listen now, and decide for yourself.

When an 8-year-old girl started her walk to school, her family could never have imagined the monster that awaited her at a church nearby. Cho Doo-soon became Korea's most hated man, and remain infamous as he moved back into the same neighborhood as his victim years later.

Join us this week as Patrick tells the conclusion of the unsolved case of the Burger Chef Murders. In Speedway Indiana, 1978, after a string of uncommon violent crimes had occurred, four young victims were brutally murdered after being abducted from a Burger Chef restaurant. Jayne, Mark, Danny, and Ruth were taken from the restaurant and killed in what is believed to be a robbery gone wrong. Despite eye witness testimony, a potential murder gang, and confessions from inmates, the quadruple homicide has never been solved and remains a mystery to this day.

In Speedway Indiana, 1978, after a string of uncommon violent crimes had occurred, four young victims were brutally murdered after being abducted from a Burger Chef restaurant. Jayne, Mark, Danny, and Ruth were taken from the restaurant and killed in what is believed to be a robbery gone wrong. Despite eye witness testimony, a potential murder gang, and confessions from inmates, the quadruple homicide has never been solved and remains a mystery to this day.

Once again, we have another true tale from the collection Louisville Murder & Mayhem: Historic Crimes of Derby City by Keven McQueen. In 1892 Emma Austin and Eugenia Sherrill sat down to breakfast after a night of entertaining gentlemen callers, but by the afternoon both women were dead. Who killed these women? And what might their amorous neighbor downstairs have to do with it? Buckle up because this case has plenty of twists and turns as well as a heaping helping of DRAMA!

The Dark and Devious team has been doing some traveling lately and we're excited to bring you some tales collected from the road. Chris recently traveled to Louisville, Kentucky and found an excellent true crime volume called Louisville Murder & Mayhem: Historic Crimes of Derby City by Keven McQueen. Today's episode comes from a chapter from that book called "Chestnut Street's House of Horrors" in which a desperate husband develops a habit that puts his whole family in danger.

In the 1890s Upstate New York was shaken by the discovery of three bodies on the Halliday family's farm. Two women and one man were found murdered and what was even more shocking at the time was the prime suspect, the wife of the farm's owner:,Lizzie Halliday. A woman murderer was sensational enough for the time period, but soon enough her sanity became a major sticking point in her prosecution. Was she or wasn't she? You'll have to decide for yourself by the end of this episode.

In the middle ages, torture was used to extract information, force confessions, punish suspects, frighten opponents, and satisfy personal hatred. Modern day interrogation techniques have taken inspiration from Medieval Torture techniques, which itself took inspiration from the Ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures and practices. However, nothing practiced today, even the most extreme techniques, compare to the horrific, barbaric, and excruciating torture practices from the past. Listen now, and we hope you have a strong stomach!