Hey weirdos, Elena here. If you're looking to kick back and relax with Morbid, Wondery Plus is the way to go.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators. I love There's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible.com slash morbid. On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.
Today, finally, the true story. Based on over 300 interviews, in their own words, family members talk about their heartbreak and grief.
Students and townspeople describe that terrifying night.
Police detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of Brian Koberger.
You've never read a true crime like James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho Four.
The true story, it's finally here. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. 🎵 Hello.
Hey. Hey. Hey, what's up? This is a Friday Morbid, which means it's a listener tale.
And you guys know what that means. Everybody say it with me now.
Brought to you, by you, for you, from you, and all about you.
Hit your microphone. Yeah. Every time. God damn.
You might not have even heard that one because I hit like the arm of it.
That's true. These microphones are fun that way.
Yeah. You know? You know what I mean? They're all swively and shit.
We're very profesh. Here. So profesh, as you well know.
Absolutely. Literally sitting here in hocus pocus sweatpants.
That's right. That is called business casual, my doggy dog.
Business casual. And you know what? Today we decided, because we are in the midst of our Yorkshire Ripper series.
The Ripper. But it is a Friday in Friday Hour Listener Tales, and we figured we'd give you a little breather before part three and four come out next week and ruin your life.
Yeah. Yeah. We were going to go – we decided to do some, you know, some British UK listener tales from Leeds, from Yorkshire, from – London.
You know, London. I'm pretty sure it's Yorkshire.
Yorkshire. I'm pretty sure that's how you say it, but maybe I'm wrong.
I love you guys regardless. I did see an email when I was scooting through, and this person said that we do really well pronouncing UK places.
Wow. And they said they were so impressed because some of them are so crazy, to which I say – We're from Boston.
We get it. yeah yeah we're from massachusetts we get it lemon stuff yeah we get it gloucester dorchester all of the above exactly so we get it we we get you you get us it's great we see you you see us and we love you so we decided to keep the little themey theme going yeah i feel like we're kind of like wow right now we're really feeling it yeah i chugged my coffee you I did, actually.
I really did because every bite of – I got a breakfast sandwich this morning and every bite of food I took, I would wash it down.
It was just like, oh, shit. Oh, that's not going to go well later.
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The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea, and sex.
But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn.
The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. the whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic.
Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mare exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondery app.
Well, moving on. Moving on from bowel movements to a listener tale that is entitled My Irish Granny's Catholic House of Hell.
Hell yeah, brother. Let's go. Oh, I don't know if I can say your name yet, but hell yeah, that name.
You can. Your name is Fiona. Fiona is a gorgeous name.
I'm obsessed with that name. Fiona was on your list, wasn't it?
It was high on my list. Honestly, we went into the day with Fiona.
Yep. But another name, for some reason, when we saw them, popped up.
Pop forward. People say that and it sounds... I remember you saying it to me and I was like, yeah, that's very woo of you.
No, it really is. But it's true. When you see the baby, you know.
Same with the animal. But you know what?
Fiona is a great fucking name. I love that name.
I love that name a lot. I really do. So it says, Dear Ash and Alina, my name is Fiona.
If you happen to read this on the podcast, you can absolutely use my name and I will full on shit my pants just so you know.
That's good because we did like 24 times at this point.
I hail from Cork in Ireland. Oh, my God.
You must visit it someday in the future.
Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. And I will happily give you my grand tour while constantly fangirling over both of you, of course.
Ensure mandate, ensue mandated fangirling.
You both are the absolute bee's knees and I listen to your show daily.
Like, I've actually had withdrawals after catching up, so I started re-listening from the beginning and nearly caught up for a second time around.
Too much? Never. Anyways, I just wanted to end my praises by saying you two wickedly fabulous humans deserve the best of the world.
Thank you. And if you ruled it, I would happily kiss your feet.
Oh, my God. You don't ever have to do that.
Fiona, I would happily kiss your feet. Me too.
Because you're a wonderful person. I don't even like feet.
I would blow your feet a kiss. I would kiss your ring.
I would say, mwah. That's what I would do.
I've always wanted to visit or even live in Massachusetts or the surrounding areas.
And after the constant Gilmore Girls references Alayna has made on the podcast, I convinced myself to start the show.
And all I can say is that it has solidified my dream.
Thanks, Alayna. You're welcome. Stars Hollow, baby.
It is such a comforting show. It is. I'm telling you guys, if you haven't got into it, just give it a chance.
Let it lull you into its clutches because it's so good.
When I was a little latchkey baby, I would come home just in time for it.
It's so comforting. I'm living vicariously through the both of you when you talk about the places you visited or lived in.
And all I can say is pack my bags. It's so funny because I'm living vicariously through you living in Cork, Ireland.
So true. That's really funny. We keep saying how badly we want to move to Europe.
Oh, so badly. I've attached a double-spaced putt-a-fuh for your consideration, Ash, containing my way too long listener tale, Adjust If Necessary.
I know you say you won't, but seriously, reconsider your values if needed.
Never. It contains a priest, a diamond, and some screaming cows.
Intrigued? I hope so. Moo. Moo. P.S. I pre-ordered my signed copy of The Butcher and the Wrens on Waterstones, and I cannot fucking wait for it to arrive.
Elena, can I just say you are morbidly marvelous for this creation?
Thank you. Don't worry, Ash. You are morbidly marvelous just by existing.
Thank you. P.P.S. I'm a full-time actress.
Badass. Oh, cool. And when The Butcher and the Wren becomes a film or limited series, I dibs on playing Dr. Ren Miller.
Or Muller. I just said my own character's name wrong.
Wow. L-O-L. Anyways, ladies, enjoy my story and I hope and pray to whatever mystical force can grant me my wish that you read this on the podcast.
All my love and stay weird, Fiona. Well.
Fiona, here we are. I love it. It says, where to start?
I suppose I could trace back my earliest and by far scariest memory of the house of hell that was my Irish grandmother's back when I was seven years old.
We had just moved to Ireland after leaving our previous home in Wakefield, Yorkshire in England, where my father was raised.
Fun true crime fact. This house... Oh, and you guys are going to like this because you just heard it.
What? Once we lived in... Once we... This house which we once lived in... Thank you.
And still belongs to my English grandmother is what used to be George Oldfield's house after he died in 1985.
Damn. Does the name sound familiar? Perhaps.
He was the assistant chief constable and was the lead inquirer in the Peter Sutcliffe case, also known infamously as the Yorkshire Ripper.
I think I've heard of that. You think you have?
We were literally in part two. I think we just talked about him.
We did, yeah, for the first time. So, yes, I have a tiny link to the true crime world by once inhabiting a man's home who brought down one of the most gruesome men in history.
Fun! Was he the one who had lost his daughter?
He did, yeah. He had made a couple of mistakes when we were talking about him, but...
But, you know, the case. The case is the case.
Yep. My English grandmother, still living there, has had countless strange and mysterious experiences in that house.
Many gruesome tales she told me, be it in letters or on the landline, and sometimes still to this day send shivers down my spine.
But that's a tale for another day. I hope you send that tale.
Another one. Send it. My mother being Irish and my father being English was a peaceful and loving union, despite their home countries hating one another and having a long history of violence and upset.
I'm glad they were a peaceful union. Yeah, two star crossed lovers.
In school, I would have my classmates taunting me because of my English descent.
And even little seven-year-old pure Irish children had the history of their ancestors' pain and torment seeping into their veins.
Oh, man. The hate for the English was intrinsical.
Instinctual. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sorry, I lost my place.
That's so cool. They became popular during the penal times in Ireland, in particular during the 18th century when public ceremonies involving Catholic clergy were banned.
Small communities would come together in secret to celebrate mass at each other's homes.
This was in order to avoid English soldiers' attention and prevent the possibility of incarceration and in some cases death.
Thanks, England. I digress. On this particular occasion, oh, also just speaking of mass, quick little side note, I just, I slept on Midnight Mass, Mike Flanagan's series, guys.
Oh, yeah, you were telling me about that.
I slept on it. I just watched the first episode the other night with John.
I'm hooked. Can't wait to talk to you guys about it.
I've heard so many recommendations to watch it.
It's fucking awesome. I'm ready to go. Okay.
I've never heard you say speaking of mass.
So I was like, is she, what the fuck is she going to say right now?
Yeah, it's really good. If you haven't started it, I highly recommend starting it.
On this particular occasion, it was my granny's turn to hold the station mass at her home.
An old countryside farmer's house with peeling wallpaper and enough crosses to give the Pope a run for his money.
This was a big deal. Holding a station mass at your house meant the local priest and quite nearly the whole parish would enter your home and say the precious sanctity of mass, in Latin, mind you, within the confines of your four walls.
Having been recently self-elected as the newly Catholic, purely Irish girl in the family.
It meant a great deal to me for my friends and the whole parish to see what a truly devoted Irish non-English Jesus-loving freak I was.
So I helped in any way I could. I'm obsessed with you, Fiona.
The preparation started weeks in advance.
The whole house was stripped clean of any dust, mold, stains, non-Christian ideology, including her beloved Elvis memorabilia she acquired on her trip to Memphis.
You had to get rid of that? Aw, Granny was a huge Elvis fan, but Father Michael didn't need to see his blue suede shoes.
Oh my god, I'm dying. I cleaned and asked way too many questions about how the stations worked, and if I needed to learn Latin in three weeks.
I was an ambitious seven-year-old. My granny would snap back with lots of, I don't know, in Christ, would you ever shut up, you fucker?
Very blasphemous of granny, but I didn't hold it against her.
She was under Jesus stress without her precious Elvis posters to watch her over her poor soul.
I can't. Determined and not deterred, I spent the nights leading up to the big day at my granny's home, and boy, do I regret it.
Spending time in this home, I started noticing strange and unnatural occurrences.
For example, I would wake up at 3 a.m. most mornings to hear the cows screaming.
No. Like, seriously? They were blood-curdling screams that made the hairs on my neck stand like they've never stood before.
I have never heard a cow do anything other than moo.
Should we pause and listen to a cow scream?
Abso-fucking-lutely. Okay, let's pause and listen to a cow scream.
I need to... Yeah, that's terrifying. That was so sad.
I don't recommend Googling it. No, definitely not.
Don't Google cow screaming. It will bring up a lot of very sad things.
I love cows. I want to get cows someday.
There you go. But these ones were blood-curling screaming.
I don't want those ones. When I would crawl out of bed and look out the newly cleaned window to investigate what in the actual fuck was happening to these poor animals, the cows would stop screaming and they were looking directly at me.
I'm not shitting you. What? The cows with their black and white patches and strangely placed eyes were all lined up in a row, completely silent, but all staring directly at my window.
What the fuck? It was eerie. To say the least.
I would stare back at them, my heart pumping furiously in my chest and could not break eye contact.
I was waiting for one of them to move. Any of them.
But they stood motionless, almost zombie-like.
All of a sudden, their eyes drifted from my bedroom window to the roof of the house in unison.
What? They moved perfectly in sync as they gazed up at the roof where another window stood in the attic and a cross was held.
I'm terrified. Suddenly, I heard a loud bang coming from the attic above me.
All at once, the cows started their blood-curdling screaming once again.
I have full chills. This Anyone else awake?
I concluded that I wouldn't say anything unless my granny mentioned hearing the cows scream or the undeniably loud bang coming from the attic above.
She said nothing. Not a single word about the demonic disruption happening in her own evil home just hours later.
Earlier, she went off to work in the farm with the possessed cows in tow.
From what I could see, they were acting completely normal.
Not a scream or unison performance in sight.
All I could picture when you were like saying that you were just staring at the cows and like them staring back at you was just a little wave.
No, I just wanted her to do a little wave at them.
Just like, hi. And they all just nod. Yeah.
And then that's it. Before she left, she tasked me with putting all of the unwanted items away.
I asked where I should put them. And yes, you guessed it. the attic.
There was no way on God's green earth that I was going up there on my own after hearing that startling unknown bang.
Her Irish impatience was dwindling when I was reluctant to do so.
And after a long lecture about respecting your elders and her selflessly letting me live in her house when I asked to help, I was defeated and shown the ladder.
I tentatively made my way up the rotten wooden ladder, saying several prayers while doing so."
I reached the top and lifted the dusty board which covered the portal to hell.
Okay, maybe I was being a little dramatic, but it certainly felt that way at the time.
I peered around and all seemed relatively normal.
There was no evil demon waiting for me or banshee crying in the corner.
It was simply an attic, or so I thought.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Just when I placed some heavy metal vinyls in the corner, Granny was cool.
Holy shit. Heavy metal vinyls? That's amazing.
Granny is rocking out after mass. I noticed the window, the window with the cross, in which made the cow scream the night before.
The cross looked different. I tried to pinpoint it, but apparently my seven-year-old mind was dumb as fuck and took a while to realize, but the cross was upside fucking down.
Whoa. I thought it was strange but didn't panic.
This was short-lived. Upon closer inspection, I saw scratch marks on the wooden frame of the cross.
Like full-on demon scratches. Better yet, I realized the cross had been plunged into the windowsill, like smashed down so hard upside down into the ledge that it now looked permanently molded into it.
Yup. The bang. Yup. I knew it. Some demon was willy-nilly shoving crosses upside down into the windowsill, all while scaring the motherfucking cows and most of all, me.
Someone call Buffy. That's right. Watch, uh, listen to the rewatcher.
Hey, me. This occurrence happened every night leading up to the station mass.
It was like someone didn't want you guys to do it.
Screaming cows and bangs in the other rooms of the house.
I woke up one morning to find a picture of the Virgin Mother Mary on the floor.
The picture was turned upside down in the picture frame.
Oh, I don't know why I hate that so much, but I really do.
I know that the frame could only be placed upright one way due to the embellishing and words printed along the sides.
If you read that, I'm leaving. Don't read that out loud.
Do not. We don't read Latin here. We don't.
In Latin. No, don't, don't. No, this is cabin in the woods right now.
I won't do it. You know you're not supposed to.
Do not read the Latin. That's what I'm saying.
We'll listen to Marty. In other words, the end to the prayer Hail Mary.
Okay. In Latin. That's fine. Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
The motherfucking demon was turning shit upside down and making it ominously fall in order to make his or her presence known.
Needless to say, I was freaked, and the prospect of becoming an all-Irish Catholic-loving girl became less attractive day by day.
Anyway. I don't really know about this. You're like, I am having reconsiderations.
This seems like a lot of work. I don't know.
Seems a little scary. Anyways, the day had finally come.
The first Friday in March was D-Day. We spent most of the morning preparing sandwiches, making sure there was enough tea bags to supply the nation. while preparing the living room for the evening mass.
A small table was placed in front of the fireplace with the Bible, rosary beads, as well as holy water, all placed on top.
I feel like something's going to happen here.
I'm very scared. Father Michael came by around noon to bless the house to ensure it was suitable come mass time.
Uh-oh. Little seven-year-old me was anxious, convinced that the demon would come out unannounced as the priest shook holy water and attacked.
That's what I felt like. That didn't happen.
Okay. What did happen, though, was as the holy water dropped on certain areas of the house, the splashes of liquid would turn dark. like black staining each area it was unfortunate enough to land on what i didn't notice this until evening came and the house was full of irish chit chat and my concerns were brushed away with i don't know how to say that because it's gaelic so it says irish for quiet attempt if you dare i tried it is by no means how it looks because that is like an That's a rule in Irish.
Like, that it never is the way it looks.
Yeah. I would say that probably says... Klonus?
Why don't we... Hold on. It probably says, like, Klonus.
Cunis. I think I said it right the first time.
Yeah, I think you did. Cunis. So Cunis. There you go.
We're like, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet. Yeah, there you go.
Quiet. The Mass was long and boring. I didn't understand any of it.
My dreams for becoming a truly Irish girl were now completely undesirable.
If I have to go through with this shit again, I thought to myself, then it was not worth it.
And I would wrap Union Drax around my body if it meant I could escape the next one.
That's iconic. Just as the mass ended with an amen, the lights went out.
No. I knew it was not me who was hallucinating this occurrence because I had 80 other people to confirm it happened.
They flickered weakly and then turned back on.
In the few minutes of darkness, some force unbeknownst to any in the room but I spilled the holy water onto the Bible on the table.
Upon inspection, Father Michael's face turned a deathly pale.
The part of the Bible covered by holy water was now an inky black stain.
What? The room went quiet. He flipped another few pages and looked as if his whole faith had been questioned in that one moment.
He calmly placed the Bible on the table and urged the mass was over.
And people should, quote, go home and rejoice in the grace of God.
Okie dokie. Sandwiches made by me and my granny were left untouched on the kitchen table as people... I love you're like, they didn't even take a fucking sandwich on their way out.
They weren't taking those demon sandwiches.
After a demon made their presence known.
As people silently but hastily ushered out of the now-known house of hell.
Needless to say, I was reluctant to return to Granny's after that encounter.
The priest thought it best that the station mass would no longer continue in the parish, as he, quote, felt it was best to worship God in his house at church.
I felt that way, too. Whenever our family would gather at Granny's, be it on a special occasion or casual visits...
I can't shake the feeling that something is harboring there, nesting into the crevices of the walls, waiting for the priest or parish to return in order to mess with their faith once more.
Anyways, my lovely ladies, that was my listener tale.
One of the many crazy stories I've experienced in which I would pluck from my mind.
However, this one stood out the most for obvious reasons.
Thanks again for your endless talent and charm.
I hope to listen to your podcast daily until I'm old, withering, and holding a station mask myself.
You're invited, of course. Thank you. Only if it goes how that one went, because that was gnarly.
That's the only mask I would go to. So on that note, keep it weird, but not so weird that.
Take it away, Ash. Unless you don't want to, because I know if I were in your position, I would freak out and not remember a single detail from the story told minutes before and blank.
So here's a backup. Keep it weird. Well, I'm going to use your backup because I don't want it to go to waste.
And you know it will be funny. Not so weird that the Irish hate the English, but because you're half and half, you have to prove your allegiance to some fucking intense seven-year-olds by helping your devout Irish Catholic granny set up for some weird ritualistic station mass.
And in the process, you hear cows screaming and shit turned upside down and black holy water staining the shit out of your granny's home so much that now she's a possessed demon freak to the local priest and will no longer be hosting station masses.
Don't keep it that weird. Love the pants off you both of you.
Love the pants off you both of you Irish descendant gals.
Fiona. Fiona, that was so fucking good. I love that you made a demon story.
Hilarious. Hilarious. Who does that? Like an actual terrifying, faith-shaking demon story you made funny.
So good. Fiona, that's a talent. You are talented, my friend.
That one was really good. That was good.
Man, inky black stains of holy water. I don't like that at all.
And the upside down cross slammed into and that's what she had heard.
Was it being slammed into the windowsill?
I'm like, did Granny ever notice? Also, she had like metal records.
I'm like, was Granny like... Maybe Granny was fucking around.
Was Granny like doing something in there?
She played a record backwards one night and things were never the same.
She played it cool around everybody, but I think she was like rocking.
I think she was living. She was living. Go Granny.
Go granny. Hey, weirdos, we need to tell you about something that has completely blown our minds collectively.
There's a new show called Lawless Planet that's uncovering true crime stories so massive, they're affecting the entire planet.
Post-Zach Goldbaum is investigating real cases where environmental destruction meets murder, conspiracy, and cover-ups.
We're talking about activists who disappear in the Amazon rainforest, whistleblowers who risk everything to expose deadly corporate secrets, and communities being silently poisoned while powerful people profit.
What makes these stories truly terrifying?
They're happening right now. This isn't history.
It's a massive criminal conspiracy unfolding in real time, with consequences that affect us all.
Each episode feels like opening a case file into the darkest corners of corporate and government power.
Trust us, once you start listening, you will not be able to stop thinking about these stories.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
All right, my next one is Listener Tale, UK Convent Boarding Schools.
So this is going to be fucking terrifying.
Hi, ladies. My childhood friend, Katie Moore, it's cool to use her full name.
She literally would die of excitement if she hears this.
In fact, she's written it herself. So if you're reading this, then ha, I got mine read before you, Katrina.
Let me get back to my story. You can use my first name, not my last.
So my mother thought it would be a great idea to send me to a convent boarding school at 10.
Yes, 10 years old. Whoa. If you've ever seen the old movie Annie, the original, hell yeah, that's what the dormitory room looked like.
If you haven't, please Google it. Oof. Miss Hannigan.
At night, we girls would get V-board. There wasn't much to do in a convent.
The nuns would waltz around dressed head to toe in black and looking disapproving, clutching their large wooden crosses that hung around their necks.
Being a little bit naughty myself and a little bit pissed that I was stuck at this place during the week, I was always looking for something to entertain myself and my friends.
I digress here, but one time I stole some of the wine from the chapel and we had a little drinking party after it lights out.
Jen! I also set fire by accident to a net curtain in the chapel with a candle.
I thankfully eventually asked to leave. I was thankfully asked to leave.
They were like, could you get the fuck out of here?
Can we get the fire starter out of here, please?
She was like, when a fire starts to burn.
Anyway, this whole place was terrifying.
I had piano practice alone in the evenings in the basement twice a week, and trust me, that was enough to scare the life out of you.
I hated it, but regardless of the terror on my face, those bitches, sorry, nuns, would let me go down there and practice for half an hour, or for an hour.
Being a little intuitive myself, I pick up on energy, and the energy down in the basement sucked balls. there were rooms in the comment that you could walk in and it would feel like you had walked into a freezer i will get on to my story but there's so much drama from that fucking place i could go on and on i feel you let it out honestly we're here for you i'm intrigued One night, a girl in our dorm who was about 11 or 12 years old at the time pulled out a Ouija board.
Ash would have been out. In a convent. I would have lost it.
When we did our ghost tour with Sam and Colby, then somebody mentioned a Ouija board and I was like, no, I'll leave.
Somebody was like, would you guys like do?
And I was like, and Ash was like, no, I won't.
Elena was like, I mean, like, man. I was like, well, you can do it by yourself and you are going to have to get a ride home with someone else.
Don't bring that Ouija board into my car.
Lights had been turned out and we were trying to keep quiet and not wake a nun.
Oh, I feel like it's one thing. Trying not to wake a nun.
I was going to say, it's one thing trying to like sneak into your house and not wake your parents up.
Waking a nun up? That feels like it would be a very traumatic experience.
Honestly. That's a horror movie. Like Ma would just scare you.
There's a horror movie called The Nun. So like that's all you really need to.
For real. That's all I have in my mind. Ooh, scary.
Exactly. Yeah. Let me also add right now, we naturally assumed we were safe as houses being in the convent and in a room with at least two crosses on the wall.
I understand that. Word to self and anyone young and naive, do not ever assume anything.
Ever. As we started to ask more questions, the glass started to move around more freely.
It actually would spin around the board.
We asked questions like when would we get married, have children, and if we would fall in love.
You know, the stuff that most young girls wanted to know.
Long story short, because I'll ramble otherwise, things suddenly started to get very weird and scary.
The glass was spinning around a lot more and more and more questions were being answered.
We would actually look forward to using the board every night, and the Ouija board became a regular nightly game, quote unquote.
There were always more and more things we wanted to know.
I can see why it would be fun. I did it a ton of times when I was younger.
That's so crazy. A ton of times. Every time we had a sleepover, every time we had a party, we did a Ouija board.
It's so funny. I've always had an aversion to them.
Nothing's ever happened to me, so that's why I don't.
I've never wanted to fuck with them. I don't really believe that a Mattel game is going to open a portal.
I don't know. Even after all the things we've heard?
I mean, I don't know. I don't think it's the game.
I think it's the intentions going into the game and maybe some of the vibes in the place you are in.
Yeah. I think it has a lot of things that come together.
A lot of medley. I don't think it's just a person in a room asking the Ouija board if you're going to marry Johnny.
Yeah, no. When you grow up. Like, I don't think that's what brings it.
Yeah. I think there's a mishmash. I think for me, like, personally, there's just too much unknown about the portals and shit that I'm like, I don't need to fuck around and find out.
Yeah. And one of my best friends, Marissa, did a Ouija board, and the events following the night she did the Ouija board are fucked.
Yeah. And I slept in her dorm where they had done it, like, the weekend after they did it, and there was some dark-ass energy in there.
Like, it was – I did not like it. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel like a dorm room is like dark ass energy anyway.
So it's like... It is, but it's like... Doing a Ouija board.
No, I mean, I believe you. That's what I'm saying.
I really feel like putting a Ouija board in there.
Yeah, because so many people have like come and gone.
It's like weird energy anyway. So it's like you're just really... That's probably it.
Yeah. That's what I mean. Like certain places, I'm like, eh, I probably wouldn't do that.
That's the thing. Like I had been there before to that dorm and then after.
And of course, like you're right. Like dorms are weird and creepy.
Just weird energy. And then afterwards, it was like I was scared to sleep there.
Like I did not like it. Yeah, I'm not, like, I straddle the line with that.
Yeah, you straddle the line with, like, a lot of paranormal stuff.
Yeah, I have no, like, real, like, line in the sand.
This is my view on it, you know? Like, I'm just kind of open to both.
I don't know if you guys know. I get where you're coming from, and I get where the other one is.
Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, I don't know if you guys know, but I have a real aversion to it.
Oh, you do? Yeah. I don't know if I've ever made it clear.
You never express that. That's the thing.
I just I really wanted to let you know. I always like finding out other people's stances on Ouija boards.
A lot of people are cool with them. A lot of people are.
I think we asked Tobias Forge and he said he didn't believe that.
Yeah, I think he said it was like a Mattel game.
Yeah, like he was like, I don't think that.
But even when you did the history of Ouija boards, from the jump, things were weird.
Yeah, it's an intro. I by no means shut out that it could possibly be nefarious.
Yeah. Nefarious, nefarious. It's a good word.
I like that. Yeah. So anyways, things went badly.
Things went down badly one night. The glass seemed to get angry with our laughing and teasing and flew off the board and hit the wall.
We all jumped back and sat there looking at each other.
The girl who had brought the board into the school suddenly started crying and she told us that we had released a bad spirit and we would now be haunted by it.
Oh, she knew it had been a bad spirit because of the responses we were getting to the questions we asked.
Now, let me tell you, in typical young girl style, there is always one that wants to know about sex, etc.
Of course. Those questions were asked, and in truth, the glass had spun and we had laughed.
I immediately felt anxious, trying to convince myself that it was not true, that Alex, the girl who had brought it, was just being overdramatic.
Suddenly there was a bang and Sister Veronica ran in shouting for us to get into bed.
Alex had jumped into bed with the board, so nothing had been seen by Sister Victoria.
After this, nights started getting back to normal, and we went back to gossiping in the dark and talking about things we'd talked about previously.
Seemingly, we'd all forgotten what had happened, or at least we wanted to forget.
What? What? Oh, fuck that. Oh, I just got like so many chills.
No. I would run into my mother in stepfather's room begging them to let me sleep on the floor in their room, or I would get into my younger brother's bed shaking with fear.
Eventually, my mother listened to me, and she invited a psychic medium she knew to come over and check my bedroom.
That's a baller mom move. That is a baller mom move.
Because most moms would be like, you know what?
I checked under the bed. There's nothing there.
Meanwhile, she's like, I checked under the bed and I don't see anything, but let's call this psychic medium.
Let's call it medium. She's like, this isn't really my forte.
Yeah. What the fuck? What happened? Ooh!
He was a very... You're like, either way.
He was a very bad man and had lived at the convent many years ago.
He had raped many of the nuns. Oh, my God.
And according to the lady, a very, very scary man.
Oh, my God. My whole body... Look at my arm right now.
My whole body is doing the... My goosebumps have goosebumps.
That's the thing. Oh, scary evil priest.
That's one of the scariest things I can think of.
It is. It absolutely is. When you mix, it's just.
No, no. Watch Midnight Mass. Honestly, honestly.
He was who we were talking to when we did the Ouija board every night and he had attached himself to me.
Everything I had felt was real. He had been in my room and he had been scaring me.
I hate this. I guess this is a big heads up to anybody who might be listening.
Do not ever play with anything like that.
Ouija boards are dangerous. Louder for the people in the back.
And also, I can confirm that this is written and Ash is not just saying this.
Ouija boards are dangerous. Oh. Oh. Oh.
So that's my story. Damn. I've never been near a Ouija board since and would never do one again.
I regularly burn sage and frankincense and have salt outside my front door.
And Archangel Michael is in every room in my house.
Also, note to my parents, if your child tells you something like this, please believe what they are saying.
Note to parents. To parents, yes. Because I was like, wait, your parents got a medium.
Also, on another note, I feel I could say this as I lived in LA for three years.
Americans cannot do a British accent. It's bad and it's grating.
We don't all have a Cockney accent and are in the movie Oliver.
I agree. Yeah, no, nobody does a good British accent.
No. Although I'm pretty good on it. No, we're not good at it.
No, I'm joking. I was like, let's be real.
I'm literally kidding. Also, thanks, Katie Moore.
You can use her full name for introducing me to Morbid.
I am addicted. Thanks, Katie. Keep being weird because who wants to be normal?
And that was Sophie's listener tale. Sophie.
Sophie, I love that name too. Let me say that was fucking terrifying.
It was so scary. And let me also say that we did not intentionally make this like a...
Yeah, we didn't actually make this religious.
It just happened, I guess. Is the next one religious?
I don't know. I think you did that one, right?
Which one is this? Am I the Paranormal Drama?
I don't know. I don't know. Well, let's see.
Well, this one's called Am I the Paranormal Drama?
I love it. Is it me? Am I the drama? Is it me, Giselle?
All right. Hi, Ash, Elena, and Deb Deb. Yay!
If you're reading this, I've attached my spooky listener tail in the form of a double-spaced pit-a-fa with a little ghost emoji.
Let's see. Oh, this is nice. I know. It's got like a border.
I still remember when I learned how to add a border to Game Changer.
Remember that game changer class? You were like, all right, today we're going to add borders.
And you were like, yeah, I am. I was like, let's go.
Let's go. Hello from across the pond to my two fave ladies.
Hey. My name is Shell. I'm 28 and I'm from the glorious United Kingdom.
Up north, if you want specifics, you can use my name and any names you see throughout.
Thank you. Before I start using you like my own glorified spoopy agony aunts.
Please, everybody, call us your glorified spoopy agony elves.
I love that. Please let me start by saying how much I adore you guys.
My first episode was the Villiscax murders, and my God, it was a proper good one.
I was hooked. A little more about me before I jump into this, because it's a long one.
Roughly 17 minutes. I did time it, but I may have fucked up the timing.
So basically, good luck. Okay. I'm a trainer for staff working in healthcare.
And whilst I cover all types of care homes, dementia care, end of life, residential and learning disabilities, I actually specialize in training for mental health and challenging behaviors.
And I also support staff with caring for their own mental health.
Hell yeah. I've been working in healthcare for over 11 years now and started as a care assistant myself.
I travel around the UK for work and spend a lot of time driving, which means I have plenty of time for podcasts, which brought me to you guys.
Yay. And honestly, now I'm obsessed. So thank you again for being the bestest fucking weirdos out there.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Also, for three of the homes I visit, I have to travel through the Saddleworth Moors.
Throwback to the Moors murders episodes, which were so well done.
I'm so glad you guys paid so much attention to the victims and how beautiful each soul was.
Oh, thank you. That really means a lot. You did such a good job with that one.
Thank you. I get the spookies when I drive through there most of the time as that part of the motorway is known for thick fog and spoopy vibes.
So as you can imagine in this line of work and in England, I spend a lot of time in old buildings and I've had a lot of weird experiences.
Like the time I was working nights and I saw one of my residents run down the hall and then fall over.
But when I went around to help, the corridor was empty and the senior on duty who was standing on said corridor wondered.
Oh, I'm sorry. That was me. The corridor was empty and the senior on duty who was standing on said corridor wondered why the fuck I was running.
Sorry, I pressed my screen to like move it and it highlighted one word.
So it made me feel like it italicized it.
So I read it like a weird inflection. Of course, everyone was asleep in bed.
Or the time I saw a resident staring at me through his window when I pulled up in my car.
But when I went inside and told the girls in the office, they told me he had passed away two nights before and the room was empty and locked.
Also, all I want is to live in a place with the oldest buildings ever.
Yeah. That's all I want. Haunted as fuck.
Yeah, just haunted as fuck shit. I love it.
Haunted as fuck shit. So yeah, some real freaky shit, but nothing compared to what I'm about to tell you.
Also, Elena, I just received my signed copy of your book.
I feel special. You are. So excited to start reading.
I told my other half it was my new bedtime reading, and he looked at me like I had lost my damn mind.
Thank you for doing that. BTdubs, I feel the need to apologize in advance.
I'm a Yorkshire lass, so I do have a potty mouth.
Oh, girl, you'll fit right in. right end.
Please feel free to censor my tales to protect your delicate ears.
Never. Or feel free to go along with it if you're vibing with my swears.
I love that. Here we fucking go. Let's fucking go.
I feel like I've always been a little sensitive to the other side.
I don't want to be, but shit do be happening.
Especially since my granddad died of cancer in 2007.
I'm sorry. We were super close and he was my literal hero.
Me and my big sister Jen. Shout out to Jen.
She also loves you guys. Shout out to Jen.
And my little brother would go up to their house every holiday or weekend because it was our favorite place to be.
So in the years after his death, my nan-nan, is it nan-nan?
Nan-nan. Nan-nan. Nan-nan. I really like that.
I like that a lot. Nan-nan. My nan-nan. And my nan-nan went through her grieving phase where she would still make him a cuppa and still set his place in the table every evening.
Oh, my heart just broke. We were told by our parents to just go with it as it was her coping mechanism.
So we did, and sometimes we would have to set his place for him, too.
I didn't mind. I love the idea that he was still there.
I do. I think that's beautiful. I do, too.
I could never stop setting. Like, my immediate thought just goes to Drew.
I would never stop setting his place at the table.
I would always do it. Yeah. After a while, I noticed weird things happening in their bungalow, like her walking stick being pushed over or doors opening and closing.
She would simply respond with, oh, stop it, Jim.
Like she was so fed up and it was just a normal thing.
Of course, me trying to be level-headed would just rationalize it.
Until one afternoon, I curled up on the sofa, texting on my pink leopard print blackberry curve.
Holy shit. Throwback to being quirky as fuck.
Probably texting some douchebag who did not deserve my time.
Weren't we all. Same. I heard a voice almost right in my ear.
It was a man's voice, and it clearly said, Oh, love, you okay?
Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. The TV wasn't on and it didn't come from the window area.
It was right next to my ear. I absolutely believe that.
This unsettled me as it was probably my first ever spooky experience.
A few months later, I was staying over alone and had been dropped off by my parents.
They stayed for a while, but it got late and they had about an hour's drive home.
So they asked if I would be okay. And I said that I would.
What? Oh, my God. I sat with my hands covering my ears, shitting my pants, and then hurried to try and find my phone so that I could call someone.
All of a sudden, it stopped. Then my nanny walked in.
I didn't say anything because I thought it would sound ridiculous.
We watched a movie together. Shout out to anything Audrey Hepburn.
We are obsessed. Hell yeah. Then we went to bed.
The next morning, we were together in the living room having our morning tea and toast when I decided that I wanted to tell my nan about what had occurred the evening prior.
And just like that, as I was explaining it to her, it happened again.
This time, way louder and way scarier. Oh my god.
I covered my ears and burst into tears. For fuck's sake, I'm a poet and I didn't know it.
I was terrified. My nannin got up from her chair in like a calm in what felt like a horrible, terrifying storm.
She walked over to me and sat beside me.
She hugged me and told me it was going to be okay.
I love your nannin. I do too. She could feel it too, but it was like it was normal to her.
I've never been able to explain it away even now.
It was pure dread. My goodness. Aww. Aww.
We completed on our home in the midst of the shit show we formally call the pandemic.
We bought a 1930s semi with our two dogs, a lab and a golden retriever.
Oh, my God. The dream. I heard there was pictures.
I've attached pics for your viewing pressure because they're fucking adorable and also a cute little pic of me and my boo.
My God. First of all, you are Gorgina and these dogs are Gorgina and you're just a beautiful couple.
You're just beautiful. I'm going to look at it after.
When we moved in, we had a solid six months still under restrictions where no one could visit.
This was great because the house was a shithole when we moved in, so it gave us time to renovate.
This also meant evenings when my partner was working nights, I was left alone in the house.
At first I was freaked out because I feel like I've always been a little sensitive to potentially paranormal shit.
And I kind of just expected there would be something cray-cray in a home of almost 100 years old.
Yeah. Not to mention it's built on the grounds of an old estate slash country house, which the original tower house section still exists a few doors down from us.
That's really cool. That's badass. Our house is built in what would have been the grounds or the gardens.
That's cool. Pretty. So anyway, my partner has never had an experience he couldn't explain.
He's very much a non-believer when it comes to paranormal things.
So for a while, the house was calm and I felt super relaxed.
I even mentioned to a colleague that I felt like it wasn't haunted.
So let's fast forward to later in the year when restrictions lifted.
My sister-in-law came around to visit with my cute little niece.
We were casually chatting in the kitchen with a cuppa.
I love that, a cuppa. I love it. And sissy started telling me about her recent reading she had with a local clairvoyant. i use the title loosely because while i'm open to the idea of mediums and shit i also believe some people just pray on night not yes naive people i have said that a million times i believe that it exists of course but i think it's rare yeah i do too well because it's much rarer than we see it yeah um you're supposed to say it like moira rose so naivete naivete said out loud like moira rose i was gonna let you do it because you do it better i love you so much you do a great moira oh Wow, thanks.
So she's drinking her brew, telling me all about this reading and how accurate this lady had been.
I'm sitting there keeping an open mind, and honestly, it was interesting to hear.
Randomly, we hear this bang from upstairs.
So naturally, because I would die in every single horror movie, I go straight up to check it out.
My attic door had opened. For clarity, my attic has a door with a ladder.
And when you pull on a latch, the door comes down, and you can pull a ladder down.
Same. Okay. So that's like not going to open itself.
Like it wouldn't just open. At this point, the door had just opened, but the ladder was still up.
So I got my big ass stick and I closed it again.
I'm five feet. Fuck all. I'm five foot. Fuck all.
So I can't reach shit. Same. Then I went back down and thought nothing of it.
A few minutes later, we hear another bang.
Again, I go upstairs muttering to myself as I go because I'm basically a grumpy old man.
Yep. Are we the same person? Lo and behold, there it was, open.
So at this point, I really don't know if I'm in a horror movie, if I'm horror movie white girl stupid as fuck or badass, but I pulled down the ladder and I climbed up into the attic to see what was going on.
I say badass, it's final girl energy. It's giving invisible man.
There you go. I thought maybe the window up there was open or maybe there was some kind of draft.
Nothing. Where am I? Nothing. So as soon as my other half got home from work, I asked him to check the latch because I assumed it was loose.
Nope, the latch was fine. He came to the conclusion it was a silly draft and we moved on.
I'd like to consider myself quite an imaginative dreamer.
I always have weird dreams and remember them well.
But after this, I started having some horrible dreams.
Not weird, just horrible. Ooh. Ooh. I just lay there feeling complete dread and fear.
Then I would wake up screaming and crying.
That's happened to me before. That sleep paralysis shit is so bad.
This happened multiple times. Bear in mind, it had never happened to me before living here.
My other half would tell me it was okay and then we would just go back to sleep.
I've read a lot on sleep paralysis and I know it's a normal thing, but I just found it weird that I hadn't experienced it before living here.
I agree. It is. One night I woke up and I could see a small, dark, shadowy figure stood next to my partner's side of the bed, almost like it was watching him.
No! When I first saw it, I screamed because it startled me, but then it almost felt okay.
I felt like it wasn't doing anything bad.
Sleepy Shell wandered past and went to the toilet, and when I came back, it was gone.
I love that you saw that and you were like, I don't think it's that bad.
I gotta pee. I gotta pee. You're not, like, gonna die in a movie, white girl.
You're badass. You're good. I didn't tell my partner because I wasn't sure how he would react, but I wondered, often, if it could have been his late grandma just checking in.
I remember feeling comfortable with them, whoever it was.
Then my dog started acting up. My 11-year-old Labradorable Ted.
Ted. That's Drew's dog's name. Labradorable.
That's awesome. Had always been such a sweet and quiet boy.
He was loyal to a fault and would be stuck to my ankle at all times and would panic if he couldn't get to me.
My God, that sounds like Drew's Ted. I love that.
Around the same time the other shit was going down, my partner and I had started picking up on weird behaviors from Ted too.
He would wake up growling or he would growl and bark at nothing.
He never barked, so this was bizarre. He would pace and pant and often during these episodes, he wanted to get so close to you that he would practically sat on your lap.
Ted is a big boy. And he knew he was not allowed to jump up on people.
We teach both of our dogs this as we have family members who are frail or just too young to deal with a 30 to 40 kilogram fluffer jumping up at them.
After a while, we took him to the vet. As one evening, he had an episode that was so bad, he wouldn't even come near me.
It was like something was near me and he wanted out.
He wouldn't let me touch him. It was like he didn't recognize me.
Yeah. That would be so hard. Oh, it would break my heart.
During episodes when we would let him outside to cool off, he wouldn't come in for hours afterwards.
The vet quickly diagnosed him with CCD, canine cognitive dysfunction, or canine dementia, which, by the way, I didn't know dogs could even get.
I didn't know that either. I didn't either.
This also explained why he was such a fucking pig.
He was forgetting that he had eaten. To be fair to him, he had always been a bit of a, is it a gannet?
A gannet, I think. A bit of a gannet. Suddenly, we were settled knowing there was a reason for his behavior, and we were told to increase food and exercise, which we did.
We always walked them both every day, even in shitty weather, so I just added a cute morning walk into the routine.
Just me and my bestie Ted. Then it got worse.
All of a sudden, he started refusing to come up to the bedroom where he usually slept with me.
Oh, my God. That would break my heart. Because I'm basically the come back here and love me meme.
I carried him into the room and shut the door so he couldn't leave me.
But he got so scared and wound up and just wanted out.
He was shaking and crying. I let him out.
He went straight downstairs. And ever since, he doesn't come into our bedroom.
What? One day I was upstairs having a wee in the bathroom and I heard a loud bang.
At this point I was tired, annoyed, and fed up of the silly games.
So mid-piss, with my pants around my ankles, I shouted, whoever you are, you need to listen to me now.
This is our house now, so if you're living here too, it's by my rules and you will behave.
I don't want to hear a fucking peep. I love that.
Icon behavior. Then obviously I laughed at myself because what in the actual fuck did I think I was doing?
Any ghost or daemon wasn't looking at me with my mini-out.
With my mini-out shouting at them. With my mini-out shouting at them and taking me seriously, but it worked.
That's fucking great. With my mini-out. For a year now, we've had nothing.
No noises or uneasy feelings. Our dogs have been fine, and my dog hasn't had a single episode of CCD.
I don't think he had that. He has been completely normal.
Our attic door hasn't ever opened since either.
Even in a huge storm and I haven't had any bad dreams or sleep paralysis.
I could sleep easy again and we can enjoy our house.
Hey, you took care of it. Yeah, you took control of the sitch.
The only thing i can mention is very recently two weeks ago i had a very strange experience it was a saturday night not too long ago and we had been out with friends we went to bed as usual but what then i woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded like a dog howling i thought wow how weird and then i realized i was out on the landing floor unsure if you know what a landing is so for clarification it's the upstairs hallway oh okay i was laying on the landing floor with my duvet but that wasn't even the weirdest part i was directly underneath the attic door you Nope.
Nope. Nopity nope. Strange experience indeed.
I love that you were like, the only thing I can really think of is the time that I was yeeted from my bed and placed below the attic door with my duvet on me and everything.
Just that one little thing. There's this one weird thing that I've been scratching my head about.
Oh, I am uncomf. I got up and ran straight in the bedroom to wake my partner, who suggested maybe I'd fallen asleep on the way to the bathroom.
With your duvet? Sure, but wouldn't I remember it?
And who takes their whole ass quilt to the toilet?
Yeah, that's yuckas. I wasn't convinced.
Then I got back to bed, checked the time, and guess what fucking time it was?
Yup. It was only 3 fucking a.m. Yup. I don't feel like it was a normal thing that brought me to the bottom of the attic stairway at 3 a.m. with no memory whatsoever.
I think it was something fucking weird. I think you need to sage the house with the doors and windows open.
So that, ladies, brings us to this present day.
We still live in this house because honestly, we love it.
And it's beautiful. And if I have to throat punch a motherfucking ghost to stay here, then bring it on, Casper.
Honestly, I keep trying not to overthink any of these things.
But some events, even my partner struggles to explain away.
It has me thinking maybe it isn't the house that's haunted, but maybe me.
Maybe I'm the drama. Yeah. If something had attached itself to me, it would explain why I feel, hear, see things most places I go.
Or maybe I'm just fucking nuts. Who the heck knows?
Oh my God, you guys are beautiful. Seriously.
Oh, and you're puppers. You guys look like a famous couple.
Yeah, you're gorgeous, both of you. And your dogs are gorgeous.
Oh, look at the little faces they're just like so thank you for listening to my long ass tale and once again thanks for being so bloody amazing keep it weird ladies but not so weird that you speak to a ghost while you're taking a piss or so weird that you get possessed and steal the duvet from your partner leaving him naked and afraid in bed only to self-sacrifice to the daemon who lives in your attic at witching hour but get interrupted by your cute ass motherfucking dog who got a case of the howlies Love and light to you both.
To Shell. Love and light to you, Shell. Shell, I fucking love you.
That was a good one. Can we all just hang out, everyone on this listener tale?
For real. Like, let's go. Meet up in fucking... London.
Let's go. I want to go to London so badly.
Or Ireland. Yeah. London is just calling me lately.
I know, it really is. I don't know what it is.
I just want to go to Scotland really bad and Ireland.
I want to do Scotland really bad. I just, let's go everywhere together.
I just want to go across the pond, guys.
Me too. And then I want to stay there and never come back across it.
Because I just want to live in a place that is gloomy all the time, but like in the most beautiful way.
Like comfy gloomy. Comfy gloomy. Oh my God, imagine.
And surrounded by old ass cemeteries and fucking castles and just like... awesome accents and just I need it all and like whenever I watch PS I love you and she's like taking a walk in that like in like the rolling hills yeah it's like imagine that's just your fucking street that you drive down like yeah what's on our street Burger King that's it Burger King McDonald's and Wendy's like you know I want to see some greenery I will say new england is beautiful and i love new england new england is gorgeous i love her but i love her she's beautiful the beauty she's great we should miss the united states she might as well be unfortunately she's not but we should take massachusetts and bring her over yeah momentarily because i know she didn't really want to be there at first but i was gonna say complicated stitch it's a very complicated relationship you know you know between the land Well, we'll figure it out, but we'll figure it out.
I think before we figure it out, we have time for one last.
Yeah, we do. All right. Do you want to pick which one I read?
There's Listener Tale, Granddad Gets Thrifty Deal on Murder House and Then Unwittingly Helps Ghost on Graveyard Escape.
I love that one. There's also Listener Tales, Thanks Dad, I Inherited Your Weird Paralysis Demon.
And there is Listener Tale and Case Rec.
I would do the thrifty one. Thrifty? Thrifty Deal on a Murder House and Then Helps a Ghost.
That's great that you picked that because I already pasted it into a Google Doc.
We love it. And let me see. Let me see.
Let me see. Please hold on a second. Oh, my gosh.
I'm sorry. Okay. It says, hey, girl gang.
Obsessed with you both. Love the pod. You're fabulous.
Never change, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I love you. I love you. Use my name and use any names.
It's all court record. And also, ye olde.
So I'm unsure anyone involved gives a fuck.
Apologies for the lack of a PDF. I'm writing on the train on my phone in a cheery ye old Yorkshire, England.
I love a PDF as much as the next gal, but needs must.
I wanted to email you my granddad Colin's absolute fave family story about how his granddad, Tom Sr., got an absolute bargain.
We Yorkshire folk have a reputation for being thrifty AF.
Yeah. on a big country house in my home county of West Yorkshire.
Spoiler, it was murder. Spoiler, murder.
Just putting that out there. Sorry, did you say it's Yorkshire?
Yorkshire. Yorkshire. I think so. It's either Yorkshire or Yorkshire.
I was saying it good. But not Yorkshire.
No, not that. This story starts 103 years ago.
A man named Alfred Benson had earned his fortune as a coal merchant and built his family a large home and named it Woodsley House.
I love that. I'm obsessed with that. You gotta name your house.
Exactly. Thank you. He became a respected leader in the community and had two sons and four daughters with his wife, Sarah.
This story focuses on one of Alfred's sons, Ben Benson.
Ben as a first and last name. Bold, I know.
And his sister, Margaret. Remember that name.
Margaret. Margaret, Margaret, Margaret. Ben was in the RAF through World War I and had gotten himself into a clandestine relationship with a married lady named Annie.
Annie's husband eventually found out about the relationship and left her after catching them together one day.
She then moved into the Woodsley house, because fuck it, right?
Yeah. With Ben and lived there whilst he was away at war.
However, Annie was a 1910s party girl through and through and continued to enjoy other male company.
Damn, Annie. Annie was young and getting it.
And she was enjoying that mail company while Ben was deployed in France.
In August 1918, when Ben was allowed to come back home, he wanted to surprise Annie, and he didn't write a letter to tell her he was on his way back.
When Ben got home, Annie wasn't in, so he sat and waited with anticipation for her arrival.
Unfortunately, Annie came in quite drunk, very late, and with an army cadet.
Oh. Whoops. Annie knew what she was about.
Annie knew what she was about and didn't even notice Ben going straight upstairs with the cadet.
Annie knew what she was about, baby. Annie knew what she was about.
Annie knew her shits. Gathering himself from the shock.
Sorry, Ben, you lose them how you find them.
I mean, honestly. He followed them upstairs and caught them in a compromising position.
To say the least. Enraged, he chased the other man from the house.
An argument ensued and they slept apart that night.
I'm surprised that was it. Yeah. The next day, two letters arrived in the post, which Annie wouldn't let him see.
Annie knows what she's about. Annie is on her shits.
So Ben did the 1918 version of checking your phone and steamed that wax seal open while she was in the bath.
The 1918 version of checking your phone is steaming open the wax seal.
It's so much easier than guessing someone's passcode.
At least you can't get locked out of it.
That is hilarious. Have you ever had to put the password in somebody's phone and locked them out of their phone?
No. It's never happened to me, but I just thought of that.
Yeah. Like if you're trying to snoop on your partner and you don't know their password, you lock them out of there and you're like, that'd be really awkward.
And they come back, you're like, I don't know what happened.
It's a ghost. So at least you can just steam open a wax seal.
But he did so while she was in the bath and found them to be from her other lovers.
Lovers. He hit her and confronted her. We don't love that.
That's Ben. He then did the well-adjusted adult thing a little too late, I might add.
Yeah. Asked her to leave and never saw her again.
Oh, wait, no. Of course he didn't. I was going to say, no, he did not.
No, no, no. He grabbed a razor and slashed her throat like the hypocritical little fuckwit he was.
What the fuck, Ben? That's so fucked. You guys just shouldn't.
Fuck that. For real. Annie sadly died in the hospital shortly after.
Ben was sentenced to death and was actually the last man to be hanged in Leeds.
Wow. And as a result, the Benson family quickly sold the Woodsley house on the cheap in an effort to leave the area quickly because of the scandal.
Enter my great-great-grandparents who had no qualms benefiting from other people's tragedy, and they bought the Woodsley house and raised 11 children there.
Damn. Do what you gotta do, you know? For real.
I mean, they had to buy it on the cheap.
Yeah, there you go. 11 children. 11 kids.
My granddad talks with great fondness of the time, spent in the stables and making rafts to surf down the huge staircase, and it makes me glad that the house got to be a happy place again.
I was gonna say. They brought like good energy back.
Yeah, exactly. You bring the energy. Revitalized it.
I never got to see the house because it was bought by Tesco and they leveled it for capitalism.
Oh my God. That sucks. It is. But here's where it gets a little spooky.
Many, many years later, my grandma was taking flowers to a grave of a relative and my granddad was sitting on a bench accosting random passerbys for conversation in that classic old man way when an elderly woman sat next to him.
He's like, hey, great weather. I'm old. Sit with me.
Okay. He didn't sound like that, though.
He sounded way better. I was going to say, but he's pretty.
Yeah, yeah. We're like, hey. We're like, hey, guy.
We made him bossy. You got some Dunkin'.
She asked if he was local, and he said yes, and pointed up the hill saying his family used to own the Woodsley house.
She exclaimed, oh, you must have bought the house from my family, the Bensons.
Oh. The woman identified herself as Margaret Benson.
One of Ben Benson's four sisters, remember?
I do. I do too. My granddad was a little confused as this would have made this woman well into her hundreds at this point.
But he did the whole, wow, what a small world thing.
And she asked for the quickest route to the tram stop.
There hadn't been trams in the area for about 50 years.
So he politely but confusedly directed her to the bus stop.
But because it was so far away and he decided it was unfair to make a woman he'd done some quick maths on and worked out to be approximately 125 walk a mile and a half.
And then my grandma gave her a lift to the bus stop in their car, this 125-year-old woman.
While she chatted away about her family in the house.
A few days later, my granddad was relaying these events to his father, Tom Jr., who, to his further confusion, began shouting at him, telling him it wasn't a funny joke.
My granddad calmed him down, and his father explained, and probably exclaimed too, that Margaret Benson had died 25 years ago, and he knew this as he attended her funeral at the same cemetery they'd just ferried her out of.
That was Margaret. That was absolutely Margaret.
I love the idea of my polite and friendly grandparents making small talk with an escaping ghost as they unwittingly helped her scoot away from the graveyard and back into the world.
Yeehaw. to go let's go march the entire world let's go baby defo keep it so weird you help old lady ghost jailbreak from their eternal resting place in order to do a spot shop shopping in town oh yeah but don't keep it so weird that you have a fared with married ladies and then you get so angry and jealous when you're cheated on back you kill a woman get hanged and lose your family home in the process yeah don't do that apologize that this was so long and rambly it was not elisa you do not elisa sorry she said elisa sorry for the pronunciation everyone always reads it lisa and it deeply and it deeply confuses me hey ho and then i did that oh i didn't even see that because i just caught i copy and pasted from the name that's why i was waiting for you to say it i was like i want to see if you say it how she's like it deeply confuses me whoops elisa Well, Alyssa, that was great.
Oh, that made me die. You guys killed it today.
My goodness. It's the across the pond listeners.
You really took it there today. You did.
You take us to a place. Damn, that was funny.
I loved that. Those were funny and terrifying.
Yeah, they really were. The last one was like so cute though.
That was the perfect one to end on. Just like cute old grandparents.
All right. When you hear from us next, we will be on part three of the Yorkshire Ripper.
Yes. And we will end on a part four, which will be shorter than the rest, but we'll kind of like wrap everything up, talk about some stuff.
Yeah. And then we'll probably give you like a little bit of a palate cleanser with maybe a listener tale or a collab of some sort.
On the Friday. Yes. Always on the Friday for you guys now.
And then back to some new cases the following week.
Yeah, I have a case from the 90s the following week.
Oh, sweet. It's kind of nice to give you guys a little lineup.
Yeah, it is kind of nice just so you can know what's coming up.
I don't think we've ever done that. You got a case from the 90s and then I have possibly a witch trial case.
One that I had never heard about. Interesting.
But we'll see if that ships. Yeah. Well, my case from the 90s is across the pond.
Oh, there you go. We're in a place of across the pond here.
I love it there. All right, guys. Well, we love you.
We're excited to see you in the coming weeks.
And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird.
But not so weird that you're not an awesome listener who writes in listener tales.
Hell yeah. Yeah, brother. Keep writing them in because they're fun.
Love. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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