“THE SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION OF MARY HARDY REESER” and More Horrifying True Stories! #WeirdDarkness

A New York teenager lit a piece of paper, threw it at a sleeping homeless man on a Manhattan subway, and stepped back onto the platform as the doors closed behind him.  SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/carrero-subway-fire Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736 WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Investigators now believe the two February ransom notes sent to the Guthrie family came from the person who took Nancy — and one of them said she was already dead. *** ANYONE WITH INFORMATION CAN CONTACT THE FBI AT 1-800-CALL-FBI, OR THE PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT AT 520-351-4900. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/guthrie20260627 Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736 *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Pulled out of Iran after his Strike Eagle went down, an American fighter pilot told intelligence officers he had watched a cluster of drones hover and move together as one body, like a jellyfish, in the seconds before he ejected. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/f15-jellyfish Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736 *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

Dublin, Ohio spent $67,548 on a five-foot, four-hundred-pound robot that patrolled a parking garage for nearly ten months and never made an arrest, wrote a ticket, or flagged a single incident. SOURCES, LINKS, AND PRINT VERSION: https://weirddarkness.com/dubbot READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode:  Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://pod.link/1078714736 *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.

A grieving farmer's seance vow and a healer's vision of buried iron built the world's only school for talking to the dead — and left the town of Whitewater steeped in legends of witches, haunted cemeteries, and things that crawl out of the lake. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HauntedWhitewater READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/WD20260626B-HauntedWhitewater-transcript.txt FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Whitewater legend says that the bizarre experiments conducted at the Morris Pratt Institute of Spiritualism in Wisconsin, to communicate with the dead, have left the town cursed by witches and haunted by restless spirits. It’s no wonder it has garnered the nickname of “Second Salem.” (Whitewater: The Second Salem) *** The Wild West had many drifters with troubled pasts. One found himself at the heart of one of the most infamous crimes in American history. Ben Kuhl went from horse theft, to stagecoach robbery, to murder – from notoriety to infamy – all in pursuit of elusive riches. Finally arrested and convicted due to a bloody handprint (The Last Stagecoach Robbery) *** Fred West was just a regular boy, or so it seemed. But behind closed doors, in reality, he was becoming evil incarnate. And upon meeting his future wife Rose, it only expanded his predatory predilections. Fred and Rose descended from petty crimes to unspeakable horrors of rape and murder – even of the most young and innocent. From their "House of Horrors" the depths of their depravity was acted out — hidden from site. But as the walls closed in and the truth emerged, the true horror of their crimes was laid bare. (The Evils of Fred And Rose West) *** AND MORE! CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:02:20.946 = Show Open 00:04:34.008 = Whitewater: The Second Salem 00:24:07.841 = The Evils of Fred And Rose West *** 00:40:14.638 = The Last Stagecoach Robbery *** 00:53:46.205 = Bygone Gluttons *** 01:06:32.360 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Whitewater: The Second Salem” by Charlie Hintz for Wisconsin Frights: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p9bktup “Bygone Gluttons” by Ben Gazur for ListVerse: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p99hjxj “The Evils of Fred and Rose West” from Biography: https://www.biography.com/crime/fred-west “The Last Stagecoach Robbery” from Creative History Stories: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdh3h8h5 (Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links...