Chicago’s West 63rd Street Post Office was built in 1938 over the site of what its creator referred to as “The Castle”, and in 1902 an Ohio Daily News article called it Chicago’s Ghost Castle. Whatever you want to call it, this site was once or possibly still is the home to a notorious killer.

A figure who built a home that included a 2nd floor full of secret passages, trap doors, and hidden staircases. The basement so notorious that a crowd would lay on the sidewalk and try to peer through the cracks as it was excavated.

The creator of “The Castle” claimed to be under an evil influence. An influence that seemed to continue to claim victims after his death. An influence that is still felt today

• Moyamensing Prison was finished in 1835
• Chicago Police Detective Frank Geyer interviews his nemesis in 1895
• A crowd gathers for the excavation of “The Castle” basement excavation
• Another crowd gathers outside “The Castle” to see if the owner returns after his execution
• In 2012 a tunnel that leads to “The Castle” basement is discovered
• The story of Herman Webster Mudgett
• Christmas Day, 1891 Julia Smythe and her daughter Pearl disappear
• The investigation into the Pitezel case
• H.H. Holmes wrote Holmes’ Own Story while incarcerated at Moyamensing
• Mysterious deaths of anyone connected to the case or “The Castle”

Resources:

Herman Webster Mudgett or H. H. Holmes

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The Heriot House in Georgetown, South Carolina was built in 1765. It is now the Harbor House Inn and there are many stories by visitors and Georgetown residents alike of seeing an image of a woman that looks like she doesn’t belong there. Is this woman the ghost of a forlorn lover or does she represent something more sinister?

 Something that ties in with the four circles of Dante’s Inferno and stretches all the way from the old Heriot House to a Greenwich Village neighborhood located on Jane Street. A story that crosses the founding of America and the early days of New York, featuring such notable founders as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and even George Washington.

Episode Highlights:

• Dante Alighieri’s Inferno The Divine Comedy
• Are ghosts fragments of energy left behind
• A lantern in the window of The Heriot House
• Jane Street hauntings and ghost sightings
• The ghost of Alexander Hamilton
• The home of Eliza Jumel
• The story of Gulielma Sands and the Well of Malebolgia
• The Ambition of Aaron Burr
• Tragic life and death of Theodosia Burr Alston

Resources:

Divine Comedy

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In Austin, Texas in 1884 a female servant was killed in a gruesome ax murder. Feeble attempts were made to find the murderer, but to no avail. Soon a series of gruesome ax murders and attacks followed. Each one more horrific than the other, and the murders spread beyond the black servant population to the white community.

What originally was considered a black problem in the South twenty years after the Civil War became society's problem. This was a birth. The birth of legions of Demons cast out by Jesus. The birth referred to in the occult addicted mind of William Butler Yeats in his poem The Second Coming. The birth of something much more sinister.

Episode Highlights:

• The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
• Yeats obsession with the occult and marriage to medium Georgie Hyde-Lees
• The murder of Molly Smith
• Many believed a demon had come to Austin
• The Gospel of Mark and Jesus casting out demons in the Gerasenes
• The legend of the boogeyman can be found in all cultures
• The attack of Susan Hancock and murder of Jimmy and Eula Phillips
• Christmas Day, 1885 the day “Hell Broke Loose”

Resources:

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

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In Native American folklore, there was a dark creature that possessed the mind and body of men, instilling within them a great hunger for human flesh. The Wendigo was feared by tribes throughout what is now North America and Canada as stories of bloodshed and terror spread across the continent. Picture it: Your best friend, your husband, your sister -- crouched down and feasting upon the flesh of someone you love.

It’s been many, many years since a Wendigo was rumoured to be wreaking havoc, but are they truly gone for good? 

Episode Highlights:

• Origins of the Wendigo
• Fear and blood at the Hungry Hall outpost
• Tales from Native American folklore
• Swift Runner: A man possessed
• What lurks beneath the surface of the lake
• Hunting a monster
• Psychosis or a wendigo? 

Resources: 

Dangerous Spirits: The Wendigo in Myth and History by Shawn Smallman

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The Salisbury Plain is the name for the 300 miles of grasslands located in Wiltshire, England. Home to Stonehenge, a rich history, and a wide variety of plants and animals, the Salisbury Plain is one of the most famous locations in England. For the residents of Wiltshire, however, the area is notorious for more than its archaeological features and mystical energy. The great grassy plains of Salisbury border the mansions of Wiltshire, whose walls are painted in blood and sorrow.  In these great houses, the dead refuse to rest.

Episode Highlights:

• The Monuments of Wiltshire County
• The beautiful maiden in Avebury Manor and the Grey Lady: Ghosts searching for lost loves
• Midwife of death
• Spiders, cats, and the Spanish Lady
• Goody Orchard’s curse
• The legend of the Salisbury hare
• Murder in the Road Hill House

Resources:

Haunted Wiltshire by Sonia Smith

@2PodsADay 

If you are looking for podcasts that are similar to Pleasing Terrors, check out:

The Strange and Unusual Podcast

The Not Alone Podcast

Quid Pro Quo Podcast, episode 10 “Double Trouble”

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Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!

The White House: In all it’s glory, from the immaculately-kept gardens to the walls hung with priceless art, is an icon of American history and power. Home to every President since 1800, the White House is seen as a safe haven for the President and their family.

Not even the heavy iron fence that borders the grounds of the White House can keep dark magic from harming its inhabitants. A curse muttered on a bloodied battlefield in 1812 has left over a hundred years of President’s scared for their lives, but has the debt finally been paid?

Episode Highlights:

• Strange sights in the Lincoln Bedroom
• The tall tales and magical powers of Tenskwatawa
• A dark prophecy
• Lincoln’s bloody presidency
• Tainted water in the President’s glass
• Mediums and séances in the White House
• Dreams of an ominous voyage
• A row of white headstones in the Presidential cemetery
• A debt is paid

Resources:

The History Goes Bump Podcast, Episode 162: The White House

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Deep within the heart of New Jersey lies an untamed swath of trees and brush, long believed to be the home of the Jersey Devil itself. A horrifying creature with the head of a goat and the wings of a bat, the legend of the Jersey Devil has haunted the Pine Barrens for generations.

Yet the Jersey Devil might not be the only degenerate creature lurking within the shadows of the Pines. What dark secrets does the Devil guard?

Episode Highlights:

• The many forms of dragons
• What secrets does the dragon’s lair hold?
• The dwellers amongst the Pines
• Ghostly apparitions in the trees
• The many faces of the Jersey Devil
• Hoofprints in the snow: A sinister creature stalks through the night
• The 13th child of Deborah Leeds
• Demonic symbols hidden in the Leeds Almanac
• Dismembered bodies within the trees: Satanic murder in the Pines

Resources:

Dogma and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Levi

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Who can forget the classic tale of the mad scientist who creates a gorgeously gruesome Creature, only to become frightened and disgusted by his own creation? Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is one of the most widely taught examples of Gothic literature, yet most readers don’t know the true story behind Shelley’s most famous work. Was Frankenstein really the product of a writing competition between friends while on summer vacation, as most people believe it to be, or was the story of the scientist and his Monster born out of a much darker mindset?

Episode Highlights:

• June 1816: The year without a summer
• The feminists daughter
• The twisted love life of Percy Shelley
• An empty crib in the nursery
• Vacations in the villa with Lord Byron
• A ghostly competition between friends
• Reviving the dead with electricity
• The waking dream of Mary Shelley
• Giving birth to Frankenstein's monster
• Who was the mad scientist? Who was the Monster?

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Fairy tales often teach an important moral lesson, hidden within the entertaining twists and turns of the story. The tale of Bluebeard, the rich man who keeps the bodies of his murdered wives locked behind the forbidden doors of the dungeon in his castle, doomed to have his wrongdoing exposed by his newest wife, serves as a reminder to young women that curiosity can sometimes be your downfall -- or your savior. In real life there are rarely happy endings to tragedies and moral lessons must be learned the hard way.

For Zona Shue, choked to death in her own home, life was certainly no fairytale. Yet the strange events that led to a murder conviction were as fantastical as any tale written up in a storybook. The moral lesson in her twisted fairy tale?

Mothers are always right.

Episode Highlights:

• The horrifying fairy tale of Bluebeard and his wives
• The trial of the Greenbrier Ghost
• Zona and Trout: A love story gone sour
• A grisly discovery
• Witnesses on the stand
• Mary Jane Hester’s otherworldly visitor
• Confessions from beyond the grave
• Broken vertebrae and bruised skin: Autopsy discoveries
• Trout Shue’s troubled life
• A mother’s vengeance -- fact or fairytale?

Resources:

The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives by Katie Letcher Lyle, Quarrier Press 1999

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The time between three and four in the morning is said to be the hour when evil is at the height of it’s power -- the time when the Devil ascends from Hell and ghosts haunt the land of the living. In part two of my experience of the Devil’s hour inside Charleston’s Old City Jail, I receive a message from Hell itself, and discover the truth about one of the jail’s most famous prisoners -- Lavinia Fisher herself.

Episode Highlights:

• 3 AM inside the Old City Jail
• Torture chambers, the crane of pain, and the hangman’s lair
• Lorraine Warren visits the Old City Jail
• Footsteps in an empty corridor
• A child behind bars
• Lavinia Fisher and Daniel Duncan: Old City Jail’s famous residents
• An exploration to the third floor
• My conversation with Bruce Orr: The truth about Lavinia Fisher

Resources:

• Abode of Misery by David C. Scott, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010
• Six Miles to Charleston by Bruce Orr. The History Press, 2010

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