The Secret Society of Strangers

The Secret Society of Strangers

By SSOSPod

Secret Society of Strangers digs into history's darkest and strangest cases: unsolved murders, disappearances, cults, con artists, high strangeness.

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Best of The Secret Society of Strangers

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  1. Number 1: What Really Happened in the Bennington Triangle?

    A man steps onto a bus in December 1949. Other passengers see him in his seat. When the bus reaches the next stop, he's gone — his belongings still on the rack above, an open bus timetable on the empty seat. He was never seen again. This is Part Two of the Bennington Triangle. In Part One we climbed Glastenbury Mountain and traced how one stretch of Vermont wilderness earned its reputation. Now Lee, Josh, and Jen get to the cases that made the legend: the disappearances that came one after another between 1949 and 1950, and the theories people have reached for ever since to explain them. We cover James Tedford, gone from a moving bus with a full load of witnesses. Eight-year-old Paul "Buddy" Jepson, who vanished in the time it took his mother to finish a chore. And Frieda Langer — the only one of the missing whose body ever came back, found months later in open ground that searchers had already walked, in a condition that made the how of her death impossible to name. Then we sort the theories, fast and honest — the man-eating stone, the creature in the timber, the "thin place," abduction, a killer working the trail, the pattern in the dates — and ask the question underneath all of it: why do we reach for a triangle at all? 🕯️ New here? You've found your people. We're the Secret Society of Strangers — three friends digging into history's darkest, strangest, and most unexplained cases. Subscribe and stay a while. ⚠️ This episode discusses the disappearance and presumed death of a child, and includes speculative theories. Listener discretion advised. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: Gone From a Moving Bus 00:38 — Welcome Back to the Society 03:50 — Where Part One Left Us 05:24 — Three Years of Quiet 07:40 — James Tedford, December 1949 17:52 — Paul "Buddy" Jepson, 1950 27:11 — Frieda Langer — The One Who Came Back 38:30 — What the Mountain Was Already Known For 40:49 — Theory: The Stone 43:20 — Theory: Something in the Trees 46:27 — Theory: A Thin Place 47:45 — Theory: Taken 49:00 — Theory: The Simplest, Darkest Answer 52:00 — Theory: The Trail Itself 54:17 — The Pattern in the Dates 56:36 — Theory: Bad Ground 57:45 — Why a Triangle? 1:00:59 — Questions for the Strangers 1:02:00 — Before You Go Out There 1:04:52 — Wrapping Up ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE ▶ Spotify: [SPOTIFY-URL] ▶ Apple Podcasts: [APPLE-URL] ▶ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@SSOSPodcast ▶ Podbean: [PODBEAN-URL] 🛒 SHOP THE MERCH Tees, hoodies, totes & more — now live: https://ssos-shop.fourthwall.com Use code SSOSPOD for 5% off at checkout. ☕ SUPPORT THE SHOW Buy us a coffee: [BUYMEACOFFEE-URL] 📱 FOLLOW US Instagram: [INSTAGRAM-URL] TikTok: [TIKTOK-URL] 📧 GOT A HIGH STRANGENESS STORY? Email us or DM on socials — we're listening: [STORY-EMAIL] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 SOURCES & FURTHER READING Joseph A. Citro — the author who coined "the Bennington Triangle" in 1992 — "Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries" (1994) and "Passing Strange" (1996) Bennington Triangle — overview & case summaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_Triangle Glastenbury Mountain — geography & history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glastenbury_Mountain "The Haunting of Glastenbury Mountain," Vermont Country Magazine (2023): https://vermontcountry.com/2023/10/26/the-haunting-of-glastenbury-mountain/ Glastenbury Wilderness — U.S. Forest Service: https://www.fs.usda.gov/r09/gmfl/recreation/glastenbury-wilderness Full research notes and imagery credits in the episode's Production Media Index. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THE SHOW The Secret Society of Strangers is a true crime and paranormal podcast where three friends investigate history's darkest mysteries, strangest disappearances, and most twisted minds — unsolved murders, impossible vanishings, cults, con artists, and high strangeness. We're building a society of the professionally curious and academically strange. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange. #BenningtonTriangle #TrueCrime #Unsolved ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 A Strange Static Media Production. Lee — Writer, Researcher, Editor, Producer. Josh & Jen — Co-Host, Assistant, Creative, Co-Producer. DISCLAIMER: This episode discusses historical disappearances and the presumed death of a child, and presents speculative theories that are identified as such. Content is offered for storytelling and educational purposes. Folklore and unverified accounts are described as folklore, not established fact.

    1h 2min
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  2. Number 2: The Bennington Triangle, Part Two: The Ones Who Never Came Back (S2)

    A man vanishes from a moving bus in December 1949 — his bags still overhead, the other passengers none the wiser until his seat turns up empty. He was never found. That's where Part Two begins. Lee, Josh, and Jen return to Glastenbury Mountain for the cases that built the legend of the Bennington Triangle: James Tedford, gone from that bus; eight-year-old Buddy Jepson, gone in the length of a single chore; and Frieda Langer, the only one of the missing whose body ever came back — found in ground the searchers had already crossed. Then we sort the theories, honestly and without a tidy answer: the stone, the creature, the thin place, abduction, a killer on the trail, and the strange pattern hiding in the dates. This is Part Two of two. If you haven't heard Part One, start there. ⚠️ Contains discussion of a child's disappearance and presumed death, plus speculative theory. Listener discretion advised. 🎧 Subscribe wherever you're listening. Merch at ssos-shop.fourthwall.com (code SSOSPOD, 5% off). Support the show at [BUYMEACOFFEE-URL]. Follow @SSOSPodcast. Got a high strangeness story? Email us or DM — we're listening. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange 🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Spotify · Apple Podcasts · Podbean · YouTube Hit subscribe so the next one finds you. 🛒 Wear the Society: ssos-shop.fourthwall.com — code SSOSPOD takes 5% off. ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee — every cup helps. 📱 Follow Us: Instagram · TikTok Clips, extras, and whatever rabbit hole we fell down that week. 📧 Got a High Strangeness Story? Somewhere the locals avoid? Somewhere the stories don't quite add up? We want to hear about it. Email at [email protected] us or slide into the DMs — we're listening. A Strange Static Media Production. Sources: Joseph A. Citro, "Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries" (1994) & "Passing Strange" (1996); Bennington Triangle and Glastenbury Mountain (Wikipedia); Vermont Country Magazine (2023); U.S. Forest Service.

    1h 2min
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  3. Number 3: Why You Should Never Hike the Bennington Triangle

    In the dense woods of Glastenbury Mountain, Vermont, people don't just get lost — they vanish. No bodies. No answers. Just a mountain that's been taking people for as long as anyone can remember. Some places you can only reach on purpose. The Bennington Triangle isn't one of them — you can see it from a college campus, a gas station, a kitchen window. In Part One, Lee leads Josh and Jen up the Green Mountain to trace how one stretch of Vermont wilderness earned its name: Abenaki warnings about ground that owes you nothing, compasses that refuse to point north, a man-eating stone, the Bennington Monster, and the first documented disappearances that turned local legend into an unsolved mystery. The hunter found dead with no wounds. The 74-year-old guide who knew the mountain blind and still walked into the dark and never came back. And the case that forced Vermont to build a state police force from scratch — 18-year-old Bennington College student Paula Jean Welden, who walked up the Long Trail one Sunday afternoon in December 1946 in a red parka and was never seen again. Part One of two. ⚠️ Covers historical events including Vermont's eugenics program. Listener discretion advised. 🕯️ Ex Tenebris, Peregrini — Stay Curious. Stay Strange. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold Open — The Triangle You Can Walk To 01:58 Welcome to the Secret Society of Strangers 05:10 Glastenbury Mountain: 26,000 Acres of Nothing 06:21 The Abenaki and the Living Mountain 10:37 The Settlers, the Land, and a Vanishing Population 13:10 The Compass That Won't Point North 16:02 The Man-Eating Stone 18:20 The Dancing Lights 20:50 The Bennington Monster 23:15 Henry McDowell and the Voices 25:30 The Grand Hotel and the Electric Trolley 30:00 The Freshet 32:43 What Vermont Was Doing in the Same Years 34:35 John Harble, 1897 39:46 Carl Herrick, 1943 45:01 Middie Rivers, 1945 51:44 Paula Jean Welden, 1946 1:04:43 The Darkest Theory 1:09:13 End of Part One 1:09:34 Questions for the Strangers ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE Podbean: https://ssospod.podbean.com/e/why-you-should-never-hike-the-bennington-triangle/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2G0aAYQPPp1wqnqJYetOcZ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-secret-society-of-strangers-podcast/id1865736210 🛒 WEAR THE SOCIETY — https://ssos-shop.fourthwall.com Code SSOSPOD takes 5% off. ☕ SUPPORT THE SHOW — https://buymeacoffee.com/ssospod Every cup helps. 📧 Got a high strangeness story? Somewhere the locals avoid? Somewhere the stories don't quite add up? [email protected] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 CREDITS A Strange Static Media Production. Lee — Writer, Researcher, Editor, Producer Josh & Jen — Co-Host, Assistant, Creative, Co-Producer DISCLAIMER: This episode discusses historical disappearances, deaths, and documented state programs including eugenics. Content is presented for storytelling and educational purposes. Some accounts described are folklore and circulating local legend, not established fact, and are identified as such. #BenningtonTriangle #Vermont #MissingPersons #TrueCrime #HighStrangeness #PaulaWelden

    1h 14min
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  4. Number 4: The Brom Family Massacre: He Told Them Before He Did It -Axe File # 4

    🪓 THE AXE FILES — FILE #4 The Brom Family Massacre On February 18, 1988, in a quiet township outside Rochester, Minnesota, a 16-year-old walked into school and calmly told his friends: “I killed my family last night.” They laughed. He wasn’t joking. In the early morning hours, David Brom murdered his father Bernard “Bernie” Brom (41), his mother Paulette Brom (41), his sister Diane (13), and his little brother Ricky (9) with a timber axe inside their home in Cascade Township. Fifty-seven blows. Then he went to sleep. Then he went to school. But this isn’t just a story about a teenage killer. It’s about ignored warning signs. It’s about religious pressure and the late-1980s Satanic Panic. It’s about a notebook with a written plan that included the words: “Kill family and bury them.” It’s about confessions that no one took seriously. And it’s about what happened next. After serving 37 years in prison, David Brom was granted release following changes to juvenile sentencing laws in Minnesota. In 2025 and again in 2026, parole decisions put him back into the community under supervision. So we’re asking the question: When does a teenager cross the line from rebellion to annihilation? And after nearly four decades behind bars — does justice end, or does it evolve? In This Episode: The Brom family dynamic and the Catholic pressure cooker of 1980s Minnesota The warning signs friends heard for months The detailed premeditation in David’s notebook The confessions at school that finally triggered a welfare check The legal battle over the insanity defense under the M’Naghten Rule The 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that reshaped juvenile life sentences The 2025–2026 parole decisions and community response 🕯️ Come Curious. Stay Strange. Hosts Lee Josh Jen Produced by Jeremy Secret Society of Strangers LINKS 🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube: @SSOSPodcast Podbean ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee 📱 Follow Us: Instagram TikTok 📧 Got a High Strangeness Story? Email us or DM on socials — we're listening. Sources & Research State v. Brom, Minnesota Supreme Court (1990) Chicago Tribune – “Boy Held in Ax Deaths of 4 Family Members” (February 1988) Post Bulletin (Rochester, MN) – Trial coverage (1989) Post Bulletin – “Brom Murders: 5 Years Later” (1993) Duluth News Tribune – “33 Years Later, This Teenager’s Crime Still Shocks Rochester” (2022) Star Tribune – “Ax Murderer David Brom Set to Be Released from Prison” (July 2025) Star Tribune – “David Brom Released from Prison” (July 29, 2025) KTTC News – “Inside Look at Investigation Case File” (July 31, 2025) KROC News – “David Brom Approved for Work Release” (2025) KAALTV – “35 Years Since Brom Family Murders” (2023) FOX 9 Minnesota – Coverage of 2025 Work Release Wikipedia – “David Brom” (cross-referenced with court records and reporting)

    1h 5min
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  5. Number 5: The Yuba County Five: America's Dyatlov Pass

    February 1978. Five men. A basketball game. A snack run. And then—a 70-mile drive in the wrong direction into a frozen mountain wilderness. It's been called "The American Dyatlov Pass." A case so baffling that nearly 50 years later, investigators still can't explain what happened. Ted Weiher. Jack Madruga. Bill Sterling. Jackie Huett. Gary Mathias. Five friends from Yuba City, California drove to Chico to watch a basketball game. They bought snacks. They got in the car. They never made it home. Their car was found days later—not on the highway home, but 4,400 feet up a remote mountain road in Plumas National Forest. The gas tank wasn't empty. The car wasn't stuck. Five healthy men could have pushed it free in minutes. So why did they walk 19 miles into a blizzard instead? Four months later, searchers found their bodies scattered across the mountain. One man survived for nearly three months in a Forest Service trailer—surrounded by enough food to last a year and a propane heater he never turned on. He starved to death in a pantry. He froze to death next to heat. Why didn't they eat? Why didn't they turn on the heater? Why did they hide from the only witness who could have saved them? And what happened to Gary Mathias—the Army veteran whose body was never found? In this episode, Jen takes the lead as we investigate one of America's most haunting unsolved disappearances. We examine every theory—from wrong turns and learned helplessness to schizophrenic episodes and foul play. Including the anonymous phone calls that came before any bodies were discovered, and the 2020 Sheriff's letter that officially declared Gary Mathias a victim of foul play. Some cases resist explanation. This one defies it. screaming while his body rotted from the inside. Edward VI became King of England at 9 years old. By 15, he was dead—leaving behind over 10,000 corpses and a religious reformation built on blood and fire. History remembers his sister Mary as "Bloody Mary." But Edward's six-year reign produced a body count that dwarfs hers. He watched heretics burn without flinching. He signed his own uncle's death warrant at age 11. He refused mercy for a woman begging for her life—because she disagreed with him about communion. He was a child. He was a monster. He was possibly murdered. And his ghost still haunts Greenwich Palace—coughing, gasping, reliving his agonizing death for 470 years. In this episode of the Bloody Royals series, Lee dives deep into the dark history of Tudor England's forgotten terror: the boy king whose Protestant vision for England was written in Catholic blood. We cover: The cursed birth that killed his mother Jane Seymour His isolated, indoctrinated childhood under Henry VIII's paranoid watch The Prayer Book Rebellion: 5,500+ dead Kett's Rebellion: 3,000+ massacred (Edward's journal entry: "Good.") The executions he personally ordered—including two of his own uncles His horrific death: hair falling out, nails detaching, body suppurating while still alive The mysterious unnamed woman who appeared in his final months with "healing drinks" Was Edward VI murdered? The conspiracy theories examined The hauntings, omens, and high strangeness surrounding his life and death Was he evil? Or a victim of isolation, indoctrination, and absolute power given to a child? The answer might be both. 🕯️ Come Curious. Stay Strange. CONNECT WITH US: 🌐 Website: https://ssospod.podbean.com/\ 🎧 Listen on: YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts Podbean 👕 Merch: SSOS Shop ☕ Support the Show: buy me a coffee CREDITS: Host: Lee Co-Hosts: Josh & Jen Audio/Video Editor: Jeremy SOURCES Primary News Sources (1978): The Sacramento Bee — Original coverage of disappearance and discovery (February-June 1978) Appeal-Democrat (Marysville-Yuba City) — Local reporting on search efforts and family interviews Chico Enterprise-Record — Coverage of initial search and Behr's Market witness statements San Francisco Chronicle — Regional reporting on the case Official Records: Yuba County Sheriff's Department — Case files, missing persons reports, and 2020 official letter regarding Gary Mathias Butte County Sheriff's Department — Initial investigation records Plumas County Sheriff's Department — Search and recovery documentation California Department of Justice — Missing persons database records Books & Long-Form Journalism: Mahood, Drew. "Off the Beaten Path: The Yuba County Five." California's Unsolved Mysteries (2019) Various true crime anthologies featuring the case Documentaries & Media: Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural — "The Bizarre Disappearance of the Yuba County Five" (Season 5, 2018) Dark Waters Podcast — Extended coverage and family interviews The Trail Went Cold Podcast — Robin Warder's investigative coverage Academic & Psychological Sources: Seligman, Martin E.P. "Learned Helplessness" — Annual Review of Medicine (1972) — Referenced for psychological theory American Psychiatric Association — DSM criteria for paranoid schizophrenia (historical context for Gary Mathias's diagnosis) Family Statements & Interviews: Interviews with the Mathias family regarding Gary's mental health history and 2020 Sheriff's correspondence David Huett (Jackie Huett's brother) — Public statements regarding foul play theory Weiher family interviews regarding Ted's condition and behavior Witness Testimony: Joseph Schons — Documented statements to Yuba County Sheriff's Department regarding the night of February 24, 1978 Debbie Lynn Reese — Documented statements regarding anonymous phone calls (March 1978) Behr's Market clerk — Witness statement to investigators Geographic & Environmental Data: U.S. Forest Service — Plumas National Forest maps and ranger station records National Weather Service — Historical weather data for Butte/Plumas County (February-March 1978) Online Archives & Databases: Newspapers.com — Historical newspaper archives The Charley Project — Missing persons database (Gary Dale Mathias entry) NamUs (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) — Case documentation Note: Some primary source materials referenced in this episode are derived from official police reports and family statements that have been made public through FOIA requests and media coverage over the past 47 years.

    1h 5min
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