One woman was confined after publicly accusing a clergyman of refusing to pay her. Another spent fourteen years trying to prove her real identity. A third secretly wrote appeals for freedom with a pencil barely an inch long.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, Ivy Monroe explores three bizarre asylum cases from the 1800s involving Mary Frances Heaton, Hersilie Rouy, and Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop.

Mary stitched names and accusations into cloth. Hersilie fought to reclaim the identity recorded incorrectly by the institutions holding her. Clarissa hid written notes inside her clothing until someone outside the asylum finally listened.

Three women. Three unsettling cases. And three very different records of what happened behind asylum walls.

Follow Her Strange Hour for more strange history, forgotten women, and unusual true stories.

On New Year’s Eve in 1812, Theodosia Burr Alston boarded a ship bound for New York. She never arrived. In this episode of Her Strange Hour, we explore the storm, the rumors, the pirate stories, and the haunting mystery of the woman who vanished at sea.

Dorothy Forstein vanished from her Philadelphia home in 1949, and the strangest detail came from her 9-year-old daughter.

According to Marcy, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a stranger inside the house. Dorothy appeared unconscious, and the man reportedly told Marcy not to worry before carrying her mother away.

Dorothy was never seen again.

But four years earlier, Dorothy had already survived a terrifying attack inside that same home — and the person responsible was never caught.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, formerly Echoes & Oddities, we look at the unsettling disappearance of Dorothy Forstein, the earlier attack, and the questions that still remain unanswered.

In Part 3 of The Family cult story, one girl’s escape helps expose Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s hidden world. The raid begins, the truth comes out, and the cult Anne built finally starts to collapse.

In Part 2 of our series on lThe Family, we look at the children trapped inside Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s secretive cult world — a world of control, obedience, and stolen lives.

If you haven’t listened to Part 1, go back and start there first, as this will be a 3-part series.

Anne Hamilton-Byrne was a glamorous yoga teacher with a growing circle of loyal followers. But behind the peaceful image was something far darker: a secretive group known as The Family, children taken into her world, and a woman who believed she had a divine mission. In Part 1, we begin the disturbing story of how one teacher became the center of one of Australia’s strangest cult cases.

In 1974, a woman was found in the dunes near Provincetown, Massachusetts. For nearly 50 years, no one knew who she was. She became known only as the Lady of the Dunes.

Then DNA finally gave her back her name: Ruth Marie Terry.

In this Bizarre Lunchtime Tales episode, we look at the mystery that haunted Cape Cod for decades, the theories that surrounded the case, and the chilling truth investigators later uncovered about the man they believe killed her.

Three real mysteries where ships and planes were found, but the answers never fully made sense. In this episode, we explore the Mary Celeste, the Star Dust disappearance, and the Joyita ghost ship — three strange historical cases filled with missing people, eerie clues, and unanswered questions.

In 2013, 21-year-old Elisa Lam vanished while staying at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Her final known moments were captured in strange elevator footage that spread across the internet and turned her disappearance into one of the most discussed mysteries online.

Nearly three weeks later, Elisa was found in a rooftop water tank above the hotel.

In this Echoes & Oddities podcast-style episode, we look at the Cecil Hotel, the elevator footage, the theories, and the official explanation — while remembering that Elisa Lam was a real person, not just a viral mystery.

Let me know below: do you think the official explanation makes sense?

Deep in Australia’s Victorian High Country, hikers have whispered about a mysterious bushman known as The Button Man.

Was he truly someone to fear, or did rumor, isolation, and wilderness folklore turn a real man into a mountain legend?

This shorter episode is part of Bizarre Lunchtime Tales — bite-size strange stories from Echoes & Oddities that you can listen to on your lunch break.

What do you think: real, fake, or legend?