The Devil Within

You Have Been Here Before

The New Monsters – Story Four, Episode One

What if the most terrifying place you've ever imagined isn't a haunted mansion, an abandoned asylum, or a forgotten cemetery?

What if it's an office building?

This week on The Devil Within, Branden Morgan begins a new three-part investigation into one of the internet's most extraordinary pieces of modern folklore: The Backrooms.

What started as a single anonymous photograph posted online in 2019 quickly became a global phenomenon, inspiring millions of people to ask an unsettling question:

"Why does this place feel so familiar?"

Unlike the monsters we've explored throughout The New Monsters, the Backrooms have no ancient legend, no centuries of oral tradition, and no historical eyewitness accounts stretching back through time. Instead, they represent something entirely new—a mythology born from architecture itself.

In this first chapter, we trace the mysterious origins of the now-famous photograph and examine

the surprising psychology behind liminal spaces. Why do empty airports after midnight, deserted shopping malls, abandoned school hallways, and silent office buildings evoke such powerful feelings of unease? Why do so many people insist they've experienced the Backrooms long before they ever heard the name?

Along the way, we explore the concept of "no-clipping," the language of modern video games that gave birth to one of the internet's most enduring horror concepts, and discover why the Backrooms resonate so deeply with a generation raised in a world of fluorescent lights, endless hallways, and anonymous commercial spaces.

This isn't merely the story of an internet meme.

It's the story of how an ordinary photograph revealed something extraordinary about the human mind—and how the buildings we constructed for efficiency may have accidentally become the haunted houses of the twenty-first century.

Next week, the empty hallways won't remain empty for long. Thousands of strangers begin expanding the mythology, creating new levels, impossible creatures, explorer journals, survival guides, and one of the richest collaborative horror universes ever assembled online. We'll explore how the internet transformed a single unsettling image into an entire ecosystem of modern folklore, and why every civilization eventually feels compelled to populate its nightmares.

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Because every civilization invents monsters... and we're still creating ours.

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The Devil's Ledger — Week of August 17, 2026

The universe put on one hell of a show this week.

We begin with Spain's spectacular August 12 solar eclipse and humanity's long, occasionally unhinged relationship with watching the sun disappear. For The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week, we travel from ancient Greece—where an eclipse could signal that the gods had essentially abandoned humanity—to Choctaw stories of a giant black squirrel attempting to devour the sun and Vietnamese legends of a celestial frog swallowing it whole.

And apparently scientific literacy hasn't completely saved us. Modern eclipse superstitions warn of poisoned food, birthday curses and even the possibility that washing your hair during an eclipse could somehow affect your sanity. Three thousand years ago we feared an angry god had extinguished the sun. Today we're worried about the potato salad. Progress remains uneven.

Then, across the Evio Universe this week:

On The Devil Within, The New Monsters continues with The Backrooms, the internet-born nightmare built around the idea that reality itself has seams. Slip through the wrong one and you could find yourself trapped inside an apparently endless maze of yellow wallpaper, stained carpeting, fluorescent lights and empty rooms. What began as an unsettling image evolved into an enormous collaborative mythology of levels, entities, rules and stories—and ultimately escaped the internet into games, movies and mainstream popular culture.

On Criminal Mischief, Carolyn Ossorio breaks down the extraordinary new developments surrounding Luigi Mangione. Following his federal guilty plea in connection with the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attention now turns toward New York's pending murder case and an increasingly important question: double jeopardy. Federal and state governments are generally treated as separate sovereigns under federal constitutional law, while New York provides additional statutory protections against successive prosecutions. Carolyn examines what Mangione's plea means, what it doesn't mean, and why the next major battle may happen before another jury ever hears the case.

On The Slippery, we meet Olga Rutterschmidt and Helen Golay, the elderly Los Angeles women whose apparent efforts to help unhoused men concealed an astonishing insurance scheme. Prosecutors established that the pair befriended vulnerable men, obtained numerous life-insurance policies on them and eventually murdered Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid in staged hit-and-run incidents before collecting millions in insurance proceeds. The scheme began unraveling when one detective overheard another discussing a suspicious death and remembered an eerily similar case. The same two women appeared in both files. From there came insurance investigators, undercover operations and the slow dismantling of an extraordinary criminal enterprise.

And This Week in Horror, we're talking Ice Cream Man, Eli Roth's gleefully deranged throwback to the excesses of 1980s horror: an idyllic summer town, a mysterious ice cream man and frozen treats capable of turning children into homicidal killers. It's bloody, ridiculous and precisely the sort of movie that understands sometimes the best horror premise begins by taking something completely innocent and ruining it forever.

So keep looking toward the stars, enjoy these final weeks of summer, and we'll see you somewhere this week across the Evio Universe.

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Have a story we should investigate? A case we somehow missed? Something creepy, criminal, inexplicable or simply too strange to ignore? Send your stories, tips and suggestions to [email protected].

Until next week, stay curious, keep looking toward the stars, and we'll see you somewhere across the Evio Universe.

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When the Story Drew Blood

The New Monsters : Slender Man - Part Three

Some stories entertain us. Others change us.

This week's episode of The Devil Within explores the moment when one of the internet's most famous legends collided with the real world, forever changing how we think about digital folklore, childhood, and the stories we tell ourselves.

In May of 2014, two twelve-year-old girls led their best friend into the woods outside Waukesha, Wisconsin, believing they were acting on behalf of Slender Man. The shocking attack dominated headlines around the world and immediately sparked fears that an internet horror story had somehow escaped the screen. But as investigators, psychologists, and psychiatrists began examining the case, a far more complicated picture emerged.

This episode follows that investigation—not to sensationalize a tragedy, but to understand it. We separate documented psychiatric evidence from public speculation, exploring how mythology, mental illness, childhood development, and the digital world intersected in ways that defied the simple explanations so many desperately wanted.

From courtroom testimony and psychological evaluations to the broader cultural aftermath, we examine why Slender Man became much more than an internet character. He became a case study in how modern folklore spreads, how vulnerable minds can incorporate cultural symbols into delusional beliefs, and why stories have always reflected the fears of the societies that create them.

The journey doesn't end in Waukesha. We follow Slender Man's transformation from internet horror icon into a subject of academic research, documentaries, and popular culture, asking what historians may one day conclude about the first monster humanity watched being born in real time.

Ultimately, this isn't a story about whether Slender Man was real.

It's about the very real power of stories, the responsibility we carry as storytellers, and the timeless human instinct to search for meaning in places where certainty is impossible.

Next week, The New Monsters turns away from creatures entirely and steps into a place that has never existed—and yet somehow feels hauntingly familiar. It begins with a single photograph of an empty office hallway. No blood. No ghost. No monster. Just fluorescent lights, stained carpeting, and the unsettling feeling that you've been there before. Welcome to The Backrooms, where the internet didn't create a monster...

It created a memory.

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When Fiction Escaped the Screen

The New Monsters – Story Three, Episode Two

Every legend eventually reaches a moment when it no longer belongs to the person who created it.

King Arthur escaped the poets who first imagined Camelot. Dracula grew far beyond Bram Stoker's novel. Frankenstein's creature became more famous than Victor Frankenstein himself. Stories survive because generations of strangers decide they're worth retelling.

In this week's episode of The Devil Within, Branden Morgan explores the extraordinary moment when that same process unfolded before our eyes.

Just days after Eric Knudsen introduced Slender Man to the internet, thousands of artists, writers, filmmakers, gamers, and ordinary people began adding pieces to the mythology. No studio coordinated the effort. No publisher managed the continuity. Instead, millions of strangers unknowingly collaborated on what became history's first truly open-source monster.

The journey takes us from the Something Awful forums to Marble Hornets, the groundbreaking YouTube series that transformed viewers into investigators and proved that horror could thrive not through expensive special effects, but through participation. Along the way, we examine why the internet accelerated folklore in ways no civilization had ever experienced before, compressing a process that once required centuries into only a few months.

But beneath the story of Slender Man lies a much larger question.

What happens when technology allows millions of people to create the same myth together?

Perhaps the internet didn't change human nature at all.

Perhaps it simply became the newest campfire around which we gather to tell stories.

Next week, the series reaches its devastating conclusion as fiction collides with reality in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Two twelve-year-old girls commit one of the most shocking crimes of the digital age after convincing themselves they must prove their loyalty to Slender Man. The case horrified the world and forced psychologists, investigators, journalists, and parents to confront a question that remains deeply unsettling: Can a fictional monster bear responsibility for real-world violence, or does the answer reveal something far more disturbing about ourselves?

The Devil Within is written and hosted by Branden Morgan and produced by Evio Creative.

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The Day We Invented a MonsterThe New Monsters – Episode One

For thousands of years, humanity has created monsters.

But we rarely know who created them.

Vampires emerged from centuries of whispered folklore. Werewolves wandered through medieval Europe long before anyone thought to record the first storyteller's name. Ghosts belonged to abandoned houses, forgotten battlefields, and generations of frightened imaginations.

Then, in June of 2009, something unprecedented happened.

An ordinary graphic designer entered an online Photoshop contest and unknowingly created the first monster whose birth was documented almost frame by frame. His name was Eric Knudsen. The creature he imagined became known as Slender Man.

This week on The Devil Within, Branden Morgan begins a three-part investigation into the first great myth of the internet age, exploring how a pair of manipulated photographs evolved into one of the most influential pieces of modern folklore ever created.

More importantly...

Why were millions of people so eager to believe?

This isn't simply the story of Slender Man.

It's the story of how the internet became humanity's newest campfire—and how mythology no longer requires centuries to evolve.

In This Episode

The horrifying 2014 Waukesha stabbing that introduced Slender Man to the world

Themes Explored

Featured Topics

The 2014 Waukesha case (introductory context)

The story doesn't end with two manipulated photographs.

It begins there.

Coming Next Week

In Episode Two, When Fiction Escaped the Screen, Slender Man no longer belongs to his creator. YouTube filmmakers, artists, gamers, writers, and millions of strangers begin adding new chapters until something extraordinary happens.

For the first time in history...

we watch folklore evolve in real time.

The Devil Within is written and hosted by Branden Morgan.

Produced by Evio Creative.

Watch full episodes and exclusive content on the Evio Creative YouTube Channel.

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show, leave a rating and review, and share it with someone who loves history, folklore, and the darker corners of human imagination. Your support helps us continue exploring the stories that reveal not only the monsters we create—but why we create them.

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THE DEVIL’S LEDGERWeek of August 10, 2026

Apparently, I’ve spent the last few weeks lying to myself about fall being “just around the corner.” Then the calendar rudely reminds me that it’s early August, the sidewalks are hot enough to cook breakfast, and summer is still very much... summering. Hang in there, people. We’ll get there eventually.

This week on The Devil’s Ledger, we begin with The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week and travel to the wetlands of Southern Maryland, where Kings Landing Park has attracted renewed paranormal attention surrounding a mysterious figure known as Mary. Visitors, staff, and investigators have reported unexplained cries, footsteps without an obvious source, and sightings of a sorrowful young woman dressed in white wandering near the marsh before disappearing among the trees.

Then, on The Devil Within, The New Monsters continues with Slender Man, perhaps the perfect case study in how modern folklore can be created before our eyes. We trace the legend from an online Photoshop contest through its explosive growth across the internet and into the horrifying real-world Wisconsin stabbing, asking what happens when millions of people are suddenly able to participate in building a mythology together.

Criminal Mischief is taking the week off while Carolyn prepares for another ambitious deep-dive limited series planned for early next year. There’s much more coming on that front, so stay tuned.

Over on The Slippery, we pull back the mask on one of the strangest double lives in modern true crime: ChiefsAholic. Xaviar Babudar became a familiar sight at Kansas City Chiefs games in his towering gray wolf costume, while authorities say the high-stakes gambler was simultaneously responsible for a string of violent bank robberies across the Midwest. This week, The Slippery follows the police reports and financial trail behind the superfan whose obsession with football, gambling, and an increasingly chaotic lifestyle eventually made him a fugitive.

And This Week in Horror, we head to the Italian countryside for Immaculate, starring Sydney Sweeney. Cecilia arrives at an isolated convent expecting a life devoted to faith, only to discover increasingly disturbing miracles, sinister rituals, and secrets buried within the institution around her. Atmospheric, beautifully shot, and steeped in religious horror, this one is definitely worth checking out.

Stay cool. Stay hydrated. For God’s sake, wear sunscreen. Before long we’ll all be complaining that it gets dark at 5:30 and arguing about Halloween candy.

Until then, we’ll see you somewhere across the Evio Universe.

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The New Monsters: Montauk - Part Three

The Monster We Needed

The Montauk Monster was never just about a strange carcass lying on a Long Island beach.

It was about trust.

Why did millions of otherwise rational people immediately believe that a decomposing animal might be the product of secret government experiments? Why did Camp Hero, Plum Island, and decades of Cold War secrecy become inseparable from a single photograph?

In the conclusion to our three-part Montauk investigation, Branden Morgan explores the uncomfortable answer: perhaps the creature itself never mattered.

What mattered was the world that created it.

From MKUltra and government secrecy to the internet's ability to accelerate folklore at unprecedented speed, this episode examines how modern myths emerge—not because people abandon reason, but because uncertainty demands a story.

The Montauk Monster wasn't simply another cryptid.

It may have been one of the first monsters truly born in the digital age.

In This Episode:

The Devil Within Theme

The greatest monsters are rarely the ones hiding in the shadows. They're the stories we create when certainty disappears.

Featured This Week

When people stop trusting the institutions that once explained the world, they don't stop believing altogether. They simply begin searching for new explanations. Sometimes those explanations become science. Sometimes history. And sometimes... they become monsters.

Next Time on The New Monsters

The investigation moves from abandoned military installations into an entirely different wilderness:

The internet.

In 2009, a simple Photoshop contest gave birth to a faceless figure known as Slender Man. He wasn't discovered in ancient folklore or whispered about for generations. He was deliberately created online.

Then something extraordinary happened.

People began claiming they had seen him.

The story spread across forums, videos, games, and social media before culminating in one of the most disturbing crimes of the digital age. We'll examine how fiction escaped the screen, why the human mind embraced the impossible, and whether the internet has become the birthplace of an entirely new kind of mythology.

If you're enjoying The New Monsters, please follow The Devil Within wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the video editions and exclusive companion content on the Evio Creative YouTube Channel.

Follow @thedevilwithinpod on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube for behind-the-scenes content, historical photographs, and updates on future investigations.

Written & Hosted by: Branden Morgan

A production of Evio Creative.

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The New Monsters: Montauk — Episode Two

Long before the Montauk Monster washed ashore, there was another mystery already waiting at the eastern edge of Long Island.

Its name was Camp Hero.

Towering radar antennas once scanned the Atlantic from windswept bluffs overlooking the ocean, searching for Soviet bombers during the darkest years of the Cold War. Nearby, the federal laboratories of Plum Island quietly conducted research behind locked gates, fueling decades of speculation about what might be happening just beyond public view.

History tells one story.

Folklore tells another.

In Episode Two of The New Monsters, Branden Morgan separates documented history from enduring myth, exploring how an abandoned military installation became one of America's greatest conspiracy legends—and why secrecy itself may be the most powerful monster of all.

From Cold War air-defense systems and classified government programs to the infamous Montauk Project and the surprising origins of Stranger Things, this episode reveals how history, psychology, and imagination combined to create one of the most influential modern myths in America.

Because before anyone believed in the Montauk Monster...

they first had to believe in Montauk.

Every generation creates the monsters it deserves.

Ancient civilizations imagined dragons beyond the edge of the map. Medieval Europe feared witches. Modern America fears secret laboratories, classified research, and technologies hidden behind locked gates. The monsters evolve—but the fears beneath them remain remarkably familiar.

If you're enjoying The New Monsters, please follow The Devil Within wherever you listen to podcasts.

Watch every episode in video on the Evio Creative YouTube Channel, where you'll find archival photographs, historical documents, maps, and visual companions that bring these investigations to life.

Follow @thedevilwithinpod on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube for exclusive clips, behind-the-scenes content, and updates on future investigations.

Written & Hosted by: Branden Morgan

A production of Evio Creative.

In This EpisodeThe Devil Within Theme

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Watch full episodes, video versions, and exclusive content on the Evio Creative YouTube

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Have a paranormal encounter, local legend, or case you'd like us to investigate? Email us at

[email protected].

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The Devil's LedgerWeek of August 3, 2026

Summer has a way of making the world feel a little smaller. The days are long, the evenings are warm, vacations are winding down, and before we know it backpacks will replace beach towels and football will once again dominate our weekends. But this summer has also reminded us how fragile that world can be.

This week, The Devil's Ledger opens with a heartfelt reflection on the devastating wildfires sweeping across Europe and the Pacific Northwest, exploring what these increasingly destructive fire seasons mean for future generations—and why protecting the environment may be one of the greatest gifts we can leave those who come after us.

We begin, as always, with The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week, examining a remarkable Bigfoot encounter in Connecticut that received one of the highest credibility ratings issued by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. Is it evidence of Sasquatch, or simply another chapter in America's longest-running monster story? More importantly, what does the public's reaction tell us about how modern folklore continues to evolve?

On The Devil Within, Branden Morgan continues The New Monsters with the astonishing story of The Montauk Monster. What began as a mysterious carcass washing ashore on a Long Island beach quickly exploded into one of the internet's defining conspiracy theories, inspiring speculation about secret government experiments, Plum Island, and eventually influencing one of the biggest television phenomena of the century: Stranger Things. It's less a story about a dead creature than about how distrust gives birth to mythology.

Over on Criminal Mischief, Carolyn Ossorio breaks down the latest developments in the Bryan Kohberger case following his attempt to withdraw his guilty plea. Why make such a dramatic legal move now? What does it mean for prosecutors, the victims' families, and the future of the case? Carolyn separates legal reality from media speculation in one of the year's most closely watched criminal proceedings.

Meanwhile, The Slippery investigates the astonishing rise and spectacular downfall of Bikram Choudhury, the self-proclaimed yoga guru who built a worldwide empire on charisma, deception, and control before allegations of fraud, abuse, and sexual assault sent him fleeing the United States. It's the story of narcissism, manipulation, and the people courageous enough to expose one of wellness culture's biggest frauds.

Finally, in This Week in Horror, we recommend Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. At first glance it may seem an unlikely horror recommendation, but its unforgettable visit to Circe's island—and its parade of monsters, gods, curses, and impossible journeys—proves that some of the greatest horror stories ever told were written thousands of years ago.

Thank you for spending another week with us across the Evio Universe. Stay safe, enjoy these last precious weeks of summer, and we'll see you again next week with more stories that explore history, mystery, crime, horror, and the strange corners of the world we all share.

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The Montauk Monster: The Beast on the Beach

The New Monsters — Episode One

In July 2008, a grotesque carcass washed ashore on a beach in Montauk, New York. Within hours, photographs of the strange creature had spread across the internet, igniting one of the first truly viral cryptid mysteries of the digital age. Was it a mutated experiment from nearby Plum Island? An escaped government bioweapon? Or simply a decomposing raccoon whose appearance had been distorted by nature and decomposition?

In this premiere episode of The New Monsters, Branden Morgan explores far more than the identity of one dead animal. He investigates the birthplace of modern mythology itself—and asks why, in an era of smartphones and instant information, we continue creating monsters faster than ever before.

From the abandoned radar towers of Camp Hero to decades of Cold War secrecy, from the government's heavily restricted Plum Island research facility to the cultural legacy that inspired Stranger Things, this episode examines how secrecy, abandoned places, and public distrust combine to create legends that feel almost impossible to resist.

Because sometimes the monster isn't what washed ashore.

Sometimes it's the story we needed to tell.

In This EpisodeThe Devil Within

Theme

Distrust creates monsters.

When institutions become secretive, information becomes scarce, and facts become difficult to verify, stories rush in to fill the void. The Montauk Monster isn't simply about a mysterious carcass—it represents the moment modern folklore went viral.

If you're enjoying The New Monsters, please follow The Devil Within wherever you listen to podcasts.

Watch every episode in video on the Evio Creative YouTube Channel, and join the conversation on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube @thedevilwithinpod.

Written & Hosted by: Branden Morgan

A production of Evio Creative.

📱 Follow The Devil Within

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Or, if you want to drive engagement a bit harder:

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Follow The Devil Within on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @thedevilwithinpod for

episode clips, behind-the-scenes content, historical deep dives, and the creepiest stories we can't

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Stay up to date with all our shows at @eviocreative on Instagram.

Your complete CTA block would then read:

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⭐ Rate & Review

If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or

Spotify. It helps more listeners discover the stories that still linger in the dark.

📺 Watch & Subscribe on YouTube

Watch full episodes, video versions, and exclusive content on the Evio Creative YouTube

channel. Be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications.

📬 Share Your Story

Have a paranormal encounter, local legend, or case you'd like us to investigate? Email us at

[email protected].

📱 Follow The Devil Within

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