Para(normal)

For millions of followers, the leader of La Luz del Mundo wasn’t simply a pastor — he was believed to be a living Apostle of Jesus Christ.

This week, Nicolina and Marie uncover the disturbing history of the Mexico-based church, from its founding in 1926 and powerful family dynasty to the rise of Naasón Joaquín García.

We explore García’s 2019 arrest, the survivors who risked everything to speak out, his 2022 guilty plea and prison sentence, and the new federal case that has once again put La Luz del Mundo under scrutiny.

It’s a story of faith, power, spiritual coercion and what happens when one man is taught to be the gateway to salvation.

Plus: an unexpected giant centipede nearly derails the entire episode.

Content warning: Discussions of religious abuse, sexual abuse, child sexual abuse and coercive control.

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Spooky season is officially here, and we’re kicking it off with aliens, mysterious disappearances…and yarn. 👽🧶

First, Nicolina heads to Vancouver Island for the strange disappearance of Granger Taylor. In 1980, the UFO-obsessed mechanic left his family a note saying he was boarding an alien spacecraft for a 42- month journey through the universe, then drove into a violent storm and vanished.

Then Marie dives into the bizarre story of the Zombie Yarn Dyer, an indie yarn business, angry customers, undelivered orders and a woman who allegedly went so far as to fake her own death.

Did Granger Taylor really leave Earth? And how did an online yarn dispute possibly end in a fake death?

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Stay spooky. 👽

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What if the dead didn’t just haunt a place but the pieces of it?

This week on Para(normal), Nicolina and Marie are taking on two eerie stories where tragedy, coincidence, and the unexplained collide.

First, we’re heading thousands of feet into the air for the chilling legend of Eastern Airlines Flight 401. On December 29, 1972, the flight crashed into the Florida Everglades after its cockpit crew became distracted by a landing gear indicator, killing 101 of the 176 people aboard.

But according to the stories that followed, the crash may not have been the end for Captain Bob Loft and flight engineer Don Repo.

Then we travel to 1970s London and into a bedroom with a bizarre place in rock-and-roll history. Everyone knows about the infamous 27 Club, but what about the 32 Club?

In 1974, former Mamas & the Papas singer Cass Elliot was staying in musician Harry Nilsson’s London apartment after a triumphant run of solo performances. She went to sleep in the apartment and never woke up. She was only 32.

Four years later, The Who drummer Keith Moon stayed in the very same apartment. He was also 32. And he died in the same bedroom.

Were the crew of Flight 401 still looking out for the living? And are the deaths connected to the 32 Club simply coincidence?

Listen now and decide for yourself.

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This week on Para(normal), we’re tackling two very different kinds of paranormal mysteries: one of America’s most notoriously haunted houses and the bizarre theory that The Simpsons somehow knows what’s coming next.

First, Nicolina takes us inside San Diego’s Whaley House, a beautiful 1850s home built on the site of the old Old Town gallows. From unexplained footsteps and shadowy figures to the tragic stories of the Whaley family and generations of reported ghost sightings, we ask whether more than 170 years of history could have left something behind.

Then Marie investigates 20 times The Simpsons supposedly predicted the future. Smartwatches, video calls, Disney buying Fox, Donald Trump becoming president, the Nobel Prize, the OceanGate Titan disaster and more all make the list, but how many were genuinely eerie predictions, and how many were coincidence, satire or clever writers spotting where the world was already headed?

The Whaley House:

Official Whaley House Museum

Whaley House History:

County of San Diego — Whaley House

Bengt Holmström’s 2016 Nobel Prize:

Nobel Prize — Bengt Holmström

This episode includes discussion of execution, suicide, the death of a child and grief.

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This week on Para(normal), we’re covering two terrifying true crime stories: Jennifer Holliday’s incredible survival and the unsolved Servant Girl Annihilator murders.

In 2005, paramedic Jennifer Holliday was shot, abducted and trapped with Eric Stephen Parnell, the man who had just murdered her cousin, Anna Franklin. Critically wounded, Jennifer devised an unbelievable survival strategy: convince her attacker that he was actually her rescuer. She kept the lie going long enough to secretly communicate with 911, and ultimately lead police straight to her.

Then, we head to Austin, Texas, in 1885, where an unidentified killer was attacking people in their homes as they slept. Known as the Servant Girl Annihilator, the killer primarily targeted Black domestic workers before the murders suddenly stopped. Eight people were dead, the city was terrified, and more than 140 years later, the killer’s identity remains unknown.

Was this one of America’s earliest serial killers, and why has the case been largely forgotten while Jack the Ripper became infamous?

Content Warning: Murder, gun violence, kidnapping, sexual assault, violence against women and children, racism, and graphic injuries.

Sources & Further Reading:

Houston Chronicle — Jennifer Holliday

Jennifer Holliday: A Story of Survival in East Texas

Travis County Archives — Mysteries of Travis County

Servant Girl Murders — Austin, Texas 1885

CultureMap Austin — The Servant Girl Annihilator

🎧 Follow Para(normal) wherever you get your podcasts for more true crime, paranormal stories, unsolved mysteries and seriously strange history.

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In 2006, 16-year-old Cassie Jo Stoddart was murdered by classmates Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik, two teenagers obsessed with horror movies, filmmaking and Scream. Even more disturbing? They recorded themselves discussing the murder before it happened, and again after Cassie was killed.

Then we head to Siberia for the mysterious 1993 Khamar-Daban incident. Seven hikers entered the remote mountain range, but only one, Valentina Utochenko, survived. She later described watching members of her group suddenly collapse one after another under terrifying circumstances.

Authorities attributed most of the deaths to hypothermia, but questions surrounding the hikers’ strange symptoms, the rapid sequence of deaths and Valentina’s survival have fuelled theories involving poisoning, toxic exposure, military activity and unexplained environmental phenomena.

Two terrifying stories: one seemingly inspired by a horror movie, and one that feels like it belongs in one.

Content Warning: This episode discusses the murder of a teenager, violence, stalking and school-shooting ideation.

Further Reading & Watching

• The Scream Murder: A True Teen Horror Story — ABC News Studios

• The Scream Murder: A True Teen Horror Story — Disney+

• Khamar-Daban Incident — Background, Timeline & Sources

Rate, review and subscribe to Para(normal) wherever you listen. Stay spooky. 👻

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This week on Para(normal), Nicolina and Marie dive into two cases where nothing is quite what it seems.

First, the disturbing true crime story of Dr. John Schneeberger and Candice Fonagy. After Candice accused the respected Saskatchewan doctor of sexual assault, DNA testing appeared to clear him, but she refused to give up. What investigators eventually discovered was an almost unbelievable scheme to manipulate his own DNA tests.

Then, we travel to Norway for the mystery of the Isdal Woman, an unidentified woman found dead in 1970 whose multiple aliases, wigs, coded notes and secretive travels across Europe have fueled theories that she may have been a Cold War spy.

Further Reading:

 John Schneeberger case

 BBC — Death in Ice Valley

 The Isdal Woman case

Content Warning: Sexual assault, drugging, abuse and death.

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This week on Para(normal), Nicolina and Marie travel from the collapse of an ancient civilization to one of Canada’s strangest paranormal cases.

First, Nicolina investigates the mysterious Late Bronze Age Collapse, when interconnected empires, cities and trade networks across the Mediterranean began falling apart around 1200 BCE. Was it the Sea Peoples, climate change, famine, earthquakes, rebellion…or a catastrophic combination of everything?

Then, Marie heads to Québec in 1889 for the bizarre story of the Dagg Poltergeist. Fires appeared without explanation, objects flew across rooms, windows shattered, and an unseen voice began answering questions, at one point claiming, “I am the devil.” The activity seemed mysteriously connected to 11-year-old Dina Burden McLean, disappearing whenever she left the farmhouse.

Love a good mystery? Follow Para(normal) wherever you listen, leave us a 5-star rating, and send this episode to someone who loves the strange, unexplained and completely unhinged.

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What if your computer started receiving messages from someone living 400 years in the past? And what happens when a brutal family murder gets blamed on witchcraft and a rare blue moon?

This week on Para(normal), Nicolina and Marie investigate two bizarre cases where the supernatural explanation might be just as fascinating as the truth.

In 1984, Ken Webster was living in an old cottage in Dodleston, England, when strange messages began appearing on his BBC Micro computer. The person writing them called himself Lukas and claimed to be living in the same location, in the 16th century.

What followed was an alleged correspondence spanning hundreds of years, eventually documented in Webster’s book The Vertical Plane. Were the Dodleston Messages an elaborate hoax, a paranormal encounter, a time slip or evidence that different moments in time can somehow overlap?

Then we head to Pensacola, Florida, where Voncile “Bonnie” Smith and her sons John and Richard Smith were found murdered inside their home in 2015.

The case quickly became known as the Blue Moon Murders after investigators publicly discussed possible ritualistic elements, witchcraft and the rare blue moon occurring around the discovery of the bodies.

But prosecutors eventually presented a much less supernatural motive. So was there really something ritualistic happening beneath the blue moon, or did a sensational paranormal theory nearly overshadow a very human crime?

Sources & Further Reading

📖 The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster — Google Books

👻 The Dodleston Messages Research Archive

📚 The Vertical Plane: The Mystery of the Dodleston Messages — Open Library

🌕 Blue Moon Murders — The Minds of Madness

🎧 Listen, follow and leave a review for Para(normal) wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a paranormal story, conspiracy or true crime case you think we should investigate? Send it our way and follow Para(normal) for more hauntings, mysteries, cults, conspiracies and crimes that are stranger than fiction.

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Five friends drove to a basketball game in 1978. By the next morning, they had vanished.

This week on Para(normal), Marie dives into one of America’s strangest unsolved mysteries: The Yuba County Five. What should have been a simple drive home after a college basketball game turned into a decades-long mystery involving an abandoned car, an unexplained detour into the Sierra Nevada mountains, a survival trailer stocked with food that was barely used, and one man who has never been found.

Why did the group leave a perfectly functional vehicle? Who survived for weeks inside the trailer? And what happened to Gary Mathias?

Before the mystery begins, Nicolina gets an unforgettable early birthday surprise from legendary Canadian TV personality Rick Campanelli, leading to one of the podcast’s funniest openings yet.

Could this have been a tragic series of mistakes, or is there still a missing piece investigators have never uncovered? Listen now and decide for yourself.

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