Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Eight million dollars in thousand-dollar interplanetary bills is already checked through the counter in Pauker's luggage, the take from the Brinks-Interplanetary job he set up from the inside, and he's standing in the prep building with nine months of space in front of him when a blond baggage man ten paces down the hall starts asking after a passenger with a red scar under his left eye.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/InterplanetaryEscapePlan

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Eight Million Dollars From Mars” by Winston Marks (Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy November 1954)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 23, 2026 

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

Years before anyone counted the women missing from 417 W. Chew Avenue, Raymond Horsch was trading drugs and cash for access to the Kensington crematorium at the center of Philadelphia's body-parts scandal, where he photographed and filmed the dead and later hung the pictures in a gallery. Police are looking into it, two women who posed for him have spoken, his son left a five-star Google review for a different crematorium ten months ago, and Eugene Horsch's federal trial has been pushed back to March.

SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/HorschHouse20260923

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736

*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

As the 1900 hurricane flooded Galveston, the Sisters at St. Mary's roped the orphans to their own bodies, and Walmart employees working on that ground today say they've heard a child calling for her mother – one of fifteen orphanages on three continents where people report the sound of children crying, singing, and walking where no children are.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HauntedOrphanages

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8ctdbc

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We’ll explore chilling stories of haunted orphanages, where the echoes of heartbroken and lonely children linger long after the buildings have been abandoned. (Haunted Orphanage Stories) *** “If only these walls could talk,” we’ve heard people say. But what if the walls could talk? In the world of paranormal investigations, the “Stone Tape Theory” is gaining recognition – or at least raising eyebrows and intrigue. Could the walls of your home have recorded your horrific death – and then replay that scene as a haunting? (The Stone Tape Theory) *** One thing is for sure in this life – and that is, your life will eventually cease. How you go out could make or break your legacy. Freak accidents are something you’d probably want to avoid, but they happen – and I have a few examples to share. (Weird Deaths) *** In the misty expanse of Bodmin Moor, a tragic tale of love, jealousy, and murder unfolded in 1844. When Charlotte Dymond's lifeless body was found, all eyes turned to her lover, Matthew Weeks, whose subsequent execution left many questioning his guilt. (The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond) *** The Urantia Book – a fascinating and controversial text that blends science, religion, and philosophy into a cosmic narrative of divine beings and celestial order. But no one knows who wrote it. (The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought) *** I’m trying something new by telling a true story of old murder in an old detective style… I call it “Murder Noir” and tonight’s case will be the death of Jeanette Earnest in Fort Worth in 1954. (Murder Noir, Jeanette Earnest) *** On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a tsunami onto the streets of London… comprised entirely of beer. (A Sudden Wave of Suds)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:11.492 = Show Open
00:04:10.942 = Haunted Orphanage Stories
00:17:48.879 = The Urantia Book of Cosmic Thought ***
00:24:05.611 = The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond
00:29:32.417 = The Stone Tape Theory
00:39:39.607 = Weird Deaths ***
00:48:28.523 = A Sudden Wave of Suds
00:54:06.174 = Murder Noir: “The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” (The Death of Jeanette Earnest) ***
01:00:46.424 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Haunted Orphanage Stories” source: Elle Tharp, Graveyard Shift: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yjhkvhs7
“The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought” source: Zoe Mitchel, Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yax9yes(Read the Urantia Book online: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4e5a45ca)
“The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond” source: Les Hewitt, Historic Mysteries: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4aczfd8r
“Murder Noir: The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” source: Robert A. Waters, Kidnapping, Murder and Mayhem:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/39mw7shb
“Weird Deaths” written by Kelsie Christine McConnell for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckzkny2
“A Sudden Wave of Suds” source: Ben Johnson, Historic-UK.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8br9ap
“The Stone Tape Theory” by Rachel Elizabeth for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8rfdy8(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: June 04, 2024
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL
This episode of Weird Darkness runs from haunted orphanages on three continents to a cosmic scripture with no known author, an 1844 murder on Bodmin Moor, the Stone Tape Theory of residual hauntings, a string of freak deaths, the London Beer Flood, and a 1954 Fort Worth child murder told as detective noir.
It opens at orphanages where visitors report the voices of long-dead children, from the Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institution, where misbehaving boys and girls were shut in unlit "naughty cupboards", to St. Mary's Orphanage in Galveston, Texas, where the Sisters roped the children to themselves during the Great Storm of 1900 and 90 orphans died when the roof came down. Along the way are the Guthrie Boy's Home in Oklahoma, the Old Orphanage in Savannah, Georgia, the Gore Orphanage legend of Vermilion, Ohio, and the cellar where matron Rosa Carmichael punished children at the National Soldiers' Orphan Homestead in Gettysburg.
From there the episode turns to The Urantia Book, published in 1955 and presented as the work of celestial beings, which lays out a universe governed by the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit and retells the life of Jesus, while critics point to passages that closely track earlier writers.
Charlotte Dymond, a servant at Penhale Farm in Cornwall, walked out with her sweetheart Matthew Weeks on April 14th, 1844, and was found days later on Bodmin Moor with her throat cut; a jury convicted Weeks in 35 minutes, and he was hanged at Bodmin Jail before a crowd of about 20,000, though some still believe the wrong man went to the gallows.
Next comes the Stone Tape Theory, the idea that stone such as quartz and limestone can record a violent moment and replay it as a residual haunting, followed from Nigel Kneale's 1972 BBC Christmas ghost story The Stone Tape back to Charles Babbage's 1837 Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and parapsychologist William G. Roll's concept of place memory.
A run of freak deaths follows, including a Brazilian hospital patient killed in 2012 when soup went into her vein instead of her feeding tube, Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy's 24-story fall in 1993 while proving an office window wouldn't break, Isadora Duncan's scarf catching in a car wheel in Nice in 1927, the Strasbourg dancing plague of 1518, and the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.
That sets up the London Beer Flood of October 17th, 1814, when a 22-foot vat of porter burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road and sent more than 320,000 gallons of beer into the St Giles Rookery, killing eight people, four of them mourners at a wake for a two-year-old boy.
The episode closes with a true case told in the voice of a hardboiled detective: the November 17th, 1954 abduction of 11-year-old Jeanette Earnest from a Fort Worth washateria by her uncle by marriage, Thurman Priest, who drove her through motels in Texas, Kansas, and Missouri before his arrest, led police to her body in an oak grove off Highway 66, and was sentenced to life in prison.

A woman whose migraines have already cost her a husband and two children lets psychic healer Bryce Bond hypnotize her back through her past lives, and each life she lands in puts a man's death in her hands.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “The Winds of Time” (October 16, 1978) ***WD
00:46:43.794 = Philip Marlowe, “High Collared Cape” (April 25, 1950)
01:16:12.284 = This Is Your FBI, “Ghost Town” (August 31, 1951) ***WD
01:46:42.690 = Black Mass, “A Country Doctor” (August 14, 1964)
02:10:42.099 = Michael Shayne, “Tire Oriental Lines” (July 16, 1945)
02:41:28.150 = Beyond Midnight, “A Night In The Waxworks” (January 31, 1969) ***WD(LQ)
03:07:11.263 = MindWebs, “A Place And A Time To Die” (September 24, 1976)
03:31:01.393 = High Adventure, “Snakes” (October 27, 1977)
04:00:25.877 = Mystery In The Air, “The Marvelous Barastro” (August 07, 1947)
04:30:46.165 = Molle Mystery Theater, “The Bride Wore Black” (April 07, 1947)
05:00:00.967 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0781

Kate takes her first week of night shifts at a small hospital in rural Mississippi, and by the third night the hallways are running long, the nurse who trained her can't remember her name, and a locked door has turned up in a corner of the east wing that wasn't on her rounds the day before.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mitm-parallelshifts

SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Parallel Shifts” written by Keith Conrad. Find more of his stories at https://www.auditoryanthology.com

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Midnight In The Macabre (MITM), originally aired: September 22, 2026

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL