Haunted Towers, Serial Killers, and the Evils of Facebook
Review of Season 13
Hi everyone!
Season Thirteen. Season Mother F*%king Thirteen! I guess that makes me an experienced podcaster, but I don’t feel that way. I still in a lot of ways feel like a brand new baby podcaster trying to find their place in a very big sea of big fish. But I also feel like a baby podcaster that has a lot of experience. Why am I saying this? By the end of Season Thirteen I was one episode away from releasing 250 episodes. But if you count the additional history episodes that we have on our YouTube channel, and all the extra content we have for our fan club - we are actually getting closer to 600 episodes. No wonder I need a nap.
So back to Season Mother F*%king Thirteen. We started out the season at the Tower of London. I love the Tower of London. It was always a dream of mine to go to the tower, and I got to see this amazing fortress with my best friend Dean. It was my first Eurotrip and after a long flight with no sleep - we were on our way to the tower. I was so excited to see the tower, but was even more excited to see the Starbucks right outside. I was so jet lagged. That coffee was amazing.
The Tower of London is everything you can imagine and more. Just standing outside the gates thinking of all the people who walked where I was knowing they were never going to leave - gave me chills. What gave me further chills was checking out the jail cells, and seeing the messages prisoners from so long ago carved into its walls. I was let down with one thing though. I did not see any ghosts! I was so let down, because the tower has some of the most famous ghosts in history! After hearing about the spirits we spoke of in this episode, who would spend overnight there with me?
Next came our episode about the Gainesville Ripper. Danny Rolling suffered from horrible abuse, and later the abuse he had endured he took out on his victims. I can’t help but wonder if things would be different if Danny had a loving home to grow up in. What if someone had intervened? That no one can answer, but what we can say is if that question was answered - a lot of people would be here with us today.
Our next episode was suggested by one of our fans, and I am glad they did. I have never heard of the Facebook Murders before I got that email. What I find interesting is that Danny Rolling and Jenelle Potter have something in common. Their parents didn’t do them any favours. By Jenelle’s parents coddling and smothering her; it resulted in people dying. But the moral of this episode was that everyone needs to be careful on the internet. Not everyone is the person they claim to be. Trust me…you should read some of the emails we get at our show. I would love to post some of them for you all here, but I can’t. Some are x-rated.
The next episode in Season 13 was one I had to do after I heard about the topic matter. Adults posing as children was in the news cycle at the time due to Natalia Grace, who was adopted in the Ukraine by an American couple. They were charged with multiple counts of neglect after they abandoned Natalia in a rented apartment, and moved to Canada. They claimed she wasn’t a child at all, but an adult posing as a child. It wasn’t until recently that testing proved that Natalia was 9 years old when she was adopted and not the adult her adoptive parents claimed. But this tale was different than the story that inspired the horror movie “The Orphan”, which was the topic of our episode.
I think the most shocking part of the story of Barbora Skrlová was two fold. The first was how everyone was aware of her ruse except for the woman who took her in, and her two sons. The second was how little time behind bars that Barbora received. Even worse was how she got out of jail early due to her mental health, but she couldn’t have cared less about the mental health of the two young boys who she convinced those around her to abuse. Considering the lengths Barbora went to to keep up her scam, it terrifies me that she is a free woman today. She could be anywhere, and it is very possible she is trying to do the same exact thing today.
The next episode was one that I purposely released in the month of January - The Great Molasses Flood. This disaster occurred in the month of January, and I thought that releasing this episode in this chilly month would give you all a better idea of how weather helped make this happen. The idea of being smothered while being stuck in molasses is horrifying on its own, but the idea that the company knew that there was a problem and tried to hide it is even worse. It shows that in many cases, profit is more important to some than a human life is.
Our next tale was about Belle Gunness, and that woman was a piece of work. Personally I believe the reason she got away with what she did for so long was because she was female. In those days, people though women wouldn’t harm a fly. But Belle’s pig pen and bank account proved that theory wrong. I think that she was the one responsible for her home burning down, and her children’s deaths. My theory is that she started to get nervous when she no longer could control her lover/farm hand/accomplice. I think she came up with this plan to kill two birds with one stone - get rid of her children and Ray all at once. Belle Gunness was truly a dark soul.
This brings us to the end of our January 2024 episodes, and the end of this post. In our next edition, I tell you all my thoughts on the episodes we released in February 2024 which includes: Bridey Murphy, Canada’s most haunted city, cemetery vampire lore, and the haunting of Fox Hollow Farm. If you need to catch up on the episodes we talked about today, you can listen to Horrifying History with your favourite podcast provider, or you can find links at our website: horrifying-history-shop.fourthwall.com
…and until next time…