556 - The Halloween Special

Hello.

And welcome.

To My Favorite Murderer.

That's Georgia Hornstein.

That's Karen Kilcara.

And it's Halloween. Spooky Halloween.

Candy. Yay. Okay, let's get the lights up. Guys. Wow.

It's a pretty bright light. Pretty bright lights on this show.

It's Halloween. We're so excited for you and us.

Well, especially us. We got to walk in here. It was a big surprise. They had these beautiful— I mean, when's the last time you had a Halloween bucket?

Of my own? Yeah. Not since I was a child. Oh, look at these.

Someone did the work. Someone figured out what we love.

They really did. These are, let's see, Turkish taffy razzles.

Fucking razzles are... I've never had a razzle. They're candy and they're gum. You're going to want to spit it out after about four minutes. Look at these giant Smarties. Those are going to be good. Have you ever had a Slowpoke, which is just a big piece of caramel?

No.

I mean, the people in the 50s, listen.

Sugar babies, break your fucking teeth.

I'm anti-Make America Great Again, but it was pretty great when kids could smoke candy cigarettes. Remember? Remember?

Oh, yeah. We loved them.

We loved them.

There was like, you don't know children. There was powder on them. So it looked like you were blowing smoke.

Now, here's the thing about these days. Yeah. Is that now they look like capris joints.

Don't they? Yeah. That's a little. You look very sophisticated. Good girl. With that gum in your mouth.

That's the look. That's right.

I love it. Zots.

Oh, those are good. They're fizzy. Yeah. Those are the precursor of pop rocks. I mean, this is like a, it's a candy lover's dream in here.

Yeah.

We talk for a living. That alone.

I'm going to mainline. Right? This is the fuel. I'm going to mainline a pixie stick right now.

Please do it.

Let's see how good my performance is.

I might eat some dots. Although they're going to get stuck in my teeth. Let's see if this is a plus or a yeah, girl.

Hit that. That's right. It's cherry flavor. Hit that pixie stick.

Mm-hmm. Oh. Mm. Mm-hmm.

I really get you.

That's a nice. You let it pile up on your tongue and then you smash it down.

Definitely. All right. Can we take these down or I'm going to just keep eating? Oh, okay. Or do you want to leave it?

Well, how about right there as a kind of foreground decor?

Speaking of spooky, when we left the office on Monday, it's getting dark earlier. So it was like dark, dusky, but not totally. And I see, not here, a swoop out in the back in the parking lot. Owl? It's a fucking owl.

What color? Oh, just like a regular owl?

But it was the first owl I've ever seen in L.A.

Oh, shit.

Yeah. And I like gave it a little, you know, and it like did look at me. And then immediately the staircase came to mind. And I was like, what are you fucking doing?

Get in your car.

You know, it's funny. Blossom and I can hear an owl like out at night or have in the last month. Very loud and very distinct. Yeah, because you live near some like, you know. We got some trees, which is I feel very lucky for in Los Angeles. There's only five and I have three.

I have trees and then immediately a freeway.

Right.

That's like kind of.

My trees kind of open up onto the freeway. So it's what it's like here.

My trees are covered in freeway dust. That's like what you get kind of, you know.

Well, I was going to tell you, I know that every year you get really into your costume, usually a couple's costume. Yeah. Are you going to reveal what it is?

I suggested to Vince, Rambo, First Blood. I'm Rambo in the forest and he is... The sheriff. The sheriff. And he's all beat up and everything and I'm Rambo because it's kind of perfect.

It is perfect.

But we don't... I don't know. We haven't gotten dressed up in a while because we just stay at home and pass out candy to a thousand children.

But don't you dress up for the children?

I put festive stuff on. Yeah. Vince doesn't care.

Vince is like... Yeah, he has a Halloween. I'm trying to name a band that he would like and I don't think I can. Dave Matthews.

Chat pile or something. He'll put on like a... You know, spooky punk rock shirt. That's it.

Fire hose. There. It only took me seven minutes. Well, I was going to show you this is what my costume is going to be this year.

Oh, my God. That how... You are an employee at Spirit Halloween.

This is the, yeah, for the listener, I'm just putting a nice big Spirit Halloween pin on my shirt.

And I love that it has the sticker that says your name, but it's clearly covered up all the employees that have worked there in the past. It's not new.

This pin is haunted for sure.

Definitely. Yeah. That pin has seen some shit.

This is for busy moms on the go, uncreative people who don't like thinking, or just people like me are a little bit checked out.

Yeah, but like the black t-shirt, it's perfect.

All you need.

You look like you're going to work and then afterwards you're going to your second job bartending.

Yes, that's right. Or your second job, the late shift at Starbucks or whatever.

Good job. I like it.

Everybody. I guess I shouldn't do a spirit Halloween commercial.

Everyone loves them, I think.

I think people have embraced what they seem to symbolize.

Yeah.

It's like they're like hermit crabs that go into the empty shells of like old marshals. Totally. Only. Yeah.

It's like the whole world is going to be a spirit Halloween pretty soon.

We're all going to have these.

The way we're going.

We're all going to have our names on them.

That's right. Okay, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.

Our very own Kate Winkler Dawson has a new audio book that's out right now. It's called Blood on the Page, and it tells the story of the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders and the lasting mark they left on literature and also on law enforcement history. And guess who reads that book?

Paul Hulse?

It's actually Kate Winkler Dawson herself.

If you want even more MFM, join the fan cult. You'll get every episode ad-free, merch store discounts, exclusive content, and access to our Discord, where you can chat with fellow murderinos. Head to fancult.supercast.com to join.

And both Buried Bones and Disgraceland are going to be taking true crime to the high seas. They're going on Virgin Voyages this March. Booking for the true crime voyage is open now on Virgin Voyages' website.

That's going to be debauchery.

Yeah. Oh, it's going to be so fun.

Wow. Yeah. And in the merch corner, spooky season is in full swing and there's still time to grab your stay out of the forest raglan.

Oh, look, it's perfect for spooky Halloween.

That is so spooky and good. I love it. Go to exactlyrightstore.com to get yours.

Also, if you're listening to this podcast, just a quick reminder, you can watch it on Netflix. My Favorite Murder and Buried Bones are on Netflix every week. So go and And check out the visual version of this mayhem.

That's right. A lot of energy and efforts put into it. So why not take a look?

Why not take a little peeky-poo? Well, we have a very fun surprise for ourselves.

Yes.

This is the gift we give to ourselves, but actually that Nick Terry gives us.

Right. This is the brand new MFM animated by Nick Terry. And I haven't seen it yet. It's called Werepigs.

I haven't seen it either.

This should be fun.

It's a big surprise.

Here we go.

I grew up on a farm. We just get right into it. There's not even a hello. Good. I grew up on a farm in rural North Georgia. Think big pastures broken up by dense forests of pine trees. Well, during the summer and after school most days, my eight cousins and I would be kept by my sweet grandmother, who instead of having eight elementary school children in her house from 2.30 to 8 p.m., would kick us out to play outside. Because she couldn't keep a close eye on us, she called in the help of the werepig.

The werepig was a werewolf-like pig that lived in the woods and would watch us to make sure that we were doing good. And if we were bad, would eat us, just like he did the neighbor kid.

A threat with an imaginary, like, beast.

Crypto.

Yeah.

Cryptoid.

That's killed before.

That's killed children before. And then it says, this might sound bad, but what's worse is all of our parents, my five uncles, and my dad adopted the werepig to do their bidding.

Oh, my God.

The whole family said on it. When we were in our early teens, one of my uncles actually dressed up like the werepig and scared the shit out of us while we were playing flashlight tag in the woods.

Oh, my God. I would pay a lot for that video.

The screaming, the screaming, and then the crying, and then the, oh, come on. Needless to say, we were all traumatized by the werepig and kept a close eye on the woods. Years later, we were all joking at a family dinner and found out that our grandmother and our parents had a family meeting to discuss what to do about our behavior when we were kids. Thus, the werepig was born.

That's how bad they were.

It's like a cult, kind of.

Here's the agreed lie. Tell the children.

It sounds like it works.

I don't think so. And it says, stay sexy and watch out for the werepig, Maddie. Werepig. And also, it's a pig that's watching you. Amazing. I fucking love Nick Terry.

I know.

Because Nick Terry allows me to love us.

Yeah. Right? And you never know what dumb shit you say is going to become a classic MFM animated.

And also the way you said good when I was like, there's no intro. You're good. It made me laugh so hard.

It made me realize we talk really fast.

We talk a lot, really fast.

It's a podcast.

And we're funny.

We're so funny. Goddamn. Good job.

Thank you. Good job to you too.

Thank you.

And good job to our favorite.

Nick Terry. Go to MFMAnimated on Instagram and then on the Exactly Right Media YouTube page, you can see all of the... Yes. Classic MFM animated. My dad loves them.

Does he?

Yes.

Did he get into them?

Yes.

It's a good way to get, if your parents are like, we don't understand you or your true crime, be like, hey, do you want to watch this video? Having nothing to do with anything else in the world, you sell them on our personalities. You sell them on our fast talking.

It's like, hey, kid, do you want some candy? And then you give them drugs.

And then you go. And then you give them cigarettes. There's razor blades in there. And now you're over here with us.

Yeah. God.

God.

Well, I'm first, right?

Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween!

I'm first.

Great.

Let me put my magic, my meta glasses on.

Oh, are you filming me right now? I'll sue you. Good.

Good. For Halloween, you know a story we've never done?

The movie Halloween?

Salem Witch Trials.

The history version of the movie Halloween.

Allie was very excited about about covering this. Did she do a paper on it or something? That sounds right. Okay. Thanks, Molly. Allie Elkin, everybody, is very helpful in this. Today, we're going to talk about America's most iconic Halloween town, a place now associated with ghost tours and fun, spooky vibes, but which became famous because of a rash of paranoid accusations that would ultimately claim the lives of 26 people.

This is the story of the Salem Witch Trials, the deadliest outbreak of witchcraft panic on American soil. The main source for this story is a book called A Storm of Witchcraft by Emerson Baker. And that's Allie Elkin, the smart researcher. That's her source. My main source is Abigail's Divine Comedy web series, created, written, directed, and starred in by Joe Hedgeyes as Abigail Williams. Have you seen this on TikTok at all?

Probably, but like it sounds familiar, but I'm not sure. Have you seen Abigail Williams with a.

Mustache as a man? Yes, yes, yes. That's Abigail's divine comedy and I am so obsessed with it. I can't even go look that up. The rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So that's where I get my history from is comedy sketches.

It's weird because I know it's the season and for one second I'd just seen a TikTok kind of about summing up. what that was all about. And I was like, God, what a strange coincidence. I just saw that TikTok.

It's October. Yeah, we love it.

Of course.

Right. That's the theme.

It's all around.

So the Salem witch trials happened in Europe at the same time. They would have barely registered as particularly notable. That's because between the 1400s and the 1700s, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of witch hunts all over Europe, many with higher death tolls than this one. There's a kind of corny documentary called The History of the Devil that talks about a lot of those, which is kind of cool.

A lot of the classic things we associate with witch hunts, burning at the stake, the water test where tied up witch will float but non-witch will sink and likely drown, are actually from European witch hunts and did not happen in Salem. But Salem does come toward the tail end of this witch hunt era, and it's the most notable instance of this in the colonies.

An era that lasts 300 years. Jesus.

Yeah. So let's set the stage as briefly as possible. Salem is a coastal city 16 miles north of Boston, which is the capital of the providence of Massachusetts Bay. This colony had only just been founded in 1691, a year before witchcraft accusations began in Salem. So not a lot.

It makes sense. It's like everybody goes there. They live there for a year through all the seasons. And they're just like, this is fucked.

Yeah.

The devil is among us. Right. Right.

This had already followed a years-long power vacuum period after King James II had revoked the charter for the original Massachusetts Bay Colony. That original colony had been expressly Puritan, like you. Only Puritans had been allowed to vote, for example. The new Massachusetts Bay is chartered by William and Mary, Protestant co-rulers of England during a weird time, says Allie, and includes a huge chunk of New England and Canada.

It puts the region on a much tighter leash, having it be ruled by a governor appointed by England rather than being self-governing. It also expands voting rights to any property-owning Protestant. So the key takeaway is that this is a period of heightened anxiety for Puritans whose old way of life is changing, who founded their colony to be a shining beacon of godliness, and who most fiercely believe that God already knows whether they're going to heaven or if they will be damned to hell for eternity. Like, there's no... doing better and getting into heaven, right?

There's no play whatsoever.

And also, like, this is hard to believe now, but, like, Satan is real and, you know, very, like, an actual entity.

Also, I think it's ironic, and I won't say much about this because I don't know anything about it, but just the idea that the Puritans came to America and they're like, finally, we get to be super Protestant amongst ourselves. Or it's like, you were driven out because of Religion. But suddenly you're like, but religion's the answer here.

Yeah, get these Native Americans out of here.

Yeah. Let's murder, murder, murder.

Right.

For God.

Because we're going to be in heaven no matter what. And that's what God wants.

Or going straight to hell no matter what. Right, right. Once you do that one big one.

Either way, I bet they were boring to drink with.

And the food was bad.

So they are constantly examining themselves for reassurances that they are among the chosen. And the way they reassure themselves of this is by not sinning. and keeping a watchful eye out for sinful behavior. And then I added, aka buzz kills.

Or also aka, you know, it's the old don't think of a pink elephant. And then the only thing you can think of is a pink elephant. And now you're fucking your neighbor out in the woods. Sorry to say.

Those pink elephants will get you every time.

They're so sexy.

In January of 1692, Betty Parris, who is a nine-year-old, and her cousin, Abigail Williams, who is 11, begin exhibiting strange behaviors. Betty's father is a minister, the Reverend Samuel Parris, and Abigail's parents have died, so she lives with the family. Reverend Samuel Parris had become ordained about 12 years prior after several failed business ventures and is known for his strict interpretations, even by Puritan standards.

That's a bad fucking sign.

Even they're like, bro, pump the brakes.

Because that, in my personal theory, absolutely editorializing here, usually people are super into the abusive part of religion.

Right.

Their pervs. Right.

That are like sadomasochistic. Yeah.

And you know who they like to take it out on? Children.

Right.

I'm going to act like this the whole story. Good. Just lecturing you like you did it.

Betty and Abigail start acting weird as if they've been bitten or pinched. They contort in odd ways. This is generally described as them having fits. At first, Samuel and his wife Elizabeth are mainly worried that the girls are sick and This is, of course, hundreds of years before the availability of vaccines and children die all the time of illnesses that are now preventable. So they're worried about that.

And a few weeks later, the symptoms persist and Samuel starts to suspect witchcraft.

Boom.

Got to be witchcraft.

You know, there's about two or three things it could be. Right. They're faking it. Right. The devil's here. Right.

And three.

And three, it's a wheat allergy.

Right. He calls friends and other clergy over to examine the girls, and they also see these bits. In late February, Samuel and Elizabeth leave the house to attend a religious lecture. And while they're away, their neighbor, a woman named Mary Sibley, is watching the girls. And so the Paris family enslaves two workers, a married couple named Tituba and John. Mary instructs Tituba to make something called a witch cake. Get it ready for this. Oh. which is meant to determine if the girls are being bewitched and by whom.

Oh.

Sounds like a great treat, right? Yes. A nice little sweet treat.

It's going to be delicious.

No.

Oh.

The way you make a witch cake is by taking samples of urine from the afflicted person, so in this case, both the girls, and mixing it into a loaf of rye bread, which you bake.

Bad enough rye bread on its own.

And then this fucking dog is minding his own goddamn business in fucking Salem, and they feed the bread to the dog.

To what?

After the dog eats the bread, it's supposed to help reveal who the witch is because after the dog eats the bread.

Hens and needles over here.

I don't know. I don't specifically know. The dog maybe is like interested in the person who's the witch. Okay. You know, which in this case is Tituba, probably because she feeds him. Who knows what? Which is the only one who doesn't whip him constantly.

Yeah, really. But then why does the pea have to be in.

The rye bread? Don't question the urine.

You're right. I'm so sorry.

You're in luck. Don't ask me questions. So the girls end up accusing Tituba of bewitching them. Mary Sibley will ultimately be chastised for also using witchcraft. But the pea bread is seen as legitimate evidence. Always trust the pea bread.

I mean.

That's what they're thinking.

It's who had the recipe. And then who made that final decision? The religious people, I'm assuming?

Yeah, right. At the same time this is happening, two other girls on opposite sides of the town start exhibiting symptoms. One is named Ann Putnam, and she's 12, and the other one is a 17-year-old girl named Elizabeth Hubbard. Both girls would have known about the first two girls' fits. It's not like it spontaneously fucking happened, right? Anne's father is one of Samuel Parris' close friends, and Elizabeth is a maid in the household of a doctor who is widely believed to have attended to Betty and Abigail. So it's already spreading. Anne and Elizabeth, without a witch cake, say they are haunted by specters. Anne says her specter has been sent by Sarah Good, who is very poor and prone to loud outbursts that often startle people. Elizabeth

says that hers was sent by a woman named Sarah Osborne. And this Sarah was in very poor health, practically bedridden, but she had caused a scandal after the death of her husband by buying the contract of an indentured servant and marrying him, possibly because she could only get rights if she was a married woman. And so all three of the first accused are vulnerable women who are considered outcasts in some way. Let's see what photos we have.

Photos.

Here's a selfie. Here's a photo of Ann Putnam. I mean, a drawing. You know what I mean.

Yes. A representation.

Oh. Pointing. The comfortable pillow on her back. And then here's the Putnam house. Ew.

Ew.

That's a nice little clapper down.

That's like a four-story-er. Totally.

So on leap day of 1692, Ann Putnam's father, Thomas. Travels from Salem Village, which is a few miles from the coast and where all of this has been happening, Salem Village, to Salem Town, which is the town center on the water, to file witchcraft complaints. I don't know how that's done. And by that afternoon, there are warrants out for the arrest of these three women. The next day, the whole town shows up for the legal proceedings in the town meeting house. Imagine the smell. All four afflicted girls describe their symptoms and their accusations. The two Sarahs deny being witches, deny everything. But then Tituba confesses to witchcraft, confirms that the other women are also witches, and says

that there are actually nine witches in Salem who have made covenants with the devil. It's unclear why she does this, except for the fact that her captor, Samuel Parris, regularly beats her. So it's probably a coerced confession. And it means... she isn't in trouble anymore.

Oh, like she got up by turning them in type of thing.

Yeah, they were essentially like, admit it and tell us who else, like to everyone, admit it and tell us who else is a witch and you can get out. And so many people refused to do that.

Right. It's just interesting the person with the absolute least agency in the entire situation is like, you know what?

I got this.

It was me.

Right.

It was them.

It's also believed that she genuinely cares about Betty, the child, and is concerned for her. It's often said that she entertained Betty and Abigail with fortune telling, but this is actually never proven. But there is also a practical reason to confess. Those who confess and who name other people are not executed. So if you're a true believer in the Puritan framework, you can't do this because you believe you would be first an outcast and then damned for eternity.

So Tituba isn't a Puritan, so she isn't worried about saying that she is. Those rules. Yeah. But if you don't care so much about the Puritan framework, it's a good option. Over the course of the trials, more than 50 people will ultimately confess. So the three women are put in jail. And when this happens, most of the girls find that their symptoms alleviate. So the 12-year-old, Ann Putnam, her symptoms don't go away. And she accuses four other people, including the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Goode. named Dorothy. Besides Dorothy, the small child of a mentally ill woman, the women Anne accuses in this round are not as vulnerable as the first three women who had been accused of witchcraft.

So now the total stands at seven people accused. And remember, Tituba said that there are nine witches total, so everyone is like keeping their eyes peeled for whatever they happen to think witchcraft is.

It sounds like anybody and everybody all around. Right.

But then the accusations begin to come from all angles. Many, but not all of those afflicted by fits or other symptoms are younger women, but not all of them. Tituba's own husband, John, believes himself to be bewitched. So does a 40-year-old woman in a prominent family. And her family is part of the town's small Quaker minority. So she's not even totally locked within the same Puritan framework as everyone.

And she still comes down with something.

But it's like the concept of it is this catching idea.

Yeah. And then you think of like mass hysteria as maybe part of that. So a 71-year-old woman named Rebecca Nurse is accused. And this results in public outrage because she is known to be in particularly good standing with the church, is well-liked, well-respected, and is also not in great health. She's not flying around on a broom every fucking night, you know? You may remember her character as well as John Proctor's from the play The Crucible. John is brought into all of this when one of his young servants starts experiencing symptoms and starts leveling accusations at both him and his wife, Elizabeth. In The Crucible, he's traditionally viewed as the hero, although that's changed in recent years,

the one with all the integrity. It's true that as this goes on, he will be a vocal critic of the witch trials, but he also threatens to beat the living daylights out of his young servant. On multiple occasions, he proposes beating the people who are experiencing the fits.

Listen, he only had a very small toolbox back then in Puritan America.

That's true. Ultimately, after expressing all this disbelief, John is accused as well. And there's also a play now called John Proctor is the Villain, which was recently on Broadway. It's kind of cool.

I want to see that.

I know. So throughout the spring, more and more people are accused of witchcraft until 36 people have had charges filed against them. The jail's overflowing. Sarah Osborne, one of the first three women accused, dies in prison in May. It's freezing cold in there. Food and water is scarce. It's just really bad conditions, obviously. It's not like it is today in prison.

Where it's so great.

Luxury.

You said in May, but then you're like, it's freezing in there.

Maybe if you're a witch, it's always cold. Maybe it's also really hot. Oh, it's beautiful in May. Never mind. No, no. It's actually beautiful in May. Except those allergies.

It's so gorgeous.

Those seasonal allergies will get you. Yep.

Or the devil. Depends.

Yep. So the trials begin in June and a woman named Bridget Bishop is the first to be tried. She had not been the first to be accused, but the prosecutor wanted to try her first because he believed the evidence against her was the strongest. So she was most likely to be convicted, which would then set a precedent for the rest of them. A what?

A precedent of success? Yeah.

Essentially like, yeah.

Let's keep it positive, everybody. Come on. Everybody needs a win.

One, two, three.

Kill women.

Yeah. She had previously been tried and acquitted for witchcraft about 12 years earlier. Girl can't catch a break. Bridget, like several other members of the accused, is elderly, poor, and considered by many to be quarrelsome. Put her to death immediately. We'd be so fucked.

Dead, like, upon birth, basically.

Absolutely. The evidence presented against her includes a penchant for wearing black. She's a witch! Yes, I am.

Yes, I am. Then I grab a big rock and jump into the river.

Goodbye! Goodbye! She drowns. Here's Bridget Bishop. A drawstring. That's spooky.

I could pull that hat off, don't you think?

I think you could. I think I could.

I've got the cheeks for it.

Or a bonnet. Oh, you think so? Yeah. Why?

Because it's down over my ears?

Yeah. Puffy in the back. A little bow at the chin.

Bring back bonnets. Isn't that what the trad wives are trying to do right now? God. Let's hope. Did you just sing bring back bonnets or did I?

You did. I'm not a witch. Why would I sing that?

I was going to compliment you on that song. Wow. I was looking at it and thinking of something else, but the song just came out separately, witchcraft style.

You're definitely a witch.

I know.

That's what I would say if I didn't want to be known as a witch.

That's a perfect cover.

So a few men who had been hired to do work in Bridget's home testified to finding a voodoo doll in her basement wall, though they do not show the doll at trial. Ten witnesses testify about strange behavior, and the women who are accusing Bridget testify that her specter, evil spirit, is harassing them during trial.

Oh, like in the courtroom?

Yeah. Ah, you know.

Has he been sworn in?

The witch? The specter? No, but have you seen the movie The Witch? Oh, yeah. Yeah, like when the little kids are saying, she's witching me, and she's just like, fucking quit it. You can't do that. It doesn't work that way. Right. So annoying. Children. Children.

Also, it's just like they're out in the middle of fucking nowhere. And there's like a wolf on one side and 18 diseases on the other.

Yeah. It's just like, yeah, it's her fault.

Right. That you're unhappy.

Brigida's found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death by hanging. And this, just as the prosecutor had hoped, seems to set the tone. The court adjourns for 20 days after this execution in a rare moment of sensible behavior to take a beat and address how they should proceed with the many other cases. Right. This is where the sensibility ends. A panel of Boston Puritan ministered, led by the most famous and influential one, Cotton Mather, put out a statement saying essentially, proceed with caution, but absolutely try anyone who has been accused of witchcraft. Like, go for it. Yeah. Have some fun with it.

We hear that the people over in Spain are doing great work with that Inquisition.

Just put a little American pizzazz in there.

On that absolute mayhem.

In July, five more women, including Sarah Good, from the first three accused, and Rebecca Nurse, the respected 71-year-old, are all tried, found guilty, and executed. John Proctor, who has been speaking out against the trials, is also indicted, along with his wife Elizabeth. He is also related to Rebecca Nurse, as well as multiple other people who are or will be accused. John's main accusers, besides his servant, is an 11-year-old named Abigail William. Sarah Good's four-year-old daughter is ultimately released and is shuffled from household to household in town.

She winds up living a pretty sad life and also suffers from mental illness like her mom. It's just awful. John and Elizabeth Proctor, along with others, are found guilty in August. Elizabeth's execution is delayed because she's pregnant, but John is hanged, along with four others, three men and one woman. Among these is also a man named George Burroughs, who is actually a minister. Right before being hanged, he recites the Lord's Prayer, which is something a witch is not supposed to be able to do. I can't do it.

Wait, why didn't they all know that and start doing it?

I don't know.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Okay.

If you go to church like for three months, you'll know it by heart.

Then I won't.

Let's get it going.

In September, 18 more people are indicted. Among them is Giles Corey, whose wife Martha had also been accused. Giles and Martha are both older and both have pasts that are considered unbecoming to Puritans. Martha had a child out of wedlock who was possibly biracial. Before marrying Giles, Giles had in the past been accused of murdering a servant boy.

So they're like, here's a great way to just get rid of these anarchists. Yeah. When Martha has tried, several of her accusers are in the audience. Martha simply says that there is nothing to the accusations and they are just hysterical children. The accusers start mimicking Martha's movements, claiming she is controlling them. Martha, how do you fucking, how do you get them to?

It's like those little children are the ones possessed by the devil that are just like You're doing it to me.

Right. Right. You're the witches.

It's why so many horror movies are child-based.

Totally. Martha's found guilty and hanged. Giles then refuses to undergo a trial, and he is punished with an antiquated form of torture, being pressed between boards with heavy stones on top. It takes him two days to die.

Okay. Pressed between boards.

No. Or not.

Please hold. Okay. Because there's also the thing where there's like a big metal... Stretchy?

Pig.

That they put you inside of and then put a fire underneath.

I don't want fire. I would do anything to avoid fire.

That's a very witchy thing of you to say.

Just saying.

But what, stretched or pressed? Shit.

Have you seen that quote that's like, I bet that press does feel good for like one second. There's just got to be one second of that that's just like, ah.

It's the same thing. Someone tweeted this long ago when The Revenant came out, which is, I know that scene was really horrible, but for one second when a bear attacks you, I bet it feels so good. Hugging a bear.

Terrible. Awful. Terrible.

How else do we process these past realities? This really fucking happened.

Truly, truly. He's the only accused witch to die from something other than hanging or in prison awaiting trial. At the end of October, the governor of the Providence of Massachusetts Bay, remember, now appointed by England instead of chosen by the Puritans, steps in and dissolves the court that had been established to hear the cases and instead instates a different court to hear the rest of the cases.

These trials resume in January and February, so a year after the initial accusations. But of 56 remaining people who are indicted, only three are convicted and they are pardoned by the governor in May. So if someone fucking steps in with some Basic common sense.

It's almost like they were like, oh, you know that thing that the Spaniards wouldn't stop doing for 300 years?

It broke back out.

In the colonies. It broke out again.

How do we spin this?

Now, if we go straight at them, they're going to be like, no, no, no, we're right.

Now you're from the devil. Totally.

Come back around and act like we like it.

We need a crisis PR manager immediately.

And that's the person who invented jack-o'-lanterns.

The people who were canceling people got canceled.

That's right.

And it's just a circle. It's a snake eating its own tail.

This whole cancellation culture.

You mean you hate waffles? Did you see that?

Is that one of those things where you post something about loving pancakes?

I love pancakes. Oh, so you hate waffles. Does that mean you hate waffles?

Or the person that's like, I'm blind. I've never seen a pancake.

What if you don't like beans? That's my favorite one. Okay. In the end, 19 people have been hanged, five died in custody, and Giles had been pressed to death. Ultimately, Tituba, who still hadn't been tried, is among those let out of prison. There's no record of her or her husband, John, in Salem after 1693. I bet. Because goodbye. Bye there.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Bye. Okay, let's talk about theories, takeaways. Historians still disagree on why this happened in the first place. And if there was a physiological cause... for at least some of the symptoms experienced by the accusers. Some have posited that it may have been ergot poisoning, remember, which we've talked about before, which has come up in the case of the dancing plague of 1518, as well as in another Halloween episode when you covered the great famine of 1315.

Great job.

Thank you.

Ergot poisoning comes from a fungus that can grow on grain and can cause muscle spasms, delusions, and hallucinations. And this brings us to the My Favorite Murder Gmail account. Everyone who listens to this is related to someone.

Dr. Maureen Urgot writing in from the Urgot Center.

Okay, this is a 2020 email.

Shit.

The title is Salem Historian here. And this is after we've read the thing about Urgot poisoning or like it being something causing it. Yeah. Salem Historian here. The magic mushroom theory is false. Sorry to be this asshole.

Yeah. Never, never.

So I'm going to just read you this part of it.

Sorry to be this asshole.

Hi, ladies, Stephen and pets. I'm a huge fan of the podcast and always look forward to the listener submissions. I hate to be this person, but I just listened to the story about the magic mushroom slash ergot poisoning theory of the Salem witch trials. And as a Salem witch trials historian in Massachusetts, I felt compelled and obligated to write in about this.

Thank you.

This is a theory that we who work in Salem have not only been hearing for decades, but been trying to squash since its inception. The most reputable Salem scholars who have dedicated their life's work are all in strong, all caps, agreement that this theory has no sound basis in evidence whatsoever and has long since been debunked. There are a multitude of reasons why it's not plausible, and I will list some of them, but feel free to cut the list portion out for time if you feel that's necessary. I did. And instead, just take my word.

We do. Okay.

I want to hear that list, though, privately.

In the fan cult or whatever. It's everything we know. Yeah, right.

Oh, okay.

And the word of everyone in Salem who studies and educates about the witch trials, that it is a myth. Again, so sorry to be the asshole. I just want to make sure that facts are always being spread whenever possible. Please forgive. Thank you for all you do. Stay sexy and read some great texts on the Salem witch trials. A. A, you weren't an asshole until that last night. We don't know how to read.

First of all, this is just a talking podcast. But never apologize because thank you so much. Oh, yeah.

That's what this podcast, like, that's the legs of this podcast.

We need you.

Yeah.

The rest of all the other audience is like, don't worry about it. Let them know.

I think it's okay that everyone tells us when we're wrong because it's just women telling us when we're wrong. That's right. Not men mansplaining us.

That's right.

Barstool sportsing us or whatever. OK, so other historians point to known grudges between the families that accused each other. This is what I believe. It is highly likely that some of the accusers, many of whom were young women, had been abused, perhaps some by the men whom they accused. People especially wonder this about John Proctor, who said some questionable things about his young servant who had accused him and his wife. He had outwardly mentioned beating her, but he made remarks that vaguely suggest sexual abuse as well.

Others say that, like the dancing plague, this was an instance of mass psychogenetic illness when incredibly stressful life circumstances manifest themselves in physical symptoms. This is the main working theory behind the dancing plague as well. It seems like for a lot of these people, there were land disputes and money disputes, and the greatest way to get rid of the next person in line to inherit something is to accuse them of being a witch. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Then they're just like, In a month or two, they'll be hanged and get that land to ourselves.

Exactly. And if you don't do it first, they're going to do it.

Yeah.

In the years following the trials, many of the families of those found guilty pushed for exonerations. By 1694, most people in Salem are horrified by what has happened. Oops.

I mean, too late.

Where were you? They all seemed to realize that a paranoia had taken hold and that they had sacrificed the rights and freedoms that were unique to Massachusetts for a hysteria they no longer really believed in. Or if they believe something, it's that the devil had been at work, but this work. ironically, had been to turn the people of Salem against each other. Samuel Parris, whose daughter and niece were the first to complain of witchcraft. Complain of witchcraft.

I can't go to school today. I have witchcraft.

I've been a bitch about witchcraft all week.

That's right. My witchcraft is coming on real strong this month. Formally apologizes for his role in the trials just a year later. Bro. Saying Satan had deluded him. Can you stop bringing.

If you feel so strongly about it.

It's possible he does this because of genuine contrition, but it's also likely that he does this because his congregation is deeply angry at him and he's in danger of being fired. Ultimately, he is pressured to resign a few years later. Today, Salem is home to a booming tourism industry. Have you been?

I never have. I really want to.

Same. Including at least 10 different crystal shops and a very moving monorail. to those who were killed. Right off the main drag, there are a series of 20 granite benches protruding from an old stone wall, each inscribed with the name of a person who was executed. And that is the story of the Salem Witch Trials, the deadliest outbreak of witchcraft panic on American soil. And we never have to talk about it again.

And now stop bringing it up. That was awesome.

I can't believe we haven't done that in 10 and a half, 11 almost years.

I know. We were by ourselves for a long time. We were very alone. That is crazy. And so the TikTok I just saw that I really loved was this guy talking about how there are these theories that kind of like the overseers, leaders, royalty, whoever is in charge, usually a lot of men. Mm-hmm. Understood that if you go in and start killing women in a community, it divides the community and then you can control them better.

You can keep, you know, people don't get together and all say we won't work for your low rate, blah, blah, blah, the different things, which I just thought was kind of interesting. And often it's like, yeah, those women are the outsiders, but they're the ones who know medicine. They're the ones you go to when something happens and they have answers. Totally.

Like disempowering, you know, I'm sure there are enslaved people who are like, oh, put this poultice on here and it heals in a week because it's actually aloe vera, a thing no one knows what it is.

Or the women who are like living outside of the men's rules. Let's like set an example and show women what happens when you do that.

That's right.

By punishing them. So don't even try it.

But you're filled with the devil if you somehow just want an apartment. And a boyfriend. Just a studio apartment, you know?

And a fuckboy. A fuckboy. Or two.

Or two, or a fuckgirl, or just to have people out of your fucking business. All those things are not allowed. Get back into the kitchen.

Yeah. All right.

Well, if you're from Salem and you have anything to say about those theories, we'd love to discuss further.

Yes.

That was great.

Thank you.

Okay. Are you ready for my story?

I am absolutely ready for your Halloween story.

I now realize that our researchers, Maren and Allie, and our producer, Molly, they get up to it when they plan these out.

Yeah.

And I really appreciate it. Because as you were talking, I was just like.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Uh-oh. You're doing the Salem Witch Trials?

Yeah, I'm going to redo it, and I'm going to do it louder. No, today I'm going to tell you about a legendary ghost story from the late 1810s. It takes place in the rolling hills of north central Tennessee at the Kentucky border. The small town of Adams is about an hour drive from Nashville. Back in the 1810s, there wasn't much there aside from one lone church and a handful of family farms cut into the wilderness. So it wasn't called Adams. It was just this area. But it's where Adams is now. One of those farms is owned by a man in his 60s named John Bell.

John is originally from North Carolina. He moves to Tennessee about 10 years earlier after a series of bad harvests. He and his wife, Lucy, and all of their children, there will eventually be nine children, move to the area to start over, and they bring several enslaved laborers, which is what happened.

At the time.

On the backs of those men and women, John's new 320-acre Tennessee farm becomes prosperous. And so, of course, then he becomes known to his neighbors and in this community, and his success earns their respect. And then one afternoon in 1817, while John is looking out over his farmland, look at everything I built but didn't actually work on, he sees a strange animal sitting in his cornfield. He can't really tell. He thinks it must be some sort of a dog, except that it's very large and The more he looks at it, he sees that this creature has the head of a rabbit. So he pulls out his gun and fires. He's sure that he hit this animal, but the creature doesn't seem fazed at all, and it just gets up on its feet and then just scampers

out of the corn.

Easter bunny? No. Okay.

The devil bunny. Oh. Not long after, one of John's teenage sons, Drew, is walking near the house on the farm. When in the distance, he thinks he sees a wild turkey sitting on a fence. It's hard to tell, though, because it's far enough away that he's like not sure. So he runs inside the house to grab his gun.

Why it wasn't strapped to Drew's back, I don't know. But when he runs back out to shoot it, before he can fire, the creature spreads an enormous set of wings and its massive body rises into the sky and flies off. It was way too big to be a turkey. Drew has no idea what it actually was. Then John's youngest daughter, Betsy, who's 12 years old, is walking around on the farm when she sees something green dangling from the limb of a nearby oak tree. She walks toward it to get a closer look what could be green and hanging from this tree. When she gets close enough, she sees it's a little girl in a green dress hanging from a noose. Betsy runs into the house to get help. But when she brings everybody else from her

family back outside, there is nothing in the tree and the limb looks untouched like nothing.

Was ever there. Okay, creepy.

After this, the weird encounters stop. So the family just writes it all off as a series of strange coincidences. But it turns out this is just a lull because what happens next is known as one of the most famous hauntings in American history. This is the story of the legend of Tennessee's Bell Witch.

Okay, I don't know this at all. You don't? No.

Okay, there is a movie starring Donald Sutherland, and I can't remember who else, about this. And the part where Donald Sutherland looks off his porch and sees the fucking rabbit scared me in a way where I was like, oh, that was some sort of psychological thing that I don't know what. It's like a giant hair, but it's just looking at him, and it's the creepiest thing ever. What's the movie?

It's called The Bell Witch.

The movie is called An American... Haunting.

Haunting.

Oh, okay.

I've heard that. Yeah, yeah.

It's great. Okay, so the sources for today's story, and the first and main source, is the authenticated history of the famous Bell Witch by Martin Van Buren Ingram. And Bell Witch heads, this is what Marin wrote, Bell Witch heads know it as, quote, the Red Book because it has a bright red cover. It was published in 1894, and it's basically the backbone for the modern Bell Witch story. Mm-hmm.

Maren also references 2023's The Bell Witch in Myth and Memory by Rick Gregory. That author is decidedly skeptical of the Red Book's version of events. Then there's a PBS series called Monstrum, which now I want to watch. PBS's take on this kind of strikes a happy medium between the two. And the rest of the sources are in the show notes. So first we can just take a look at where in Tennessee this is taking place.

Yeah, I've got to know.

You love maps.

Oh, I see.

See, so we're up there.

Okay.

Get it?

I see. Tennessee looks like a puzzle piece. Yeah.

Tennessee. Let's take a look at the cabin where they lived. Just give you another sense, of course.

Of a drawing. Oh, it's kind of fancy.

Right?

It's big.

Eleven people in there, ultimately.

It's a lot.

And, of course, because the farm is successful, they could afford to get all those extra logs for the second story. So, just when the Bells think that all of those creepy encounters are behind them, the knocks begin.

No way.

They start getting knocks on the front door at night. But when they go to answer it, no one's there.

I don't like this.

Basically, it's like John would rush outside to see who was there. No one's there. Then the knocks start coming from the outside. So it sounds like people are running around the house, knocking around the house on the outside.

I don't like it.

Again, John runs outside. No one's there. Then strange things start happening inside the house. One of John's sons, Richard Bell... Documents these so-called disturbances, and basically his recollections are written into the Red Book. It's firsthand, but it becomes like a little bit telephone. But Richard started writing about it, and he describes a specific night where the Bell sons, they all share one bedroom, and they wake up to loud gnawing sounds.

Gnawing?

Yeah, like chewing, gnawing sounds. Gross. They light a candle thinking it's a rat like chewing at one of the bedposts. But the second that the candles lit, the noise stops. Richard was around six or seven years old at the time. And he remembers that, quote, when we would search for the rat in our room, the same noise would appear in Sister Betsy's chamber, disturbing her and arousing all the family.

And so it continued going from room to room, stopping when we are all up and commencing again as soon as we return to bed again. and was so exceedingly annoying that no one could sleep.

Okay, that could be a rat in the wall.

Could be a rat. In the coming days, weeks, and months, the Bell family experiences escalating harassment at the hands of something they cannot explain, understand, or see. And it's not just noises. The children are pinched and pushed over. They have their hair pulled at the scalp, and their bedding is yanked off in the night.

Which is a.

Classic horror movie like haunting thing where it's like ghosts have always been doing this since the 1800s. They love to yank your sheets. And then John suddenly develops a strange throat problem, which the Red Book describes as, quote, phlegm. like a small stick of wood was crosswise in his mouth, pressing out both cheeks.

God.

This feeling comes and goes at random. Oh, sorry, that's the end of the quote, both cheeks. This feeling comes and goes at random, and it's so painful that John struggles to eat or speak.

Fuck.

So that goes on for about a year. And no one outside the Bell household knows about it because John has told them all, stay quiet. I've got a new reputation. I'm upstanding in this community. He knows going public would be lose-lose because they either think he's crazy or they would actually believe him. And that's the scariest of all.

So it's the early 1800s in America. And that's a time when evangelical Christianity dominates American life even more so than today. John Bell is an elder at his church. Many preachers of this time talk openly about ghosts and demons in their weekly sermons. And even though it's been about 125 years since the Salem witch trials, there are still plenty of people who believe in folk magic and witchcraft, especially in the rural South. Some might suspect that the family is cursed. So whatever people think, insanity, a ghost, demon, or a witch, this is the kind of juicy gossip that's that can fuel a small-town rumor mill in perpetuity.

That's Maren's writing. Sometimes she'll put a sentence like that together, and I'm just like... Yes.

I've never heard you say perpetuity in all my life.

I just simply in perpetuity will never say it. So John doesn't want his family being gossiped about, obviously. But he reaches a breaking point with the stick in the mouth issue. It's making his life hell. And then not only is he under attack that way, his daughter Betsy is also under constant attack. Richard writes of Betsy, quote, her cheeks were frequently crimsoned as by a hard blow from an open hand. and her hair pulled until she would scream with pain. So about a year into this haunting, John finally confides in his reverend and close friend, James Johnston.

Reverend Johnston agrees to spend the night at the bell house to see for himself what's going on. Richard writes that before bed, the reverend, quote, prayed fervently and very earnestly for our deliverance from the frightful disturbance or that its origin, cause, and purpose might be revealed. And amen, everyone goes to bed. Mm-hmm. Richard writes, quote, the disturbance commenced as usual.

Good, because, like, if someone came and stayed and nothing happened, it would be so fucking annoying. Yeah, I know.

This demon's like, oh, the priest is here? It's wonderful. Let me put on a little bit of lipstick. So, quote, the disturbance commenced as usual, gnawing, scratching, knocking on the wall, overturning chairs, pulling the cover off beds, et cetera. Every act behind exhibited as if on purpose to show Mr.

Johnston what could be done.

Great. End quote.

So, and this is my line, the reverend is yea and verily freaked out. So the next morning... What?

Do you know those words?

Yea and verily is like a Bible thing that a reverend is always saying in like a play.

Never heard it. I love it. Yea and verily we go. And verily.

So the next morning, he tells John that they need to tell the rest of the community about this. So later at church, Johnston announces that the devil and his demons... have descended upon the bell farm. This is kind of like of that time where it's just everything is ripe for the picking. Everything is like, get the community together so we can talk about this. He was tick-tocking with that poor, poor community. But basically, like, ladies and gentlemen, the devil's here. It's everything we've been thinking about all this time. Richard will write, quote, all of our neighbors were invited and committees formed. Experiments tried. and a close watch kept in and out every night. But all of their wits were stifled, the demonstrations all while increasing in force,

end quote. So getting everybody involved wasn't like that thing of like, no, it's not happening or only when certain people, it's like full display every time, no matter who's around. So word begins to spread across Tennessee. And among the many people who are said to experience the paranormal activity at the Bell Farm, one of those people, is future President Andrew Jackson.

No way. Andy. Andy. Love it.

In the house. Bloody, bloody Andrew Jackson is here. AJ. Not the best. Not the best guy. At the time, he's around 50. He's a respected general, and he's familiar with the Bell family because one of their older sons had served under his command in the 1815 Battle of New Orleans just a couple years before. Jackson lives in Nashville, so when he hears about this haunting... He decides to hitch up the wagon with some friends and go to the Bell Farm and see what all the fuss is about.

When he arrives at the Bell Farm, his wagon comes to a strange and sudden stop as it rolls onto the property.

Like a grocery cart that you're trying to get out of the parking lot? Yes, exactly.

It's just stopping, but the wheels are horses. Jackson's horses pull with all their might, but the cart will not move. Jackson and his men inspect the carriage's wheels for any problems. There are none. Then Andrew Jackson and his group hear a disembodied voice mockingly call out, quote, all right, General, let the wagon move on. I will see you again tonight.

End quote. No, no disembodied voices, please. Yeah.

And I guess witnessed now, but this is the telephone of history. So who knows?

Were telephones invented?

Yeah, they were made of corn cobs and they didn't work at all. Yeah. But essentially, this is the kind of thing where like a disembodied voice speaks and people talk about the disembodied voice speaking.

Yeah.

Often.

Okay.

Which is next level for hauntings, you know, that we've heard of. So that night, Jackson and his party attempt to sleep in the bell home, but they are subjected to the same poltergeist-like activity. It leaves Jackson so disturbed that the next morning he says, quote, I would rather fight the British again than have any more dealings with that torment.

End quote. Damn. So. Huge diss.

He's like, literal war is better than this.

Bye.

Now, two big things that start happening as more people hear about the haunting at Bell Farm. One is other residents of the area begin to report their own experiences of paranormal activity, not only in their homes, but in town, even at church. And then the second thing is that the entity starts talking all the time to anyone in town.

So it's a woman.

Shut her up. It mocks people. Well, it kind of is. It's the bell witch. It mocks people indiscriminately. If it's feeling nice, it'll sing songs or recite scripture or repeat other pastors' sermons word for word from, like, adjoining or like surrounding does it.

Too i'm not hitting you why are you hitting yourself why are you hitting yourself why are you hitting yourself really annoying so fucking annoying so the entity has become the entire community's problem at this point but at the bell farm john and his.

Daughter betsy are particularly abused by it betsy wakes up in the night feeling like she's been punched in the chest or she finds burrs matted in her long hair a piece of writing attributed to betsy and shared by the Bell's descendants years after the haunting, says, quote, so this is supposedly what Betsy wrote, quote, when the spirit became so tantalizing, filling my mind with horror and causing me to become so nervous, my parents often sent me to a neighbor's to rest for a night. My first night away from home was spent with Feeny Thorne. That's her best friend, Feeny Thorne.

Cute.

Feeny Thorne and Betsy Bell.

Betsy Bell and Feeny Thorne? Mm-hmm. That's adorable.

Called the devil into them.

Okay, so my first night away from home was spent with Theney Thorne. When we retired, there came a loud knocking on our outside door, which seemed to fly open and a great gust of wind was felt. Theney sprang up at once and lit a candle. To our surprise, the door was not open. Then a voice spoke softly, quote within the quote, Betsy, you should have not come over here. You know I can follow you anywhere. Now get a good night's sleep.

Then he's like, we're not friends anymore.

Then he's like, I don't know you. I'm so sorry to this man. I do not know this man.

That is so creepy.

A soft hand patted my cheek. We're still in the quote. A soft hand patted my cheek and the voice again assured us that we would not be disturbed anymore that night.

That's nice.

So we have a drawing of Betsy Bell.

Oh, she looks fucking hairy like she has not had a good night's sleep in a long time.

Betsy Bell is like, will you please help me? Listen. Listen. But also, I would wear that and I would have that hair.

It would be fun.

The entity is so intrusive in Betsy's life that it even influences who she decides to marry. So before the haunting started, she was engaged to her childhood sweetheart and the boy next door, Joshua Gardner. But the entity seems dead set on ruining this relationship. It follows them around, harassing them, and that leads Betsy to break off the engagement.

And then when she's 15... She marries her much older former school teacher, Richard Powell, instead.

Richard's the ghost.

I mean.

Okay, that's a weird matchmaking trend.

It's interesting and, yes, it's that kind of, I wonder if there's a piece of it that's like, Betsy's like, I don't want my one true love, Joshua Gardner, to be subjected to this.

So I'm going to marry an old dude.

So creepy old Richard Powell. You're next. Okay, so all of this reaches its apex essentially in December of 1820 when John Bell, who is now around 70 years old, becomes bedridden and then dies in his sleep. At first, the family attributes John's death to the entity's unending torment, all the stress and pain it's caused him over the last three years. But then the family finds a strange vial near his bed. No one knows where it came from.

So the Bells call out to the entity asking if it knows. The disembodied voice tells them, quote, I put it there and gave old Jack a big dose of it last night while he was asleep, end quote. So then the Bell sons decide they're going to test out what this liquid is. You're not going to like this part. Yeah.

Warning to our audience. They give a few drops to a stray cat.

Oh, come on.

You knew. That cat dies, sadly. So they throw the vial into the fireplace. And per Richard, quote, Instantly, a blue blaze shot up the chimney like a flash of powder, end quote. So one very famous poison that turns blue when it's burned is arsenic. Here's John Bell's deathbed. And this is kind of like all the stuff that was going on around it.

That poor cat.

I know. There's a human being back there, though.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So reportedly, the entity attends John's funeral. It is... in the crowd of mourners, singing jolly drinking songs. What?

Yeah. This is getting, like, comical, kind of, except for the dead guy.

It's crazy. Like, the idea that everybody in, like, this little town has to deal with, like, a haunting. Yeah. It's very, it breaks the, like, horror movie genre.

The subtlety of a haunting.

Yeah. It's not surprising where you're just like, no one's going, oh! Right.

You think you're going crazy. It's like, everyone's like, no, it's totally true.

Just let it finish the song. So later, Richard will write that the entity, quote, remained with us after father's death through the winter and spring of 1821, all the while diminishing or becoming less demonstrative. Finally, it took leave of the family, end quote. Almost immediately, the story of the haunting at the Bell Farm, it becomes entrenched in Tennessee lore, and then it spreads to neighboring states. In the 1860s, it's even said to have factored into a murder case in Tennessee in as two defendants claim that they killed their victim because he claimed to have powers given to him by the same entity that haunted the Bell Farm. Both of these defendants are acquitted.

No.

Mm-hmm. It works.

Okay.

Over the years, this story has become nationally famous, documented, or dramatized in papers, on the radio, in books, in movies. It's said to be one of the inspirations behind the Blair Witch Project.

Oh, okay.

And there are several supernatural theories trying to explain what exactly happened at the Bell Farm. They are recorded in the Red Book. Some theorize that the haunting was instigated by a burial site that was disturbed. Classic.

Classic.

Poltergeist. Perhaps unknowingly when the Bells started their farm in Tennessee. Another involves a neighbor woman named Kate Batts.

Okay.

This is where I was like, oh, a little reality.

Injected in here. Yeah, that's what I want.

So Kate Batts was the Bell's neighbor, and John and Kate had been fighting over a property dispute for years before the hauntings began.

Come on.

The idea that Kate created this situation with witchcraft just to ruin John's life is so pervasive that in the Red Book, the entity is called Kate, and that's why it's called the Bell Witch, is that it's her. Wow. Yes.

Yes.

So that's how it's just like so.

Could she just have done it without anything supernatural?

Yeah. Just somehow she's like, if I get this tube, it goes into their house and they think it's a disembodied thing.

Because there's something on his bedside like that she forgot to take with her after she killed him. And she's like, oh, yeah, it's.

The vial of arsenic.

Yeah.

And it has to run back to the tube to the corn cob and be like, I left that there on purpose.

Don't kill cats, though, please.

Stop.

Not that one.

Don't just hand it out to cats. Okay, so this is more than a century since the Salem witch trials, but the habit of labeling unorthodox women as witches is an American trend.

Classic.

Kate is a transplant from the North. So she's an outsider in Tennessee. She's not stereotypically ladylike. She's large. She's strong. She's stubborn. And she's a shrewd business owner. Amen.

Kill her.

Kill her. After her husband dies, she has to manage the family farm while raising three kids alone. She does all of it and retains the family wealth. An amazing feat for a woman with the odds stacked against her. And so, of course, she's a fucking witch.

She's a fucking witch.

She's a witch. And then who's going to get the money in the farmland once she's the witch? But some people wonder if John Bell was poisoned, not by an entity, not by an angry neighbor, but by someone in the family.

Sure.

Or a so-called friend, or one of the many enslaved men or women that he kept enslaved.

When it could be multiple people that did that to you, you got to check yourself.

People also theorize whether or not Betsy, the daughter herself, was behind the most notorious disturbances, faking her own abuse. And speaking as the disembodied voice through acting, stunt work, ventriloquism, whatever she figured out. There's also a theory it was the former teacher, Richard Powell, hoping to drive a wedge between Betsy and her true love so he could marry her.

A more modern theory is the domestic violence theory. Yeah. Because no one could confront the monster directly. They created and then scapegoated a boogeyman.

Yeah.

These days, an important part of the Bell Witch lore is the Red Book itself, which was published 70 years after The Haunting, so relatively soon after. Its author was a newspaper man named Martin Van Buren Ingram. He was from Tennessee. He knew the Bell Witch story, and he decided to investigate its authenticity himself. In the early 1890s, he interviewed the living descendants of all the people involved because no one who had experienced The Haunting firsthand was still alive. Mm-hmm. So details shift depending on the storyteller and their proximity to the action. Over time, the facts get distorted. They get added to. They get embellished. So the Red Book is like as factual as they could have been 70 years out, essentially. But Martin Ingram maintained

that the son of Richard Bell, a Tennessee state representative named James Allen Bell, gave him Richard's manuscript detailing the haunting. So as first person as possible. Yeah. But the manuscript itself has never publicly surfaced. What we do have is a signed letter from James acknowledging its existence. In the same letter, which is included in the Red Book, James says he suspect his father wrote the manuscript decades after the haunting, wishing to document everything for posterity, and that when his father handed it over, he urged James not to make it public until every member of the family who had been there for the haunting firsthand died. Mm-hmm.

So the last bell child died in 1890, and in 1891, Ingram said he received a manuscript.

So that tracks. Got it.

The takeaway here is probably less about proving whether or not this story is true. Right. And more that it's what historian Rick Gregory describes as a, quote, jigsaw puzzle formed by memory, gossip, folklore, and that somewhere in there, the truth is hiding. This month in Adams, Tennessee, now that it's a real town— They celebrate the Bell Witch Fall Festival all month long. Fun. Where paranormal enthusiasts descend upon a small town to visit a replica of the house, which they built. Looky. No way.

Yes.

So you can go there and you can look at the replica. And then they also go to a nearby cave because there's a cave near the house where the entity was supposed to have originated from and where it returned to once the hauntings ended. Okay. There... People have reported hearing voices and knocks, feeling temperature drops, and having the unsettling feeling of being watched by something. In a cave.

Security camera.

Oh. They're like, oh, they put these flock cameras up a while ago. Don't worry about those. Anyway, that's the legend of Tennessee's Bell Witch.

I don't know anything about that.

Really?

Yeah.

Can we just really quick see Betsy Bell again? Just real quick. Imagine this is the only picture of you left in history. It's just like, so on the day I got married and I looked real pretty and I had like cherry juice on my cheeks.

Yeah. No one. Couldn't have snapped a.

After year three.

Snapped a portrait. What?

Snapped a quick illustration.

But no. Her shoes on the ground and her combs on the ground.

She's just like throwing shit down.

Amazing. All right. You've done it. We did it. That was a fucking solid Halloween special.

I don't know what people want from us if that wasn't what they want from us.

We do so much all year round, and this one special day, we can't.

We just asked for your approval in one day, and the answer's no? Wait, you're saying it is yes?

Okay, we're going to haunt you then.

On Netflix.

Congratulations. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered.

Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our managing producer is Molly Smith.

Our consulting producer is Kate Schellenbach.

Our creative lead is Allison Agosti.

Our associate producer is Tessa Hughes and our editor is Eris Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.

Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.

Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Or watch new episodes every week on Netflix. Search for My Favorite Murder, add us to your list, and hit the double thumbs up button. Goodbye.

556 - The Halloween Special

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