Amityville: 35 Years SInce the DeFeo Murders

This coming Friday the 13th will mark the 35th anniversary of the infamous night that 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. stumbled into a bar near his home asking for help and stating that he thought his parents had been shot. He assembled a small group of people and led them back to his family's house. A horrific scene awaited them -- not only had his parents been shot, Ronald's four young brothers and sisters (ranging in age from 18 to 9) had been murdered as well. All of the family members had been shot as they lay sleeping in their beds. Ron DeFeo suggested that the murders were mob related, but confessed to the murders the following day when details in his story unraveled.

Oddly, all six members of the family were slain while laying face down in their beds, with no signs of any of them waking up from the sound of a rifle going off. Neighbors also did not report hearing the sound of the rifle despite evidence that a silencer wasn't used. Toxicology reports on the slain family failed to reveal the presence of any sedatives that could have kept the family asleep during the murders. Ronald Defeo's ever-changing claims about the murders have at times included accounts in which he had accomplices -- including his own 18-year-old sister (herself one of the victims), but there has never been solid evidence to show that anyone else but Ronald had been involved. Some believe that this strange aspect of the DeFeo murders points to Ronald having assistance in his crimes from a supernatural force.

Indeed, a little over a year later the Lutz family moved into the murder house and lasted only a mere 28 days in the home before fleeing it. Their tales of demonic haunting in the home led to the book The Amityville Horror (which in turn led to a book and film franchise), increasing the infamy of the former DeFeo house.

Ronald Defeo was convicted on all six counts of second degree murder and given six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. He is incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, New York. DeFeo has been eligable for parole for nearly a decade, but has been turned down for it each time he has applied. His family was buried in nearby Saint Charles Cemetery (see Saint Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY).

Did DeFeo have accomplices in murdering his family? Are there people wandering free who helped him shoot his parents and younger siblings? Or was Ronald's accomplice something even more sinister and intangeable in nature?


Visit the Amityville Horror House and learn more about the controversies surrounding the home. You can also use Street View on our map to see the house as it appears today.


-Tom G

The Manson Murders on Cielo Drive: 40 Years Later

Today marks the 40th Anniversary for one of the world's most notorious crimes in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills, California. On August 9, 1969, housekeeper Winifred Chapman arrived to work at 10050 Cielo Drive and discovered the bodies of Sharon Tate (actress and wife of director Roman Polanski), Jay Sebring (famed hairstylist to the stars), Abigail Folger (heiress to the Folger coffee fortune), Voytek Frykowski (writer and boyfriend of Folger's), and Steven Parent (a local teenager who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) brutally massacred. The murders, coupled with a similarly savage slaying the following evening resulted in a massive paranoia that took over much of Hollywood and the Los Angeles-area and a months-long investigation to find the killers. When the suspects were apprehended, the case only got stranger. The world was introduced to Charles Manson and his band of followers, known as the Family, and their apocalyptic vision of "Helter Skelter."

The murders were conducted that evening by Manson Family members, Charles "Tex" Watson, Susan "Sadie Mae Glutz" Atkins, Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian. The grisly crime propelled 10050 Cielo Drive into the collective memory of the world and made it one of the most infamous properties in the Los Angeles area – A property that continues to see curious onlookers 40 years later. While it may seem rather strange to some that a "crime scene" would continue to attract that kind of interest, there's more to 10050 (later changed to 10066) Cielo Drive than meets the eye. I've recently updated our article on the property and looked at its history from its early days through the crime and beyond and it is easy to see why the site remains one of the most popular stops for out-of-town tourists. As a matter of fact, Tom and I are in the process of expanding all of our Manson Family coverage – from locations we currently cover to countless additional stops associated to the Family and their horrific crime spree.

Read up on 10050 Cielo Drive where the world was introduced to the Manson Family.

-Casey H.

The Mad Dog Killers of Mansfield Reformatory

Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio might be better known by its unofficial name, Mansfield Reformatory. The former reformatory is renowned for its paranormal activity and spooky appearance, which has led many to dub the facility, "Dracula's Castle." Today, it is known in the paranormal field as something of an ideal training grounds for would-be ghost hunters to learn the tools of the trade. After all, the prison is steeped in legends of past inmate violence and other notorious goings-on. In fact, sometimes it is quite difficult to separate the legend from reality, For example, it is not uncommon to hear that the Ohio State Reformatory housed the worst of the worst in the state of Ohio. In reality, it was an intermediate facility whose inmates were those too old to serve in a juvenile detention center, yet too young for the hard life awaiting them at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. That's not say that the facility did not have its bad apples and bloodshed. In fact, today is the anniversary of one of the reformatory's most notorious crimes.

July 21, 1948 marked the start of a two-week crime spree that would take the lives of six innocent civilians and spread fear throughout the community. Interestingly, the crimes were sparked not by inmates then serving time, but rather two men who had recently been paroled. On this day 61 years ago, Robert Daniels and John West returned to Ohio State Reformatory to enact revenge on an employee of the prison. When that individual could not be located, the two men went to the home of the prison's farm superintendent and kidnapped the man, his wife and his daughter. They took the three souls to a nearby cornfield and executed them in cold blood. As it turned out, the crime spree had only just begun and it would last for two weeks longer until it ended in a shootout with West dead and Daniels in handcuffs. Robert Daniels would ultimately be executed for the crimes, for which the press dubbed the men the "Mad Dog Killers."

Read more of the history and the stories of ghostly activity at the Ohio State Reformatory.

-Casey H.

The Sentencing of Chante Mallard

On June 27, 2003 former nurse's aid Chante Mallard was sentenced to fifty years in prison for the death of Gregory Biggs. The case for which she had been tried is infamously known as the Windshield Murder. On October 26, 2001, Mallard struck Biggs with her vehicle. The unfortunate victim became lodged in the winshield of her car. Under the influence of alchohol and possibly other substances, Mallard decided not to report the accident and drove home. Mallard then apparently left the poor injured man trapped in her garage where he finally died.

The tale of Gregory Bigg's miserable death quickly circulated among the public, however with many false details and even led to a film in 2007 (Stuck) that is loosely based on the rumors surrounding the case. These tales excentuate the cruelty of Mallard by having Biggs lingering for days in her garage as Mallard coldly alternates between ignoring the man and plotting how to dispose of him. This is known to be false, in that Gregory Biggs was revealed through forensics and testimony to have died within hours of the accident.

Accomplices of Mallard's dumped the corpse of Gregory Biggs in nearby Cobb Park. The park has been the scene of many crimes and has been a dumping ground for murder and rape victims on multiple occasions. Many of the crimes remain unsolved. Luckily in the case of the murder of Gregory Biggs, the people responsible were put on trial and are facing the punishment meted out by the court system.


Click here to learn more details about the Windshield Murder case and other crimes associated with Cobb Park.


-Tom G

The Incarceration of a Wild Bunch Member

112 years ago on this date, Henry "Bub" Meeks was arrested in Fort Bridget, Wyoming. While initially charged with a robbery charge, the authorities were more interested in Meeks for a crime that had been committed in the state of Idaho. Just under a year before his arrest, it was alleged that Meeks, together with Wild Bunch gang members Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay, had held up a bank in Montpelier, Idaho. Unfortunately for Meeks, he had been designated lookout on the heist and as such, did not wear a bandana over his face. Since Cassidy and Lay both entered the bank and held it up, they did although it was generally well acknowledged that the bank had been hit by the "famous" Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

Due to the easy identification, Meeks was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to serve time at the Old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise. During his stay, Meeks made two failed escape attempts. For his efforts in his last attempt, he received a bullet in the leg that later required amputation. Now severely handicapped, he turned to attempting suicide to escape the prison's walls. In one of the cases, he managed to climb a 35-foot wall and made a dramatic leap to his supposed demise. He received only minor injuries. The story of Meeks did not end there and he is only one of many stories of the Old Idaho Penitentiary.

Click here to read more.

-Casey H.

The Other Tragedy at Ford's Theatre

Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. has a long and storied history. Originally built as the home to the First Baptist Church of Washington in 1833, it was converted to the theater, Ford's Athenaeum in 1861 after being purchased by John T. Ford. After a fire necessitated a rebuild, it reopened as the infamous Ford's Theatre. It served in this capacity when its place in history would be forever cemented with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 as he attended a play inside the theater.

While most people know Ford's Theatre as the site of Lincoln's assassination, few know of another tragedy that struck the building years later. After serving as the site of various government-related offices over the years, Ford's Theatre had become the clerk's office for the War Department by 1893. On June 9th of that year, tragedy would once again rear its head at Ford's Theatre. On that day, the front of the building collapsed and 22 people lost their lives, while another 68 were gravely injured. Given the amount of lives that were lost, including the high profile assassination of Abraham Lincoln, gossip began to circulate that the theater was forever cursed and the superstitions necessitated its transformation into a government warehouse.

Ford's Theater has avoided any further tragedies to this date and has since been re-opened as a theater and museum to the life (and death) of Lincoln. While the talks of a curse seem to have subsided, there are still rumors of ghosts and paranormal activity haunting the facility to this day. In fact, stories persist that Lincoln's assassination still plays out in paranormal form from time to time inside the historic building.

Read more stories of the historic Ford's Theatre.

-Casey H.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown

In 1972, director Charles B. Pierce made a splash with the surprise success of the low budget film, The Legend of Boggy Creek. The movie was presented in a docudrama format and detailed the legend of the so-called Fouke Monster in Boggy Creek just outside Fouke, Arkansas (see Boggy Creek, Arkansas). Pierce lived nearby in Texarkana, Texas and had formerly worked as an advertising salesman before his venture into filmmaking. The Legend of Boggy Creek grossed around $20 million and its gritty documentary-style approach unnerved theatergoers in drive-ins around the country.

In early-1977, Pierce would again return to the docudrama format for the horror film, The Town that Dreaded Sundown. Like The Legend of Boggy Creek, the new film played off another local legend in the area - The Moonlight Murders. The story dated back to early-1946 when the so-called Phantom Killer tormented the city of Texarkana, Texas over a period of a couple months. It started on February 22 with an attack that left two young adults injured but alive. Over the next two months (see March 24 and April 14), four more people were killed at the hands of the unknown assailant and police were desperate for leads. The Phantom Killer struck one more time (this time just across the border in Arkansas) on May 3 that left one victim dead and another in serious condition. The killer was never caught.

The events of 1946 were framed as a pseudo-documentary for The Town that Dreaded Sundown and followed a Texas Ranger as he attempted to crack the case. Much like the realness of The Legend of Boggy Creek caught viewers off-guard, the docudrama approach (complete with a narrator) chilled viewers across the world for Pierce's take on the infamous murders of Texarkana. Today, The Town that Dreaded Sundown is considered a minor cult classic.

-Casey H.

The Demolition of the Sylvia Likens House

We just received notice that the house in Indiana where Sylvia Likens was slain (see The Sylvia Likens House) is currently being demolished. The demolition which started on April 23rd, is going to allow a local church to build a parking lot in its place. The change has come as a relief to some in the neighborhood, both because the house had become a site of recent illegal activity and because it served as a painful reminder of the horrifying abuse that happened there in the 1960s. The murder case had re-emerged into the national consciousness in recent years thanks to the films An American Crime (2007) and Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (2007), reminding people of the horrible things that can happen when people who witness abuse fail to report it to authorities and instead allow it to escalate.

The city of Indianapolis erected a memorial to Sylvia Likens in 2001. The back of the memorial bears a message about how the death of Sylvia Likens caused a change in laws in an attempt to prevent the same thing from happening again. It also bears a promise of vigilance by the Indianapolis Police Department in matters of child protection. The memorial stands in a peaceful clearing in a local park where visitors can reflect on the incident and the lessons learned from it.

Pay your respects at the Sylvia Likens Memorial.

-Tom G

Murder in a Haunted Mansion

Three years ago today, the FBI searched the Charles Kreischer House for evidence of a murder committed on the property. The historical mansion has long been the site of reported paranormal activity. Mysterious disembodied sounds are said to be heard echoing through the Kreischer mansion's halls in the darkest hours of the night. People have reported seeing apparitions of both a man and a woman in 19^th century clothing wandering about the largely unoccupied rooms of the old manse. These days the house serves as home only to a caretaker, charged with maintaining the home which once belonged to a prominent local family. It is because of a former caretaker with mafia ties that the FBI came to pay a visit upon the Charles Kreischer House.

Joseph Young, the caretaker in question, lured a fellow mob associate to the mansion where Young and his cohorts lay in ambush. The victim, Robert McKelvey, had made the mistakes of owing money to the wrong person and talking a bit too loosely about his exploits with the Bonnano crime family. In spring of 2005, McKelvey paid for his mistakes with his life. He didn't readily accept his fate, fighting until the last; McKelvey was beaten, stabbed, strangled and drowned before he finally expired... and then crime got even more gruesome as Young and his accomplices set about the grisly task of disposing of McKelvey's remains within the mansion. Recently, on March 13, 2009 (a Friday the 13^th), Joseph Young was sentenced to life in prison for multiple crimes, including the murder of Robert McKelvey.

Some have wondered if the murder of Mckelvey added yet another lingering spirit to the dusty old corridors of the Charles Kreischer House.

Pay a visit to the Charles Kreischer House and learn about two other deaths connected with the mansion (one of them was less than a year ago).

-Tom G

The Haunted Tales of the S.S. Yongala

In 1923, two men were out fishing near Holbourne Island in Queensland, Australia. To their surprise, a ship emerged from a distance that was on course to pass the island. They described it as a passenger steamship that was covered in barnacles and rust. When it passed the island, the men waited for the steamship to emerge from the other side, but it never did. They immediately went looking for it, but found that it had completely vanished. Unnerved, they returned to dock and told others of what they had seen. They apparently had little doubt that the ship they had seen was the S.S. Yongala. The problem was that the S.S. Yongala had disappeared without a trace 12 years earlier.

The S.S. Yongala would eventually be discovered to the north of Holbourne Island in 1958. The general consensus is that the ship encountered a cyclone on or close to March 23, 1911 while carrying over 120 people. All of the passengers and crew are believed to have gone down with the ship. Today, the wreck of the S.S. Yongala is a popular scuba diving and is protected as a recognized artificial reef. As it turned out, the 1923 encounter is not the only reported supernatural claim associated with the ship (see the link below). Nor was it the last time the ship would be in the news.

Most recently, the shipwreck has been in the news after the scuba diving death of American Tina Watson at the site on her honeymoon in October 2003. Just last year, Australian officials issued an arrest warrant and request to extradite her husband, Gabe Watson, who they believe played a role in her drowning. To date, Watson and his attorney have fought the extradition and Watson failed to show at the start of the trial in February of this year. Australian authorities are now planning their next move.

Read the stories of the Wreck of the S.S. Yongala.

-Casey H.

The "Two" Execution(s) of Orville Paul Adkins

On this date in 1938, the state of West Virginia carried out the execution of kidnapper/murderer, Orville (sometimes spelled Arvil) Paul Adkins, at the West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville. He was led to the gallows inside a building known as North Wagon Gate and the trapdoor was sprung... not once, but twice.

Adkins received this ultimate punishment following his role in the kidnapping of one Dr. James I. Seden in Hunnington, an evangelical minister and missionary to Japan. After his abduction, Adkins and two other men led Seden to an abandoned mine, left him, and sent a ransom note to his family. Seden was later discovered alive, but suffering from pneumonia and partial paralysis from which he would later die in the hospital. All three men quickly confessed to the crime and were sentenced to death. The sentence on all three would be carried out on March 21, 1938 at the prison.

While the other two executions went smoothly, something went amiss when Adkins was led on to the trapdoor. Before the noose could be securely placed around his neck, the trapdoor was sprung and Adkins fell headfirst onto the concrete floor below. Prison officials, still stung by a hanging only seven years earlier that resulted in the accidental decapitation of a prisoner, acted quickly. Guards loaded the severely injured Adkins on to a stretcher, carried him back up the stairs, and he was again placed on the trapdoor. With the noose securely around his neck, the trapdoor was sprung for a second time. Today, many claim that Adkins is one of the many ghosts that are said to haunt North Wagon Gate in the former prison that is notorious for its alleged haunting.

Read more stories of the supernatural at West Virginia Penitentiary.

-Casey H.

Highball's Ghost and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

This past Saturday marked 80 years since the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Seven men were murdered in the garage of the SMC Cartage Company that day and the crime officially remains unsolved to this day. The only witness to the actual crime to survive was a German Shepherd dog named "Highball." The pet of one of the victims, the dog was discovered by police, cowering beneath a truck and howling in fear. One of the supernatural tales connected with the crime holds that on some nights passerby can still hear the howls of the long dead canine in the spot where the garage once stood.

Click here to learn more.

-Tom G

The Death of Idaho's Lady Bluebeard

On this date in 1958, a woman in Salt Lake City, Utah suffered a heart attack and died. Her body was brought back to her home state of Idaho and buried in the Sunset Memorial Park in Twin Falls under the name of "Anna E. Shaw." On the surface, this was a fairly normal story. However, this woman was far from ordinary.

She was better known as Lyda Southard, who was convicted of murdering her husband Edward Meyer and sentenced to 20 years in the Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise (see Old Idaho Penitentiary). Of course, that was the murder she was convicted of. The authorities were convinced that she was responsible for five more, including the death of her daughter and a brother-in-law. Like Meyer, the other three bodies were those of Lyda's three husbands. The motive was plain and simple - insurance money. The method - Boiling flypaper and extracting the arsenic, which she then fed to them in their meals (known colorfully today as Lyda Southard's Famous Apple Pie).

Lyda Southard married a total of seven times. What happened to the other husbands? Well, none of them attended her funeral.

Read more about Lyda and Sunset Memorial Park on Dark Destinations.

-Casey H.

"But where, O where is her head?"

Today marks the 112th anniversary of the discovery of the body of Pearl Bryan. The murder victim's headless corpse was discovered in a farmer's field by one of the farm's hired hands on February 1, 1896 (see our article on the murder of Pearl Bryan). It was discovered that the dead woman was five months pregnant and that her stomach contents included a large deal of cocaine (a legal substance at that time). Evidence led to the arrest of Bryan's former lover Scott Jackson and his friend Alonzo Walling.
It was determined that the two men had attempted to poison the pregnant woman by mixing cocaine into a drink given to her. When she didn't immediately die, they apparently transported her across state lines from Ohio to Kentucky where she was beheaded. The crossing of state lines at two different stages of the murder led to later complications over where the men's trial should be held. This in turn further sensationalized the crime, leading to a murder ballad being written about Pearl's murder, in which the singer laments, "But where, O where is her head?" Jackson and Walling were found guilty and were executed, still professing their innocence as they stood side by side on the scaffold (see our article on the Campbell County Courthouse).

Pearl Bryan's head was never found. Some are said to have seen the spirit of Pearl Bryan wandering about the graveyard in Indiana in which most of her remains were buried. It is said that the apparition sometimes appears with her head and at other times without. If the spirit of Pearl Bryan is lingering in the cemetery, what is it seeking?

Pay a visit to the grave of Pearl Bryan.

-Tom G

The Shooting of Alfalfa

Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of actor Carl Switzer. Switzer is primarily known for playing the role of Alfalfa in the Our Gang series of films (AKA: The Little Rascals). The former child actor continued in the profession as an adult, but most of his work was mostly in low-budget productions that didn't pay him well. He supplemented his income by breeding hunting dogs and guiding hunting trips for celebrities such as Jimmy Stewart.

On the evening of January 21, 1959, Switzer and his friend Jack Piott arrived at the home of Moses "Bud" Stiltz. Switzer and Piott are said to have been drinking prior to paying Stiltz a visit. Switzer was angry over $50 he felt Stiltz owed him. Switzer had lost one of Stiltz's dogs that he'd borrowed. Switzer paid a $35 reward to the man who returned the dog as well as buying the man $15 in drinks at a bar. Despite the dog's loss having been the fault of Carl Switzer, he felt that Moses Stiltz should have to reimburse him for the money. There was apparently a scuffle and Switzer was shot in the groin by Stiltz. Switzer bled to death at the scene.

Also present at the scene of the shooting was Stiltz's wife, Stiltz's stepdaughters and stepson, Thomas Corrigan. Corrigan, Piott and Stiltz all gave differing accounts of the incident. One thing that both Piott and Corrigan's statements about the incident agreed upon was that Stiltz murdered Switzer with little provocation. Corrigan was never called upon to testify in court however, and Stiltz was found not guilty of murder for reason of self-defense. A closed penknife had been found under the body of Switzer by investigators at the scene of the shooting.

Switzer is one of two Little Rascals buried at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles.

Pay a visit to the cemetery to find out the identity of the other Little Rascal buried there.

-Tom G

A Virtual Drive through Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery

As many of you know, Dark Destinations incorporates Google Maps as part of the site to help pinpoint our destinations geographically and assist in planning trips. The technology is made available through a Web developer API, which is not necessarily the same as the main Google Maps site itself. One of the main differences is a relatively new feature that is available on their main site, but not to us developers just yet - Street View.

This new technology allows us all to take a virtual drive down countless roads that have been mapped and filmed by specially equipped vehicles to get a true 360 degrees look at the surrounding area. Not surprisingly, not all roads have been given the "Street View" treatment just yet. Major roads are pretty well represented, but the company is still working on the various side streets of even some of the major metropolitan areas. With so many public roads yet to be catalogued and represented, it is a rarity to find a place like Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. While it is not a surprise to see that the various public roads around the grounds represented in "Street View," it is quite astonishing to find the roads inside the grounds covered as well.

Angelus-Rosedale is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angles, having been found when the population in the city was still in the tens of thousands. It is the home to the first crematory west of the Rockies and reportedly only the second crematory in the entire nation. It is also the final resting place of various influential pioneers of the area, and given its proximity to Hollywood, even features more than a few movie personalities. The colorful collection of characters include everyone from Dracula (1931) director Tod Browning and Oscar winning actress Hattie McDaniel, to a famed Tombstone doctor (whose offbeat wit was evident on various coroner reports), a Donner Party survivor, famed magician Harry Kellar, an infamous California serial killer, and even the murder victim (not connected to the serial killer) in a controversial crime that was later adapted to film. Finally, the grounds made an appearance in various episodes of the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as such shows as Charmed and Six Feet Under.

So if you are interested in taking a "Sunday drive" from the comfort of your computer, we invite you to take a look at our write-up on Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery. Once you have a feeling for the place and the personalities buried there, click on the link below that to take your own "virtual tour" of the cemetery through the "Street View" option on Google Maps main site. You can experience the early history of Los Angeles, while also being amazed at just how far technology has come.

Read the tales of Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery on Dark Destinations.
Take a virtual tour of the grounds on Google Maps Street View. (Give it a chance to load and it should work on most browsers)

-Casey H.

This Date in History at the Old Idaho Penitentiary

On this date in 1901, inmate Samuel Bruner and the prison's fastest horse, Old Selam, were found missing from the former-Idaho State Penitentiary. Ironically, it was the horse's second (though presumably against its will) such escape that week. On December 24, one of Idaho's most famous prisoners, Bub Meeks who rode with Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang, had made a similar attempt. Meeks had been tracked by the prints left behind in the snow and was recaptured only a day later. Bruner was more successful as he and the horse were never seen again. Today, the legacy of the horse is celebrated in the annual Old Selam Endurance Ride, which originally sought to retrace the possible escape route of both Meeks and Bruner, but has since been moved away from the old penitentiary.

December 30 has another tie to the Old Idaho Penitentiary as well. On this date in 1905, former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg was assassinated when a bomb rigged to his front gate exploded at his home in Caldwell. The subsequent investigation led to the arrest of one Harry Orchard who ultimately confessed to the crime and, in doing so, implicated three leaders of the Western Federation of Miners. According to Orchard, the three men had hired him to take out Steunenberg (along with seventeen others) as payback for the apparent favoritism shown towards mine owners during Steunenberg's time in office. The case led to one of the most famous trials in Idaho history that even pulled in famed-lawyer Clarence Darrow to help defend one of the accused. In the case of Orchard, he was incarcerated at the prison where he would remain until his death.

These stories only crack the surface of the history and tales of the Old Idaho Penitentiary. In its over-a-century of use, the prison housed the famous and the infamous, was the site of riots, executions, and escapes, and today is considered a hotspot for accounts of paranormal activity. The former penitentiary was even recently featured on a recent episode of the Travel Channel series, Ghost Adventures.

Serve time with the ghostly history of the Old Idaho Penitentiary.

-Casey H.

Stagger Lee Shot Billy

The night was clear and the moon was yellow,
And the leaves came tumbling down.
I was standing on the corner, when I heard my bulldog bark.
He was barking at the two men, who were gambling in the dark.
It was Stagger Lee and Billy, two men who gambled late.

The song is Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price - the first commercially successful version of a folk murder ballad that had long been a mainstay in nightclubs throughout the South. It may have also been one of the first versions of the tune (also known as Stagolee, Stack Lee, etc.) that was also commercially viable, as early renditions were often more graphic with more than a few of those words that George Carlin warned us all about. It was also not entirely accurate.

The weather at the time is not known, but it most definitely was not the fall. In fact (and perhaps ironically), the legend of Stagger Lee was born on Christmas Night, 1895 in the Bill Curtis Saloon in an area of St. Louis, Missouri that at the time was the red light district. The two men were Lee "Stack Lee" Shelton (an area pimp with political connections) and William "Billy" Lyons. And despite the song's portrayal of a night of gambling gone bad, the conflict really began over an argument of politics after an otherwise innocent night of drinks and laughs.

Stagger Lee shot Billy.
Oh, he shot that poor boy so bad.
'Till the bullet came through Billy
And broke the bartender's glass.

That much is true, though the fate of the bartender's glass is unclear. In fact, the bartender was one of the few witnesses left in the saloon after Shelton had pulled out his .44 and took aim. Like the song suggests, he was after his white Stetson hat; though not because he lost it in a bet but rather because Lyons had snagged it after Shelton had broken his Derby in the heat of the argument. The end result was the same though - Shelton shot once and calmly walked out of the bar, while Lyons was rushed to the hospital where he later died.

So how did a known pimp and a murder in an area that was infamous for crime transform into one of the most well-known murder ballads of all time? It is not entirely known, though it is worth pointing out that Duncan killed Brady (Duncan and Brady) quite literally across the street just five years earlier, while Frankie shot Johnny (actually Allan Britt - of Frankie and Johnny fame) four years later a couple blocks away. It is safe to say that some balladeer was kept busy.

At any rate, Stagger Lee has come to represent the baddest of the bad in musical form; not unlike Mack the Knife or Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, though if you listen to some renditions of Stagger Lee, he could take them out without breaking a sweat too. And it all started on Christmas Day.

The Bill Curtis Saloon may no longer exist, but a few blocks away is a historic home (photo above) that looks somewhat out-of-place in a primarily industrial area and was once the home of Lee Shelton - complete with the "crib houses" for Shelton's working girls. Also in town is the St. Peters Cemetery where Billy was buried in an unmarked grave. Ironically, Shelton is buried only a block or so away at the Greenwood Cemetery (also in an unmarked grave), where he was laid to rest after succumbing to tuberculosis while serving time at the Missouri State Penitentiary for a separate crime. And though it has since been closed town, the story even inspired a local bar and grill to take on the name of the city's local legend for awhile - Stagger Lee's.

So I leave you with this often overlooked Christmas legend and wish you and your family a very happy and safe holiday.

-Casey H.

UFOs - The Brooklyn Bridge Encounter

The famed Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, New York is the site of a rather unusual milestone late this evening. On November 30, 1989 at around approximately 3:00 A.M. EST, a couple of people on the bridge witnessed what they thought at the time was the making of a new Hollywood Sci-Fi movie. They described seeing a bright light hovering in the sky by a nearby apartment and the figure of a woman and other strange entities floating through the air and into the light. The witnesses were not seeing a film production however, but rather an incident that would become known as the "Brooklyn Bridge Encounter" (because of its close proximity) and a highly controversial account of reported alien abduction.

The figure seen in the light turned out to be Linda Napolitano who would share her experience with author Budd Hopkins. He would later document her experience with corroborating statements from witnesses in the book Witnessed: The True Story of the Brooklyn Bridge UFO Abductions. According to Napolitano's account, she had been awoken in the night by the sounds of someone inside her apartment. She was unable to move and much to horror, watched as five figures (closely matching descriptions of the "grey" variety of aliens) moved towards her and levitated her off the bed. From there, she reportedly levitated with the creatures and passed right through her closed apartment window on the 12th floor of the building and into an awaiting craft. Once inside, she was examined and asked a series of questions about her family before being released and quickly finding herself back in her apartment.

In Hopkins research, he was able to find a variety of witnesses (including those on the bridge) that reported seeing something similar occur in the general vicinity. Three witnesses in particular offered a true sense of credibility. According to Hopkins, the three individuals consisted of two CIA agents and a former Secretary General of the United Nations. The men agreed to offer their testimony to Hopkins, though with the request of anonymity. They reported seeing the strange event from the vantage point of their limousine as they drove alongside the East River. Even more interesting, one of the agents allegedly became so obsessed with the case that he began stalking Napolitano, going so far as kidnapping and accusing her of conspiring with the entities and indirectly involving him.

The alien abduction case might be one of the more bizarre stories involving the Brooklyn Bridge, but it is hardly the only one. The bridge has been the site of several deaths over the years starting with its own construction, as well as various jumps (both of the daredevil and suicide variety), a terrorism attack and plot, and a stampede that occurred in its early days that left 12 people dead. It has also been the scene of mass evacuations and makes regular cameos in movies over the years where it is often completely destroyed.

Hear the stories of the Brooklyn Bridge and watch the skies.

-Casey H.

The Lesson I Learned from a Serial Killer

A few weeks back, a friend wrote me to tell me that serial killer Arthur Shawcross had died. The timing was odd for me. I'd just been covering a number of locations in both Rochester and Buffalo, New York for future Dark Destinations articles. Among the locations I'd visited had been sites associated with Arthur Shawcross's crimes. It had been odd enough both visiting these spots roughly two decades after the crimes occurred and finding out how many of his crimes were committed close by places I'd lived throughout my time in Rochester and even places I'd played as a child. It had been a chilling experience.

Back in fall of 1989, when I was a high school senior, the local newspapers were running stories about the ongoing police investigation into a series of murders in Rochester. The murderer had been dubbed both the "Rochester Strangler" and the "Genessee River Killer" by the press. Myself and a number of my teenage friends had been naive and foolish enough to be excited by the idea that Rochester had its own serial killer. We had images in our heads that were more based in horror films than in reality.

When they actually caught the killer, and the name Arthur Shawcross became infamous for the people of Rochester, my teen friends and I had a wake up call. This wasn't a guy in a hockey mask. This guy didn't run around with a glove with knives on the fingers while making bad puns. This guy was real. He was a mentally ill man who'd suffered a number of head injuries, lead poisoning and if his stories are to be believed, sexual abuse when he was younger. He hadn't just been preying on grown women, he'd also killed a couple of kids many years earlier in Watertown, NY (where I used spend every Thanksgiving at my cousins' dairy farm as a child). Our fantasy bubble burst and reality came streaming horrifically in.

It was a lesson in the stark difference between the fantasy world of horror fiction and the real life atrocities that some people are capable of. When I write this, I"m not speaking ill of the horror genre. All genres of fiction create fantasy worlds that even when they seem realistic, really aren't. I don't care if it is an action film or a romance -- It isn't a model of reality. Hopefully there comes a point in each person's life when they realize this. In the case of my friends and I, this was the first major wake up call we had to how the world was. We realized that in our excitement, we'd dehumanized the victims and idolized a sick slob of a man. It was easier to do when the killer remained cloaked in mystery.

It is a lesson I've kept in the back of my mind always when writing about wars, disasters or instances of violent crime. Hopefully, that shows through in the work. I also wince when I see news coverage of things like the Virginia Tech Massacre last year. While they don't show the killers in a positive light, I think all too often the media unintentionally glorifies killers like Seung-Hui Cho by demonizing them. By putting the focus on the killer and not on the victims, they turn people like that into a sort of anti-hero. They also often reduce the victims down into a number. It winds up reading like a score in a video game.

What are your thoughts on how the media covers stories of mass violence? Is the media handling the matter responsibly? Who do you feel are the biggest offenders? Which news outlets do you feel handle the stories in the most responsible manner? Have you had something happen in your home town or city that was a wake up call for you? Please share.

Pay a visit to Dark Destinations to look up dark locations in your own area.

Or, go to Rochester, NY and see the Dark Destinations in my home city.

-Tom G