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[Assistant] Eventually, a passing ship saw the survivors and rescued them, but McGregor escaped to France.


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[Assistant] He had never been who he claimed to be, and when he got caught, he ran.


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[Assistant] Humans are idealistic. We look for the best in the people around us and are quick to trust most of those we encounter.


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[Assistant] Perhaps this is by design. We're creatures of community, after all. Isolation is something we try to avoid, aiming instead for the opposite. We join clubs, go to concerts, and build relationships. We seem ready and willing to let down our guard.


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[Assistant] But history should serve as a warning against too much trust.


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[Assistant] Flipping through those dusty pages, we're confronted with tale after tale of people who were just a bit too trusting and the price they paid for that mistake.


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[Assistant] They called them praying towns. They were an invention of a man named John Elliot, who was a Puritan missionary to the Native Americans in the 1640s.


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[Assistant] Elliot had seen some success in converting these original inhabitants of New England into Christians, but wanted them to have a place to start fresh, so towns were built for them. Praying towns. It was, of course, a convenient idea.


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[Assistant] By converting the Native Americans to Christianity and moving them off their ancestral land and into small reservation-like communities, the English settlers achieved two goals at once. They subdued their rivals without violence, and they freed up valuable land that they'd been trying to get at for years.


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[Assistant] Over a dozen of these communities were set up across Massachusetts and Connecticut. But when King Philip's War broke out in 1675, most of that system just sort of fell apart.


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[Assistant] Looking back it's easy to see how these praying towns became a model for things to come. We had wanted the land, and so we took it, forcing the people who had owned it for centuries to go live in special places we'd built for them. The idea would return years later.


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[Assistant] Obviously, the colonies would grow and spread, and eventually become the foundation of a new nation, the United States of America.


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[Assistant] But when the Civil War was over in 1865, we went back to expanding, and that led us west, into lands that already had people living in them.


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[Assistant] That same offer went out to the Native Americans of the West. Assimilate or get out of the way.


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[Assistant] To help them, new reservations were set up to receive them.


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[Assistant] They might have been less religious than the praying towns of Old New England, but they served the same purpose, to remove the Native Americans so white settlers could take their land.


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[Assistant] The Osage people felt the full brunt of that policy. Out in the area they had called home for centuries, what is today southern Kansas, the white settlers were beginning to flood in.


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[Assistant] During the first half of the 19th century, their control over their homelands began to crumble. An 1808 treaty gave the US government over 52 million acres and another treaty in 1870 had the rest of it sold off and the Osage moved south to Indian territory in what is now Oklahoma. The settlers immediately flooded in.


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[Assistant] One of the newly opened areas in Kansas was Labatt County, tucked down in the southeastern corner of the state.


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[Assistant] Shortly after the removal of the Osage, a number of European families moved into the area along the old Osage Trail. It had once been a migration trail for buffalo, but had become one of the most commonly used passages by white settlers headed west.


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[Assistant] A lot of those early settlers were Dutch and German. They were looking for land to farm and space to raise their family, and Labatt County had all of that. So when John and his son rode into town in 1870, they purchased 160 acres of land to call home, and another tract of land to act as a buffer. They didn't want to see their neighbors, apparently.


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[Assistant] John Sr. and John Jr. got right to work. They built a cabin just a few yards off the Osage Trail, right at the start of a wide valley, which gave them commanding views in all directions. They could see travelers from a great distance, but their neighbors were out of sight. And that was just fine by John and his son.


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[Assistant] That was October of 1870. Nearly a year later, the rest of John's family arrived by wagon. His wife and daughter had been waiting for the men to get settled and now they could all be together again.


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[Assistant] John's wife Elvira and his daughter Kate broke ground on a large vegetable garden on the north side of the house, and even planted some apple trees there.


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[Assistant] Whether it had been their intention all along or just an idea inspired by the highway outside, they also set up the front half of their cabin as a sort of general store for travelers.


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[Assistant] They used the canvas cover from their wagon as a curtain that divided the large one-room house and added some sleeping space off to the side for those rare times when a guest would stay with them.


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[Assistant] The back half was hidden away for their own personal use.


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[Assistant] They did slow, steady business, but not everything was idyllic. As the county slowly filled in with new settlers, the community that grew up around them began to buzz with rumors.


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[Assistant] There was something odd about John's family that rubbed everyone else the wrong way. As the events of the coming months were about to reveal, there was a good reason why.


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[Assistant] Not everyone who checked in at their makeshift hotel, checked out the following morning.


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[Assistant] There were a lot of rumors about John's family and to be honest, it was probably their fault. When they moved there, they were one of five families to settle at the same time and all of them were spiritualists. For some, that meant they simply believed in the main tenets of spirituality.


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[Assistant] His daughter Kate, it turns out, was an amateur medium. She passed out flyers that marketed her services to the locals, a mixture of spiritual healing and what appears to be German-American powwowing, something more commonly found in Pennsylvania and Europe.


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[Assistant] She was known to sell spells, usually a script that the buyer could read aloud when they needed help.


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[Assistant] But activities like this also earned her a reputation as a witch. Once, to test this local theory, a boy was said to have placed a sharp nail on Kate's chair, causing her to cry out when she sat on it.


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[Assistant] I'm not really sure what they were trying to prove, though, because all Kate did was jump up and scream in pain.


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[Assistant] Her parents were looked upon as rude and unfriendly, but there are good reasons why. Both of them spoke very little English around other people, referring to stick with their native German. John was said to be short and stout with a full bushy beard, making him appear to be very unapproachable.


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[Assistant] Kate and her brother John Jr. were at the center of a number of their own rumors. Some believed they were actually married and not related at all. While others thought that John Jr. might suffer from some sort of handicap. He was known to laugh out loud when no one was speaking to him and had a personality that seemed to put other people off.


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[Assistant] Then again, that was a good description of all of them. The family just had a way of unsettling people.


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[Assistant] The worst rumors, however, weren't about their personalities.


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[Assistant] No, it seems that a number of travelers had begun to go missing in late 1871, and people were starting to wonder.


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[Assistant] Granted, it was a dangerous area, and the 1870s was a dangerous time to be traveling out west. People went missing all the time. Accidents could happen, and bandits were a common problem.


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[Assistant] But travelers on the Osage Trail had a few things in common. They were often in the middle of a very long journey.


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[Assistant] They had family somewhere, either waiting for them at the end of the trip or back home in the eastern states. And those family members expected silence for a very long time. A lot of them also carried large amounts of cash with them because they planned to start a new life when they reached wherever they were going.


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[Assistant] By early 1873, as many as 10 people had been reported missing, and their loved ones were starting to look for them. The most prominent of those disappearances was a man named Dr. William York. Oddly, he was actually a local man from the nearby town of Independence, in fact, who was looking into yet another missing person.


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[Assistant] York's neighbor back in Independence, a man named George Lonker, had headed east with his daughter, Marianne, in the winter of 1872. But they never returned.


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[Assistant] York waited for months before packing his bags and heading out to see if he could find them.


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[Assistant] He went as far as Fort Scott, 70 miles northeast of his home, where his brother, Colonel Edward York, was stationed and he told him the story.


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[Assistant] Then he left for home and vanished a short while later.


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[Assistant] That seems to have been enough for the people of the community. In April of 1873, over 75 men from Labatt County gathered in the local schoolhouse for a meeting.


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[Assistant] They agreed that every single farm should be searched. John Sr. and John Jr. were there, although it's reported that the older man slept through most of the meeting. The search would have begun that very day if a spell of bad weather hadn't rolled into town.


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[Assistant] But when people finally did arrive to inspect John Senior's farm on March 28th of 1873, it wasn't a group of locals. No, it was a dozen strangers, led by Colonel Edward York, the brother of the missing physician.


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[Assistant] He'd been following his brother's trail south from Fort Scott, and all of the clues had led them right there, to John Bender's general store. And they had questions.


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[Assistant] John Senior told them that William York had indeed passed through, but he had done nothing more than eat a meal before leaving an hour later.


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[Assistant] He offered the men new ideas, though. Perhaps York had been murdered by a Native American or had been set upon by bandits. If they wanted, he told them he'd be happy to help them drag the nearby creek to see if York's body was in there.


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[Assistant] Kate offered a different option. For just $500, she would contact the spirit world and get the definitive answer for Edward York.


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[Assistant] It was a price tag worth $10,000 today and Colonel York scoffed at it. Instead,


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[Assistant] A woman had recently been chased off the Bender property by John Sr.'s wife, Elvira, and they say she'd been holding a knife and a pistol when she did it.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until three days after Colonel York's visit, however, that two brothers passed by the Bender farm.


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[Assistant] They were just doing their job. That's what Billy Toll and his brother told the town when they reported what they found. They'd been driving their cattle down the Osage Trail and were passing the Bender Farm when Billy glanced over and noticed that the farm animals there were unfed and abandoned.


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[Assistant] Billy stopped and approached the house, but everything seemed empty, as if all life had left the structure.


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[Assistant] Appearing inside, he noticed the place was in disarray. It almost looked like someone had packed up and left as quickly as possible, leaving most of their world behind. So, Billy headed to town and told the trustee, who called for an immediate search party.


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[Assistant] When they converged on the Bender farm, it looked as if the entire town had turned up. There were reportedly hundreds of neighbors and townsfolk there, all ready and willing to help search the property for evidence or clues that hinted at the truth behind all the missing people.


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[Assistant] He and the others spread out across the farm, while others entered the house to search inside. Everything seemed normal for a long while, too. Sure, their wagon was gone, as were all of their personal belongings, but there didn't seem to be any sign of foul play inside the house.


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[Assistant] I don't know how that changed, to be honest. Maybe someone noticed scratch marks on a particular spot on the wood floor. Perhaps one of the people heard the buzz of flies somewhere nearby. Obviously, something tipped them off. We're just not sure what that something was. But it led them to a trap door.


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[Assistant] Beneath that door was the cabin cellar. It was dark and wet and smelled horribly. And to a group of farmers who spent their lives slaughtering livestock and cleaning up the mess, it was a familiar smell. Rancid, rotten blood.


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[Assistant] And after bringing in a lantern and lowering someone down into the cellar, they confirmed what their noses had already told them.


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[Assistant] But there were no bodies. Yes, the dirt floor of the cellar was soaked with congealed blood. And yes, it wouldn't have made sense for a farmer to butcher all of his animals in the cellar beneath their living space. But without any other evidence, there was still no way to prove that the blood hinted at something nefarious.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, after searching the property for a long time and coming up empty handed, everyone took a break.


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[Assistant] Colonel York walked back over to his wagon and took a seat up top. Maybe he had some food up there, or water.


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[Assistant] But it was while he was higher up than everyone else that he glanced out toward the area of the farm where the orchard had been planted and noticed something odd. There were lumps in the soil beneath them. Long, human-sized lumps.


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[Assistant] After York pointed them out to the rest of the search party, shovels were brought in to unearth whatever lay beneath a surface. Everyone held their breath as the first mound of soil was pushed aside to reveal the face of a dead man. No one knew who he was, but it didn't make the moment any less somber for all of them. The second body to be uncovered was William York.


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[Assistant] The Colonel spent a moment standing over his brother's corpse before returning to his wagon. A moment later, he rode off toward town.


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[Assistant] After that, nine more bodies were unearthed, bringing the total that day to 11, which included William York's missing neighbor George Lunker and his daughter Marianne.


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[Assistant] Each body had been stripped of all valuables, and most of them showed signs of blunt force trauma to the skull. Most of the men agreed that the weapon had been some kind of large hammer, and all of it begged for justice. There were murderers on the run, and the people of the town wanted to find them.


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[Assistant] What they found later that day was the Bender's Wagon, empty and abandoned near the town of Thayer, about 20 miles northwest of the farm.


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[Assistant] Oddly, there were bullet holes in the side of it, and a shotgun had been left on the seat as if it had been fired and then dropped.


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[Assistant] There was no blood though, or any other clue that might hint at why the benders abandoned their wagon. Had they been attacked or killed? Or had they fled?


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[Assistant] The story spread, of course. It was a tale of murder and violence, and those stories were just as popular back then as they are now.


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[Assistant] This one also had the added texture of Kate Bender's spiritualist activities and rumored witchcraft. In fact, during the exploration of the farm, some of the men had discovered what appeared to be zodiac symbols scratched into the dirt above the graves.


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[Assistant] It was enough to get people whispering about occult activities and satanic murders. Communities began searching for the missing killers. The governor of Kansas offered a reward to anyone who could bring them in, dead or alive. Wanted posters seemed to plaster the walls of every public building in the southern part of the state. But it was all in vain. The benders, you see, would never be found.


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[Assistant] Now I think it's fair to say that most of us want to trust the people around us. It might not be something that we actively think about all the time, but we still do it. Driving down the highway, standing in line at the movie theater, eating at your favorite restaurant. We trust that we will be treated in a way that's normal, safe, and expected.


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[Assistant] Each of the victims was far from home. They were on a journey that took them away from friends and family and put them in a dangerous environment around the clock.


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[Assistant] No one could pull over and call for help from their wagon in 1871. At least, not without shouting. And most of the time, there was no one to hear you if you did.


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[Assistant] So, stumbling upon a house that claimed to offer supplies, a hot meal, and a place to lay your head. Well, that was a welcome sight to every weary traveler who passed by.


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[Assistant] The benders knew that people needed to eat and rest, and they used that as bait to lure them into their dark murderous web. And it worked.


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[Assistant] Newspapers across the Midwest carried the story after the bodies were discovered.


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[Assistant] Partly, I'm sure, to see if spreading the word might help them locate the killers. But also because people are curious. Remember, this was 20 years before H.H. Holmes would build his murder castle in Chicago. The benders offered the public something most of them had never seen before. And they wanted to see it, too.


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[Assistant] Papers from the time reported that thousands of people hopped on their local train and traveled to Kansas to see the Bender farm. When they were finished, they started taking pieces of the house with them as a souvenir.


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[Assistant] Enough people did this that eventually the Bender house just sort of fell apart. And that's not all that fell apart.


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[Assistant] You see, the family that history has come to remember as the Bloody Benders might not have actually been a family at all. There are a lot of stories, so none of this is definitive, but there's strong evidence to suggest that their name wasn't even Bender.


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[Assistant] Elvira Bender, from what I can tell, was actually Elmira Meek. She worked her way through a number of husbands before meeting up with the man we know today as John Sr., and it's possible that one of them had the last name of Bender.


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[Assistant] Speaking of John Sr., his last name was really Flickinger. Still German, of course, but not Bender.


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[Assistant] Kate was most likely Elmira's real daughter, but her last name was Griffith, taken from her father. John Jr. was John Gebhart, and there was a lot of talk about him actually being Kate's husband. The entire family, it seems, was a lie. And then they vanished into the Kansas night.


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[Assistant] It turns out that Colonel York, the brother of one of the victims, had another brother. This man, Alexander York, happened to be a Kansas state senator, and he offered a big reward for their capture.


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[Assistant] The governor eventually tripled the reward funds to increase incentive, but it still didn't work. No one was able to locate them, no matter how motivated they might have been.


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[Assistant] Putting myself in the shoes of the travelers who headed west in the early 1870s, it's easy to see why the Benders were so successful at what they did. Everyone who stopped inside their house believed they were safe, that they could trust their hosts.


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[Assistant] The benders used trust as a weapon just as skillfully as they swung their heavy hammer and sharp knife. They used it to welcome strangers in, to give them what they needed, and then, when the moment was right, to take it all away.


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[Assistant] Nearly a century and a half later, we don't know what became of them. But we do know that they left a mark.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research help from Arsec Crockett and music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] I make another podcast called Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and I really think that you'd enjoy it. It's a twice weekly podcast that explores some of the most bizarre events, objects, and people in history.


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[Assistant] Each episode is a ten minute, bite-sized collection of two short tales that show you just how unexplainable our world really is.


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[Assistant] Lore exists outside this podcast too. There's a book series in stores around the country and online with Book 3, Dreadful Places, premiering on October 9th. There's a TV show on Amazon Prime with Season 2 premiering on October 19th. Check them both out if you want a bit more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] And you can also learn about everything going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] And hey, if you're the social media sort of person, you can follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] For most of us, those words are about as true as they get. The place we call home can easily become the center of our universe and is often the source of our feelings of security and peace. Most people who tell you stories about their childhood home do so with wide eyes and a wistful smile. Home, as they say, is where the heart is.


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[Assistant] Our home is the place where we experience life. We fill each room with our laughter. We chase our passions. We make plans for the future. You might remember holidays in the living room, or breakfast conversations, or exploring the attic on a winter day. These homes, nothing more than buildings that we dwell in, somehow become a part of us.


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[Assistant] But life isn't always roses and laughter. Sometimes the things we experience are difficult, or painful, or both. Sometimes people do things that leave a lasting mark, like an echo that carries on through the years. And upon occasion, these dark moments are even experienced within our homes.


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[Assistant] From Macbeth to American Horror Story, from the typewriters of Shirley Jackson and Stephen King, it has been made abundantly clear just how much power a home can have over our lives.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's the tragedy, or the memories. Maybe it's the dark acts committed in the shadows, or the secrets buried beneath the foundations, both metaphorical and literal.


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[Assistant] Whatever the reason, it doesn't take a popular novelist or even a historian to point out the simple truth. There's no place like home. And considering what's been known to happen there, that might be a good thing.


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[Assistant] When Christopher and Elizabeth Crowley built their home in the New South Wales town of Junee in southeastern Australia, they envisioned a normal, happy future for themselves. Christopher Crowley had caught wind of the impending construction of the Great Southern Railway line through Junee, and so he built the railway hotel across from the station. And that gamble paid off.


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[Assistant] In 1884, they finished construction on a home they called Monte Cristo. It wasn't a mansion by any stretch of the imagination, but it did have nine rooms, a stable for his prized racehorse, a dairy barn, and a separate ballroom. Although that eventually became the servants' quarters.


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[Assistant] But life wasn't idyllic for the Crawley family. While carrying one of the little Crawley girls, their nanny dropped her down the stairs, where she died from her injuries. They claimed that an unseen force had reached out and knocked the child from her arms.


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[Assistant] Whatever the cause, the Crowley's had to go through the ordeal of burying a child. Something no parent should have to endure.


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[Assistant] In 1910, Mr. Crawley's starched shirt collar began to rub the skin on his neck raw. The abscess became gangrenous and by December of that year, he died as a result of a heart attack, brought on, they say, by the infection.


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[Assistant] After her husband's death, Elizabeth, already known to be a harsh, disciplined woman, went into a state of mourning that lasted the rest of her life. She converted one of the upstairs rooms into a chapel and spent much of her time there. According to local lore, she only left the house on two occasions before her death in 1933.


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[Assistant] Other tragedies found their way into Monte Cristo as well. A pregnant maid took her own life by jumping from the top story of the house. She bled to death on the front steps.


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[Assistant] Morris, the stable boy, burned to death in a fire. And in 1961, the caretaker of the house was shot and killed by a local who had been inspired by the recent Hitchcock film, Psycho.


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[Assistant] Today, many young children feel anxious near the stairs. A dark stain has been seen on the front steps of the house, but it seems to fade in and out of view over time.


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[Assistant] The shape of a young woman in a white gown has been witnessed passing in front of the windows of the front balcony, and some believe it's the spirits of the pregnant maid, repeating her final moments over and over.


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[Assistant] Others claim to have seen a young boy wandering around near the sights of the old coach house.


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[Assistant] A few visitors to the house have witnessed the figure of an older man in the upstairs hallway, and most have assumed it to be Mr. Crawley.


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[Assistant] But it's his wife Elizabeth who is most commonly seen, almost as if she hasn't fully let go of her home yet. She has been reported to appear in the dining room where she has ordered people to leave the room. Others have seen her ghostly figure in the chapel upstairs, dressed in black as if in mourning for a lost loved one.


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[Assistant] Across the world, in the American state of Kentucky, another home became the scene of tragedy and pain.


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[Assistant] Their names have slipped from history, but in Allen County, one of the families there in the early 1860s owned a number of slaves. According to the local stories, most of the enslaved lived in their own quarters on the property, but the husband kept chains in the basement of the family home, for times when he wanted to exercise a bit more discipline.


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[Assistant] When the Civil War broke out, word began to spread among the enslaved people of the south that it would be better to escape and run north. And so plans were made in their small dormitory there over many weeks.


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[Assistant] Finally, the night came, and the entire group of slaves left the homestead and headed north. All of them, that is, except for the two still chained up in the basement of their captor's home.


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[Assistant] Whether it was the noise of their escape or part of his usual evening rounds, the man soon discovered what had happened. The stories describe how he spent hours that night on horseback with his gun, riding north and looking for those who had escaped. But they were never discovered.


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[Assistant] Instead, the man returned home empty handed and full of rage. Fueled by his anger, he descended into the basement where he shot and killed both captive men.


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[Assistant] Later, after he had presumably cooled off, he was said to have buried the bodies right there in the cellar. And then, months later, the man was called into service with the Confederate army, where he died in battle.


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[Assistant] His widow never opened the cellar door again. In fact, even though it was in the middle of the house, she hadn't boarded up.


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[Assistant] There's a lot of symbolism there in that single action, if you're looking for that sort of thing. But maybe she just wanted to make sure no one ever found the bodies her husband had buried beneath the dirt floor.


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[Assistant] She passed away years later due to illness. The house was sold to distant relatives. And when the new family began to move in, they opened the cellar and discovered that it reeked with a powerful odor. They vented the space and cleaned it as best they could. But the smell never went away.


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[Assistant] It wasn't long before the children began to tell them about hearing sounds at night that seemed to come from the cellar. The parents dismissed it as childhood fantasies, but the stories continued.


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[Assistant] One night, many months later, the husband and wife were both pulled from sleep by strange sounds. She stayed in bed while he went down to investigate. From their room, she claimed she heard a loud cry and then a crash. She raced out of bed and ran to the cellar. When she got there, she found her husband.


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[Assistant] He was laying dead on the dirt floor at the bottom of the cellar stairs, his neck broken and twisted.


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[Assistant] There are many stories like these, but they all teach the same bitter lesson. Sometimes our homes attract tragedy. Sometimes we create it ourselves.


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[Assistant] When Daniel Benton built his small red cape-style home in Toland, Connecticut, I doubt he imagined it would still be standing today.


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[Assistant] It's not enormous like some of the plantation homes one might find in the South, but for a house built in 1720, it was comfortable. And in complete contrast to our modern mobile life in the 21st century, it stayed in the Benton family until 1932.


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[Assistant] That's over 210 years for those of you who are accounting, and that's a very long time.


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[Assistant] The family grew, and by the 1770s Daniel Benton had three grown grandsons who lived in the house with him.


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[Assistant] One of them, Elisha, had taken an interest in a young woman in town named Jemima Barrows. She was the daughter of a cabinetmaker, and in a social station below that of the Bentons, and so Elisha's family looked down on their romance. They did everything they could to discourage them, but Elisha and Jemima were stubborn.


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[Assistant] In 1775, an alarm was raised in Lexington, Massachusetts that was heard across the countryside thanks to writers like Paul Revere. Colonists from all across New England came to join the fight, and among them were the three Benton grandchildren.


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[Assistant] While Daniel Benton was sad to see his grandchildren go off to war, there was some relief, knowing that the separation just might be the thing Elisha needed to take his mind off the young woman. It is thought by historians that Daniel hoped that the war might bring an end to their relationship forever. He was only partly right.


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[Assistant] A year later in 1776, all three of the Benton brothers were captured by British forces and taken to Long Island, where they were imprisoned on ships in the Sound.


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[Assistant] These prison ships were notorious for their unsanitary conditions and the diseases that ran wild throughout the inmates. It was even thought that the British soldiers working the ships actually handed out food and bedding that was contaminated with smallpox.


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[Assistant] It wasn't long before Daniel Benton received word that the two oldest of his grandsons had died while on board the prison ship. But no word came of the whereabouts of Elisha. He sent for news and waited impatiently. But before he could learn the truth, old Daniel Benton passed away.


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[Assistant] It was weeks later when the answer finally came. Elisha was free and being brought home, but he was sick with smallpox.


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[Assistant] This was bitter news for the Benton family. On one hand, Elisha was coming home. That was a good thing for everyone. But on the other, Smallpox was deadly. Nearly half of everyone who contracted the disease eventually died. And those were not the kind of odds that gave people hope.


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[Assistant] The soldiers brought Elisha into the house and he was guided straight to a room near the kitchen known as the Dying and Boring Room, where those giving birth or sick with illness could be kept away from the rest of the house and cared for. It was a colonial American version of quarantine and intensive care.


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[Assistant] But word spread of Elisha's return. Not every son and grandson returned from war. Something even homes today can still deal with. And one of those who caught wind of the young Benton's arrival was Jemima Barrows.


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[Assistant] She had waited and stayed true to her beloved, and there was nothing she had hoped for more. Elisha had come home.


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[Assistant] I imagine she ran rather quickly to the doorstep of the Benton home. I would imagine that she knocked, being from a lower social status after all. But it must have been hard for her not to kick the door in and race to find her beloved. Jemima knew her place though, and she waited for someone to come and answer the door.


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[Assistant] She was told that Elisha was sick and that she needed to go back home.


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[Assistant] But Jemima turned out to be a very stubborn young woman. Even when they told her that he was dying and sick with a highly contagious and deadly disease, she wouldn't relent. And in the end, she won. Jemima was allowed into the house where she set herself up as his sole caretaker and nurse.


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[Assistant] After a time, Jemima's parents became worried. Their daughter hadn't come home all day, so they made their way to the Benton house to ask if they had seen her. When they discovered that she was in fact in the room caring for a smallpox patient, it's said that they both wept.


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[Assistant] Jemima's mother said that they would go back home and get clothing for their daughter, and then quickly left. But sadly, they never returned.


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[Assistant] Elisha Benton died on January 21st of 1777 after weeks of battling the smallpox that ravaged his body. Jemima stayed by his side the entire time, caring for him through it all.


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[Assistant] But her sacrifice did not come without a price. In the final days of his life, she too began to show signs of the illness. Within weeks, she was dead as well.


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[Assistant] The couple was buried on the Benton family property, alongside the stone walls that line the road to the house. But due to burial customs of the time, they were not allowed to share the same plot. Instead, they were separated by about 40 feet, one grave on either side of the road.


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[Assistant] It sounds like the end of a tragic story, and in many ways it is. Elisha and Jemima were never able to marry, and their young lives were cut short. But in other ways they live on. In fact, according to some, it's that separation outside that has led to the reports of their restless spirits within the home.


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[Assistant] The Benton House was sold in 1932 and then again in 1969 to the Toland Historical Society. It was converted into a museum shortly after, but the influx of visitors only served to draw out more reports of mysterious occurrences.


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[Assistant] One member of the staff claimed that her dog would not enter the dining room. When she picked the animal up and moved it to the sitting room it refused to go anywhere else after that. Others have felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding and unwelcome.


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[Assistant] One woman, after cheerfully asking to visit the second floor, climbed the narrow staircase, only to return moments later, telling the staff, I never want to go there again.


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[Assistant] Noises have been heard throughout the house that are difficult to explain. Knocking, footsteps, and what sounds like the snapping of branches have all been reported by visitors. Some have even heard what sounds like distant voices, and sometimes the movement of furniture.


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[Assistant] Others have heard what they describe as a weeping woman, someone who is mourning a deep loss. Those familiar with the homestead's past have assumed that that woman is Jemima, crying for her lost love. A few have even seen the figure of a young woman in a white dress in various places around the house, searching for something no one else can see.


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[Assistant] At times, the home has been used by overnight guests. One couple actually lived there for a few weeks while their own home was being renovated, and on one occasion entertained a guest of their own.


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[Assistant] They claimed that on the night of their friend's visit, the conversation in front of the fireplace was interrupted by the sounds of footsteps thumping down the hallway from the Eastern door of the home. The sounds moved closer and closer to the living room and then just stopped. According to the woman, their guest was packed and gone within 15 minutes.


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[Assistant] Another couple who stayed overnight in the Benton Homestead reported a very odd experience that happened during their stay. Their hosts had retired to sleep upstairs, and they themselves had settled down in the living room, which was serving double duty as a guest room.


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[Assistant] The wife claimed that she was awoken in the middle of the night. It was nearly completely dark in the room, but she felt as if someone or something were in the room with her. And then, as if materializing out of the darkness, a pair of legs appeared near the head of the bed. A man, she assumed, was standing there, close to her.


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[Assistant] Her first assumption was that her host had come down to play a joke on her. Maybe that's the kind of guy he was. But the middle of the night is probably the worst time to play the Joker, no matter who you are. Either way, she decided to call his bluff and wait to see what he would do.


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[Assistant] Nothing could have prepared her for what happened next, though. A hand came out of the darkness and quickly covered her mouth. She flinched but held her ground. If he was going to try and frighten her, she said, he was in for a surprise. She pretended not to care, but after a few moments, it became hard to breathe, and in the end, panic took over.


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[Assistant] The following morning she brought up her experience at breakfast and asked the hosting couple what the reason for their prank was.


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[Assistant] The husband and wife looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces. They each made the same claim. No one had come downstairs during the night.


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[Assistant] The places we live can take on a certain life of their own. We fill them with our personality, our celebration, and sometimes even our tragedy.


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[Assistant] And although we can move on, whether by packing up and moving out, or literally leaving this life behind, we often leave pieces of ourselves behind as well.


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[Assistant] Like a forgotten cardboard box in the back corner of the attic, some of our echoes stay behind where others can discover them. Some call them ghosts. Others tend to think of them as bad vibrations. I don't think any of us would be wrong, no matter what language we use. In the end, it's clear that something stays behind. And it's not always easy to see. But sometimes it is.


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[Assistant] A few years ago, an architectural photographer visited the Benton Homestead with his sister in order to get some pictures for a project they were collaborating on.


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[Assistant] They wandered the property outside looking for the best view of the house. It's gorgeous, really, if you have a thing for antique first period homes. And the deep red paint on the wood shingles is very classy and elegant.


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[Assistant] Their project involved using Polaroid cameras, the kind that immediately kicks out a small white-framed photograph that slowly fades into clarity. When they found the perfect place to shoot the house, very near the graves of Elisha and Jemima, incidentally, the photographer took a picture.


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[Assistant] Something was wrong with the photo, though, so he took another. That one, too, seemed off. He showed it to his sister, and so they tried a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth and a sixth.


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[Assistant] Finally, they switched to a backup camera, one that had just come back from a camera shop where it had been repaired. But the photographs that came out of the new camera were the same. It wasn't the camera, they realized. It was the house.


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[Assistant] All of the defective photos had the exact same flaw, as clear and easy to spot as the house itself.


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[Assistant] Few things are as chilling and unsettling as tales of haunted homes, especially when those dwelling places are still inhabited. But if that's the sort of legend you thrive on, then you'll be happy to know that there are plenty more stories just like them, waiting to be explored.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break, and I'll walk you through another of my favorites.


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[Assistant] Hattie needed a place to live and fast. She and her five children had been on the move for weeks and by the time they rolled into St. Paul, Minnesota in 1910, they were ready to settle down. It would be a new start for them, their first real steps forward since Hattie's husband had died.


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[Assistant] Sure, there was a bit of insurance money from his death, but it wasn't enough to provide an extravagant lifestyle. What they had to settle for was a second floor apartment on Pleasant Avenue. It didn't have enough space for the six of them, nor did it have a charming atmosphere.


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[Assistant] But it was a roof over their heads in a warm place during those long, cold winter months.


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[Assistant] Things didn't start off on the right foot though. During their first day in the apartment, Hattie recalled the entire house shaking as if a great storm outside were pushing the building around.


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[Assistant] But there was no storm and the apartment below them had no renter in it as of yet. It felt like all of the kids were in another room jumping up and down, but they were all right there where she could see them.


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[Assistant] Sometime close to Christmas, two of Hattie's younger daughters went into the cellar to set up a bed for their dog.


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[Assistant] Now, I need to describe the layout of this house so you can better understand what happened next. As I said before, they lived on the second floor, while the first floor space was currently empty. But below them, adjacent to that first floor apartment, was their own cellar space. It was a ground floor cellar.


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[Assistant] Below that and below the first floor apartment was another cellar that everyone called the subcellar. It was what you might imagine a cellar to be. Dark and damp with a dirt floor and timbers above your head. But you could climb a set of rickety wooden stairs from the subcellar and reach Hattie's cellar above.


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[Assistant] So that night, while the girls were in their upper cellar, they heard the sound of someone climbing that set of stairs below them. Then, with a shutter, the trapdoor between the two cellars popped open, and a figure climbed out. He was large, with a dark coat that seemed to be made of fur or hair, and he had hand-sewn leather shoes on.


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[Assistant] When he turned toward the girls, they noticed his black hair, large mustache and dark eyes.


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[Assistant] Frightened, they grabbed the dog and bolted up to their kitchen, where they asked their mother to help close and lock the door. They all heard the footsteps climb up toward them, and one of the girls swears that she saw the doorknob turn slightly, but no one ever pushed against the door to try and open it.


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[Assistant] It was only after all of the children had gone to bed that Hattie opened the door to peer into the cellar for answers. But it was as empty as she had expected it to be. Still, she didn't like seeing her children so afraid. So as the weeks went on, she kept their conversations focused away from the mystery in the basement.


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[Assistant] Later that winter, after some guests had spent the evening chatting with Hattie, two of her older daughters stepped into a bedroom to retrieve the guests coats. When they did.


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[Assistant] Both of them claim to have seen the figure of a man appear on the bed, pulling the curtain back with pale hands.


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[Assistant] It was their description though that was the most frightening aspect of their story.


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[Assistant] Later, after Hattie had her own experience with the dark-haired man, she made the decision to move the children out at night. By day, they looked like a normal family, but each evening they would split up and go stay with friends. No one, Hattie said, was going to sleep in that house until the mystery was solved.


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[Assistant] Everything came to a head on one of the coldest days of the winter. The pipes had frozen, so Hattie had gone to the lower cellar to dig the water main up and pour hot water on the pipe. While digging the hole, her shovel struck something hard in the dirt. So she brought her lantern in closer and knelt down.


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[Assistant] Hattie nearly dropped the lantern and then backed out of the cellar to call for the police to come help.


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[Assistant] But not before she did something unusual. She grabbed the parchment, noticed that it was written in French, and then burned it in the kitchen above.


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[Assistant] The police found nothing helpful, but the objects were removed from the house to be inspected. They did ask around, though, and discovered something else. Just a few years before Hattie and her children had arrived, the apartment had been rented to another person. He was an odd man, the neighbor told Hattie. Very quiet, and kept to himself.


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[Assistant] Hattie was almost too nervous to speak, but she had to know. What did he look like? She asked.


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[Assistant] He was a Frenchman, the neighbor replied. He wasn't a big man, but he wore a fur coat that made him look much larger. And then, of course, there was his black hair and that big mustache.


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[Assistant] Hattie didn't wait for more answers. She had heard enough.


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[Assistant] After that day, she moved the children out for good and had them all settled into a new place a short while later. And as far as we know, the Frenchman was never seen again.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company Grim and Mild specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place. Grimandmild.com.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] I can still remember the first time I saw a nightmare on Elm Street as a child. Those tense moments in the dark. The thumping of my hearts in my chest. The screams.


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[Assistant] But the decades have reduced much of those memories down to impressions and flashes of key images. The most important of those, of course, was the glove.


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[Assistant] There were others, of course. The chainsaw, with its screaming motor and biting teeth, filled many nightmares. The machete always takes me back to the hockey mask wearing Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th.


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[Assistant] There are many stories of a killer who uses a hook. From, I know what you did last summer, to an early episode of Supernatural. And who could forget the wooden stake that makes an appearance in almost every vampire movie.


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[Assistant] But no tool of destruction has been more prolific and more horrific than the axe. It's the stuff of nightmares, equal parts passion and skill. It's a near mythic weapon that instantly inspires fear.


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[Assistant] Between January of 1911 and April of 1912, a killer traveled across western Louisiana and eastern Texas. And whoever they were, a trail of bodies was left on a scale beyond anything we can imagine today. They were crimes of intense passion and brutality.


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[Assistant] They were calculated and merciless. They were hate crimes to the core, focusing on victims of mixed race. And they were all committed with an axe.


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[Assistant] The killer struck again. While Walter Byers and his wife and their 6 year old son slept in their beds, their lives were ended.


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[Assistant] There was a pattern forming, something beyond the victim profiles and the murder weapon.


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[Assistant] But it was still too early for the authorities to notice it. This was an age before the internet, before 24-hour news networks. Most information traveled along the railroad and took days or weeks to spread effectively, which was unfortunate because it allowed the killer to move on and continue his work.


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[Assistant] Whoever he was, he didn't wait long before making his next appearance. On February 23rd of 1911, someone entered the home of the Casaway family in San Antonio, Texas, and slaughtered everyone in their sleep.


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[Assistant] The husband and wife and their three children.


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[Assistant] There were never any signs of robbery. No vandalism or other evidence of a reason for the murders.


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[Assistant] Whoever the killer was, he entered each home with one horrific purpose and then moved on.


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[Assistant] Right near the right ear. And their weapon, they claim, was an axe.


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[Assistant] Shortly after that, the police arrested a woman named Clementine Bernabet, who claimed to have committed the crimes in Raine, Crowley, and Lafayette. Her story was an odd mixture of voodoo superstition and cult mentality due to her involvement in something called the Sacred Church.


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[Assistant] But in the end, the true killer proved her innocence by continuing with his spree while she remained behind bars.


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[Assistant] In January of 1912, Crowley experienced yet another tragedy at the hands of the X-Man.


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[Assistant] Marie Warner and her three children were brutally killed in their beds following the pattern of the previous murders. Two days later, in the Louisiana town of Lake Charles, Felix Broussard and his wife and their three children became the next victims. One blow to the head for each, just behind the right ear. But this was the moment the killer went off script. He left a note.


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[Assistant] No one knew what it meant. No one does to this day. But it helped the towns along the Southern Pacific Railroad line understand that it wasn't some mythological beast that was hunting them.


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[Assistant] The killer appeared one final time in August of 1912 in the home of James Dashiell and San Antonio. But something went wrong there. Rather than never waking up, Mrs. Dashiell opened her eyes as the killer missed his target. She screamed and he ran, slipping away into the night.


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[Assistant] But there's always another axe. There's always another family. And there's always another monster.


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[Assistant] Tucked in the southwestern corner of Iowa, between the middle and west branches of the Nottoway River, is the sleepy little town of Villisca. In 1912, it was the sort of town where everyone knew each other. If not by name, then at least by face.


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[Assistant] On the night of June 10th, eldest daughter Catherine played host to a pair of local girls, Lena and Ina Stillinger, for a sleepover. With the house full, the family retired to bed, and soon all eight of them were fast asleep.


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[Assistant] Breaking glass makes noise, and that's probably why the intruder removed the lamp's chimney and set it aside.


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[Assistant] When he raised the weapon over his head it scuffed the ceiling of the room, but neither of the occupants of the bed noticed. He brought it down first on Joe, and then on his wife. Two quick swings, two sickening thuds, and then it was over.


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[Assistant] He next visited the more children asleep in the second upstairs bedroom. He quietly killed each of them with similar quick blows to the head with an axe before returning to the stairs. Back downstairs, he entered the room where the two guests slept and completed his macabre mission. No one awoke.


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[Assistant] Perhaps the noises upstairs woke her. Maybe her sister screamed, or some other noise disturbed her sleep. But by the time she was awake, it was too late. She quickly joined the others in their horrible fate.


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[Assistant] I wish I could say that the night's events were over, but the intruder, the killer now, wasn't finished. After killing all eight of the people inside the house, he returned upstairs and systematically brutalized their remains with his axe.


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[Assistant] When he was done with this, the man covered each of the faces of the victims, all eight victims, shrouded in clothing and bedsheets. Then he moved on to the mirrors in the house, draping each in turn with more cloth.


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[Assistant] Every reflective surface, every place where it might be possible to see eyes staring back at himself, he carefully and deliberately covered each of them.


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[Assistant] As it goes with so many small town tragedies, the people of Villisca went in search of someone to blame for the murders. One of the first suspects to be considered was Iowa Senator Frank Jones.


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[Assistant] There was also a rumor that Joe Moore had been having an affair with Frank's daughter. The theory, around town at least, was that Frank hired a killer to get rid of Moore. He was never formally charged with the murders, but the news coverage ruined his political career.


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[Assistant] But weird or not, he quickly admitted to the murders and to leaving town on a train the morning of their discovery.


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[Assistant] He was also left-handed, something the coroner had determined was a characteristic of the killer.


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[Assistant] But there were problems too. Kelly was five foot two and weighed a little over 100 pounds. Not the beast that people would have expected to find swinging an axe in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, Kelly later recanted his confession and complained about police brutality.


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[Assistant] One final suspect was William Mansfield. It was believed by some that Frank Jones had hired Mansfield to do the killing, while others just believed the man worked alone.


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[Assistant] Mansfield had a criminal record, and at one point one of the detective agencies hired to investigate the murders claimed that he was even a cocaine addict. No one liked Mansfield.


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[Assistant] And it seemed like he was really the guy. Mansfield had been suspected in two other murders prior to Velisca, which didn't help his case. One in Paola, Kansas had happened just four days before and another in Aurora, Illinois. The locations of both of those murders were easily accessible by train and both had been committed with an axe.


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[Assistant] That's not all. Each of the previous murder scenes were eerily similar too. In both homes investigators found a lamp burning at the foot of the bed.


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[Assistant] Glass chimney missing. Mirrors in both homes had been covered. And bowls of water were used to wash bloody hands and they were found near the kitchen.


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[Assistant] No prints were found, though, suggesting a killer who was worried about being identified by prison records, something Mansfield would have understood.


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[Assistant] In the end though, Mansfield was able to provide an alibi. His name was apparently on the payroll records for a business several hundred miles away, making it difficult to believe he could have traveled to Villisca to swing the axe.


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[Assistant] Someone did though, which means the killer got away. He caught a train, skipped town, and landed somewhere else. Who knows where that train might have taken him.


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[Assistant] The axe is about as iconic as it gets. Some of the oldest man-made tools that scientists have discovered are hand axes, suggesting that their form and function is somehow part of our subconscious. They fit our needs and perhaps they fit our nature as well.


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[Assistant] In Villisca, like countless communities around the world at the turn of the last century, the axe was about as commonplace as the hand pumped well or the wooden outhouse. Everyone had one and everyone took them for granted. It was incredibly common to see them laying on a person's porch or protruding from a large piece of firewood in the yard.


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[Assistant] Which means that there would have been no need for the Veliska Axe murderer to carry his weapon with him. It was a weapon of convenience. It was the easy and logical choice. The perfect tool for the perfect crime.


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[Assistant] As a result, our scary stories are full of those brutally sharp iconic weapons. Their vicious arc is the stuff of nightmares. And for the Moore family, those nightmares became real.


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[Assistant] We encounter William Mansfield one more time in the historical records. Shortly after his trial and release, a man named R.H. Thorpe from nearby Shenandoah came forward with a story.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was someone else. Maybe it was Mansfield himself, caught in his own lie. There's no record that the authorities followed up on that lead. But other things followed him in the years to come.


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[Assistant] In June of 1914, a full two years after the events in Villisca, Mansfield was arrested one more time, this time in Kansas City. The reason?


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[Assistant] They had been brutally murdered in their sleep during the night, and the killer had used an axe.


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[Assistant] From the horror films of the last few decades, to tales of Lizzie Borden and her forty whacks, no artifact of violent crime has reached the status of folklore quite like the common acts.


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[Assistant] And because of that, there's no shortage of stories that feature its brutal blade, along with a whole bunch of mystery. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear about one more.


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[Assistant] The headline in the local paper, the Crowley Post signal in Louisiana, seemed to say it all.


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[Assistant] Brutal murder of Negro family is discovered in West Crowley.


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[Assistant] If you were faint of heart or tended to be a bit squeamish, that was probably enough information.


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[Assistant] Walter Byers worked in the local rice mill. He, along with his wife and son, seemed to be the perfect neighbors. Folks in town said he was a hardworking man. He served as the volunteer secretary at his church and was described in the newspaper article as peaceable.


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[Assistant] It sounds almost stereotypical, but that common eyewitness on the street testimony we've all heard a hundred times. He was a great neighbor, a quiet man, and we always waved and said hello. All of that is entirely applicable here.


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[Assistant] Like I said, Walter Byers was the perfect neighbor. Quiet, kind, and helpful. Looking back though, maybe that makes the rest of the story all the more painful.


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[Assistant] On Tuesday evening, the 24th of January of 1911, if you're keeping track of the details, one of the buyer's neighbors saw Walter's wife, Sylvinia, a little after dinner time.


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[Assistant] All three members of the Byers family were found in bed together. Walter and his wife, side by side, with their son stretched out at their feet.


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[Assistant] Leaning against the head of the bed was a long-handled axe, covered in blood and bone and hair, and that wash of red carries over the entire bed, where the sheets had tried and failed to soak in all of the blood that had been spilled by the killer.


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[Assistant] Each of the victims had been struck in the head, the blade of the axe splitting their skulls. Death was most likely instantaneous, which honestly seems like the only bit of mercy in this entire story. Their deaths would have been incredibly painful, but at least they were very quick.


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[Assistant] Around the bed were more pieces of the story. A nearby wash stand held a half-filled basin of water on top, and the water inside was pink with blood.


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[Assistant] Clearly the killer had stopped to clean himself before leaving, although when they did, they left bloody footprints on the floor that led out of the room. And that was all they would ever know about the killer.


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[Assistant] Whoever they were, wherever they came from, and whatever their motive might have been, all of that was a mystery. The only truth the authorities could be certain of is that they killed the buyers as they slept, washed their hands, and then walked out of the house and into the night.


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[Assistant] All they left behind was the axe, the blood, and the broken bodies of three innocent victims.


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[Assistant] Sadly, there would be more killings like it in the area over the coming months. The Andrus family from Lafayette in February, the Casaues from San Antonio in March, and while the authorities chased leads and arrested suspects, no definitive answer was ever found. All we're left with is blood, blood, and the axe.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company Grim and Mild specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.


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[Assistant] During his historic journey aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin spent over a month on a small island off the coast of Chile, known as Chiloé. It wasn't his final destination, but he still managed to work and collect information and specimens, including a small endangered fox, now known as Darwin's Zorro.


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[Assistant] He also witnessed the after effects of an earthquake and made note of a rainbow that transitioned from the typical semi-circle to a full circle right before his eyes. But it was the people he encountered that seemed to impact him the most.


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[Assistant] He also noted seeing a pair of black-necked swans, but thankfully Darwin didn't have the same view of birds that the local people did. And still do, actually. One local historian recalls how, when he was a boy, a hunchback heron flew low over his fishing boats.


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[Assistant] When he told his father the older man grabbed his shotgun and waited for the bird to return.


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[Assistant] Why? Because for as long as anyone could remember, the people of Chilliway had believed that some birds are more than they appear. Some people, it seems, believe the birds are warlocks, and seeing one was a bad omen, hinting that someone close to you would soon die.


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[Assistant] All of us are ruled by authority to some degree, whether it's through our government, our religion, or our family ties. Often, it's all three.


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[Assistant] But there's another governing body, one that's as old as time itself.


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[Assistant] The Incas called it the Place of the Seagulls. They stayed away from the area, believing it was the border between their empire of prosperity and safety and the cold, dark wilderness to the south.


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[Assistant] Chilliway isn't a large island, perhaps less than a hundred miles from north to south, but it's certainly the largest in the collection of small islands there off the coast of Chile.


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[Assistant] And to visit it is to go back in time. Green hills, mountains in the distance, the dark waves of the South Pacific lapping on the shore where colorful houses are built on stilts to stay above the mud and the rocks.


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[Assistant] Darwin described it as beautiful in 1835. He wrote of the mixture of evergreen trees and tropical vegetation, of the rolling hills and the thick forests. And all of that green Darwin postulated was due to the enormous amount of rainfall.


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[Assistant] And while most people have never heard of the place, the unique churches there have an architectural style that has earned them classification as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There are churches, of course, because Jesuit missionaries built them shortly after arriving at the beginning of the 17th century.


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[Assistant] But don't let those European artifacts fool you. The culture the Jesuits encountered when they arrived was far outside their realm of experience.


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[Assistant] The Chilliway of old was home to a vast collection of myths and legends that informed almost every aspect of everyday life. And because much of the economy and culture of the island was built around the fishing industry, just as it is today, many of those stories have elements of the sea in them.


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[Assistant] One example is the legend of the ghost ship known as the Kaliuchi. According to the stories, the Kaliuchi patrols the waters off the coast of the island, moving both above and below the water. The ship itself is a sentient being and has the ability to sense when someone from the island has drowned.


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[Assistant] After they die, these people are brought onto the ship by two sisters and a brother where their new life can begin. That life consisted of both an eternal party aboard the ship and working as sailors in the transport and unloading of illegal cargo for the island's merchants.


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[Assistant] Even today, there are many in Chilliway who claim to have seen the ship, still patrolling the cold waters offshore.


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[Assistant] There are other legends that haunt the island. Stories speak of the Trawko, a sort of forest troll or little person who lives in hollow trees deep in the forest.


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[Assistant] But their task is to protect the trees, but they have also become a convenient scapegoat for unwed mothers. The trough, they say, is irresistible to virgins who wander into the forest, and those women frequently return home pregnant.


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[Assistant] Then there is La Pencoya, who is said to be a woman who appears to fishermen along the coast. She is described as young and beautiful, but her hair is covered in wet kelp. The locals consider her to be an omen, although the outcome depends on the circumstances.


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[Assistant] If she appears facing the sea, your fishing nets will overflow. If she's facing you though, those nets will be empty. And in the rare instances when she appears right in front of a person, the legend says that it's best to close your eyes and run as fast as you can, lest she seduce you and lead you down into the sea.


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[Assistant] One more legend is that of the basilisk, a creature that appears elsewhere around the globe. In Chilliway though, the basilisk is more than just an enormous snake.


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[Assistant] Here it also has the head of a rooster and hatches from an egg. Some stories tell how the basilisk will nest beneath a person's house. During the night it will slither out and suck the air from the lungs of the people sleeping inside.


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[Assistant] For as frightening as some of these creatures and stories might be though, none of them compare to the legends of the Brujo de Chiloé, the warlocks of the island. They have struck fear into the hearts of the locals for centuries. They have shaped many aspects of their culture. They have been blamed for tragedy, for loss, and even for illness and death.


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[Assistant] Most frightening of all is the simple fact that unlike all the other legends found on the island, the Brujo were real.


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[Assistant] We know the Brujo were real because they were brought to trial in 1880. Almost overnight, what was once little more than a whispered legend, a sort of Chilean boogie man, if you will, took on flesh and bone. And what the investigation uncovered was truly shocking.


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[Assistant] Let's step back though. It's important to understand where the warlocks came from. And the short answer is that we don't really know. But there are ideas, and many of them hold promise and truth. The most common theory is that something powerful was formed as a result of the collision between the indigenous culture and the Catholic faith of the Spanish when they first arrived.


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[Assistant] The ingredients for this new breed of legend have been there for a very, very long time, though. On one side we have the Machi. These were the traditional shaman of the Chilean culture, the healers and wise people. Their realm was that of revelations, interpretations of dreams, and serving as the oracle of the community.


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[Assistant] On the other side, there was the Kalku. These were the practitioners of black magic, considered to be witches and warlocks by most people. Unlike the Machi, who sat at the center of their society and were documented religious figures, the Kalku were more mythical, spoken of in stories, and whispered about at night.


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[Assistant] The Kalku are described as Machi Gone Bad, those who became more interested in selfish gain than serving the community. And I know this will be a gross oversimplification, but think of the Machi as the Jedi and the Kalku as the Sith.


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[Assistant] Enter the Spanish Conquistadors. They arrived in 1567 and brought countless stories with them of European witches. But the culture in Chilliway has always been very male driven and so the idea of the female witch was converted to the male warlock in the public narrative.


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[Assistant] This melding of religions has actually happened in many countries across the centuries, where the Catholic faith would meet ancient beliefs, and rather than wipe them out, would blend with them, unintentionally becoming something new. And that's how the Brujo were born.


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[Assistant] Well, maybe. Some scholars make reference to a story from the 17th century of a Spaniard named Jose de Moraleda who met the Maci and wanted desperately to impress them. He challenged them to a magical duel, and after they brought in one of their best Maci, Moraleda was defeated.


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[Assistant] As a prize, the Spaniard handed over to them a book of spells that he claimed had been gathered from around the world.


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[Assistant] It was with that book of spells, the legend goes, that the Brujo built their cult. Some still refer to it by the original name, the Recta Provincia, the Righteous Province. And according to them, this secret group manipulated the culture on the island for two centuries.


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[Assistant] Initiation into the group was complex and drenched with the occult. The first step was to wash away any remnant of Christian baptism. And they did this by bathing in one of the local rivers for 15 nights in a row.


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[Assistant] Some were instructed to murder a relative or a close friend. And then, when all of that was completed, they had to run around the island naked while invoking the devil's name.


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[Assistant] The Brujo maintain their power over the people of Chilliway through an odd mixture of supernatural rumor and mafia-like control.


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[Assistant] They would most commonly force local farmers to give them produce or money, but they were also known to bribe local authorities and even created a shadow government that ruled in the places where the Spanish didn't reach. And rather than use violence or traditional weapons to enforce these policies, they used the threat of a curse.


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[Assistant] Ultimately, it was this game of blackmail and protection rackets that brought an end to their reign over the people of Jilloé.


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[Assistant] And so in 1880, over 100 members of the cult were arrested and interrogated. Many were released when they turned out to be nothing more than machi looking for a community to belong to. But some were held for trial on the charge of murder. The darkest revelations from the trial, though, were never believed.


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[Assistant] The supernatural creatures. The book of spells.


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[Assistant] The secret's hidden cave where the cult maintained their seat of power.


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[Assistant] The trials revealed many new details about the Brujo and their beliefs, practices, and inner workings. Some almost sound like they were pulled right out of a children's book. They're so simple and benign, while others are downright chilling.


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[Assistant] For example, one of the men on trial in 1880 revealed that each warlock carried a pet lizard with him. This lizard, according to the man, would be tied to the warlock's forehead, and because it was magical, it gifted him with powers.


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[Assistant] These warlocks were even said to communicate and interact with the ghostly sailors aboard the Calliuchi, using seahorses as aquatic carrier pigeons to pass messages back and forth. Seahorses.


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[Assistant] Other stories spoke of how the warlocks recruited new spies for their sect. According to the legend, these warlocks would kidnap young women who would be given a special elixir to drink.


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[Assistant] Once ingested, these girls would vomit until their stomachs and intestines lay on the ground at their feet. Then they would transform into birds and do the bidding of their master.


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[Assistant] None of this though compares to what the Brujo were said to have kept in their cave.


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[Assistant] One of the men on trial in 1880, an elderly man named Matteo, claimed that in the 1860s, he had been asked to visit the cave to feed the creatures they kept there. And although his testimony was rejected by the court as fantasy, some have been left wondering.


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[Assistant] The cave, it is said, was difficult to locate, and rightly so. It contained multiple magical items, including the book of spells the group had received from the Spaniard more later, as well as a bowl that was said to show the future to those who looked into it.


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[Assistant] And because these were objects of power for the Warlocks, they needed to be carefully guarded.


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[Assistant] The entrance was a door hidden beneath the grass and soil in a rocky canyon near the coast, and with it, a metal key. Matteo told the court that he opened the entrance to the cave only to find two creatures inside that nearly defied description.


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[Assistant] One was called the chivato, a humanoid creature that was briefly described as goat-like and walking on four legs. But it was the other thing in the cave that Mateo had no trouble describing. Because at first glance, it seemed to be nothing more than a bearded man. This man, though, was deformed.


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[Assistant] Not mildly or by birth, but intentionally and drastically twisted. He was called the imbunche, and although the one that Mateo witnessed appeared old, he said that they typically began as infants.


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[Assistant] Now, this next part isn't for the faint of heart, but it's necessary to understand the level of cruelty and barbarism that this cult practiced. According to writer Bruce Chatwin, who visited the island in 1975, the locals still maintain a good amount of folklore around the creation of the Imbunche.


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[Assistant] According to Chatwin's report, the warlocks would kidnap a male six-month-old child and then deliver it to one known as the deformer who lived inside the cave.


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[Assistant] This man's job was to shape and disfigure the infant's body.


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[Assistant] The head would be twisted daily until after many months.


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[Assistant] It faced backwards. Limbs and fingers were disjointed and even its ears and mouth were malformed by the deformer.


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[Assistant] The final characteristic though, according to Chatwin, was the right arm. It would be bent backwards and the hand slipped into an incision made on the right shoulder blade. Then the wound would be sewn up, leaving the arm permanently affixed to the child's back.


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[Assistant] Why this was done is something that history has forgotten over the years. But the impact is just as powerful today.


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[Assistant] Left to guard and inhabit the secret cave of the warlocks, the Imbunche was seen less as an act of torture than more as the creation of an essential part of the cult society. When one Imbunche died, another was created to take its place.


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[Assistant] This is the level of darkness these real-life warlocks were capable of. This is what powered the fear they used to enslave and control the people of the island. And this is what many of them confessed to on the stand that spring in 1880.


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[Assistant] And as a result, many of the accused were sentenced to long prison terms. These were men who had killed, who had cursed their neighbors in blackmailed businesses for protection money.


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[Assistant] It was impossible to prove that they had belonged to a secret society of black magic, as horrible as the stories had sounded. No one, they thought, could be that evil. Could they?


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[Assistant] In a world where authority often falls to those with the most wealth, the most weapons, or the most connections, it's unusual to find cases where some other power allows people to rule. But if the story of Chilliway teaches us anything, it's that fear can be just as powerful as any government official. Fear of death. Fear of poverty. Fear of the unknown.


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[Assistant] Those who called themselves part of the Brujo in 1880 were card carrying members of a cult that wielded fear like a weapon. Thankfully, the trial helped put real faces to the shadows that had plagued the people of Chilliway for centuries. Whether or not they received punishment for their crimes was secondary. The warlocks had been exposed, shattering their illusion of fear.


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[Assistant] But while many saw the trial as the end of that nightmare, there are some who aren't so sure.


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[Assistant] In 2006, the local court there in Chilliway issued a restraining order against Manuel Cardenas and his brother-in-law.


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[Assistant] Due to a physical altercation they had with a 66-year-old farmer named Jose Marquez, they were prohibited from coming within 10 meters of the old man.


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[Assistant] When asked why he attacked the farmer, Cardenas said that it was because of an illness his father had been suffering through. Pain had become a constant part of the old man's life, and it had gone on long enough.


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[Assistant] Hardenius claimed that his father's illness had begun after an encounter with the farmer, all the way back in 1992. The pain hadn't stopped since, and after consulting with a local shaman, they were told why.


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[Assistant] According to the shaman, the farmer had cursed their father with black magic, which sounds vaguely familiar and begs the question, did the trial of 1880 really wipe out the cult of warlocks? Or did some of them slip through the government's net, living on to spread and grow their sect into the 20th century and beyond?


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[Assistant] The events that took place on the island of Chilliway represent an unusually rare departure from the typical witchcraft accusations of the past few centuries. Almost everywhere you look in the pages of history, those accused of witchcraft were women. But here, things played out slightly different.


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[Assistant] But it's not the only instance in history that the word warlock has captured the public ear. In fact, I found one a lot closer to the typical witchcraft trials that just might fit the bill. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] True to the standards of late 16th century Scotland, Richard just sort of appears on the scene, fully formed, at the beginning of his trial. Most people who lived four or five centuries ago barely left a paper trail. Heck, even the most famous playwright of all time, William Shakespeare, is only mentioned a handful of times in public documents.


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[Assistant] The fact of the matter is, most people who lived and died back then are completely lost to history.


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[Assistant] But Richard managed to land in the record books just as time was running out for him. And through the confessions of others, and some court gossip, we know a few things about him. But again, not much.


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[Assistant] It seems he appeared on the scene in Edinburgh sometime around 1587. Richard was an excommunicated Catholic looking for someone to give him permission to settle in their territory. And Francis Stuart, the fifth Earl of Bothwell, agreed. What sweetened the deal? Well, we're pretty sure that it was Richard's reputation as a warlock.


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[Assistant] Over the next three or four years, a number of stories would cement that reputation. One of the most famous examples came from the confession of a woman named Barbara Napier. According to her, she was a regular client of Richard's.


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[Assistant] First it was a ring that she wanted the warlock to charm with magical powers. Then she returned, hoping to buy his healing abilities for her sick son. But many of Richard's encounters actually took place a bit higher up the social ladder.


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[Assistant] It seems that the warlock had worked his way into the lives of many powerful people in Scotland's upper class. In fact, he ended up staying as a guest with so many of them that he was rarely home. And he climbed that social ladder high.


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[Assistant] Bothwell once took Richard horseback riding at the estate of the Chancellor to the King of Scotland. While they were hanging out together, Richard showed off some sort of device that he used in his magical activities. Both men were understandably impressed. But then again, that also meant that they would remember that moment.


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[Assistant] Fast forward to 1591 and things were starting to heat up for our warlock, Richard Graham. Because just a year earlier, the North Berwick witch trials broke out and people started naming names. Of course, they did so out of desperation. Out of hope that if they handed over a long enough list of other witches, they might be spared because of their helpfulness. And that's the position Barbara Napier found herself in.


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[Assistant] She had been named by one of the earlier accused, a woman named Agnes Sampson. And it turns out Richard was on a number of lists, making him a top suspect. One victim, Isabelle Watson, claims she actually saw Richard interacting with the Fair Folk as if he were in cahoots with them.


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[Assistant] Naturally, our intrepid warlock tried to lean on his powerful friends for support.


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[Assistant] But when it came to witchcraft trials in late 16th century Scotland, there were a few associations more destructive to a person's political career than floating in the same circle as a witch. And to make matters worse, the king of Scotland at the time was James VI, quite possibly one of the most violent and aggressive witch hunters in history.


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[Assistant] In the end, it all came down to a bottle of liquid. You see, Richard's noble friend, the Earl of Bothwell, didn't have the best relationship with King James. So, Bothwell hired the warlock to create a potion that would increase his favor in James' eyes.


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[Assistant] It didn't work, and to make matters worse, someone else who knew about the potion ended up telling the king. As you'd imagine, he didn't take the news very well.


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[Assistant] Richard Graham, the warlock of Edinburgh, was executed at the city's Market Cross at the end of February in 1592. But just before he was led to his death, he accused Bothwell of plotting to kill the king. True or not, that was enough to seal the noble's death warrant as well.


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[Assistant] History has largely forgotten Richard Graham, but he was one of the few true warlocks to land on the scene in the days of the English and Scottish witch trials. Bothwell, however, managed to add a number of thrilling events to the history books before he finally escaped the country to live out his remaining days in Italy. Oh, and one last thing.


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[Assistant] It would be easy to dismiss Richard Graham as nothing more than a trickster and a fraud, using a bit of arcane knowledge to fleece the aristocracy for personal gain.


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[Assistant] But there's one event from 1591 that leaves me wondering.


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[Assistant] It seems that a man named Sir Louis Bellenden had a run-in with Richard that had quite the impact. Bellenden was, among many other things, a prominent lawyer and government official. He was even part of the royal wedding party that followed King James across the sea to Denmark, where his bride awaited.


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[Assistant] But it was a year after his return that he heard tales of Richard Graham and his dark powers. So he did what any good attorney would do in this situation. He accused Graham of being a fraud. Unless he could demonstrate those powers in front of an audience, of course.


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[Assistant] The documentation is scarce, so I can't paint the entire picture for you. But we know how it ended. You see, Bellenden requested that the warlock conjure up the devil himself for all to see. Right there on his own property in the cannon gate. What exactly happened, we don't know. But we do know this.


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[Assistant] Sir Belinden was so terrified by what he saw that day that he almost immediately took sick. A short time later, the man was dead.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical.


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[Assistant] You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] In 1943, Abraham Maslow gifted the world with his list of five core essentials that every human being has in common. Today, we call the chart Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and it's still a framework for how we understand and study much of human behavior in our modern world.


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[Assistant] The list includes a few obvious entries, such as our physiological needs and our desire for love and affection. There are deeper concepts too, like self-actualization and esteem. They're just as important, but a bit harder for many people to understand at first glance.