The disappearance of James Eugene Harrison, a young entrepreneur who set out on a business trip in the winter of 1958 and never returned, signalled a tragic loss for his family. Their life suddenly flipped on its head. Mrs Harrison slowly came to terms with the difficult life of a widow with two young sons to raise. A Californian convict admitted to the murder, complete with a detailed confession and the whole sorry affair was tied up neatly for police. That was until James Eugene Harrison showed up on the driveway of a suburban house one night, three months later, confused and unsure of how he had moved halfway across the country and very much alive. 

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that. 

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In the mid-1970s, a series of purported supernatural events took place in a small, yellow, wooden slatted house in a suburb of Bridgeport, Connecticut. At a time when demonic forces were very much in vogue, the Goodin family were plagued by all manner of phenomena that quickly drew the attention of the national press, along with thousands of curious onlookers. Despite the contemporary fervour that it sparked and the similarities to several other, far more well traversed, supernatural tales such as Amityville in America, or Enfield in the UK, the events that took place in Bridgeport in the mid-70s have, remarkably, managed to slip largely under the radar, cloaked from wider public attention. Less glamorous but no less fantastic, the case of the Lindley Street haunting, officially struck off as a hoax before a swift U-turn by the authorities, remains as one of the most dramatic and well documented cases in the history of the American Supernatural to this day.

The email link I mentioned at the start to send in your urban legends, if you want to, is [email protected]

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SOURCES

“The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist” Dir. Nick Freand Jones. BBC, 1998. Documentary.

“Family Haunted No Longer; Cops Say Girl Tells of Hoax” (1974) The Bridgeport Post, 26 Nov, 1974, p.1

“Poltergeist?” (1974) The Kokomo Tribune, 26 Nov, 1974, p.1

“Haunted House or Hoax at 966 Lindley Street” (1974) The Bridgeport Post, 2 Mar, 1974. p.65

“Lindley Street Happenings For Real and Still going On, psychic Asserts” (1975) The Bridgeport Telegram, 9 Jan, 1975, p.11

“None Buy House of Happenings On Lindley Street” (1975) The Bridgeport Post, 30th Jan 1975, p.3

“Exorcist: Repulsive, Not for the Feint of Heart” (1974) The Capital Times, 07 Feb, 1974, p.41

“Occult Fascination Growing” (1974) Northwest Arkansas Times, 02 Feb, 1974. p.5

Hall, William J. (2014) “World’s Most Haunted House: The True Story of the Bridgeport Poltergeist on Lindsey Street” New Page Books, USA Teller, Herbert F. (1975) “Haunted House or Hoax at 966 Lindley Street?”. The Bridgeport Post, 02 March, 1975. P.65

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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Rumoured as a top contender as the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgeralds most enigmatic of characters, Jay Gatsby, Joseph Bowne Elwell was among other things, a property developer, race horse owner, author, socialite, broker, tutor and, last but certainly not least, thoroughly famous  card player. Winning sums that totalled into the tens of thousands on a nightly basis, he built both wealth and a social circle that placed him firmly in the upper echelons of New York Cities elite. That was until, one morning in June, 1920, when his maid found him, shot in the forehead, dressed in his Pyjamas, sitting in an armchair of the reception room of his Manhattan residence. Perplexing for the police was not only the fact that he was a man with no known, but potentially thousands of, enemies, but also that his house had been locked shut, the windows barred and no gun ever found at the crime scene.

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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There is no shortage of famous names associated with the Golden Age of Piracy. Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Henry Morgan or Jack Rackham hold such levels of fame, they have become household names, legends with largely fictional tales still told of their lives at sea. There is, however, one man who managed to outdo them all. His largest, most audacious crime is one of the most successful pirate raids in history and one that nearly brought down one of the richest, most powerful empires the world has ever known. Captain Henry Every, the pirate that shook the colonies from the Red Sea to the Caribbean and then disappeared without a trace.

SOURCES

Farooqi, Naim R. (1988) Moguls, Ottomans, and Pilgrims: Protecting the Routes to Mecca in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The International history Review, Vol. 10, No. 2 (May 1988), pp 198-220. Taylor & Francis Ltd. Oxfordshire, UK.

Johnson, Captain Charles (1724) A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. UK

Johnson, Captain Charles (1732) History and Lives of the Most Notorious Pirates and their Crews. UK

Fox, E.T. (2008) King of the Pirates: The Swashbuckling Life of Henry Every. The History Press, UK.

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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In the spring of 1871, a young servant girl was found in the middle of the night, lying on the ground following a brutal attack that would eventually prematurely end her life. Following a series of fantastic police blunders, a suspect was arrested, tried and promptly acquitted. As far as the police were concerned, the murder had been solved, but the culprit had escaped the hand of justice and as such, the case was closed and eventually buried, slipping into eventual obscurity. Almost 140 years later, that is where the case remains, but had the police been right in their suspicions of the suspected attacker? Or did the murderer remain completely anonymous, escaping justice due to the tunnel vision of a ham fisted police department?

SOURCES

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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In 1921, a series of accidents on a small, rural road, carving through the heart of the boggy marshes and fields of Dartmoor, in South East England, led to a brief explosion in excitement concerning the ghostly image of a pair of disembodied hands, forcing drivers off the road and into potentially fatal accidents. Following a little dash of press magic, the story took hold and grew for over a hundred years, until today where it has become accepted as a staple in British Urban Legend. But how did it happen? How did a relatively innocuous story take such a hold of the public imagination for so long, preserving, evolving and growing with each passing generation? This is the story of the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor, a story that blurs the lines between fact and fiction and spawned into existence a fully fledged cryptid legend from nowhere.

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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Just before dawn, on the outskirts of New York harbour, a small Sloop sailed listlessly into the bay. The ship had no crew, no lights and a deck covered in blood. It presented a mystery to the local police, who set their detectives on the case which led to a manhunt up the East Coast of the United States in pursuit of a phantom. The police may have had a description, a name, but they had no idea of the monster they would find at the end of the trail. More than a phantom, they were chasing a legend, a man who would later become whispered about in taverns as the last pirate of New York. SOURCES Cohen, R (2019) The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation. Random House, New York, USA. De Angelis, L (1860) The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Albert W Hicks, The Pirate and Murderer. DeWitt, New York City, USA Hays, B. (1860) Execution of Hicks, The Pirate: Twelve Thousand People at Beldoe’s Island. Scenes at the Tombs, in the Bay, and at the Place of Execution. His Confession. New York Times, July 14, 1860. New York, USA. Mysterious and Bloody Tragedy. New York Daily Herald, March 22, 1860. New York, USA. Probable Murder At Sea. New York Times, March 22, 1860, New York, USA. The Murders on the Oyster Sloop. New York Times, March 24, 1860. New York, USA. The Sloop Murders: Albert W Hicks Sentenced to Death. New York Times, June 2, 1860. New York, USA. The recording of "The ROse Tree" was made by two guys over on Youtube who go under the channel The Good Tune: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyDZRIjnkzssNPZWZgIO1lw ------

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories

Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast

Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories

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Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected]

or via voicemail on: (415) 286-5072

or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/6f7e2pt

Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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The technological breakthroughs of the 19th century were, to many people, both equal parts exciting and terrifying. Known as the black arts, the newly emerging techniques of commercial photography were often spoken about as though they were a mysterious or even supernatural process. Of course, there was nothing supernatural about the new technology, at least, not for most photographers. When William Mumler picked it up as a hobby, lured in by his attraction to a local studio owner and a propensity to tinker, he decided to lean into the mystery by offering a spyhole into the unseen world of the dead, shooting portraits of clients sitting alongside the spirits of their lost loved ones.

SOURCES

Manseau, Peter (2017) The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost. Houghton Mifflin, MA, USA

Capron, E.W. & Barron, H.D. (1850). Singular Revelations: Explanation and History of the Mysterious Communion with Spirits, Comprehending the Rise and Progress of the Mysterious Noises in Western New York. 2nd ed. Auburn, NY: Capron and Barron.

Nartonis, D. K. (2010, June 1). The Rise of 19th‐Century American Spiritualism, 1854–1873. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01515.x

The London Evening Standard (1869) From Our Own Correspondent.  11th May, 1869

The Banbury Advertiser (1869) Spiritualistic Photography. 29 April, 1869

Elgin Courier (1863) Spirit Photographs. 6 February, 1863

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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This week we go back to the Penal Colonies of Australia to visit a story of grimey adventure, with Alexander Pearce, a convict who escaped into the bush and then, naturally, ate all his friends SOURCES Knopf A., Alfred, (1987) The Fatal Shore: A history of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787-1868, Collins Harvill, UK Collins, Paul, (2004) Hells Gates, Hardie Grant Books, Australia  Boyce, James. “Return to Eden: Van Diemen’s Land and the Early British Settlement of Australia.” Environment and History 14, no. 2, “Australia Revisited” special issue (May, 2008): 289–307. Convict Life, libraries.tas.gov.au/family-history/Pages/Convict-life.aspx. Pearce, Alexander, talis.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fNAME_INDEXES$002f0$002fNAME_INDEXES:1424923/one. “The Land of the 'Free': Criminal Transportation to America.” The History Press, www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-land-of-the-free-criminal-transportation-to-america/. ------

For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com

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Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017

Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

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