Mug Shots
Ann O'Delia Diss Debar smiles for the camera
Reader Robert Lifson sent along these mug shots of Ann O'Delia Diss Debar and they were so good I had to share.
Categories: Biography, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, Supplement
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"crime"
The weed of crime bears bitter fruit, or so we’ve heard. It certainly didn’t pay for any of the people featured in these episodes.
Deeply Impressed
Helen Duncan goes on trial
Helen Duncan was the last person persecuted in Britain for being a witch. Except she wasn't the last, she wasn't a witch, and she wasn't exactly persecuted either...
Categories: Footsteps into the Unknown, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, People & Places, Series 14
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Cloud Dongs
George Grey Barnard's Pennsylvania Capitol sculpture groups
In August 2023, my cousin Tim and his fiancee Bonnie were getting married in Lancaster. As #7 and I made our travel plans, we realized that even though she has spent a large chunk of her adult life in Pennsylvania she had never visited many of its most famous historic sites. We decided to make […]
Categories: Arts & Culture, Feats of Building & Engineering, Series 14
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Wild Frantics
the Sanctified Band of Chincoteague Island
They were driven from their homes, forced to live in houseboats, and persecuted... and all they really wanted was freedom to worship as they pleased.
Categories: Eccentrics & Prophecies, People & Places, Series 14
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Rapscallions!
"surprised and excited"
A grab bag of Confederate plots: Fake peace conferences! Robbing banks! Burning down cities! Kidnapping the vice president!
Categories: History, Series 14
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The Realest Housewife of Beverly Hills
confidante of kings, movie stars, and mobsters
The Countess di Frasso was the most famous hostess in the world, who threw parties for kings; actors, athletes and aviators; Nazis and mobsters.
Categories: Arts & Culture, Biography, Eccentrics & Prophecies, Entertainment & Media, People & Places, Series 13
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Seven Years in Hell
the murder of Susan Mummey, the Witch of Ringtown Valley
For seven years he lived in hell, tormented nightly by a demon cat and the spectre of death. Finally, an angel told him what he had to do to end it all...
Categories: Footsteps into the Unknown, People & Places, Series 13
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What Joy to the Troubled Heart!
the tale of William H. Mumler, spirit photographer
In 1862, William H. Mumler took the first known photograph of a ghost. Maybe. What unfolded next was an epic story of fraud and self-deception...
Categories: Biography, Footsteps into the Unknown, Hoaxes, Frauds & Forgeries, People & Places, Series 13
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Nuns on the Run
Six Months in a Convent
In August 1834 Bostonians burned down a convent full of nuns, thanks to religious prejudice and the suspicious testimony of a lazy teenager with a grudge.
Categories: History, Series 13
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Space is the Place
Doctor York and the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors
The strange transformation of a Qu'ran study group into a UFO doomsday cult with a quick break in the middle for disco fever.
Categories: Eccentrics & Prophecies, People & Places, Series 13
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Make Insurance Double Sure
the incredible tale of the Blue-Eyed Six
Joseph Raber was "too lazy to live and too lazy to work" -- the perfect victim for six conspirators who insured him to the gills and murdered him.
Categories: People & Places, Series 13
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Gone Guy
how can a man vanish into thin air? simple: he can't
In 1809 Benjamin Bathurst vanished into thin air and was never seen again. We're still debating what happened to him some 213 years later.
Categories: Intriguing & Unsolved Mysteries, People & Places, Series 13
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