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The Devil Within

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#42 in True Crime · 🇮🇳
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About the show

The Devil Within is a cinematic podcast about the stories that refuse to die — the legends, disappearances, curses, and supernatural encounters that linger long after the world moves on. Each episode blends history, folklore, and investigation to explore what really happened… and why these stories still haunt us. From mythical creatures and haunted places, to strange crimes and unexplained phenomena, The Devil Within starts where the facts end — and the unanswered questions begin. New episodes weekly. Bring a light. You may need it. BINGE THE FIRST FOUR SEASONS NOW! Season 1: The Jersey Devil - The brutal slaying of BETTY ANN SULLIVAN shocked the small town of Jefferson Township, New Jersey. The violence of that evening shocked the nation for the perpetrator... was her own son, a boy of fourteen who would take his own life only hours later. What the investigation revealed left a community in tatters, unwilling to believe the evil that had befallen them. Season 2: The Demons of Yorkshire - In 1974 after experiencing financial hardship, Michael Taylor joined a local church in the rolling hills of Northern England. After falling in love with a young, beautiful preacher, Michael’s personality began to change. The mild-mannered family man became abusive and unhinged. His new church believed he was possessed by no fewer than 48 demons and would require an exorcism to save his soul and protect his family from evil. But the supposed remedy would come at a very steep price...  Season 3: A Season in Hell - In the late 1970's New York City had it all: Hip Hop, Punk Rock... and the Son of Sam. The third season of The Devil Within takes listeners into the belly of the beast and explores the wicked origins, reign of terror and ultimate capture of one of the most feared serial killers in history. With exclusive interviews from journalists, FBI agents, historians and mental health experts this season promises to be the most comprehensive - and most terrifying - account of how one man brought New York City to a standstill. Season 4: Satan's Shadow - In the 1980s, California learned that fear doesn’t always lurk in the dark. Sometimes, it walks right through the door. SATAN’S SHADOW follows the terrifying rise of Richard Ramirez — the Night Stalker — while tracing his crimes alongside Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. As Ramirez descends deeper into violence, we descend with him through Dante’s circles of hell, asking what happens to a city — and a soul — when darkness becomes a spectacle. Across nine episodes, each chapter pairs the facts of the case with a brief lesson from Dante: desire twisted into obsession, cruelty masquerading as power, betrayal, violence, and the chilling fascination that draws us closer instead of pushing us away. Because Ramirez didn’t just kill. He captivated. He made the world watch — and forced us to confront the part of ourselves that can’t look away. Bonus episodes explore the trial, aftermath, and the myths that followed — along with glimpses into Purgatorio and Paradiso, and whether redemption or meaning is possible after horror. SATAN’S SHADOW isn’t only about a murderer. It’s about a culture slowly walking toward darkness… and what it costs to climb back out.

Newest episodes

Sins Of The Earth: Part Two - The Ironmasters

24 min

SINS OF THE EARTH Part Two: The Ironmasters The Devil Within — Hosted by Branden Morgan Before northern New Jersey became a landscape of suburban neighborhoods, lakeside communities, and winding mountain roads, it was the birthplace of an industrial empire. And the men who built it were willing to sacrifice an extraordinary amount to extract the wealth buried beneath their feet. In the second installment of Sins of the Earth, we return to the eighteenth-century New Jersey Highlands, where vast deposits of iron ore attracted a new breed of entrepreneur: the ironmasters. Among them was Peter Hasenclever, a German-born industrialist whose extraordinary ambitions helped transform the forests and mountains of northern New Jersey into a sprawling network of mines, furnaces, forges, and industrial settlements. Backed by the American Iron Company, Hasenclever envisioned an enterprise capable of supplying the growing British colonies with one of civilization's most indispensable materials. But turning stone into iron required considerably more than ambition. Entire forests were harvested to produce charcoal. Rivers were dammed to power enormous bellows. Roads were carved through mountains, and generations of workers endured brutal conditions to keep the furnaces burning. At places like Long Pond, the landscape itself became part of an enormous industrial machine. And with every ton of iron produced came something else: smoke, ash, slag, and the physical consequences of an industry that would eventually disappear, leaving its remnants scattered throughout the Highlands. What happens when the industry dies, but its legacy remains buried in the land? As our investigation continues, we examine the extraordinary achievements of colonial ironmaking alongside the environmental questions that would become central to Sins of the Earth. Could the consequences of industrial activity have persisted long after the furnaces went cold? And is there any credible evidence connectin...

Sins Of The Earth: Part One - Before There Was Jefferson

27 min

SINS OF THE EARTH Act I: The Land | Episode One: Before There Was Jefferson The Devil Within — Hosted by Branden Morgan What if the darkest chapter in a town's history began centuries before the crime that made it infamous? In January 1988, fourteen-year-old Tommy Sullivan murdered his mother, Betty, before taking his own life in Jefferson Township, New Jersey. The tragedy became the foundation of The Devil Within, a story surrounded by allegations of Satanism, demonic influence, and questions that remain deeply unsettling nearly four decades later. Now, we're returning to where it all began. But this time, we're digging much deeper. In the premiere of Sins of the Earth, we travel back more than a billion years to explore the geological origins of the New Jersey Highlands, the ancient mountains rich with iron ore, and the rivers and forests that sustained generations of Lenape communities long before European settlement. As Dutch, English, and German settlers pushed into the region, the landscape began to change. Forests became fuel. Rivers became sources of power. Mountains became repositories of mineral wealth. And an emerging iron industry began transforming the land in ways that would outlast the people who built it. Inspired in part by Caroline Fraser's Murderland, this ambitious new investigation asks a provocative question: Could the environmental consequences of America's industrial past have influenced generations that followed? The connection remains unproven. But the history is real, and the questions deserve answers. Before there was Jefferson Township, before the Sullivan murders, before anyone imagined the darkness that would eventually descend upon this small New Jersey community, there was the land. And beneath it, there was iron. NEXT EPISODE: THE IRON BENEATH We follow the ironmasters, entrepreneurs, and laborers who transformed the Highlands into an emerging industrial powerhouse, building furnaces, forges, and entire communities arou...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of November 9th, 2026

13 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Week of November 9, 2026 America Has Spoken. The Ghosts Are Still Talking. And the Horror Never Stops. America has voted, the political landscape is shifting, and a new chapter in American history is beginning. But whether the newly elected can deliver on the promises that brought them to power remains to be seen. This week on The Devil's Ledger, Branden Morgan reflects on the election, the importance of empowering women, and the extraordinary responsibility that comes with public office. Then we turn our attention to the darker corners of the Evio Creative Universe, where abandoned amusement parks, industrial mysteries, murderous mothers, and homicidal governesses await. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK Lake Shawnee Amusement Park: Where the Fun Never Dies Deep in the mountains of West Virginia sits an abandoned amusement park with a history considerably more disturbing than its rusting rides might suggest. Built on land associated with a bloody eighteenth-century frontier conflict and the deaths of several children, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park became the setting for additional tragedies during its years of operation. Today, visitors report ghostly children, unexplained laughter, and amusement park rides that seem to move on their own. Is something supernatural lingering among the abandoned attractions, or has a genuinely tragic history simply given rise to an exceptionally effective ghost story? Either way, this is one amusement park where you might want to skip the last ride. THE DEVIL WITHIN — SINS OF THE EARTH A New Investigation Begins Could the toxic legacy of America's iron and steel industries have contributed to the Golden Age of Serial Killers? Inspired by Caroline Fraser's Murderland, The Devil Within launches an ambitious new investigation into industrial contamination, environmental history, and the possible relationship between toxic exposure and violent behavior. Our journey begins in Jefferson Township, New Je...

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The newest 50 of 435 episodes

Sins Of The Earth: Part Two - The Ironmasters

24 min

SINS OF THE EARTH Part Two: The Ironmasters The Devil Within — Hosted by Branden Morgan Before northern New Jersey became a landscape of suburban neighborhoods, lakeside communities, and winding mountain roads, it was the birthplace of an industrial empire. And the men who built it were willing to sacrifice an extraordinary amount to extract the wealth buried beneath their feet. In the second installment of Sins of the Earth, we return to the eighteenth-century New Jersey Highlands, where vast deposits of iron ore attracted a new breed of entrepreneur: the ironmasters. Among them was Peter Hasenclever, a German-born industrialist whose extraordinary ambitions helped transform the forests and mountains of northern New Jersey into a sprawling network of mines, furnaces, forges, and industrial settlements. Backed by the American Iron Company, Hasenclever envisioned an enterprise capable of supplying the growing British colonies with one of civilization's most indispensable materials. But turning stone into iron required considerably more than ambition. Entire forests were harvested to produce charcoal. Rivers were dammed to power enormous bellows. Roads were carved through mountains, and generations of workers endured brutal conditions to keep the furnaces burning. At places like Long Pond, the landscape itself became part of an enormous industrial machine. And with every ton of iron produced came something else: smoke, ash, slag, and the physical consequences of an industry that would eventually disappear, leaving its remnants scattered throughout the Highlands. What happens when the industry dies, but its legacy remains buried in the land? As our investigation continues, we examine the extraordinary achievements of colonial ironmaking alongside the environmental questions that would become central to Sins of the Earth. Could the consequences of industrial activity have persisted long after the furnaces went cold? And is there any credible evidence connectin...

Sins Of The Earth: Part One - Before There Was Jefferson

27 min

SINS OF THE EARTH Act I: The Land | Episode One: Before There Was Jefferson The Devil Within — Hosted by Branden Morgan What if the darkest chapter in a town's history began centuries before the crime that made it infamous? In January 1988, fourteen-year-old Tommy Sullivan murdered his mother, Betty, before taking his own life in Jefferson Township, New Jersey. The tragedy became the foundation of The Devil Within, a story surrounded by allegations of Satanism, demonic influence, and questions that remain deeply unsettling nearly four decades later. Now, we're returning to where it all began. But this time, we're digging much deeper. In the premiere of Sins of the Earth, we travel back more than a billion years to explore the geological origins of the New Jersey Highlands, the ancient mountains rich with iron ore, and the rivers and forests that sustained generations of Lenape communities long before European settlement. As Dutch, English, and German settlers pushed into the region, the landscape began to change. Forests became fuel. Rivers became sources of power. Mountains became repositories of mineral wealth. And an emerging iron industry began transforming the land in ways that would outlast the people who built it. Inspired in part by Caroline Fraser's Murderland, this ambitious new investigation asks a provocative question: Could the environmental consequences of America's industrial past have influenced generations that followed? The connection remains unproven. But the history is real, and the questions deserve answers. Before there was Jefferson Township, before the Sullivan murders, before anyone imagined the darkness that would eventually descend upon this small New Jersey community, there was the land. And beneath it, there was iron. NEXT EPISODE: THE IRON BENEATH We follow the ironmasters, entrepreneurs, and laborers who transformed the Highlands into an emerging industrial powerhouse, building furnaces, forges, and entire communities arou...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of November 9th, 2026

13 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Week of November 9, 2026 America Has Spoken. The Ghosts Are Still Talking. And the Horror Never Stops. America has voted, the political landscape is shifting, and a new chapter in American history is beginning. But whether the newly elected can deliver on the promises that brought them to power remains to be seen. This week on The Devil's Ledger, Branden Morgan reflects on the election, the importance of empowering women, and the extraordinary responsibility that comes with public office. Then we turn our attention to the darker corners of the Evio Creative Universe, where abandoned amusement parks, industrial mysteries, murderous mothers, and homicidal governesses await. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK Lake Shawnee Amusement Park: Where the Fun Never Dies Deep in the mountains of West Virginia sits an abandoned amusement park with a history considerably more disturbing than its rusting rides might suggest. Built on land associated with a bloody eighteenth-century frontier conflict and the deaths of several children, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park became the setting for additional tragedies during its years of operation. Today, visitors report ghostly children, unexplained laughter, and amusement park rides that seem to move on their own. Is something supernatural lingering among the abandoned attractions, or has a genuinely tragic history simply given rise to an exceptionally effective ghost story? Either way, this is one amusement park where you might want to skip the last ride. THE DEVIL WITHIN — SINS OF THE EARTH A New Investigation Begins Could the toxic legacy of America's iron and steel industries have contributed to the Golden Age of Serial Killers? Inspired by Caroline Fraser's Murderland, The Devil Within launches an ambitious new investigation into industrial contamination, environmental history, and the possible relationship between toxic exposure and violent behavior. Our journey begins in Jefferson Township, New Je...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Queen Of The Dead

26 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN Episode Six: The Queen of the Dead Marie Laveau, the Cities of the Dead, and the Supernatural Secrets of New Orleans In New Orleans, the dead have never been particularly interested in disappearing. Beneath the city's ancient oak trees and behind its wrought-iron cemetery gates, elaborate stone and marble tombs rise above the earth, forming miniature neighborhoods where generations of families share their final resting places. These extraordinary burial grounds, known as the Cities of the Dead, have become synonymous with one of America's most mysterious and spiritually fascinating cities. And among the thousands buried within them, one woman has inspired more superstition, fascination, and supernatural speculation than almost anyone else in Louisiana history. Her name was Marie Laveau. Known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Laveau was a free woman of color who acquired extraordinary influence in nineteenth-century Louisiana, a society defined by slavery, racial inequality, and deeply entrenched religious divisions. Revered as a healer and spiritual adviser, feared by those who misunderstood her practices, and rumored to possess powers beyond ordinary human understanding, Laveau became one of the most remarkable figures in American folklore. But her legend only grew after her death in 1881. In the final installment of Haunted Halloween, The Devil Within travels to New Orleans to investigate the woman behind the mythology, the spiritual traditions that shaped her reputation, and the extraordinary cemeteries where the living continue seeking assistance from the dead. We'll explore the origins of Louisiana Voodoo, the religious gatherings associated with Laveau near Bayou St. John, and the mysterious stories that followed her through the streets of nineteenth-century New Orleans. We'll also venture into St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where a weathered family tomb traditionally associated with Marie Laveau has attracted gener...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Ship That Never Reached Port

22 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN Episode Five: The Ship That Never Reached Port The RMS Queen Mary — A Haunted Ocean Liner, a Wartime Tragedy, and the Ghosts Who Never Disembarked Once the most glamorous ocean liner in the world, the RMS Queen Mary carried Hollywood royalty, international celebrities, and wealthy travelers across the Atlantic in extraordinary luxury. Then came World War II, and the floating palace became something altogether different. On October 2, 1942, while transporting thousands of American soldiers toward Britain, the Queen Mary collided with the British warship HMS Curacoa. The smaller vessel broke apart and sank within minutes, leaving hundreds of sailors struggling in the freezing Atlantic. More than 300 men died. And the Queen Mary never stopped. Under wartime orders and the threat of German submarines, the enormous liner continued toward Scotland, leaving other vessels to rescue the survivors. It was one of the most devastating maritime accidents of the war, and only one chapter in the extraordinary history of a ship that would eventually acquire a reputation as one of the most haunted vessels in the world. In this installment of Haunted Halloween, The Devil Within travels to Long Beach, California, where the Queen Mary has remained permanently moored since 1967. Behind her elegant Art Deco interiors, grand staircases, and luxurious passenger cabins lies a collection of supernatural legends that have fascinated visitors and paranormal investigators for decades. We'll investigate the ghostly little girl known as Jackie, whose laughter and footsteps are allegedly heard near the ship's abandoned first-class swimming pool; the mysterious crewman said to haunt the machinery spaces near watertight Door 13; and the disturbing reputation of Room B340, where guests have reported unexplained knocking, strange disturbances, and the unmistakable sensation that someone—or something—is sharing their accommodations. But how much of the Queen Mary's ha...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Horseman Who Never Died

20 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN The Horseman Who Never Died Sleepy Hollow, New York — The True History Behind America's Most Famous Ghost A headless soldier. A midnight pursuit. A shattered pumpkin. And a legend that has haunted the Hudson Valley for more than two centuries. In this installment of Haunted Halloween, The Devil Within travels to Sleepy Hollow, New York, where the bloody history of the American Revolution collided with centuries of European folklore to create one of the most enduring supernatural legends in American history. According to local tradition, a Hessian soldier was decapitated by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War and buried without his head in the churchyard of the Old Dutch Church. Condemned to search for his missing remains, the spectral horseman supposedly rises from the grave each night, galloping through the surrounding countryside before disappearing at dawn. But was there ever a real Headless Horseman? In 1820, Washington Irving immortalized the legend in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, introducing readers to the superstitious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, and the mischievous Brom Bones. Their romantic rivalry culminates in one of literature's most famous midnight encounters—and a disappearance that Irving deliberately left unresolved. This episode explores the genuine Revolutionary War violence that shaped the Hudson Valley, the history of the Old Dutch Church, and the literary genius who transformed a regional ghost story into an American cultural phenomenon. We'll investigate the mysterious Hessian soldier, the origins of Irving's supernatural imagination, and the tantalizing possibility that Ichabod Crane's terrifying encounter had a perfectly human explanation. Was the Headless Horseman a restless spirit searching for his severed head, or the creation of a clever storyteller who understood that the most terrifying monsters are sometimes the ones we invent ourselves? More than 20...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of November 2nd, 2026

14 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Week of November 2, 2026 Halloween Is Over. The Hauntings Aren't. Halloween may be behind us, but we're not quite ready to put the ghosts back in their graves. This week on The Devil's Ledger, we're keeping the spooky season alive with haunted destinations, a bizarre cemetery delivery, a disturbing investigation into alleged deception, and a new Japanese horror film guaranteed to make you reconsider turning out the lights. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK — DEATH FROM ABOVE… WITH DOORDASH At Hollywood Forever Cemetery, moviegoers enjoying an outdoor screening of Jennifer's Body received an unexpected visitor from above: a ghost-themed DoorDash drone delivery. Because apparently even the dearly departed aren't safe from the gig economy. We explore the bizarre Halloween stunt that brought airborne takeout to one of Hollywood's most famous cemeteries. THE DEVIL WITHIN — HAUNTED HALLOWEEN CONTINUES We're extending Halloween for one more week with three legendary haunted destinations: • Sleepy Hollow, New York: Washington Irving's immortal Headless Horseman and the folklore that transformed a small Hudson Valley community into an American horror landmark. • The Queen Mary, Long Beach: The magnificent ocean liner whose storied past has inspired decades of ghost sightings and supernatural encounters. • The Cities of the Dead, New Orleans: Explore the extraordinary aboveground cemeteries where centuries of history, death, and supernatural folklore intersect. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF — SOMETHING SINISTER IS COMING Carolyn has another terrifying story waiting in the wings. What is it? She hasn't told us yet. But knowing Carolyn, whatever she's uncovered will be worth the wait. Stay tuned for an all-new episode of Criminal Mischief. THE SLIPPERY — THE LEXICON Scott and Nancy continue The LexiCON, their investigative limited series examining the Lexi Thomas story and allegations of fabricated illness, religious manipulation, and financial explo...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! Twenty-Eight Days Of Terror

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN Episode Three: Twenty-Eight Days in Hell The Amityville Horror — Six Murders, One Haunted House, and America's Most Infamous Paranormal Mystery On November 13, 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were discovered murdered inside their beautiful waterfront home in Amityville, Long Island. Each had been shot while apparently sleeping in their bed. The killer was one of their own: twenty-three-year-old Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr. But the murders were only the beginning of a story that would become one of the most controversial supernatural mysteries in American history. Thirteen months later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue with their three young children. They knew about the murders. They knew about the property's disturbing reputation. What they couldn't have anticipated, according to their subsequent accounts, was the nightmare that awaited them. Twenty-eight days later, they fled the house in terror. In this chilling installment of The Devil Within: Haunted Halloween, we investigate the true story behind The Amityville Horror, from the brutal DeFeo family murders to the extraordinary paranormal claims that transformed an ordinary Long Island residence into America's most notorious haunted house. We'll examine Ronald DeFeo Jr.'s conflicting confessions and allegations of mysterious voices, the disturbing circumstances surrounding the six murders, and the unanswered questions that have fueled speculation for more than half a century. Then we'll enter the house with the Lutz family. The unexplained noises. The swarms of flies in the dead of winter. The mysterious green substance reportedly appearing on the walls. George Lutz's unsettling habit of awakening at precisely 3:15 a.m. And perhaps most disturbing of all, the family's account of Jodie, an enormous, red-eyed pig-like creature allegedly befriending their youngest daughter. We'll also revisit the investigation conducted by Ed and Lorrain...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Hotel That Remembered Everything

25 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN Episode Two: The Hotel That Remembered Everything The Stanley Hotel, Room 217, and the Terrifying Inspiration Behind The Shining In October 1974, a young novelist named Stephen King checked into Room 217 of a nearly deserted hotel in the Colorado Rockies. That night, he experienced a nightmare so terrifying that it would inspire one of the most celebrated horror novels ever written. But the Stanley Hotel had been collecting ghost stories long before Stephen King arrived. In this installment of The Devil Within: Haunted Halloween, we travel to Estes Park, Colorado, to explore the extraordinary history of the Stanley Hotel, the magnificent mountain resort that inspired The Shining, and the unsettling legends that continue to haunt its corridors more than a century after it first opened its doors. Built in 1909 by wealthy inventor Freelan Oscar Stanley, the hotel was intended to be a monument to luxury, innovation, and American ambition. But in 1911, a devastating gas explosion nearly killed a housekeeper named Elizabeth Wilson, whose alleged spirit would eventually become one of the hotel's most notorious supernatural residents. Guests in Room 217 have reported mysteriously rearranged belongings, lights switching on without explanation, and the unsettling sensation that someone is attending to their room while they sleep. Elsewhere in the hotel, visitors claim to hear the phantom piano playing of Flora Stanley, the laughter of invisible children on the fourth floor, and footsteps echoing through corridors that should be empty. Then came Stephen King. We'll revisit his fateful stay in Room 217, the nightmare that inspired The Shining, and Stanley Kubrick's transformation of King's fictional Overlook Hotel into one of cinema's most terrifying creations. We'll also explore how Room 217 became Room 237 on screen, and how decades of storytelling have blurred the boundaries between documented history, paranormal folklore, and Hol...

EVIO PRESENTS: The LexiCON

43 min

To her tight-knit Maryland community, Lexi Thomas was the picture of devout resilience. She was a courageous young woman facing a sudden medical crisis in 2012. Anchored by her blog—where every post opened with Romans 8:28—Lexi shaped a story of suffering, divine trust, and cutting-edge treatments that inspired an entire community to rally around her and donate thousands of dollars.  In the premiere of this multi-part investigative series, hosts Nancy Moscatiello and Scott Eldridge trace how a deeply trusted backstory was built layer by layer. From her initial mystery hospitalization to the launch of her online updates, Episode 1 reveals how genuine community faith was weaponized to mask a growing web of fabrications—including plagiarized cancer memoirs and a world-renowned Duke specialist who claims he never even knew her name. The LexiCON is a production of The Slippery.  Search for The Slippery or The LexiCON wherever you get your podcasts. https://linktr.ee/TheSlippery Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Village That Invited The Devil

28 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN HAUNTED HALLOWEEN The Village That Invited the Devil Salem, Massachusetts — 1692 In the winter of 1692, the Devil arrived in Salem Village. Or so the good Christian people of Massachusetts were led to believe. It began with two young girls suffering mysterious fits, terrifying visions, and accusations of invisible tormentors. Within months, an entire community had descended into religious hysteria, neighbors were turning against neighbors, and the courts were condemning innocent people on the testimony of children who claimed to see the Devil's handiwork. By the time the madness ended, nineteen people had been hanged, one elderly farmer had been crushed beneath heavy stones, and several others had died in prison. But Salem's story didn't end at the gallows. In the premiere of our Haunted Halloween series, The Devil Within travels back to colonial Massachusetts to explore the terrifying origins of the Salem witch trials and the supernatural legends that have haunted the region for more than three centuries. We'll uncover the bizarre ritual of the witch cake, the accusations that condemned seventy-one-year-old Rebecca Nurse, the horrifying death of Giles Corey, and the chilling stories of apparitions said to linger around the old Nurse homestead and the streets of Salem. From the ruins of Reverend Samuel Parris's parsonage to the execution site at Proctor's Ledge, we'll separate historical fact from paranormal folklore and confront a disturbing possibility: What if the Devil never came to Salem at all? What if the real evil was already living among its people? Because sometimes the most terrifying monsters are the ones who believe they're doing God's work. LISTEN, FOLLOW & SUPPORT THE DEVIL WITHIN Listen & Follow: Subscribe to The Devil Within on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss a single installment of Haunted Halloween as we explore America's most disturbing histories and supernatural mysteries. R...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of October 26th, 2026

12 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Halloween Edition | Week of October 26, 2026 Poisoned Mushrooms, Haunted Hotels, Edgar Allan Poe, and a Hollywood Monster Happy Halloween from the Evio Creative Universe! This week on The Devil's Ledger, Branden Morgan welcomes the season of costumes, candy, and questionable judgment with a few reminders about Goosey Night, Mischief Night, and the legendary razor blades supposedly lurking inside Halloween candy. But beyond the seasonal mischief, we've got a particularly sinister lineup of true crime, supernatural history, literary horror, and Hollywood nightmares. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: THE MUSHROOM MURDERER A family lunch. A homemade beef Wellington. Three people dead. Australia's notorious mushroom murder case returns to the headlines as convicted killer Erin Patterson appeals her triple-murder conviction, while prosecutors seek to ensure she never becomes eligible for parole. At the center of the controversy is a bizarre jury accommodation mistake, disputed cellphone evidence, and a deadly meal containing some of the world's most poisonous mushrooms. Sometimes the most terrifying thing at the dinner table isn't the conversation. It's what's for lunch. THE DEVIL WITHIN: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN Our supernatural journey continues with three of America's most infamous haunted destinations. Salem, Massachusetts: The witch trials of 1692, where religious hysteria and paranoia condemned innocent people to death. The Stanley Hotel, Colorado: The magnificent mountain resort whose mysterious atmosphere inspired Stephen King's The Shining. Amityville, New York: The horrifying DeFeo family murders, the Lutz family's alleged haunting, and the house that became an international supernatural phenomenon. Three locations. Three disturbing histories. And three very good reasons to leave the lights on. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: A HALLOWEEN CLASSIC Carolyn Ossorio celebrates Halloween with a chilling selection from Edgar Allan Poe, the master...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! The Winchester Mystery House...

22 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The Winchester Mystery House: The Gun That Built a Ghost Story Theme: Guilt | True Crime, Haunted History & the Paranormal In San Jose, California, there stands a Victorian mansion unlike any other in America. Staircases climb into ceilings. Doors open onto empty space. Windows look into other rooms, and corridors twist through an architectural labyrinth containing approximately 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, and 10,000 windows. For thirty-six years, a wealthy widow named Sarah Winchester transformed an ordinary eight-room farmhouse into one of the strangest residences ever constructed. And according to legend, she did it because she was terrified of the dead. Sarah was the widow of William Wirt Winchester, heir to the firearms fortune built upon the legendary Winchester repeating rifle, including the Model 1873, famously marketed as “The Gun That Won the West.” After losing her infant daughter and then her husband, Sarah inherited an enormous fortune and moved west, where she began a construction project that would continue until her death in 1922. But why did she never seem to stop building? The legend claims Sarah consulted a medium who warned that the spirits of people killed by Winchester rifles were pursuing her. Her only hope of survival was to construct a house that would never be finished, a maze of rooms and passageways intended to confuse the restless dead. There's just one problem: no convincing historical evidence establishes that Sarah Winchester ever believed the story. In this episode of The Devil Within, Branden Morgan investigates the extraordinary history of the Winchester family, the rifle that helped shape the American frontier, and the eccentric mansion that became one of the country's most famous haunted attractions. We'll explore the mysterious Séance Room, the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and reports of unexplained footsteps, shadowy apparitions, and a ghostly workman known as Clyde, who supposedly continues...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! Edgar Allan Poe - Part Two

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The Ghost of Edgar Allan Poe: Baltimore's Most Famous Haunting Episode Two | Edgar Allan Poe Series Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. Nearly two centuries later, some people insist he never really left. Along the rain-soaked cobblestone streets of Fell's Point, stories persist of a pale, dark-haired figure wandering beneath streetlights before vanishing into the night. Inside an old Baltimore tavern, employees and patrons have reported unexplained disturbances attributed to a spirit they call Edgar. And at a modest brick house on North Amity Street, where Poe once struggled to survive as a young writer, visitors encounter a building whose history may be more haunting than any ghost story. In this episode of The Devil Within, Branden Morgan returns to Baltimore to investigate the supernatural legends surrounding America's greatest master of the macabre, exploring the extraordinary ways a writer who spent his life contemplating death became one of the country's most enduring ghosts. Our investigation begins at the Edgar Allan Poe House, where poverty, ambition, family tragedy, and literary genius converged during the 1830s. We then travel to Westminster Burying Ground, where a mysterious visitor dressed in black appeared for decades on Poe's birthday, leaving three red roses and a bottle of cognac beside his grave. Known only as the Poe Toaster, the stranger became one of Baltimore's most beloved unsolved mysteries. From there, we venture into Fell's Point and the legendary Horse You Came In On Saloon, where local folklore claims Poe enjoyed one of his final drinks before his mysterious death. Today, the establishment is associated with reports of moving objects, unexplained activity, and the possibility that its most famous patron has never checked out. But how much of Baltimore's haunted history can actually be verified? Are these genuine encounters with the supernatural, elaborate traditions passed down through generatio...

HAUNTED HALLOWEEN! Edgar Allan Poe - Part One

24 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The Five Lost Days: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe Episode One | Edgar Allan Poe Series On September 27, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe boarded a steamship in Richmond, Virginia, with plans for the future and a woman he hoped to marry. Five days later, one of America's most celebrated masters of the macabre had seemingly vanished from the historical record. When Poe resurfaced in Baltimore on October 3, he was delirious, gravely ill, and reportedly wearing clothes that weren't his own. He had been discovered outside a tavern serving as an election polling place, unable to explain where he'd been or what had happened to him. Four days later, at just forty years old, Edgar Allan Poe was dead. Nearly two centuries later, the circumstances remain a mystery. In this episode of The Devil Within, Branden Morgan investigates the strange final days of Edgar Allan Poe, exploring theories involving alcoholism, disease, robbery, and a sinister nineteenth-century election fraud scheme known as cooping, in which unsuspecting men were allegedly kidnapped, drugged, disguised, and forced to vote repeatedly. But Poe's story doesn't end with his death. Twenty-six years after his burial, his remains were exhumed and relocated to a more prominent grave in Baltimore. What followed was a particularly disturbing legend: that scratches had been discovered inside his coffin, suggesting the man who famously wrote about the horrors of premature burial had himself been buried alive. Is there any truth to the story, or did generations of admirers simply invent the perfect ending for America's greatest Gothic storyteller? From Poe's unexplained disappearance to the macabre folklore surrounding his grave, The Five Lost Days explores the uncomfortable territory where documented history ends and legend begins. Some mysteries remain unsolved. Others become immortal. IN THIS EPISODE • Poe's final departure from Richmond and his plans to marry Elmira Royster Shelton. •...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of October 19th, 2026

12 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Week of October 19, 2026 | Evio Creative A Haunted Halloween, the Murdaugh Retrial, The Lexi CON & Crystal Lake This week on The Devil's Ledger, we begin on a somber note, acknowledging the victims and families affected by the reported elementary school shooting in Bend, Oregon, and confronting America's ongoing epidemic of gun violence. Then, in The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week, a horrifying accident during a livestreamed church service in Ecuador raises unsettling questions about faith, fate, and one of the most improbable tragedies imaginable. THIS WEEK ACROSS THE EVIO UNIVERSE: THE DEVIL WITHIN | HAUNTED HALLOWEEN October gets considerably darker as we investigate the mysterious death of Edgar Allan Poe and the five missing days before his final appearance in Baltimore. Then we travel to California's legendary Winchester Mystery House, where an eccentric heiress, an architectural labyrinth, and more than a century of ghost stories have created one of America's most fascinating haunted landmarks. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF | THE MURDAUGH RETRIAL New developments in the Alex Murdaugh murder case raise questions about missing weapons, unrecovered clothing, a possible secret grand jury proceeding, and unidentified male DNA found beneath Maggie Murdaugh's fingernails. Could additional forensic testing change the course of the upcoming retrial? THE SLIPPERY | INTRODUCING THE LEXI CON From the creators of Scamanda, Nancy Moscatiello and Scott Eldridge introduce The Lexi CON, a multipart investigation into a Maryland woman's extraordinary medical claims, a community united by faith, and allegations of an elaborate deception that inspired thousands of dollars in donations. Listen to The Slippery and The Lexi CON: https://linktr.ee/TheSlippery THIS WEEK IN HORROR | CRYSTAL LAKE We're returning to Camp Crystal Lake for Peacock's Friday the 13th origin series, starring Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees. Before Jason became horror royalty, his...

The Devil's Audition - Part Three

20 min

THE DEVIL’S AUDITION Episode Three: The Body by the River For more than twenty years, Valerie McDonald’s family lived without an answer. Valerie disappeared from San Francisco in November 1980 after Michael Hennessey offered the aspiring actress a small role in a Dustin Hoffman movie—a movie that did not exist. Hennessey and John Gordon Abbott subsequently fled north toward Canada, where Hennessey was killed in a shootout with police. Valerie’s identification was reportedly found among the fugitives’ belongings, but Valerie herself seemed to have vanished. Then came the discovery nobody initially understood. On October 3, 1991, hunters found partial human remains near the Kettle River in Ferry County, Washington, roughly a mile from the Canadian border. The woman could not be identified and became a Jane Doe. For nearly another decade, two investigations continued independently: Valerie remained a missing woman in California while her unidentified remains waited in Washington. In January 2001, dental records finally connected them. The Kettle River Jane Doe was Valerie McDonald. In the final episode of The Devil’s Audition, we follow Valerie home and confront the tantalizing geography of her case. Her remains were discovered near the Canadian border—the same general direction Hennessey and Abbott traveled after she vanished—but geography is not proof. No one has ever been convicted of Valerie’s murder. We also return to Phillip Arthur Thompson, whose later conviction for the murder of twenty-one-year-old Betty Cloer established just how dangerous at least one man in Valerie’s orbit truly was, while still providing no legal answer to what happened to Valerie. TDW_Devil Audition_3 And finally, we reconsider the Satanic-cult theory that has followed this case for decades. Valerie reportedly described some activity around the Tower Apartments as Satanic, but there is no reliable evidence establishing that she was murdered in a Satanic ritual or sacrificed...

The Devil's Audition - Part Two

22 min

THE DEVIL’S AUDITION Episode Two: The Demons in North Beach Seventeen days after Valerie McDonald disappeared from San Francisco, Michael Hennessey—the man who had lured her away with the promise of a role in a Dustin Hoffman movie—was dead. Hennessey and fellow ex-convict John Gordon Abbott had fled north to British Columbia, where a confrontation with the RCMP ended in gunfire. Abbott was captured, Hennessey was killed, and investigators reportedly found Valerie’s voter-registration and unemployment-benefit cards among their belongings. TDW_Devil Audition_2 This week on The Devil Within, we return to the Tower Apartments and the dangerous world Valerie had been trying to escape. Before she vanished, Valerie told friends about large quantities of cocaine and what contemporary reports called “Satanistic” activities inside her building. In San Francisco—the birthplace of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan—the allegation carried particular weight. But there is no reliable evidence establishing that an organized Satanic cult operated from the Tower Apartments. What is documented is arguably more disturbing: Valerie was surrounded by men with serious criminal histories, including Phillip Arthur Thompson, who decades later would be convicted of the 1971 murder of Betty Cloer. TDW_Devil Audition_2 TDW_Devil Audition_2 Investigators also suspected Abbott, Hennessey and Thompson of participating in an ambitious criminal enterprise involving robbery, automatic weapons and cocaine trafficking. Valerie’s parents came to believe their daughter may have disappeared because she learned something about that operation, although that theory has never been proven. TDW_Devil Audition_2 Valerie had reportedly been threatened. She was frightened enough to move out. Then Hennessey arrived with the irresistible promise of a movie audition, and Valerie disappeared. For eleven years, her family waited. Then, on October 3, 1991, hunters discovered partial human remains near the Kettle Riv...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of October 12th, 2026

15 min

The Devil's Ledger | October 12, 2026 A Human-Skin Teddy Bear, a Hollywood Disappearance, a Surgeon on Trial, and a Reality TV Fraudster Welcome back to The Devil's Ledger, your weekly journey through the darker corners of the Evio Universe. As wild weather continues to make headlines, we're hoping everyone is staying safe, staying dry, and finding a little time to escape into a good book, a great movie, or one of our latest podcasts. This week, we're serving up a particularly unsettling collection of stories involving a grotesque discovery in the California desert, an aspiring actress who vanished in San Francisco, a plastic surgeon facing murder charges, a reality television star's multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, and a Nevada motel where the hospitality is positively murderous. THE CREEPIEST THING: The Human-Skin Teddy Bear In Victorville, California, a horrifying discovery outside a convenience store sent investigators scrambling: a teddy bear that appeared to be stitched together from human skin. The county coroner was called, police launched an investigation, and the truth turned out to be almost as bizarre as the original discovery. Was it evidence of something monstrous, or simply the world's most ill-advised practical joke? THE DEVIL WITHIN: The Devil's Audition San Francisco, 1980. Aspiring actress Valerie McDonald disappears after being lured by the promise of an audition for a nonexistent Dustin Hoffman film. What follows is an investigation involving dangerous criminals, alleged international drug trafficking, and disturbing reports of Satanic activity. In this three-part investigation, The Devil Within explores the circumstances surrounding Valerie's disappearance and the troubling intersection of ambition, deception, and the occult. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: Tomasz Kosowski, Part Two After last week's special conversation with COLD creator Dave Cawley, Carolyn Ossorio returns to the disappearance and alleged murder of Florida attorney Steven Cozz...

The Devil's Audition - Part One

24 min

THE DEVIL’S AUDITION Episode One: Temptation On November 9, 1980, twenty-six-year-old Valerie McDonald was doing something remarkably sensible: she was getting out. The aspiring filmmaker, actress, model and cocktail waitress had become frightened by the men managing her apartment building in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. She reportedly told friends and family about drugs, threatening behavior and activity she considered Satanic. With friends helping her move, Valerie appeared ready to put the Tower Apartments—and the people surrounding it—behind her. TDW_Devil Audition_1 Then Michael Hennessey arrived with an offer almost perfectly designed for an ambitious young actress. There was a movie shooting in town, he said, starring Dustin Hoffman, who was then at the absolute height of his career after winning the Academy Award for Kramer vs. Kramer. The production supposedly needed an attractive blonde woman for a small role playing the victim of a serial killer. The job paid $200 and, more importantly, offered Valerie the possibility of appearing opposite one of the biggest movie stars in America. TDW_Devil Audition_1 Valerie agreed to go. Her family would never see her alive again. The movie did not exist. A private investigator hired by Valerie’s parents later contacted the production company and Hoffman’s representatives and found no evidence of the film or the role Valerie had been promised. Someone appears to have constructed an elaborate fiction around Valerie’s ambitions and used it to lure her away. TDW_Devil Audition_1 Then the story became considerably stranger. Within days, Hennessey and convicted criminal John Gordon Abbott were fleeing north. On November 26, Canadian authorities caught up with them in British Columbia. A confrontation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police erupted into gunfire. Abbott was captured. Hennessey was killed. TDW_Devil Audition_1 Among the fugitives’ belongings, authorities reportedly discovered Valerie’s v...

Christa Pike: The Devil On Death Row - Part Three

22 min

THE DEVIL ON DEATH ROW Episode Three: Twice Condemned For nearly thirty years, Christa Pike waited to die. She entered Tennessee’s death row at nineteen under a sentence of electrocution, but remained there long enough to watch the machinery of capital punishment change around her. The electric chair gave way to lethal injection, the teenager associated with pentagrams became a fifty-year-old practicing Buddhist, and Tennessee eventually set September 30, 2026, as the day her sentence would finally be carried out. TDW_Pike_3 In the final episode of The Devil on Death Row, we follow Pike through decades of appeals, challenges to her original sentencing, arguments over childhood trauma and adolescent brain development, and her attorneys’ final attempts to obtain clemency. Then September 30 arrives. A federal appeals court temporarily stops the execution, Tennessee appeals, and the United States Supreme Court clears the way for the state to proceed. TDW_Pike_3 At 7:27 p.m., the curtains open at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution and Pike is strapped to a gurney. Pentobarbital is administered—but Pike remains alive and complains that her arm is burning. Tennessee tries again. After a second administration of the execution drug, witnesses can still hear her breathing. Eventually the witnesses are removed, Pike is transported to a hospital, and the state acknowledges an extraordinary fact: Christa Pike survived her execution. TDW_Pike_3 Governor Bill Lee subsequently halts Tennessee’s remaining 2026 execution and orders an independent review. Thirty-one years after Colleen Slemmer was murdered, the story that began with pentagrams, Satanic imagery and the fading embers of the Satanic Panic is suddenly unfinished again. TDW_Pike_3 The Devil may have been everywhere in this story, but perhaps he was never required. Human beings did all of it themselves. Listen & Follow: Follow The Devil Within wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a 5-star rating and review...

Christa Pike: The Devil On Death Row - Part Two

22 min

THE DEVIL ON DEATH ROW Episode Two: The Devil in the Woods Hours after nineteen-year-old Colleen Slemmer was tortured and murdered in the woods outside Knoxville, Christa Pike went to breakfast. According to trial testimony, she was carrying something almost impossible to comprehend: a fragment of Colleen’s skull, taken from the murder scene as a souvenir. Pike reportedly showed the bone to other students, pointed to blood on her shoes and openly described what had happened the night before. TDW_Pike_2 In Episode Two of The Devil on Death Row, we return to the woods to reconstruct Colleen’s final hour and examine the Satanic imagery that became inseparable from the crime. The attack lasted somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour, and when Colleen’s body was examined, investigators found a pentagram carved into her chest. But the occult connection went deeper: at Tadaryl Shipp’s later trial, another student testified that days before the murder Shipp had spoken about the need for a human sacrifice because the celestial bodies were in alignment. TDW_Pike_2 As Christa goes on trial, psychiatrists attempt to answer the question that had haunted the case from the beginning. Was this a Satanic murder, or were troubled teenagers borrowing the imagery of Satanism to give jealousy, rage and violence a darker mythology? The jury ultimately finds Pike guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy, and Tennessee chooses the ultimate punishment: death by electrocution. TDW_Pike_2 The Satanic Panic taught America to believe extraordinary evil required an extraordinary explanation. Christa Pike offered something considerably more disturbing: perhaps people don't need the Devil to commit monstrous acts. Sometimes they simply borrow his language. Listen & Follow: Follow The Devil Within wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a 5-star rating and review. Watch and subscribe on the Evio Creative YouTube channel, turn on notifications, and join the conversati...

Christa Pike: The Devil On Death Row - Part One

22 min

THE DEVIL ON DEATH ROW Episode One: The Pentagram In January 1995, nineteen-year-old Colleen Slemmer walked away from the Knoxville Job Corps Center with three other students. The following morning, her body was discovered on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. She had been subjected to a prolonged attack, and carved into her chest was a symbol America had spent more than a decade learning to fear: a pentagram. TDW_Pike_1 In Episode One of The Devil on Death Row, we return to the fading years of the Satanic Panic, when allegations of secret cults, ritual abuse and devil worship had moved from horror movies into police departments, courtrooms and American living rooms. By 1995, much of that panic was beginning to collapse beneath the weight of its own extraordinary claims. Then Colleen Slemmer was murdered, and the crime contained genuinely documented Satanic imagery: Christa Pike and her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp were observed wearing pentagram necklaces, Pike had experimented with occult imagery before the murder, and a forensic psychiatrist would later testify that the crime contained “satanic elements,” while characterizing what he saw as adolescent dabbling rather than evidence of an organized cult. TDW_Pike_1 But behind the pentagrams was something considerably more human. Eighteen-year-old Christa Gail Pike had endured an unstable adolescence before arriving at Job Corps, where she became intensely attached to Shipp and convinced herself that Colleen wanted to take him away from her. The day before the murder, Pike reportedly told another student that she intended to kill Colleen. On January 12, four young people walked into the woods together, with Colleen believing they were going to smoke marijuana and settle their differences. TDW_Pike_1 The Satanic Panic taught America to search for elaborate explanations for evil. The Christa Pike story asks a more unsettling question: what happens when the symbols a culture creates to represent evil beco...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of Oct. 5th, 2026

14 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of October 5, 2026 October has arrived across the Evio Universe, and before we get to the murder, monsters, fraud and assorted demonic activity, we have one request: vote. The midterms are approaching, and regardless of party, voting is how we hold elected officials accountable—or throw them out. Our longstanding policy remains simple: if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about shit. Ledger Oct 5 This week’s Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week investigates the strange online mythology forming around the upcoming supernatural horror film You Can’t Leave. Social media claims insist the filmmakers employed real occult experts to create authentic demonic rituals capable of exposing audiences to something genuinely dangerous. There’s just one problem: we couldn’t find credible evidence that any of it is true. Which raises an even better question—are we watching a modern urban legend being created in real time? Ledger Oct 5 On The Devil Within, our new three-part series The Devil on Death Row examines Christa Pike, the brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, its documented Satanic imagery and its place at the dying edge of the Satanic Panic. Then we follow Pike through thirty years on death row to the extraordinary events of September 30, when Tennessee attempted to execute her with pentobarbital—and she survived. Twice. Ledger Oct 5 On Criminal Mischief, Part Two of the Tomasz Kosowski case enters the courtroom, where the plastic surgeon accused of murdering attorney Steven Cozzi makes the extraordinary decision to represent himself in a capital murder trial. Over on The Slippery, we meet former Bellum Entertainment CEO Mary Carole McDonnell and the alleged $30 million fraud built around a decidedly inconvenient detail: the enormous aerospace-family fortune she claimed to possess apparently didn't exist. Ledger Oct 5 Ledger Oct 5 Finally, This Week in Horror heads deep into the Amazon for Beware Boiuna, a good old-fashioned monster movi...

The Killer of Lake Tangyanika - Part Three

21 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN GUSTAVE — Episode Three: The Hunt For years, Patrice Faye had followed the evidence left behind by one of Africa's most notorious predators. He interviewed witnesses, mapped attacks around Lake Tanganyika, studied movements along the Rusizi River and learned the scars that distinguished one enormous Nile crocodile from every other animal in the water. By 2002, studying Gustave was no longer enough. Faye wanted to capture him alive. In the final installment of our three-part investigation, The Hunt, the naturalist's obsession becomes an extraordinary field expedition. Gustave's legend has now escaped Burundi and entered the international press, bringing increasingly spectacular claims with it: hundreds of victims, gunshot wounds, attacks on massive animals and a crocodile that supposedly killed without eating. Faye himself offered a considerably more cautious estimate, saying he had documented roughly sixty deaths attributable to Gustave, perhaps fewer—a number that still could never be scientifically confirmed. But Gustave himself was real. His extraordinary size and distinctive scars allowed Faye to identify an individual animal moving through the enormous interconnected ecosystem of Lake Tanganyika and the Rusizi River. Capturing him alive could finally replace estimates with measurements: his true length, weight, age, physical condition and injuries could all be studied for the first time. So Faye built a jail. Nearly thirty feet long and weighing roughly a ton, the enormous steel cage looked more like industrial machinery than an animal trap. Cameras monitored it. Bait was placed inside. Crocodile specialist Alison Leslie joined the expedition, while filmmaker Jean-Michel Corillion documented the hunt for what would become Capturing the Killer Croc. Eventually, something enormous approached the cage. Then everything went wrong. A violent storm struck. The infrared camera failed. By morning, the trap had been damaged and partially sub...

The Killer of Lake Tangyanika - Part Two

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN GUSTAVE — Episode Two: Built to Kill What makes a predator perfect? In Episode Two of our three-part investigation into Gustave, we leave Lake Tanganyika behind for a moment and travel to Tsavo, Kenya, in 1898, where two maneless male lions began pulling railway workers from their camps. The animals that became known as the Ghost and the Darkness terrorized the Uganda Railway project for months before Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson finally killed them. More than a century later, their preserved remains would give scientists something Patrice Faye never had with Gustave: a killer they could actually examine. Then we go inside the Nile crocodile. Calling Gustave a dinosaur isn't scientifically accurate, but crocodilians belong to an evolutionary lineage whose basic predatory strategy has survived for an extraordinary span of time. Eyes and nostrils positioned above the water allow the animal to disappear almost completely beneath the surface. A muscular tail provides explosive acceleration. Armored osteoderms protect the body. Conical teeth seize rather than chew. And when prey is too large to swallow, the infamous death roll can tear it into manageable pieces. Everything about the design is built around one principle: Don't waste energy. That principle makes Gustave's story considerably stranger. Crocodiles are ectothermic ambush predators capable of waiting extraordinary periods between meals. They don't need prolonged pursuit. They wait until an animal enters the narrow strip of geography where water meets land—and then patience becomes explosive violence. For people who depend upon Lake Tanganyika for fishing, bathing, washing and drinking water, that kill zone is also an unavoidable part of everyday life. But Patrice Faye encountered reports of victims attributed to Gustave whose bodies were recovered or only partially consumed. That helped create the sensational legend that Gustave killed for pleasure. The biology tells a mor...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of September 28th, 2026

12 min

THE DEVIL'S LEDGER Week of September 28, 2026 Fall has officially arrived, playoff baseball is back, and apparently Mother Nature decided the Northeast needed to celebrate with a violent nor'easter. This week on The Devil's Ledger, Branden sends some love to everyone currently getting battered by wind, rain and coastal flooding—and finally answers a question some of us have somehow avoided asking our entire lives: What the hell actually is a nor'easter? Then we head into considerably darker territory. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: THE MOSQUITO Brazilian authorities say they've captured Jorlan Lopes da Silva, a suspected serial killer nicknamed “Mosquito” because of his thin, frail build. Police accuse da Silva of involvement in sixteen murders around Mulungu in northeastern Brazil. Investigators say he evaded capture by disappearing into dense vegetation and living in makeshift camps hidden in the wilderness. But it's the bizarre circumstances of his arrest that elevate this one into Creepiest Thing territory: when police finally cornered him after a two-day pursuit, da Silva was reportedly wearing a dress, wig and painted fingernails—and carrying an unrelated baby in his arms. THIS WEEK ON THE DEVIL WITHIN: GUSTAVE The New Monsters has come to an end, which means we're returning to something considerably more familiar: Serial killers. Sort of. Our new three-part series travels to Burundi and the shores of Lake Tanganyika for the extraordinary story of Gustave, the enormous, heavily scarred Nile crocodile blamed in legend for more than 300 human deaths. That number has never been verified—and naturalist Patrice Faye offered far more conservative estimates—but behind the mythology was a very real, exceptionally large crocodile that Faye spent years tracking. How do you hunt a serial killer with no motive, fingerprints or confession—one who can simply disappear beneath the surface of one of Africa's great lakes? Meet Gustave: The Killer of Lake...

The Killer of Lake Tangyanika - Part One

22 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN GUSTAVE: THE KILLER OF LAKE TANGANYIKA Episode One — Pattern For years, people living along the shores of Lake Tanganyika told stories about something enormous moving beneath the water. Fishermen disappeared. Bodies were recovered bearing catastrophic injuries. Survivors described attacks that happened with terrifying speed, often in places where generations of Burundians had fished, washed clothes and collected water. Then French naturalist Patrice Faye began looking for a pattern. Faye was an unlikely investigator: a self-taught naturalist and herpetologist from Lyon who had worked as a plumber and lumberjack, traveled through Africa and eventually made Burundi his home. During some of the country's darkest years, he developed an extraordinary knowledge of its wildlife—and became increasingly troubled by the stories emerging from Lake Tanganyika. In Episode One of our three-part investigation into Gustave, we travel deep into the history of Burundi, a breathtaking country scarred by colonialism, political assassination and a civil war that killed an estimated 300,000 people between 1993 and 2005. Against that backdrop, Faye developed a disturbing theory: could years of human bodies entering the region's waterways during the violence have taught an opportunistic predator that human beings were food? It was a theory he could never prove, but one that connected Burundi's human tragedy to the mystery developing along its shoreline. Faye collected eyewitness accounts, compared locations and studied descriptions until he became convinced that many of the attacks were connected. Witnesses repeatedly described extraordinary size and distinctive scars, including an injury on the animal's head. Eventually, Faye saw his suspect himself and gave him a name: Gustave. Gustave wasn't a man. He was an enormous Nile crocodile—estimated by Faye at roughly twenty feet long, perhaps a ton in weight and around sixty years old, although the animal was never ca...

The New Monsters: The Loveland Frogman - Part Three

23 min

THE NEW MONSTERS: THE LOVELAND FROGMAN Episode Three: The Monster Loveland Kept By the summer of 2016, hunting monsters had changed. Armed with smartphones and Pokémon Go, two teenagers wandered near Ohio's Little Miami River and reportedly encountered something that wasn't supposed to be part of the game. Their footage was ambiguous, but the name attached to it was unmistakable: the Loveland Frogman. The alleged sighting resurrected a legend stretching back decades—mysterious humanoid figures beside an Ohio road in 1955, police encounters in 1972, and the wonderfully bizarre story of a frog-like creature carrying a wand that produced sparks. But the renewed attention also brought former Loveland police officer Mark Mathews back into the story. Mathews had encountered and shot the animal associated with the legend in 1972, and his explanation was considerably less supernatural: according to him, it was a large, tailless iguana, probably an escaped or abandoned exotic pet. That should have killed the legend. Instead, Loveland kept the Frogman. In the conclusion of our three-part investigation, we explore what happens when a monster outlives the eyewitnesses who created it. From the arrival of the internet and the 2016 Pokémon Go encounter to the transformation of regional cryptids into hometown mascots, merchandise and cultural identities, the Frogman reveals something important about the way modern folklore survives. Evidence may weaken a legend, but once enough people inherit the story, evidence isn't the only thing keeping it alive. We also bring The New Monsters full circle, from alligators beneath Manhattan and the Bunny Man of Northern Virginia to the strange amphibious resident of the Little Miami River. Cameras, smartphones and instant communication were supposed to make monsters obsolete. Instead, technology gave folklore a distribution system. Maybe the Loveland Frogman really was an iguana. If so, the iguana lost. The monster survived. LISTEN, F...

The New Monsters: The Loveland Frogman - Part Two

24 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN THE NEW MONSTERS: THE LOVELAND FROGMAN Episode Two — The Creature Gets a Name Before the Loveland Frogman became one of America's strangest regional cryptids, it may have been something else entirely. The story takes us back to Loveland, Ohio, in 1955, where a businessman or traveling salesman supposedly encountered three small humanoid figures beside a country road near the Little Miami River. Later versions describe creatures standing three or four feet tall, with leathery skin, deeply wrinkled heads and vaguely frog-like faces. Then one of them reportedly raised a strange metal rod above its head—and sparks began shooting from it. A Frogman is strange enough. A Frogman with a magic wand requires considerably more explanation. In Episode Two of The New Monsters, we investigate how a handful of separate encounters gradually became the mythology of the Loveland Frogman—and why the creature's bizarre origins may have more in common with America's flying-saucer obsession than traditional cryptozoology. The problem begins with the 1955 encounter itself. Unlike the better-documented police sightings that followed seventeen years later, there is no readily available contemporary police report establishing the version of the story we know today. Its famous details reach us largely through later researchers, paranormal literature and decades of retelling, meaning the Frogman's origin story belongs much more securely to folklore than verified history. And then there's that wand. America in 1955 was deep in the first great age of flying-saucer fascination. UFO reports were multiplying, science-fiction theaters were filled with extraterrestrial visitors, and stories of strange humanoids carrying mysterious technology occupied a very different corner of the American imagination. Three small beings beside a road carrying a sparking device don't necessarily sound like unknown amphibians at all. They sound suspiciously like visitors. The documentary tra...

The New Monsters: The Loveland Frogman - Part One

22 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN THE NEW MONSTERS: THE LOVELAND FROGMAN Episode One — Encounter There are places where the modern world seems to thin after dark. Outside Loveland, Ohio, the Little Miami River winds through wooded banks, bridges and stretches of road where everything beyond the headlights can disappear into darkness. It was along this landscape in March 1972 that Loveland police officer Ray Shockey reportedly encountered something strange near the roadway—an unusual creature that moved toward the guardrail and vanished in the direction of the river. Then another Loveland police officer encountered something in roughly the same area. This week, The New Monsters investigates the legend of the Loveland Frogman, one of Ohio's strangest and most beloved cryptids. But beneath the stories of upright amphibious creatures and mysterious encounters is something even more interesting: a collection of separate incidents that gradually became the history of a single monster. We begin with the landscape itself and the Little Miami River, the waterway that helped shape Loveland long before anyone imagined a Frogman living beside it. From Indigenous history and early settlement to farms, mills, railroads and the growth of Cincinnati, the river became both an economic corridor and a natural boundary between civilization and the remaining woods. Even as modern development spread outward, the river preserved precisely the sort of places where folklore thrives: dark water, wooded banks, blind curves and roads that surrender to the landscape after sunset. Then we travel back to 1955, when the earliest and most mysterious chapter of the Frogman legend supposedly occurred. Later versions describe a motorist encountering several short, upright creatures with leathery, frog-like bodies—and even claim that one carried a bizarre rod or wand capable of producing sparks. The problem is that the original encounter is difficult to document cleanly, and many of its most famous details reach...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of September 21st, 2026

15 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of September 21, 2026 Football is back, fall is finally arriving, and the Evio Universe has assembled a particularly strange collection of stories this week. We begin with The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week, where an unsettling internet trend has transformed one of Dr. Seuss’s most beloved characters into nightmare fuel. AI-generated images of a sinister Cat in the Hat lurking outside homes and schools have prompted police investigations across the country, juvenile arrests—and, in Canada, a bizarre real-world incident involving someone in costume allegedly chasing a teenage girl through a neighborhood. Then, on The Devil Within, we head to Ohio for the conclusion of our investigation into the Loveland Frogman. From a murky 1955 encounter involving strange humanoid figures and a supposedly sparking wand to two police encounters in 1972 and a wonderfully appropriate Pokémon Go sighting decades later, we examine how separate stories became the biography of a single monster—and why even a police officer’s decidedly unromantic explanation involving a tailless iguana couldn’t kill the legend. On Criminal Mischief, Carolyn Ossorio investigates the developing case surrounding Philadelphia’s so-called “House of Horrors.” Authorities are investigating an Olney home in connection with at least seven missing women, as police and the FBI work through disturbing physical and digital evidence recovered during the investigation. With no remains yet confirmed at the property, Carolyn separates what investigators actually know from the speculation surrounding a case that is still unfolding. Over on The Slippery, Scott and Nancy enter the heavily filtered world of Adva Lavie, the Israeli-born former flight attendant and social-media personality accused of using dating apps and aliases to enter the lives of wealthy older men and steal luxury property. Then the story acquires a billionaire, an engagement and an even stranger investigation. Lavie has ple...

The New Monsters: The Bunny Man - Part Three

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN THE NEW MONSTERS: THE BUNNY MAN Episode Three: Midnight at the Overpass By the 1990s, everybody in Northern Virginia seemed to know the rules. Drive out to Bunny Man Bridge after dark. Wait until midnight. Turn off the headlights. Say his name three times. Maybe get out of the car. Maybe come on Halloween. Nobody could agree on exactly how you summoned the Bunny Man, but that hardly mattered. Because everybody agreed that if you stayed beneath that railroad bridge long enough, something would happen. In the final chapter of our three-part investigation into The Bunny Man, we follow one of America's strangest urban legends through its most important transformation. What began with two reported encounters with a rabbit-costumed stranger in Fairfax County in October 1970 eventually became something teenagers could actually participate in. This week, we head back beneath the railroad tracks outside Clifton, Virginia, during an era when American suburbia was developing some very particular nightmares of its own. Stranger danger was reshaping childhood. Parents inspected Halloween candy for razor blades and poison. The Satanic Panic warned that secret cults might be hiding behind otherwise ordinary American life, while a new generation of slasher movies discovered that the safest-looking suburbs made particularly effective places for monsters. The Bunny Man fit right in. His rabbit costume corrupted something associated with childhood innocence. His axe gave him the silhouette of a horror villain. Better still, you didn't need to travel into some remote wilderness to find him. You needed a car, a few friends and enough nerve to drive into the woods. Folklorists call it legend tripping: traveling to a supposedly haunted place specifically to test the story. Haunted railroad crossings, Crybaby Bridges, cemeteries, abandoned houses and mirrors capable of summoning Bloody Mary all operate on variations of the same brilliant idea. They don't merely...

The New Monsters: The Bunny Man - Part Two

25 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN THE NEW MONSTERS: THE BUNNY MAN Episode Two: The Bridge There is a railroad bridge outside Clifton, Virginia, where Colchester Road narrows into a single lane and disappears beneath the tracks. For generations of Northern Virginia teenagers, it has been known by another name: Bunny Man Bridge. According to the legend, this is where the Bunny Man lived, killed and perhaps died. Some versions claim he was an escaped asylum patient who vanished into the surrounding woods after a transport bus crashed. Others add mutilated rabbits hanging from trees, murdered children, bodies suspended from the railroad tracks and a killer who eventually returned from the dead. It's a spectacular horror story. There's just one problem: almost none of it appears to have happened. In Episode Two of our three-part investigation, we follow the Bunny Man away from the documented encounters on Guinea Road and into the place that transformed him from a bizarre local mystery into a full-fledged American monster. Research by Fairfax County historian and archivist Brian Conley found no evidence of the asylum, the escaped inmates or the Bunny Man massacre supposedly connected to the bridge. The two documented incidents from October 1970 happened miles away. So how did the Bunny Man get to Clifton? We travel back through the history of the village itself, from the arrival of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad in 1858 to its importance during the Civil War, when the tracks became part of the military infrastructure connecting a country tearing itself apart. After the war, a railroad village grew here, preserving a pocket of older Northern Virginia even as suburban Washington expanded around it. That landscape gave the legend something Guinea Road eventually couldn't: permanence. Construction sites become houses. Woods are cleared. Empty lots acquire addresses. But a secluded railroad overpass surrounded by trees can remain unsettling for generations. Better still, it gave...

The New Monsters: The Bunny Man - Part One

22 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN THE NEW MONSTERS: THE BUNNY MAN Episode One: The Man on Guinea Road In October 1970, along a dark stretch of Guinea Road in Fairfax County, Virginia, a young couple sitting inside their car saw someone emerge from the woods. The stranger appeared to be wearing a white suit with long rabbit ears. He began shouting about private property, claimed to have their license plate number—and then hurled a hatchet through the passenger window. The couple escaped. Police recovered the weapon. The man in the rabbit costume vanished. If that were the end of the story, the Bunny Man might have survived as little more than a spectacularly bizarre newspaper clipping. But ten days later, another encounter was reported nearby. This time, security guard Paul Phillips discovered a rabbit-costumed figure at an unfinished house, carrying a long-handled axe and reportedly chopping at the structure while complaining about trespassers. Two incidents had given Northern Virginia something much harder to dismiss: a pattern. In Episode One of our three-part journey into The Bunny Man, we go beneath the legend to the landscape that created it. Long before suburban Washington pushed into Fairfax County, this was a place shaped by Indigenous history, colonial Virginia, George Washington and George Mason, the American Revolution and the Civil War. By 1970, another invasion was underway as farms and forests disappeared beneath subdivisions, highways and construction sites. That transformation provides an irresistible backdrop for what happened on Guinea Road. The original Bunny Man emerged from woods being consumed by development, repeatedly complained about trespassing and carried the very tools traditionally used to clear the landscape around him. Whether any of that symbolism was intentional is impossible to know, but the timing helped create an almost perfect American monster: something lurking along the uneasy boundary where countryside was becoming suburbia. We'll also...

The Devil's Ledger - Week of September 14th, 2026

19 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of September 14, 2026 — Twenty-Five Years Later This week on The Devil’s Ledger, we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001 and remember the 2,977 people whose lives were taken that day, along with the first responders and rescue workers who ran toward unimaginable danger while thousands were desperately trying to escape. We also honor those who have died in the years since from illnesses connected to their work at Ground Zero. Twenty-five years later, “Never Forget” remains more than a phrase; it is an obligation to remember the victims, teach the history and honor the extraordinary courage witnessed that morning. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: THE CURSE OF DUDLEYTOWN Deep in the forests of northwestern Connecticut lie the remains of Dudleytown, an eighteenth-century settlement that eventually became one of New England’s most enduring haunted legends. Stories of a centuries-old family curse, insanity, mysterious deaths and strange creatures transformed an abandoned settlement into the so-called “Village of the Damned.” Historians have challenged much of the mythology, offering far more ordinary explanations for Dudleytown’s disappearance, but the legend proved harder to kill. Ghost hunters still seek it out despite the former settlement being privately owned and closed to the public. THIS WEEK ON THE DEVIL WITHIN: THE BUNNY MAN The New Monsters heads to Northern Virginia for the story of The Bunny Man, a legend that began with genuine 1970 reports involving a mysterious man in a rabbit costume carrying a hatchet or axe. From those strange encounters grew Bunny Man Bridge, tales of escaped lunatics and an abandoned asylum, alleged murders and a midnight summoning ritual. Across three episodes, we separate the documented incidents from the mythology and follow the Bunny Man from newspaper reports and playground whispers into teenage legend-tripping and eventually the internet. THIS WEEK ON CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: JAYCEE DUGAR...

The New Monsters: Alligators in the Sewers — Part Three

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The New Monsters: Alligators in the Sewers — Episode Three: The Monster Under Manhattan By 1980, the alligator had escaped. The legend that began with misplaced reptiles, a very real 1935 newspaper story and Teddy May’s extraordinary tales of an underground colony had finally crawled out of the sewers and into American popular culture. Hollywood was waiting. In the wonderfully excessive 1980 creature feature Alligator, a little girl brings home a baby alligator named Ramon. Her father eventually decides reptile ownership has run its course and flushes the animal down the toilet. Twelve years later, Ramon has survived beneath the city by eating discarded laboratory animals pumped full of experimental growth hormones. The adorable souvenir has become an enormous, man-eating monster. And the remarkable thing is that audiences barely needed the premise explained. By then, everybody knew the story. Baby alligator. Toilet. Sewer. Darkness. Monster. In the final episode of Alligators in the Sewers, we explore how one of America’s greatest urban legends escaped New York and became part of our shared cultural imagination. Robert Daley’s 1959 book The World Beneath the City gave Teddy May’s stories a permanent home. Thomas Pynchon’s 1963 novel V. populated Manhattan’s sewers with albino alligators. Books, newspapers and word of mouth continued adding details until ordinary abandoned pets had evolved into enormous, pale, blind creatures supposedly feeding on New York’s endless population of rats. By the 1970s, the city itself had become the perfect setting. Aging infrastructure, graffiti-covered subway cars, crime, disinvestment and the fiscal crisis transformed New York’s underground from a symbol of nineteenth-century engineering triumph into something darker. The tunnels beneath Manhattan became a place where anything might be hiding. Then Alligator gave the legend its monster movie. But reality has an irritating habit of occasionally helping f...

The New Monsters: Alligators In The Sewers - part Two

24 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The New Monsters: Alligators in the Sewers — Episode Two: The Man Who Saw Them They kept seeing alligators. Sometime in the 1930s, New York sewer inspectors began returning from beneath the city with an increasingly ridiculous claim: there were alligators living beneath Manhattan. Their boss, Theodore “Teddy” May, had a more reasonable explanation. Whiskey. According to Robert Daley's 1959 book The World Beneath the City, May became convinced his workers had discovered somewhere underground to hide booze. He sent men to investigate. Nobody found the whiskey. But the alligator sightings continued. Eventually, Teddy May decided to descend into the sewers himself—and according to the story he later told, his flashlight swept across the water and revealed something he hadn't expected to see. Several alligators. In Episode Two of Alligators in the Sewers, The Devil Within heads back beneath 1930s New York to meet the men whose jobs took them into a hidden world most New Yorkers would never see. We explore what it was actually like to work inside Manhattan's enormous underground infrastructure, where sewer inspectors navigated brick tunnels by flashlight during the lowest-flow hours of the night. The dangers were very real: rapidly rising wastewater, powerful currents, blockages and deadly gases. And the things moving through those tunnels could be bizarre—barrels, Christmas trees, jewelry, false teeth, weapons and practically anything else New York managed to lose down a drain. Then we meet Teddy May. Part sewer worker, part foreman and apparently one hell of a storyteller, May would become the central figure in the sewer-alligator legend. His claims transformed the documented discovery of a single reptile beneath East Harlem into something much larger: an entire population living beneath Manhattan. And then, according to the legend, New York fought back. Daley's account describes an extraordinary extermination campaign in which sewer crews...

The Devil's Ledger: Week of Sept. 7th

15 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of September 8, 2026 MISTRIAL. After seven weeks of testimony and roughly 36 hours of deliberations, the Lindsay Clancy murder trial has ended with a hung jury in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Eleven jurors reportedly favored finding Clancy not criminally responsible for the deaths of her three children. One juror disagreed, and Judge William Sullivan ultimately declared a mistrial. So what happens now? Potentially, we do the whole thing again. A deadlocked jury generally does not trigger the double-jeopardy protection that would prevent prosecutors from retrying the case, leaving open the possibility of another trial, a negotiated resolution, or whatever comes next in a case that has already generated an extraordinary amount of public attention. We'll keep following it. In the meantime, I suppose we'll have to wait for whichever juror signs the first book deal. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK THE MASKED MENACE — CAUGHT Remember our masked friend from Philadelphia? A few weeks ago, we told you about a man roaming Center City Philadelphia in a disturbing white doll mask, approaching and chasing strangers and generally turning the morning commute into the opening ten minutes of a slasher movie. Now we have an ending. Authorities identified the suspect as 22-year-old Zymire Hughes, who police say harassed or terrorized more than fifteen people on August 12. In one particularly disturbing encounter, he allegedly approached a woman near JFK Boulevard and repeatedly asked her, “Are you ready to die?” Hughes subsequently traveled from the Philadelphia area to Orlando and then Las Vegas. Newly released body-camera footage shows Las Vegas police and U.S. Marshals closing in on an apartment where authorities believed he was hiding. On August 25, the Nevada Violent Offender Task Force surrounded the complex. Hughes came out. The mask did not. And perhaps the strangest detail of all is that investigators have suggested at least som...

The New Monsters: Alligators in the Sewers - Part One

23 min

THE DEVIL WITHIN The New Monsters: Alligators in the Sewers — Episode One: Beneath the City On February 9, 1935, three teenagers shoveling snow into an open manhole on East 123rd Street reportedly discovered something moving beneath the ice. An alligator. The following morning, The New York Times carried the headline “ALLIGATOR FOUND IN UPTOWN SEWER.” The animal was reportedly seven to eight feet long, weighed roughly 125 pounds and had been dragged from beneath East Harlem using a makeshift noose fashioned from clothesline. Whatever happened on that winter afternoon, the story gave one of America's greatest urban legends something most legends can only dream of: a date, an address and witnesses. But before we can hunt alligators beneath Manhattan, we have to understand how an entire hidden world came to exist beneath New York in the first place. In Episode One of our latest New Monsters investigation, we descend into the history of the city beneath the city—from Manhattan's vanished streams and polluted Collect Pond to overflowing cesspools, cholera epidemics and the massive nineteenth-century engineering projects that transformed New York. The arrival of Croton water in 1842 helped create a new problem on an enormous scale: all that water eventually had to go somewhere. The solution was a vast network of brick-lined sewers constructed beneath a rapidly expanding metropolis. Then we head south to the Sunshine State, where Florida's booming tourist industry once offered visitors a souvenir that would be almost unimaginable today: living baby alligators. They were cute, exotic and small enough to bring home. Unfortunately, alligators possess the irritating habit of becoming considerably larger alligators. And that's where the legend gives us the image that has survived for generations: the unwanted pet disappearing down the toilet and into the sewers below. The plumbing makes that particular scenario considerably more complicated than folklore suggests. The...

The New Monsters: The Fresno Nightcrawler - Part Three

22 min

The Fresno Nightcrawler: Proof of Something There was a brief period when we thought cameras were going to solve everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The New Monsters: The Fresno Nightcrawler - Part Two

25 min

The Fresno Nightcrawler: The Internet Gives It Legs One unexplained video can be dismissed as an anomaly. A second changes the equation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The New Monsters: The Fresno Nightcrawler - Part One

27 min

The Fresno Nightcrawler: Something Walked Across the Lawn Something strange crossed a Fresno lawn after dark, and a security camera was there to see it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Devil's Ledger - Week of August 31st.

14 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of August 30, 2026 Mother Nature reminds us who's in charge, a Colombian “sorcerer” faces the horrifying consequences of a healing ritual, The Fresno Nightcrawler walks into The New Monsters, Carolyn Ossorio investigates the murder of Dee Warner, and The Slippery opens the mailbag and reveals what they're working on next. Then, in This Week in Horror, we enter the deeply deranged children's television nightmare of Buddy. THE CREEPIEST THING I HEARD THIS WEEK: THE SORCERER OF LIBORINA This week's story takes us back to 2021 and rural Antioquia, Colombia, where a 31-year-old mother of four sought spiritual healing from a man known as the Sorcerer of Liborina. According to prosecutors, Martín Rangel Londoño Jaramillo covered the woman with a homemade mixture containing alcohol, sulfur and camphor before setting fire to the substance as part of the ritual. The woman suffered burns across approximately 70 percent of her body. Investigators allege that instead of immediately seeking emergency treatment, the Sorcerer sent her home with an herbal remedy. She eventually reached a hospital in Medellín but died about a week later. Authorities subsequently arrested Londoño Jaramillo on a murder charge; he denied the accusations. It's a disturbing reminder of an ancient human vulnerability: when we're suffering, we'll sometimes place extraordinary trust in anyone who promises they can make the suffering stop. THIS WEEK ON THE DEVIL WITHIN Our journey through The New Monsters continues with one of the internet age's strangest cryptids: The Fresno Nightcrawler. It begins with grainy security footage from Fresno, California, showing a pale, impossibly thin figure seemingly composed almost entirely of legs walking across a lawn in the middle of the night. The footage raised far more questions than it answered—and then the Nightcrawler received the one thing every aspiring cryptid needs if it hopes to become genuine folklore: A second sighting. Hear...

The New Monsters: The Black-Eyed Children - Part Three

23 min

The Eyes of Fear The New Monsters – Story Five, Episode Three Why do monsters survive in an age of science? Why do ancient fears continue to evolve in a world filled with smartphones, surveillance cameras, artificial intelligence, and instant access to information? And why, after nearly thirty years, do people still report encounters with the Black-Eyed Children? In the concluding chapter of this three-part investigation, The Devil Within moves beyond eyewitness accounts and paranormal speculation to explore a more fascinating question: why do stories like this refuse to die? This week, Branden Morgan examines the remarkable science behind memory, intuition, and eyewitness testimony, revealing why the human brain is far more sophisticated—and far less reliable—than most of us realize. Are the Black-Eyed Children evidence of something supernatural? Could they be the product of suggestion, folklore, and the extraordinary way our minds reconstruct emotionally charged experiences? Or does the truth lie somewhere between those two possibilities? As the investigation unfolds, we discover that the legend's greatest strength may have nothing to do with black eyes at all. Instead, it lies in a deeply familiar human experience: the unsettling feeling that something is wrong long before we can explain why. It is a sensation nearly everyone has experienced at some point in life—a warning whispered by instinct before conscious thought has assembled the evidence. The episode then widens its lens to examine the evolution of modern mythology itself. From the changelings of Celtic folklore to vampires, fairies, ghost children, and finally the Black-Eyed Children, every civilization has created stories about strangers who appear almost human while violating some deeply rooted expectation of what it means to be safe. These legends are less about proving the supernatural than preserving emotional truths that transcend generations. As The Black-Eyed Children comes to its haunti...

The New Monsters: The Black-Eyed Children - Part Two

23 min

The New Monsters: The Black-Eyed Children - Part Two The Children at the Door They never break in. They never force the door. They simply ask. In the second chapter of The Black-Eyed Children, Branden Morgan investigates one of the most unsettling patterns in modern paranormal folklore. Following journalist Brian Bethel's now- famous encounter in Texas, reports of eerily similar experiences began surfacing across NorthAmerica. Different witnesses. Different cities. Different decades. Yet the stories shared an astonishing number of details. Two children. Late at night. Perfectly polite. An overwhelming sense that something is terribly wrong. And one simple request. "May we come inside?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Devil's Ledger - Week of August 24th, 2026

14 min

THE DEVIL’S LEDGER Week of August 24, 2026 It is still freakin’ August. This week on The Devil’s Ledger, we surrender to the heat and turn our attention toward masked lunatics, black-eyed children, Victorian blackmail, spectacular fraud, and another trip into a supernatural dimension that desperately needs better lighting. We begin with The Creepiest Thing I Heard This Week: The Chucky Mask Spree. Philadelphia police say a masked man targeted at least half a dozen people during a bizarre early-morning spree, including a 40-year-old jogger whom he allegedly chased after asking whether she was ready to die. Surveillance cameras captured the suspect wearing a Chucky-style doll mask—and investigators noticed that beneath it he appeared to be wearing another black face covering. Fictional monsters are considerably less entertaining when someone decides to wear their face in the real world. 👹 THIS WEEK ON THE DEVIL WITHIN The New Monsters continues with The Black-Eyed Children, one of the internet age’s most unsettling urban legends. They appear outside homes, beside cars and on lonely streets asking for help—and eventually asking to be allowed inside. Then their victims notice the eyes: completely black. We trace the origins of the legend, how the stories spread across the internet, and the much older piece of folklore hiding beneath them: the idea that evil sometimes requires an invitation. This week on The Devil Within: The New Monsters — The Black-Eyed Children. 🔎 THIS WEEK ON CRIMINAL MISCHIEF Carolyn Ossorio trades true crime for the original master detective with a special reading of Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia.” First published in 1891, the story introduces Irene Adler, the extraordinary woman who manages to do what remarkably few characters in the Sherlock Holmes canon ever accomplish: outmaneuver Holmes himself. Royalty, romance, blackmail, disguises and one dangerously important photograph send Holmes and Watson into one of Doyle’...

The New Monsters: The Backrooms - Part Two

23 min

The Things That Wait Between the Walls The New Monsters – Backrooms, Part Two Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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