 folklore features a wide variety of tales about animist ghosts and spirits. And the so-called ‘Pontianak’ (or ‘Kuntianak’) is perhaps the most notorious of all.  In Southeast Asian cultures, swamps are considered eerie places where nature’s spirits dwell and spook the living. Legend has it that the area in Western Kalimantan at the crossing point of the Kapuas and Landak rivers was haunted by Pontianaks. The Pontianak is a vengeful spirit that takes the form of a beautiful woman and preys on men, children and vulnerable souls. Believed to be the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, or a violent death, they are one of the most powerful and feared spirits of Indonesian and Malaysian folklore. As bloodthirsty vampires they eviscerate their victims with their long nails and dine on the internal organs.  Despite the dire warnings shared with him by the local Dayak people, Syarif Abdurrahman Alkadrie (1771­–1808) decided to set up a trading post at this crossing point in the swamp. The Pontianaks soon made their presence felt on Abdurrahman and his builders, and the story goes that they fired cannon into the swamps to destroy the area considered to be the Pontianaks nest. A Mosque and trading post were established and the developing city was named Pontianak. The trading post became very successful and Abdurrahman was made a Sultan, the first Sultan of Pontianak.  A star of many horror movies both in Indonesian and Malaysian culture these vengeful spirits are still alive and well in the nightmares of people. It is said that the scent of drying laundry will attract a Pontianak, hence many Malaysians will not leave laundry out overnight. Powerful spirits that can perform black magic their presence is often heralded by a fragrance similar to the plumeria flower or the scent of rotting flesh. But it is also said she can be tamed to become the most perfect, and beautiful, wife. Simply drive a nail into the hole at the nape of her neck to enjoy a blissful marriage to a beautiful woman – well, is a love life ever simple? Might be wise however to have her sign a pre-nuptial to ensure you hang on to your internal organs in the event of a breakup!

The Pontianak

The reports had been on the radio all day, though she hadn’t paid much attention to them. Some crazy man had escaped from the state asylum. They were calling him the Hook Man since he had lost his right arm and had it replaced with a hook. He was a killer, and everyone in the region was warned to keep watch and report anything suspicious. But this didn’t interest her. She was more worried about what to wear on her date.  After several consultation calls with friends, she chose a blue outfit in the very latest style and was ready and waiting on the porch when her boyfriend came to pick her up in his car. They went to a drive-in movie with another couple, then dropped them off and went parking in the local lover’s lane. The blue outfit was a hit, and she cuddled close to her boyfriend as they kissed to the sound of romantic music on the radio.  Then the announcer came on and repeated the warning she had heard that afternoon. An insane killer with a hook in place of his right hand was loose in the area. Suddenly, the dark, moonless night didn’t seem so romantic to her. The lover’s lane was secluded and off the beaten track. A perfect spot for a deranged mad-man to lurk, she thought, pushing her amorous boyfriend away.  “Maybe we should get out of here,” she said. “That Hook Man sounds dangerous.”  “Awe, c’mon babe, it’s nothing,” her boyfriend said, trying to get in another kiss. She pushed him away again.  “No, really. We’re all alone out here. I’m scared,” she said.  They argued for a moment. Then the car shook a bit, as if something…or someone…had touched it. She gave a shriek and said: “Get us out of here now!”  “Jeeze,” her boyfriend said in disgust, but he turned the key and went roaring out of the lover’s lane with a screeching of his tires.  They drove home in stony silence, and when they pulled into her driveway, he refused to help her out of the car. He was being so unreasonable, she fumed to herself. She opened the door indignantly and stepped into her driveway with her chin up and her lips set. Whirling around, she slammed the door as hard as she could. And then she screamed.  Her boyfriend leapt out of the car and caught her in his arms. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he shouted. Then he saw it. A bloody hook hung from the handle of the passenger-side door.

The Hook

The old storage sheds along the tracks were abandoned shortly after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was built, and it wasn't long before the poor folk of the area moved in. The sheds provided shelter - of a sort - although the winter wind still pierced through every crevice, and the small fireplaces that the poor constructed did little to keep the cold at bay.  A gentle, kindly woman named Jenny lived alone in one of the smaller sheds. She had fallen on hard times, and with no family to protect her, she was forced to find work where she could and take whatever shelter was available to someone with little money. Jenny never had enough to eat and in winter her tiny fire barely kept her alive during the cold months. Still, she kept her spirits up and tried to help other folks when they took sick or needed food, sometimes going without herself so that another could eat.  One cold evening in late autumn, Jenny sat shivering over her fire, drinking broth out of a wooden bowl, when a spark flew from the fire and lit her skirts on fire. Intent on filling her aching stomach, Jenny did not notice her flaming clothes until the fire had burnt through the heavy wool of her skirt and began to scorch her skin. Leaping up in terror, Jenny threw her broth over the licking flames but the fluid did nothing to douse the fire. In terror, Jenny fled from the shack and ran along the tracks, screaming for help as the flames engulfed her body.  The station was not far away, and instinctively Jenny made for it, hoping to find someone to aid her. Within moments, her body was a glowing inferno and Jenny was overwhelmed by pain. Her screams grew more horrible as her steps slowed. She staggered blindly onto the tracks just west of the station, a ball of fire that barely looked human. In her agony, she did not see the glowing headlight of the train rounding the curve, or hear the screech of the breaks as the engineer spotted her fire-eaten figure and tried to stop. A moment later, her terrible screams broke off as the train mowed her down.  Alerted by the whistle, the crew from the station came running as the engineer halted the train and ran back down the tracks toward poor dead Jenny, who was still burning. The men doused the fire and carried her body back to the station. She was given a pauper's funeral and buried in an unmarked grave in the local churchyard. Within a few days, another poverty-stricken family had moved into her shack, and Jenny was forgotten.  Forgotten that is, until a month later when a train rounding the bend west of the station was confronted by a screaming ball of fire. Too late to stop, the engineer plowed over the glowing figure before he could bring the train to a screeching halt. Leaping from the engine, he ran back down the tracks to search for a mangled, burning body, but there was nothing there. Shaken, he brought his train into the station and reported the incident to the stationmaster. After hearing his tale, the stationmaster remembered poor, dead Jenny and realized that her ghost had returned to haunt the tracks where she had died.  To this day, the phantom of Screaming Jenny still appears on the tracks on the anniversary of the day she died. Many an engineer has rounded the curve just west of the station and found himself face to face with the burning ghost of Screaming Jenny, as once more she makes her deadly run towards the Harpers Ferry station, seeking in vain for someone to save her.

 Screaming Jenny

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, on the night before Christmas, a little child was wandering all alone through the streets of a great city. There were many people on the street, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts, and even gray-haired grandfathers and grandmothers, all of whom were hurrying home with bundles of presents for each other and for their little ones. Fine carriages rolled by, express wagons rattled past, even old carts were pressed into service, and all things seemed in a hurry and glad with expectation of the coming Christmas morning.  From some of the windows bright lights were already beginning to stream until it was almost as bright as day. But the little child seemed to have no home, and wandered about listlessly from street to street. No one took any notice of him except perhaps Jack Frost, who bit his bare toes and made the ends of his fingers tingle. The north wind, too, seemed to notice the child, for it blew against him and pierced his ragged garments through and through, causing him to shiver with cold. Home after home he passed, looking with longing eyes through the windows, in upon the glad, happy children, most of whom were helping to trim the Christmas trees for the coming morrow.  “Surely,” said the child to himself, “where there is so must gladness and happiness, some of it may be for me.” So with timid steps he approached a large and handsome house. Through the windows, he could see a tall and stately Christmas tree already lighted. Many presents hung upon it. Its green boughs were trimmed with gold and silver ornaments. Slowly he climbed up the broad steps and gently rapped at the door. It was opened by a large man-servant. He had a kindly face, although his voice was deep and gruff. He looked at the little child for a moment, then sadly shook his head and said, “Go down off the steps. There is no room here for such as you.” He looked sorry as he spoke; possibly he remembered his own little ones at home, and was glad that they were not out in this cold and bitter night. Through the open door a bright light shone, and the warm air, filled with fragrance of the Christmas pine, rushed out from the inner room and greeted the little wanderer with a kiss. As the child turned back into the cold and darkness, he wondered why the footman had spoken thus, for surely, thought he, those little children would love to have another companion join them in their joyous Christmas festival. But the little children inside did not even know that he had knocked at the door.  The street grew colder and darker as the child passed on. He went sadly forward, saying to himself, “Is there no one in all this great city who will share the Christmas with me?” Farther and farther down the street he wandered, to where the homes were not so large and beautiful. There seemed to be little children inside of nearly all the houses. They were dancing and frolicking about. Christmas trees could be seen in nearly every window, with beautiful dolls and trumpets and picture-books and balls and tops and other dainty toys hung upon them. In one window the child noticed a little lamb made of soft white wool. Around its neck was tied a red ribbon. It had evidently been hung on the tree for one of the children. The little stranger stopped before this window and looked long and earnestly at the beautiful things inside, but most of all was he drawn toward the white lamb. At last creeping up to the window-pane, he gently tapped upon it. A little girl came to the window and looked out into the dark street where the snow had now begun to fall. She saw the child, but she only frowned and shook her head and said, “Go away and come some other time. We are too busy to take care of you now.” Back into the dark, cold streets he turned again. The wind was whirling past him and seemed to say, “Hurry on, hurry on, we have no time to stop. ‘Tis Christmas Eve and everybody is in a hurry to-night.”  Again and again the little child rapped softly at door or window-pane. At each place he was refused admission. One mother feared he might have some ugly disease which her darlings would catch; another father said he had only enough for his own children and none to spare for beggars. Still another told him to go home where he belonged, and not to trouble other folks.  The hours passed; later grew the night, and colder grew the wind, and darker seemed the street. Farther and farther the little one wandered. There was scarcely any one left upon the street by this time, and the few who remained did not seem to see the child, when suddenly ahead of him there appeared a bright, single ray of light. It shone through the darkness into the child’s eyes. He looked up smilingly and said, “I will go where the small light beckons, perhaps they will share their Christmas with me.”  Hurrying past all the other houses, he soon reached the end of the street and went straight up to the window from which the light was streaming. It was a poor, little, low house, but the child cared not for that. The light seemed still to call him in. From what do you suppose the light came? Nothing but a tallow candle which had been placed in an old cup with a broken handle, in the window, as a glad token of Christmas Eve. There was neither curtain nor shade to the small, square window and as the little child looked in he saw standing upon a neat wooden table a branch of a Christmas tree. The room was plainly furnished but it was very clean. Near the fireplace sat a lovely faced mother with a little two-year-old on her knee and an older child beside her. The two children were looking into their mother’s face and listening to a story. She must have been telling them a Christmas story, I think. A few bright coals were burning in the fireplace, and all seemed light and warm within.  The little wanderer crept closer and closer to the window-pane. So sweet was the mother’s face, so loving seemed the little children, that at last he took courage and tapped gently, very gently on the door. The mother stopped talking, the little children looked up. “What was that, mother?” asked the little girl at her side. “I think it was some one tapping on the door,” replied the mother. “Run as quickly as you can and open it, dear, for it is a bitter cold night to keep any one waiting in this storm.” “Oh, mother, I think it was the bough of the tree tapping against the window-pane,” said the little girl. “Do please go on with our story.” Again the little wanderer tapped upon the door. “My child, my child,” exclaimed the mother, rising, “that certainly was a rap on the door. Run quickly and open it. No one must be left out in the cold on our beautiful Christmas Eve.”  The child ran to the door and threw it wide open. The mother saw the ragged stranger standing without, cold and shivering, with bare head and almost bare feet. She held out both hands and drew him into the warm, bright room. “You poor, dear child,” was all she said, and putting her arms around him, she drew him close to her breast. “He is very cold, my children,” she exclaimed. “We must warm him.” “And,” added the little girl, “we must love him and give him some of our Christmas, too.” “Yes,” said the mother, “but first let us warm him—”  The mother sat down by the fire with the little child on her lap, and her own little ones warmed his half-frozen hands in theirs. The mother smoothed his tangled curls, and, bending low over his head, kissed the child’s face. She gathered the three little ones in her arms and the candle and the fire light shone over them. For a moment the room was very still. By and by the little girl said softly, to her mother, “May we not light the Christmas tree, and let him see how beautiful it looks?” “Yes,” said the mother. With that she seated the child on a low stool beside the fire, and went herself to fetch the few simple ornaments which from year to year she had saved for her children’s Christmas tree. They were soon so busy that they did not notice the room had filled with a strange and brilliant light. They turned and looked at the spot where the little wanderer sat. His ragged clothes had changed to garments white and beautiful; his tangled curls seemed like a halo of golden light about his head; but most glorious of all was his face, which shone with a light so dazzling that they could scarcely look upon it.  In silent wonder they gazed at the child. Their little room seemed to grow larger and larger, until it was as wide as the whole world, the roof of their low house seemed to expand and rise, until it reached to the sky.  With a sweet and gentle smile the wonderful child looked upon them for a moment, and then slowly rose and floated through the air, above the treetops, beyond the church spire, higher even than the clouds themselves, until he appeared to them to be a shining star in the sky above. At last he disappeared from sight. The astonished children turned in hushed awe to their mother, and said in a whisper, “Oh, mother, it was the Christ-Child, was it not?” And the mother answered in a low tone, “Yes.”  And it is said, dear children, that each Christmas Eve the little Christ-Child wanders through some town or village, and those who receive him and take him into their homes and hearts have given to them this marvelous vision which is denied to others.

A Christmas Legend

A harbinger of death, rather like the Black Dog of England or the Banshee of Ireland, Ma Phae Wah is a spirit known in Myanmar as a Nat. These spirits are an ancient mix of Hindu and local animist beliefs that are also became associated with Buddhism. There are basically (actually nothing is ever basic in the spiritual world) two orders of Nats, the 37 Great Nats that are spirits of people that died a violent death, and then all the other Nats which are probably from the older animist beliefs and are natural elemental spirits, the guardian spirits of place and nature. Ma Phae Wah, is just such a spirit, just such a Nat.  Known as the guardian spirit of cemeteries and graveyards in Myanmar, Ma Phae Wah has made her home in these lonely places of death. As with all Nats, she takes a human form, and appears as a woman with long flowing black hair. In the dark of night, at midnight (well like 4pm is time for tea, midnight is time for ‘Pee’…and no I am not referring to the trials of a troubled prostate, ‘Pee’ is the Thai name for supernatural spirit, and conveniently rhymes with tea) she hoists a coffin on to her shoulder and leaves the cemetery and heads into the nearby village or town. In her role as a harbinger of death, her long hair flowing in the spectral breeze that accompanies her shuffling gait, she seeks out the home of the soon to die. On arriving at the home of the doomed, she places the coffin on their doorstep, and before long someone in that household, and sadly usually a child, will sicken and die.  In the late 1990s Ma Phae Wah appeared in the dreams of a monk in Kayin State and through these visions Ma Phae Wah announced her intention to eat the flesh of babies. After much deliberation the Abbot suggested that people should encourage her to dine on dogs instead. Subsequently, security-conscious parents sought to protect their newborn babies by posting signs in front of their homes saying, “Our baby’s flesh is bitter, but the dog’s flesh is sweet”. Man’s best friend saves the day yet again, this time though as dish of the day for the Yellow Ribbon Lady…

The Yellow Ribbon Lady

For the light-hearted side of this Halloween edition, we would like to present you the quirky river demons as found in Japanese folklore. A culture rich in supernatural tales of ghosts and fantastic creatures, no list would be complete without the “Kappa”. Spirits of the natural world and ghosts are deeply imbedded in Japanese religion, history, and culture. And for this last offering for our Halloween edition there is even a sushi roll named after it — the kappa-maki, or cucumber roll.  Kappas love cucumbers. What strange little things they are. They are said to be roughly humanoid in form and about the size of a child. They have a shell like a turtle, green scaly skin, and a plate on top of their heads that must always be brimming with water to stay alive. These uniquely Japanese supernatural beings live in Japan’s lakes, streams and rivers.  In Shintoism, Kappas are respected as gods of water and statues of them can sometimes be seen at shrines around Japan. Kappa quirks include having a huge appetite for cucumbers (hence the kappa-maki) and for never being able to break a promise.  Of the more gruesome legends about them, it is also said that they love to pull lost children and animals into the water to drown and eat…perhaps with a side dish of fresh crunchy cucumber.

Kappa Quirky River Demons

One of the most popular myths in Central America and Mexico is the legend of el Cadejo.   Legend explains that two separate entities exist with this same name. The first Cadejo takes the shape of an evil wooly black dog with fiery red eyes and goat hooves, while the other Cadejo materializes as a noble and friendlier looking wooly white dog, also with goat hooves.   The black Cadejo stays close to men who live a life of excess (including drunks or drifters). Once he clings to them, he licks their faces to prevent them from escaping their precarious life situation, and ultimately leads them to their death.  The white Cadejo on the other hand, is a protector of the weak. He takes care of women and children in the streets, sheltering them from evil.   The white Cadejo is the only hope for men being haunted by the black Cadejo, as both are natural enemies and do not hesitate to battle one other—especially since it’s in the white creature’s nature to protect any victim, including these men who’ve lost their way.   Legends also say that el Cadejo cannot be seen, but that the people for whom it stands guard can feel a supernatural presence around them as well as a strong smell of sulphur and rottenness. 

El Cadejo,Dog with Red Eyes

Legends say el Sombrerón is a short man dressed in black with boots, a thick belt, and a shiny buckle. He stands out for wearing a disproportionately large hat, which he uses to cover his face. Although legends say he roams the streets of Antigua with four mules and a large guitar, others say they’ve seen him in the roads of Santa Rosa and other areas of Guatemala.    Believers claim he aims to woo young, long-haired women by playing captivating melodies with his guitar that he accompanies with his sweet-sounding voice. This makes his targets fall under a spell of love as he serenades them.   El Sombrerón then clings to the women and haunts them, stopping them from sleeping and eating as he tightly weaves long braids in their hair.   If a woman becomes a victim of el Sombrerón, she is doomed to her death. The only way to send him away is by immediately chopping off the woman’s hair.  After hearing this story as a child, I got scared every time I heard the sound of a guitar while I was walking around in Antigua! I recall one incident that still gives me chills today:   One night, I was staying at a family ranch where my grandparents were stirred awake in the middle of the night by the agitated racket of three restless horses. Nothing anyone did could calm them down—not even the caretakers could sooth them. The next morning, my cousins and I went to check on them and to our surprise, each horse had its mane perfectly braided!   No one could explain who had done such an intricate job in a matter of hours during the night. To this day, the ranch workers still claim it was the work of el Sombrerón.  

The Man with the Big Hat

The church in Cold Christmas, Hertfordshire, seems to have been doomed from the start.  When it was first built, in 1086, it was said to have had the wrong alignment. In Medieval times, it was a sign of the devil for a church to align North to South, as this church did. After centuries of ghost sightings and other paranormal activity, the church was demolished in 1853.  Today, only a slightly more modern 15th-century tower and a graveyard stand where the church once did. Cold Christmas is allegedly named for a great tragedy: one particularly harsh winter, nearly all the children in the hamlet died.  Legend has it they’re all buried in the graveyard, and their ghosts haunt the townspeople to this day. Many people have heard this long-abandoned tower growling or breathing heavily, and it also has a reputation as a place of occult rituals.

The Ghosts of Cold Christmas

In Japan, the schools contain an infernal secret. If you go into the girl's bathroom on the third floor of the building, and walk to the third stall, you might find her.  "You have to knock 3 times and call her name," a Code Switch reader named Jessica tweeted at us. "When you open the stall door, a little girl in a red skirt will be there."  The little girl with the bob haircut is Hanako-san. She wants friends to play with, maybe. Or perhaps she wants to drag you to Hell — through the toilet.  "Depending on which part of Japan you live in, she may have a bloody hand and grab you, or be a lizard that devours you," Jessica said. "Although I am getting scared just thinking about her right now."  Hanako-san has become a fixture of Japanese urban folklore over the last 70 years. The most popular origin story for the tale holds that during World War II, a schoolgirl was using the bathroom when a bomb fell on top of the building. The school collapsed on top of Hanako-san, who has been trapped there ever since.  But Hanako isn't the only schoolgirl who haunts Japan's school bathrooms. Kashima Reiko, another young girl, was said to have been cut in half by a train. Now her disfigured spirit inhabits bathrooms, asking children who enter the stalls where her legs are. The legend goes that if Kashima Reiko is not satisfied with their answer, she will rip their legs off. 

The Girl In The Bathroom

An evil creature stalks the Tanzanian island of Pemba in the Indian Ocean. It can change shape — a bat sometimes, a human-like form at others. It prefers to come out at night, but some say they have seen it during the day. The popobawa — "bat-wing" in Swahili — is indiscriminate in its targets. But in a common retelling, the spirit sexually assaults men.  The popobawa story is rather new — only dating back a few decades from a time of civil unrest following the assassination of the country's president. The popular thinking goes that after a popbawa attack, victims must spread the word to others on Pemba. Otherwise, they will continue to be visited by the popobawa.  Reports of attack send some locals into a panic. A few years ago, a series of night-time sexual assaults were blamed on the popobawa.  "Some men are staying awake or sleeping in groups outside their homes," the BBC reported in 2007. "Others are smearing themselves with pig's oil, believing this repels attacks."  A peasant farmer named Mjaka Hamad claims he was attacked by the popobawa in 1997.  "I couldn't see it. I could only feel it. But some people in my house could see it. Those who've got the spirits in their heads could see it. Everybody was terrified. They were outside screaming Huyo! It means the Popobawa is there. I had this bad pain in my ribs where it crushed me. I don't believe in spirits so maybe that's why it attacked me. Maybe it will attack anybody who doesn't believe."

The Night Demon

The medical student toppled into love as soon as he set eyes on Sheila, the beautiful new transfer student.  She had masses of long black hair and eyelashes so long they got tangled in her curls when she leaned over her desk.   The medical student had a withdrawn nature, though not by inclination.  He’d learned the hard way that people avoided him when they heard about his insane father; locked away in an asylum.  But he had to overcome his taciturn nature or risk losing Sheila to one of the other fellows that panted after her.  So the medical student volunteered to tutor her Sheila in one of her classes.   After that, it was easy.  Sheila toppled into love with the medical student as madly as he was in love with her.  They went everywhere together, hardly bearing to part for classes.        The medical student lived in a bubble of joy, until the day he saw Sheila speaking to a good-looking fellow who lived in the same dorm.  They were laughing together over something one of their professors had said in history class, and a shaft of sheer jealousy pierced the medical student's gut.  How dare she laugh with another man?  He confronted his Sheila with her perceived trespass, and she stared at him incredulously.  “You’re crazy!” she said.  He winced, reminded of his father, and shouted insults at Sheila until she stalked off in a rage.        They made up over dinner, and things were fine for awhile, until the medical student saw Sheila borrow a pen from a handsome blond fellow at the library.  That set him off again.  They hissed angry words at each other until the librarian kicked them out.  The medical student huddled on the narrow bed in his dorm room until black anger gave way to common sense.  He called Sheila and apologized.  She accepted his apology, and they were back together.         The medical student was scheduled to take Sheila to a local dance on Friday night, so he rushed back to the dorm to dress in his best.  As he turned to leave, the medical student noticed that a scalpel had fallen out of his medical bag and lay haphazardly on his desk.  He thrust it carelessly inside the bag and to went to pick up his girlfriend and escort her to the dance.           The couple had a fabulous evening; dancing and drinking and eating.  They left the party around midnight and walked hand-in-hand back to his dorm room for a nightcap.  When they reached the entry way, Sheila veered off for a moment to ask a red-haired fellow from one of her art classes about an assignment that was due the next day.  The medical student was instantly filled with gut-gnawing jealousy.  When Sheila rejoined him, he hustled her upstairs to his room and shouted:  “You flirt with every man you meet, you tramp!”         “You are crazy!” Sheila shouted back.  “Stark raving mad!”         The boyfriend saw red.  “Don’t call me mad,” he said, his hand groping for the loose scalpel in his medical bag on the desk.  When the mists cleared from his eyes, Sheila lay dead at his feet, her throat cut from ear to ear.  The whole room was covered with red gore and her masses of black hair lay in a pool of steaming blood.         The medical student's brain went into overdrive.  Hide the body.  Clean up the blood.  Invent an alibi.   But first...  He stared at the dead girl he had loved so much, then he knelt beside the body and slowly cut off her face.  He wrapped the face carefully in plastic before putting it in his desk drawer.  Then he cleaned up the blood and hid the body in a tunnel near the laundry room.         The next morning, the medical student told his roommate Sheila had broken up with him and gone home in a snit without finishing her classes.  The roommate accepted the story without question, and didn't appear to notice the way the medical student peered obsessively inside his desk drawer.        The medical student finally tore himself away Sheila's face to attend his 11 o'clock class.  When he returned at lunchtime, he found his roommate leaning out of the open window, looking ill.  “I think I have flu.  I’d best run to the pharmacy and pick up something for it,” the roommate said when he came in.          “Want me to take a look?” the medical student asked, reaching for his bag.          His roommate turned white:   “No!  Thank you!  Don’t bother,” he gasped, practically running from the room.           The medical student shrugged in exasperation, peered into the drawer at Sheila's face, and settled down to work on a paper he had due next week.  Downstairs, his roommate was on the phone with the police.         The medical student went ballistic when the police came with a warrant to arrest him.  They manhandled him out of his chair while a grim-faced officer took a look in the desk drawer.  When he saw the dead girl's face, the officer swore violently and vomited on the floor.        The medical student was placed in the asylum with his father, who was locked away in a padded room next door.  Every day, while his enraged father tried to kill his attendants, the bereft boyfriend wept and stared out the window; seeing Sheila’s lovely face in the branches of a nearby tree.  The face seemed to sway to the rhythm of his father’s fists as his insane parent pounded and pounded at the walls.         Back in the dorm, the ghost of a young girl in a blood-stained dress still floats along the hallways, searching for her face. 

The Face

The Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa is a well-known tourist attraction for ghost hunters and horror lovers alike. The site of a gruesome unsolved 1912 murder, in which six children and two adults had their skulls completely crushed by the axe of an unknown perpetrator, was purchased in 1994, restored to its 1912 condition, and converted into a tourist destination. It costs $428 a night to stay at the old haunted home, where visitors always report strange paranormal experiences, such as visions of a man with an axe roaming the halls or the faint screams of children.  But in November of 2014, the haunting took a darker turn. Robert Steven Laursen Jr., 37, of Rhinelander, Wisconsin was on a regular recreational paranormal visit with friends when true horror struck. Per VICE:  His companions found him stabbed in the chest—an apparently self-inflicted wound—called 9-1-1, and Laursen was brought to a nearby hospital before being helicoptered to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Laursen suffered the self-inflicted injury at about 12:45 a.m., which is around the same time the 1912 axe murders in the house began.  Laursen recovered from his injuries, but has never spoken publicly about what occurred that day. For Martha Linn, the owner of the home, the incident was very upsetting. "It's publicity, but it's not exactly the kind of publicity you desire to have. I don't want people thinking that when they come to the Villisca Axe Murder House something's going to happen that's going to make them do something like that.” The house remains open for tourist visits and overnight stays today.

The Axe Murder House

The late 1800s saw the homicides of at least 36 women by Moroccan shoemaker and trader Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi. Monikered as the “Marrakesh Arch-Killer”, he hosted dinner parties for affluent women at his home, where he would drug them and then decapitate them with a dagger while they were asleep. He robbed them of their possessions and money and buried them. Authorities in Morocco recovered the remains of 20 mutilated people in a deep trench beneath his store, and another 16 were located in the garden outside. Mesfewi admitted that he slayed for money, often very modest sums.  In 1906, Mesfewi was eventually arrested and executed. Mesfewi was initially ordered to be crucified. However, the sentence was then altered to beheading in response to public outrage. Ultimately, it was decided that he should suffer. Every day for four weeks, he was carried from his cell onto the market square and whipped 10 times with a rod made of prickly acacia. On June 11, 1906, Mesfewi was to be walled up alive in the Marrakesh marketplace bazaar. Mesfewi went silent on the third day, and many people in the crowd expressed their rage that he perished too quickly.

Marrakesh Arch-Killer

Around 1980, a single mother of a toddler, Dorothy Jane Scott, started getting threatening phone calls at work. She paid the calls little attention until one night when the ominous voice on the other end of the line instructed her to look outside. On her car's windscreen was a single withered rose. The stalker would alternate between declaring his love for her and making threats of physical harm. The caller's voice sounded familiar, but Dorothy couldn't place who it was. And she never got to find out.  At a staff meeting, Dorothy noticed that one of her coworkers appeared unwell. She and another coworker took the man to a neighboring hospital. Dorothy went outside to the parking lot while her two coworkers waited for the prescription to be filled. She wasn't seen again after that.  According to her coworkers' testimony, they went outside to meet her in the parking lot after she didn't return. They suspected a problem had occurred with her son when they spotted her car rushing away as soon as they left the building.  Neither her son nor anyone else ever saw or heard from Dorothy again. Her burned remains were discovered at a construction site four years later. The discovery of a collection of dog bones next to her remains added even more confusion to the case. No one has ever been found guilty or detained on suspicion. The caller has never been located.

Anonymous Caller

In August 2016, Kennedy Ife, 26, of North London, reportedly started acting strangely and aggressively after experiencing throat pain. Before his family restrained him to a bed using cable ties and excessive force, he allegedly bit his father, threatened to cut off his own p****, and spoke of having a python or snake inside of him. According to his brother, Kennedy needed to be restrained because he would hurt either himself or his family members.  After Kennedy had been confined to his bed for three days, his brother called emergency services and explained that he had been complaining of dehydration. When the emergency services arrived, he was pronounced deceased at 10:17 a.m. The court was informed that the family spent those three days trying to "heal" Kennedy through restraint and prayer.  All seven of Kennedy Ife's relatives were charged with manslaughter, false imprisonment, and allowing a vulnerable adult to pass away. Kennedy Ife's body had over 60 wounds, including what seemed to be a bite. On March 14, 2019, following a four-day jury deliberation, all seven family members were found not guilty of manslaughter.

Exorcism Of Kennedy Ife

When you think of haunted dolls, it’s likely the creepy old Victorian-looking porcelain kind that springs to mind. None of which you probably have laying around. Still, don’t get too comfortable around any kids toys too soon, though: a Disney’s Frozen Elsa doll that was gifted for Christmas 2013 in the Houston area made headlines earlier this year when it seemingly became haunted. The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed. “For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random." The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switch turned off.  The family decided to throw the creepy doll out in December of 2019. Weeks later, they found it inside a bench in their living room. “The kids insisted they didn’t put it there, and I believed them because they wouldn’t have dug through the garbage outside,” Madonia told KPRC2 Houston News.  At that point, Elsa ceased to sing the English rendition of “Let It Go” altogether, speaking only Spanish when pressed. The family then double-bagged the bizarre doll and placed it at the bottom of their garbage which was taken out on garbage day. They went on a trip shortly after, but when they returned, Elsa too had come back, and was waiting in the backyard of their home.  This time, the family mailed Elsa to a family friend in Minnesota, who taped the haunted doll to the front bumper of his truck. It doesn’t seem to have made its way back to Houston yet, as per Madonia’s latest February Facebook update on the creepy doll. 

The Haunted Doll

 In August 2016 in North London, 26-year-old Kennedy Ife began acting strange and aggressive following a pain in his throat. He reportedly bit his father, threatened to cut off his own penis, and complained of a python or snake inside of him before his family restrained him to a bed with cable ties and excessive force. As the BBC reported:  “The family then set about attempting to ‘cure’ Kennedy through restraint and prayer over the next three days, the court was told.” His brother, Colin Ife, told police:  “It’s clear that thing was in him, what we believed was a demon because it was not natural. It was clearly trying to kill him,” he said. “We had to restrain him for himself. It was clear if we didn’t restrain him, he could have tried to harm people in our family.” Kennedy Ife had been bound to his bed for three days without medical attention when his brother called emergency services, explaining that Kennedy Ife was complaining of dehydration. He appeared to have developed breathing issues, and was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m.  As The Independent reported:  While police were at the house Colin Ife allegedly carried out an “attempted resurrection” by chanting and praying for Mr. Ife. All seven of Kennedy Ife’s family members were accused of manslaughter, false imprisonment, and causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. A post-mortem examination revealed over 60 wounds including a possible bite on Kennedy Ife’s body, and his father, Kenneth Ife, along with four of his brothers, sustained injuries as well.  The BBC reported:  Kenneth Ife told jurors he ordered his sons to take shifts and use "overwhelming force" but denied that an "association with cults, occults and secret societies" played any part in the death. After a four day jury deliberation, all seven family members were cleared of charges on March 14, 2019.

A Deadly Exorcism

When the Bretzuis family decided to insulate their home in Auburn, Pennsylvania in 2015, they discovered that it had already been—with scores of dead animal carcasses.  As Fox reported:  The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items. After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown. The expert attributed the rotting animals in their walls to Pow-wow or Dutch magic, a ritual originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch to treat ailments and gain physical and spiritual protection. The Pennsylvania Dutch were a group of German-speaking settlers to Pennsylvania in the 1600 and 1700’s, and are often of Lutheran, Mennonite, or Amish faiths.  The Washington Post notes on the magic:  Many of the spells deal with the care of livestock, finding water, or the treatment of minor ailments, reflecting the conditions and concerns of early American settlers. But powwow also has within it a tradition of darker spells, and even of such things as conjuring demons. One notable ritual in their tradition is this hex to create loyalty in a dog: To attach a dog to a person, provided nothing else was used before to effect it: Try to draw some of your blood, and let the dog eat it along with his food, and he will stay with you. The mold found on the rotting carcasses in the Bretzuis home has caused illness among the family members, and they say that the odor hasn’t gone away.

Dead Animals in the Walls

Elisa Lam was last seen on January 31, 2013 in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was vacationing through the West Coast, documenting the trip on her blog, and checking in with her parents every day. On January 31 those calls stopped. Lam had vanished. Soon the police were involved and her parents arrived to help with the search.  They had nothing. That February, LAPD released elevator surveillance footage of Lam before her disappearance. The footage shows Lam behaving strangely in the elevator, appearing to talk with invisible people, peering around the corner of the door, crouching in the corner, and opening and closing the door. But what exactly is going on in this video raises more questions than answers. Theories range from psychotic episodes, to demonic possession, to unknown assailants just out of the camera's view: Around that time, hotel guests started reported weird things happening with the Cecil Hotel water supply. As CNN reports:  "The shower was awful," said Sabina Baugh, who spent eight days there during the investigation. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."  The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."  But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."  On the morning of February 19, a hotel employee climbed to the roof and used a ladder to investigate the hotel's water storage tanks. That's where authorities found the decomposing, naked body of Lam, whose personal items were found nearby. After an autopsy, her death was labeled accidental. NBC Los Angeles reported at the time about the strange circumstances in the hotel's past:  The tank has a metal latch that can be opened, but authorities said access to the roof is secured with an alarm and lock. The single-room-occupancy hotel has an unusual history. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 slayings in the 1980s, lived on the 14th floor for several months in 1985. And international serial killer Jack Unterweger is suspected of murdering three prostitutes during the time he lived there in 1991. He killed himself in jail in 1994. In 1962, a female occupant jumped out of one the hotel's windows, killing herself and a pedestrian on whom she landed.  In February 2021, a Netflix doc called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explored Elisa's tragic case and the history of the "cursed" Cecil Hotel.

The Death of Elisa Lam

Last year, the Indianapolis Star published a lengthy report on a family terrorized by three children allegedly possessed by demons. The account of Latoya Ammons and her family tells disturbing stories of children climbing up the walls, getting thrown across rooms, and children threatening doctors in deep unnatural voices. It would seem like something straight out of a movie–a work of fantasy, except all of these accounts were more or less corroborated with "nearly 800 pages of official records obtained by the Indianapolis Star and recounted in more than a dozen interviews with police, DCS personnel, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest."  One of the more chilling sections of the report includes a segment about the possessed 9-year-old:  According to Washington's original DCS report—an account corroborated by Walker, the nurse—the 9-year-old had a "weird grin" and walked backward up a wall to the ceiling. He then flipped over Campbell, landing on his feet. He never let go of his grandmother's hand.  Another segment of the piece reads:  The 12-year-old would later tell mental health professionals that she sometimes felt as if she were being choked and held down so she couldn't speak or move. She said she heard a voice say she'd never see her family again and wouldn't live another 20 minutes. 

An Exorcism in Indianapolis

In 1974, 24-year-old Wako University student Issei Sagawa allegedly followed a German woman to her home in Tokyo, Japan, broke into her apartment while she was sleeping, and attempted to cut a piece of flesh off her body to consume. When she awoke, she reportedly fought him and he was later captured by the police. According to a 2012 Vice documentary that covered Issei's bizarre story, he was mistakenly charged with attempted rape and his wealthy father paid the victim a settlement outside of court to have the charges dropped.  Seven years later, in 1981, he allegedly committed a murder in France—shooting and eating a fellow University student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei creepily documented the entire experience with photographs and he was captured by authorities once again while attempting to dump the rest of her body in the Bois de Boulogne lake. He was deported back to Japan and committed to a mental institution. For reason unknown, his psychologists in Japan declared that he was sane. Furthermore, a legal technicality involving the French government refusing to turn over the documents from his case meant that his murder charges were dropped completely. He checked himself out of the mental hospital and has reportedly been walking the streets as a free man ever since. Issei has even become a controversial celebrity, writing over 20 books. According to Japan Today, he most recently fantasized about an unnamed TV actress, saying:  "I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, 'That sure looks tasty.' But I don't feel like I actually want to eat it. As I accomplished the act of cannibalism once, there's no meaning to maintaining the desire for it anymore. In my book, I wrote that it [human flesh] was tasty, but that was not really true; I'd much rather eat Matsuzaka (Kobe) beef. But because I'd desired to consume human flesh for so long, I'd managed to convince myself that it would necessarily be delicious."  Issei Sagawa was also referenced in the Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood," with the lyrics reading: "And when he ate her he took her bones/To the Bois de Boulogne." He is currently 73 years old and continues to live in Kawaski City, Japan. To this day, no one knows why France did not allow Japan to give him a trial.

Issei the Cannibal

In September of 2014, a Utah teen returned to his home to find his parents and three siblings dead. "In a notebook, a 'to-do list' had been scribbled on the pages ... The list looked as if the parents were readying to go on vacation—items such as 'feed the pets' and 'find someone to watch after the house' were written," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. It appeared to be murder-suicide, but there was no suicide note, no prior indication that they would do this, no explanation. Police could not figure out why two parents would kill themselves and three of their four children.  For a year, no one knew exactly what happened to the family, or what would drive the parents to do something so unthinkable. In January, police released more chilling details in the case. According to accounts from family members and an investigation by police, the parents were driven by a belief that the apocalypse was coming and an obsession with a convicted killer. As the Washington Post reported:  Friends and family told police that the parents were worried about the "evil in the world" and wanted to escape a "pending apocalypse." But most assumed they just wanted to move somewhere "off the grid." Investigators also found letters written by Kristi Strack to one of the state's most infamous convicted killers, Dan Lafferty, who was convicted in the 1984 fatal stabbing of his sister-in-law and her 1-year-old daughter. According to trial testimony, he killed the victims at the order of his brother, Ron Lafferty, who claimed to have had a revelation from God. The story became a book called "Under the Banner of Heaven."  Police said Kristi Strack became friends with Dan Lafferty, and she and her husband even visited him in prison.

Utah Murder-Suicide

On November 10, 1923, Nathan Leopold committed to travel six hours from Chicago to the University of Michigan. Accompanied by his friend and lover, Richard Loeb, they intended to break into Loeb's former fraternity. But all they had taken was a typewriter, a few watches, some penknives, and around $80 in loose change.  Leopold was agitated on the way back to Chicago because the robbery had been a big effort for a small payoff. When Leopold finally stopped complaining, Loeb began to discuss his idea of committing the 'perfect' crime. While they continued to travel through the country roads toward Chicago, they broke into several homes and started a few fires, but none of their crimes had been published in the media. Loeb desired to commit a crime that would create a huge buzz - abduction and homicide of a child.  After plotting their plan through the winter, in May, they kidnapped a child they knew had a wealthy father who would pay the ransom. Following the abduction, they beat the boy's skull with a chisel, jammed a rag down his throat, and disposed of the body. When the two returned to the city, Leopold dropped the ransom letter into a post box. However, their plan to execute the "perfect" crime failed. The following day, a passerby spotted the child's lifeless body, and soon the police traced Leopold by finding the eyeglasses he dropped near the body.  On May 31, ten days after the homicide, both young men came clean and revealed to the state's attorney how they had slayed Bobby Franks. Nathan Leopold confessed that they had killed Bobby only for the thrill of it. At the time of the murder, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were 18 and 19 years old. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison.

The 'Perfect' Crime

Richard Trenton Chase became known as “The Vampire Killer of Sacramento” because he would drink the blood of his victims and practiced cannibalism with their body parts. Six known victims were claimed by Chase.  Chase was born on May 23, 1950 in Sacramento, California. As a child he was known to set fires, wet the bed, and torture animals. Once he became older, he started drinking and using drugs, mostly smoking marijuana and using LSD. He was in and out of mental institutions during much of his life. He developed hypochondria from his drug and alcohol abuse which caused him to tell doctors that his pulmonary artery had been stolen, his heart would stop beating, and he claimed that his blood was turning to powder.  When he was 21, he lived on his own in an apartment. His roommates became fed up with his behavior and decided to move out, and he eventually had to return home. He didn’t stay long because his father put up rent for a new apartment. He had no social life and no girlfriends. Chase spent time capturing and killing animals, and then eating them raw or blended up.  In 1976, he was hospitalized for blood poisoning after injecting himself with the blood from a rabbit he killed. Many patients and nurses were frightened by him and referred to him as Dracula. He was frequently found with blood smeared on his face which he claimed was from cutting himself shaving. However, he was actually biting the heads off birds and sucking their blood. Once he began taking medication, he was released.  A year later, Chase was found in a field near Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He was naked and covered in cow’s blood. The incident was reported but nothing else was done. Only a few short months later, Chase shot and killed Ambrose Griffin. The event was a drive-by, according to the FBI. Chase was not identified at first as the shooter.  His next victim, Terry Wallin, was the 22 year-old pregnant wife of David Wallin. She was found by her husband when he arrived home from work, disemboweled and drained of her blood. It appeared that Chase had collected her blood into a yogurt cup to drink it. Again, Chase was not identified as the savage killer. An investigation began and other incidents were discovered, such as the burglary of a house nearby where the disemboweled remains of a dog were found.  The FBI developed a profile for the suspect based on the evidence; it was a perfect match for Chase. The FBI asked for any information leading to his capture but it wasn’t long before another murder was committed. A neighbor entered the home of Evelyn Miroth, only to find a massacre. Not only was 36 year-old Evelyn found dead, but her 6 year-old son Jason and family friend Daniel Meredith were also found dead. Evelyn’s 22 month old nephew, Michael Ferreira was also missing from the home. The playpen where Michael would normally be found was covered in blood and contained a pillow with a bullet hole, so it was assumed he was also killed and the suspect took the body with him when he left.  A significant lead for the police came from a woman in her 20s who mentioned that she ran into a man she had gone to high school with and he approached her car. She noticed that his eyes were sunken, he was extremely thin, and he had blood stains on his sweatshirt. She identified him as Richard Trenton Chase. The police discovered that he resided within a mile of most of the murder sites. After staking out his apartment, police took Chase into custody. He was forcefully detained and a gun found in evidence was linked back to all of the murders. Authorities also discovered a 12-inch butcher knife, rubber boots, animal collars, three blenders containing blood, and several dishes inside the refrigerator containing body parts. A calendar was even found in his apartment containing the word “today” marked on the dates of the Wallin and Miroth murders. A mummified, decapitated, baby was then found later in a box outside of a vacant lot. It was determined to be the nephew of Evelyn Miroth.  The trials began in 1979, and Chase pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. However, he was deemed legally sane at the time he committed the crimes and was found guilty on all six murder counts. During an interview, Chase admitted to walking the streets checking to see if doors were unlocked. He stated that, “if the door was locked that meant you weren’t welcome.”  Following his conviction, he began receiving medication. Instead of actually taking the medication, he stockpiled it until he had enough to commit suicide. He was found dead in his cell in December 1979.

Richard Chase, The Vampire Killer

Though his crimes occurred decades ago between 1974 and 1986, Joseph James DeAngelo wasn’t identified as the Golden State Killer until DNA evidence from one of the crimes was used to match with a close relative of DeAngelo’s, which led to his identification and arrest.  Over the course of three separate crime sprees, DeAngelo murdered at least 13 people, raped more than 50, and committed well over 100 burglaries.  One of the reasons why DeAngelo was able to evade identification and capture for so long is because he was a former police officer. His training undoubtedly helped him in planning and executing his crimes while minimizing the physical evidence he left behind.  In fact, he was known to have called some of his victims months before he attacked them so he could learn about their routines to more effectively plan his crimes. In some instances, he even broke into the homes of his victims so he could unlock doors and windows and even leave items like ropes and other ligatures he could use to tie up his victims upon his return.  One of the most chilling aspects of DeAngelo’s crimes is that he often taunted his victims, staying for hours in their homes, ransacking it, eating their food, and threatening to kill their families. In some cases, he targeted couples, whom he would separate. He would sometimes force the female victim to tie up the male victim. He would then place plates on the male victim’s back so he could hear if the victim tried to move. DeAngelo would then commence with raping the female victim in another room.  DeAngelo was also known to hide in the home, tricking his victims into thinking that he’d left, only to jump out of the shadows. He would often take souvenirs of his crimes with him as trophies to remind him of what he’d done.

Joseph James DeAngelo

including Manson and his young, loyal disciples — is thought to have carried out some 35 killings. Most of their cases were never tried, in part for lack of evidence. The perpetrators had also already been sentenced to life for the killings on August 9, 1969 (Tate, writer Wojciech Frykowski, his partner, coffee bean heiress Abigail Folger and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring) and two more victims on August 10, 1969 (wealthy supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary).   Sharon Tate Manson Family victim Sharon Tate, circa 1965.  Photo: Screen Collection/Getty Images  In August 1969, Manson gathered a group of his most loyal Family followers to carry out his massacre among Hollywood's elite and "beautiful people." The first of Manson’s victims was murdered at the home Polanski had rented, located at 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, an area just north of Beverly Hills. Polanski was away in London shooting a film., and the four victims had just returned home from dinner at the time of the murder.  While Manson himself took no part in the actual killings, he directed four of his most obedient followers — Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian — to the address and directed them to kill everyone. According to one of the Family member's statements, the Polanski household had been targeted because it represented the showbiz world that had rejected Manson.  Steven Parent had been visiting his friend Garretson when he became the Manson Family’s first victim. As he drove away from the house in the dark early morning hours, he was spotted by the intruders and shot dead.  Kasabian was horrified by the shooting of the boy, and she remained outside to keep watch. Kasabian acted as the getaway driver and was to become the star witness during the trial.  When the other three broke into the house, they herded Tate, Frykowski, Folgers and Sebring into the living room and tied them up. Sebring was shot and brutally kicked as he tried to defend Tate. During the terrifying murder spree, both Frykowski and Folger managed to escape from the house but were chased and stabbed to death.  At the trial, Kasabian described how she saw Frykowski staggering out of the house covered in blood and was horrified at the sight. She told him she was "sorry," but despite her pleas to his attacker to stop, the victim was bludgeoned repeatedly. Folger escaped from the house with terrible injuries but was caught on the front lawn and stabbed 28 times.  Eight-months-pregnant Tate pleaded for the life of her unborn child. She was mercilessly stabbed in the stomach by Atkins. Kasabian told of Atkins's chilling words to Tate before she stabbed her: "Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you. You're going to die, and you'd better get used to it."  Atkins then used Tate's blood to write the word "pig" on the front door. However, instead of this brutal massacre sating the pathological Manson, he criticized the murderers for being sloppy.  The following night, Manson took Family members Watson, Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten to the Los Feliz address of the LaBiancas, and the couple was murdered in a similarly horrifying fashion.

The Manson Family 

One of the most notorious tracts of land in Chicago is the small block along 63rd street where H. H. Holmes-- “America’s Serial Killer” --once built his “Castle for Murder.” When, in 1887, Herman W. Mudgett (alias H.H. Holmes) was hired as a shopkeeper in a drugstore in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, he had been officially “missing” for two years. Still a very young man, the not-quite 30-year-old Holmes had already substantially ruined his life. About a decade earlier, he had married local girl Clara Lovering and settled down in New York for a time, where he worked as a schoolteacher before hearing the call of higher education. Holmes moved with Clara to Michigan, where he began medical school. The couple’s time together was brief, however. Holmes sent his young wife home to her New Hampshire family; soon after, he was thrown out of school for stealing cadavers from the college anatomy lab and criminally charged for using them in insurance scams. He then “disappeared.”     A year later, Holmes was hired in Englewood, and his boss, a woman by the name of Holden, soon went missing herself. Though family members, friends, and fellow businesspeople were alarmed, Holmes explained that Holden had decided to move to California and had sold the business to him.     Holmes wasted no time in finding a second wife, ignoring the fact that his pending divorce from Clara Lovering was stuck in the legal system and, thus, not finalized.  His new fiancée, Myrtle Belknap, was the daughter of North Shore big-shot John Belknap. Two years after their wedding, Belknap left Holmes. Their marriage had been an odd one at best; Myrtle lived in Wilmette with her family while Holmes continued to live on the city’s South Side. After his second wife’s walkout, Holmes began construction of an enormous “hotel” on the property he’d purchased across from the old Holden drugstore. With money from further insurance scams, Holmes raised his Englewood “castle” to awesome heights. Plans for the hotel, however, resembled a funhouse of some sort: the triple-story wonder contained 60 rooms, trap doors, hidden staircases, windowless chambers, laundry chutes accessed from the floors, and a stairway that led to a precipice overlooking the house’s back alley.     In only a year, the “World’s Fair Hotel” was completed, and its owner sent out word that many of its plentiful rooms would be available to out-of-town visitors to the Columbian Exposition. And so the horror began.     Detectives and later scholars surmised that a high number of the fair’s attendees met gruesome ends at the hands of Holmes in the “hotel” he built as a giant torture chamber. It was later discovered that the building contained walls fitted with blowtorches, gassing devices, and other monstrosities. The basement was furnished with a dissecting table and vats of acid and lime. Alarms in his guest rooms alerted Holmes to escape attempts. Some researchers believe that many were kept prisoner for weeks or months before being killed by their diabolical innkeeper.  Others believe Holmes was not really “into” killing. That it was all for the money. Along with his hotel of horrors, Holmes had other ways of attracting victims. Placing ads in city papers, he offered attractive jobs to attractive young women. Insisting on the top-secret nature of the work, the location, and his own identity, he promised good pay for silence. In the competitive world of turn-of-the-century Chicago, there were many takers.     Far from satiated, Holmes also advertised for a new wife, luring hopeful and destitute girls with his business stature and securing their trust with what must have been an irresistible charm.     After disposing of numerous potential employees and fiancées in his chambers of terror, Holmes decided to seriously find another mate. In 1893, he proposed to Minnie Williams, the daughter of a Texas realty king. Williams shared Holmes’s violent nature and lawless attitude. Soon after they met, Williams killed her sister with a chair. Her understanding, empathic fiancé dumped the body into Lake Michigan. Yet, the two were not to live horrifically ever after.     Holmes employees Julia Connor and her daughter, Pearl, were distraught at the news that their boss would be taking a new wife. Julia had been smitten with Holmes at the expense of her own marriage, and she and Pearl had worked with their employer to pull off a number of his insurance swindles. Not long after objecting to the coming union, Julia and Pearl disappeared. When Julia’s husband, Ned, came calling for them, Holmes told him that his family had moved to another state. In reality, Julia’s alarm over Holmes’s imminent marriage stemmed not only from mere longing but from the fact that she was pregnant with his child. Her death was the result of an abortion that Holmes had performed himself. Stuck with Pearl as an annoying witness, he poisoned the child.      In 1894, the Holmeses went to Colorado with an Indiana prostitute in tow. Georgianna Yoke had moved to Chicago to start afresh and had answered one of Holmes’s marriage ads in a local paper. Introduced as Holmes’s cousin, Minnie and Holmes saw the same thing in Yoke: a girl with wealthy parents and a substantial inheritance awaiting her. In Denver, Minnie witnessed her husband’s marriage to Yoke, and from there the trio went to Texas, transferred Minnie’s property to Holmes, and conducted a few assorted scams.  Not long after, the group returned to Chicago and Minnie, Yoke, disappeared.  Around the same time, Holmes’s secretary, Emmeline Cigrand, was literally stretched to death in the Castle basement along with her visiting fiancé.   Finally, in July of 1894, Holmes was arrested for mortgage fraud. Though his third wife sprung him with their dirty bail money, Holmes had used his short time behind bars to launch yet another scam. Holmes planned to run a big insurance fraud at the expense of early accomplice Ben Pitezel, who had served time for one of their swindles while Holmes had walked away. Hoping to eliminate the possibility of Pitezel’s squealing on their earlier capers, Holmes planned to get richer by rubbing the man out. With a shyster lawyer in tow, Holmes killed Pitezel in his Philadelphia patent shop after taking out an insurance policy on Pitezel’s life.     When Holmes neglected to pay a share of the winnings to his old cellmate, Marion Hedgepeth (who had helped him plan the swindle), Hedgepeth turned in Holmes’s name to a St. Louis cop, who made sure the tip got to Pinkerton agent Frank Geyer.     While Geyer dug up the dirt on Holmes, Holmes was digging graves for fresh victims. After Pitezel’s death, Holmes had told his widow, Carrie, that some of Ben’s shady dealings had been found out, and that he had therefore gone to New York incognito. Holmes then took Carrie and the Pitezel children under his dubious care. The family did not know their husband and father was dead.     While on the road with Georgianna and the remaining Pitezels, Holmes decided to send Carrie back east to stay with her parents. The Pitezel children were left in the hands of Holmes, who first killed Carrie’s son, Howard, in an abandoned Indiana house, and then gassed her daughters after locking them in a trunk while the group was staying in Toronto.     Next, Holmes returned to his first wife Clara and, after explaining that he had had amnesia and mistakenly married another woman, was forgiven.         Whatever devilish plans Holmes had for his first love were thwarted when he was charged with insurance fraud. Holmes pleaded guilty while Frank Geyer searched the castle with police. What they found was astounding: the torture devices, the homemade gas chambers, the shelves of poison and dissection tools, the vats of lime and acid; all revealed the true criminality of the man being held for mere fraud.     Evidence of the purpose of the grim house was easy to find: a ball of women’s hair was stuffed under the basement stairs, Minnie’s watch and dress buttons remained in the furnace, bits of charred bone littered the incinerator. Through the hot summer of 1895, crews worked to unearth and catalog all of the building’s debris. Then, in late August, the Murder Castle burned to the ground in a mysterious fire, aided by a series of explosions. Gasoline can verified arson, but no one could tell if it was one of Holmes’s many adversaries or the man himself that had done it.   

H.H Holmes

Pedro Alonso Lopez was born in Colombia in 1948 and raised by his mother Benilda Lopez de Castaneda, who conceived Pedro after having an affair with a married man. Like many other serial killers, Lopez had a traumatic childhood. Lopez’s father was murdered six months before Pedro was born. The first known instances of trauma in Lopez’s life were witnessing his mother engage in sex work, which he claimed had a disturbing effect on his psyche. While Lopez’s mother claimed to be loving and caring, Pedro Lopez said that she was physically and emotionally abusive Pedro Lopez’s life took a twisted turn in 1957 when his mother caught him fondling his sister. He was kicked out of his home at the age of 9. While wandering the streets, Pedro Lopez was picked up by a pedophile who lured him into his home with the promise of food and a place to stay. Instead, Pedro was taken to an abandoned building and raped repeatedly. After this incident, Pedro joined a street gang of children to protect himself from further predation. The gang would commit petty crimes and smoke a derivative of cocaine. After four years of living on the street, Pedro Lopez was taken in by a family from the United States and put in a school for orphans. Not long after, though, he ran away. By some accounts, it was because he was molested by a male teacher. Other accounts claim that he ran away with the teacher.   Back on the streets and 18 years old, Pedro Lopez started making a living by stealing cars and selling them to local chop shops. Eventually, he was caught by the police and sent to prison. While in prison, Lopez was brutally raped by three other inmates.  In an act of retaliation, Lopez fashioned himself a weapon and killed all three of the rapists, one of them with his bare hands. These killings earned him the respect of his fellow inmates, none of which ever tried to harm him again.  The killings were also considered to be in self-defense by the Colombian justice system, so only two years were added to Lopez’s sentence. This incident would mark the beginning of the long string of killings and legal free-passes that were to come. Terror in the Andes Once Pedro Lopez was released from prison, he moved to Peru and his reign of terror ensued. He began kidnapping, raping, and murdering girls with horrendous frequency. At the height of his crime spree, he was apparently murdering around three girls per week.  Most of his victims were girls between the ages of 9 and 12. When asked about his motivation for killing young girls, he said, “I lost my innocence at age of eight. So I decided to do the same to as many girls as I could.” Lopez would stalk his victims from afar, sometimes for several days before making his move. Then, he would kidnap the girl, lead them out to a secluded place, rape them, and strangle them to death. He would bury their bodies in shallow graves.  Sometimes, before the bodies had decomposed too much, he would return to the graves, dig them up, and have “tea parties” with groups of corpses. Lopez claimed that he preferred to kill during the day so that he could see his victims’ faces when they died. Most of Lopez’s victims were girls from poor indigenous communities. According to Lopez, he didn’t have a preference of which ethnicity his victims were, it was simply a matter of practicality that most of his victims were from indigenous communities where children were looked after less closely. On one occasion, Lopez was caught in the act of trying to kidnap a girl from one of these communities. The locals beat him, tortured him, and eventually buried him up to his neck. They planned to cover his head in syrup and let ants eat him alive. But, he was saved when an ambassador from the United States convinced them to let him go free.   On another occasion, in Ecuador this time, Lopez was again caught in the act of trying to kidnap a girl by the girl’s mother. When the mother began to shout for help, an angry mob formed that would have lynched Lopez right there on the spot if he hadn’t been rescued by police officers.  The officers eventually took Lopez into custody and interrogated him. It was at this point that the true extent of Lopez’s crimes was revealed.   At first, the interrogators believed that Lopez was part of a gang that had been abducting girls around Ambato, Ecuador. No one could have imagined that so many missing children could be traced back to a single man. However, Lopez eventually confessed that he had killed one of the missing girls police were looking for. When the officers asked him if he had murdered any more girls, he replied, “Over two hundred in Ecuador, some tens in Peru, and many more in Colombia. Lopez led the authorities to 53 shallow graves that he’d dug around Ambato and several more that he’d used to bury victims in other parts of the country. It’s believed that he killed at least 110 people and some estimates are a whole lot higher. Pedro Lopez was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the maximum penalty for murder in Ecuador. He was released two years early, in 1994, for being a model prisoner and exhibiting good behavior.   Within an hour of being released, he was arrested for illegally crossing the border into Ecuador and deported back to his home country of Colombia. In 1995, Pedro Lopez was put on trial in Colombia for murder, but he was declared insane and sent to a mental hospital instead of prison.  He remained at the hospital for three years until 1998 when a second psychological evaluation deemed him sane and he was released on the condition that he pay $50 bail and report to police monthly.  Of course, Lopez never reported to the police. In fact, no one really knows where he is to this day. The last known sighting of Pedro Lopez was by his own mother, who he visited in his hometown of El Espinal. When he arrived at her house, his mother was sure that Pedro was there to kill her. Instead, he told her to get down on her knees and he gave her a blessing.   In 2002, the Colombian government launched an Interpol order of arrest against Lopez for a fresh murder. Rumors say that he’s currently living in Tolima Department in Colombia as a homeless man. Others say that the relatives of his victims put a bounty on his head and he was murdered. No one really knows. You may have even walked past the world’s “most prolific serial killer” on the street and had no idea.          

The Horrific Story of Pedro Lopez

Shipman was born on 14 January 1946 on the Bestwood Estate, a council estate, in Nottingham, the second of the three children of Harold Frederick Shipman (12 May 1914 – 5 January 1985), a lorry driver, and Vera Brittan (23 December 1919 – 21 June 1963). His working-class parents were devout Methodists. When growing up, Shipman was an accomplished rugby player in youth leagues. Shipman passed his eleven-plus in 1957, moving to High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, which he left in 1964. He excelled as a distance runner, and in his final year at school served as vice-captain of the athletics team. Shipman was particularly close to his mother, who died of lung cancer when he was aged seventeen. Her death came in a manner similar to what later became Shipman's own modus operandi: in the later stages of her disease, she had morphine administered at home by a doctor. Shipman witnessed his mother's pain subside, despite her terminal condition, until her death on 21 June 1963. On 5 November 1966, he married Primrose May Oxtoby; the couple had four children. Shipman studied medicine at Leeds School of Medicine, University of Leeds, graduating in 1970. He began working at Pontefract General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1974 took his first position as a general practitioner (GP) at the Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in Todmorden. The following year, Shipman was caught forging prescriptions of pethidine for his own use. He was fined £600 and briefly attended a drug rehabilitation clinic in York. He became a GP at the Donneybrook Medical Centre in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in 1977. Shipman continued working as a GP in Hyde throughout the 1980s and established his own surgery at 21 Market Street in 1993, becoming a respected member of the community. In 1983, he was interviewed in an edition of the Granada Television documentary World in Action on how the mentally ill should be treated in the community. A year after his conviction on charges of murder, the interview was re-broadcast on Tonight with Trevor McDonald. In March 1998, Linda Reynolds of the Brooke Surgery in Hyde expressed concerns to John Pollard, the coroner for the South Manchester District, about the high death rate among Shipman's patients. In particular, she was concerned about the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he had needed countersigned. Police were unable to find sufficient evidence to bring charges and closed the investigation on 17 April. The Shipman Inquiry later blamed Greater Manchester Police for assigning inexperienced officers to the case. After the investigation was closed, Shipman killed three more people.]A few months later, in August, taxi driver John Shaw told the police that he suspected Shipman of murdering 21 patients. Shaw became suspicious as many of the elderly customers he took to the hospital, who seemed to be in good health, died in Shipman's care. Shipman's last victim was Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde who was found dead at her home on 24 June 1998. He was the last person to see her alive; he later signed her death certificate, recording the cause of death as old age. Grundy's daughter, solicitor Angela Woodruff, became concerned when fellow solicitor Brian Burgess informed her that a will had been made, apparently by her mother, with doubts about its authenticity. The will excluded Woodruff and her children, but left £386,000 to Shipman. At Burgess' urging, Woodruff went to the police, who began an investigation. Grundy's body was exhumed and found to contain traces of diamorphine (heroin), often used for pain control in terminal cancer patients. Shipman claimed that Grundy had been an addict and showed them comments he had written to that effect in his computerised medical journal; however, police examination of his computer showed that the entries were written after her death. Shipman was arrested on 7 September 1998, and was found to own a Brother typewriter of the type used to make the forged will. Prescription for Murder, a 2000 book by journalists Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie, suggested that Shipman forged the will either because he wanted to be caught, because his life was out of control, or because he planned to retire at 55 and leave the UK. Shipman's trial began at Preston Crown Court on 5 October 1999. He was charged with the murders of 15 women by lethal injections of diamorphine, all between 1995 and 1998:Marie WestIrene Turner,Lizzie Adams,Jean Lilley,Ivy LomasMuriel Grimshaw,Marie Quinn,Kathleen Wagstaff,Bianka Pomfret,Norah Nuttall,Pamela Hillier,Maureen Ward,Winifred Mellor,Joan Melia,Kathleen Grundy. Shipman's legal representatives tried unsuccessfully to have the Grundy case tried separately from the others, as a motive was shown by the alleged forgery of Grundy's will. On 31 January 2000, after six days of deliberation, the jury found Shipman guilty of 15 counts of murder and one count of forgery. Mr Justice Forbes subsequently sentenced Shipman to life imprisonment on all 15 counts of murder, with a recommendation that he be subject to a whole life tariff, to be served concurrently with a sentence of four years for forging Grundy's will. On 11 February, 11 days after his conviction, Shipman was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council (GMC) Two years later, Home Secretary David Blunkett confirmed the judge's whole life tariff, just months before British government ministers lost their power to set minimum terms for prisoners. While authorities could have brought many additional charges, they concluded that a fair hearing would be impossible in view of the enormous publicity surrounding the original trial. Furthermore, the 15 life sentences already imposed rendered further litigation unnecessary. Shipman became friends with fellow serial killer Peter Moore while in prison. Shipman denied his guilt, disputing the scientific evidence against him. He never made any public statements about his actions. Shipman's wife, Primrose, maintained that he was not guilty, even after his conviction. Shipman is the only doctor in the history of British medicine found guilty of murdering his patients.[John Bodkin Adams was charged in 1957 with murdering a single patient, amid rumours he had killed dozens more over a 10-year period and "possibly provided the role model for Shipman"; however, he was acquitted and no further charges were pursued Historian Pamela Cullen has argued that because of Adams' acquittal, there was no impetus to examine asserted flaws in the British legal system until the Shipman case.  The police investigated other deaths Shipman had certified and investigated fifteen specimen cases. They discovered a pattern of his administering lethal doses of diamorphine, signing patients' death certificates, and then falsifying medical records to indicate that they had been in poor health. Shipman hanged himself in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield at 6:20 a.m. on 13 January 2004, the eve of his 58th birthday. He was pronounced dead at 8:10 a.m. A statement from Her Majesty's Prison Service indicated that he had hanged himself from the window bars of his cell using his bed sheets. After Shipman's death, his body was taken to the mortuary at the Medico Legal Centre for a post-mortem examination. West Yorkshire Coroner David Hinchliff eventually released the body to his family after an inquest was opened and adjourned shortly after. Some of the victims' families said they felt "cheated", as Shipman's suicide meant they would never have the satisfaction of a confession, nor answers as to why he committed his crimes Home Secretary David Blunkett admitted that celebration was tempting: "You wake up and you receive a call telling you Shipman has topped himself and you think, is it too early to open a bottle? And then you discover that everybody's very upset that he's done it." Shipman's death divided national newspapers, with the Daily Mirror branding him a "cold coward" and condemning the Prison Service for allowing his suicide to happen. However, The Sun ran a celebratory front-page headline; "Ship Ship hooray!" The Independent called for the inquiry into Shipman's suicide to look more widely at the state of UK prisons as well as the welfare of inmates In The Guardian, an article by General Sir David Ramsbotham, who had formerly served as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, suggested that whole life sentencing be replaced by indefinite sentencing, for this would at least give prisoners the hope of eventual release and reduce the risk of their ending their own lives by suicide, as well as making their management easier for prison officials.[40] Shipman's motive for suicide was never established, though he reportedly told his probation officer that he was considering suicide to assure his wife's financial security after he was stripped of his National Health Service pension.[41] Primrose Shipman received a full NHS pension; she would not have been entitled to it if Shipman had lived past the age of sixty. Additionally, there was evidence that Primrose, who had consistently protested Shipman's innocence despite the overwhelming evidence, had begun to suspect his guilt. Shipman refused to take part in courses which would have encouraged acknowledgement of his crimes, leading to a temporary removal of privileges, including the opportunity to telephone his wife. During this period, according to Shipman's cellmate, he received a letter from Primrose exhorting him to, "Tell me everything, no matter what." A 2005 inquiry found that Shipman's suicide "could not have been predicted or prevented," but that procedures should nonetheless be re-examined After Shipman's body was released to his family, it remained in Sheffield for more than a year despite multiple false reports about his funeral. His widow was advised by police against burying her husband in case the grave was attacked. Shipman was eventually cremated on 19 March 2005 at Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium.]The cremation took place outside normal working hours to maintain secrecy and was attended only by Primrose and the couple's four children.[44]  In 2003, David Spiegelhalter et al. suggested that "statistical monitoring could have led to an alarm being raised at the end of 1996, when there were 67 excess deaths in females aged over 65 years, compared with 119 by 1998."

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