Latest / Crime and Horror / His mercy killing saved their marriage - MrBallen

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His mercy killing saved their marriage - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you three stories about people
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: whose very stressful lives literally drove them insane. But before
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: we get into those stories, if you're a fan of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then
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  Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into
• 0:22
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• 0:26
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• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's get into today's stories.
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  Speaker 1: On the afternoon of January 16, 1960, a 75-year-old man
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  Speaker 1: named Julien Opier carried a bag of groceries into his
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  Speaker 1: apartment in Toulon, which is a city in France. He
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  Speaker 1: set the bag down on the counter, and then he
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  Speaker 1: looked around at the small kitchen with a twinge of sadness,
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  Speaker 1: because he knew he would never see it again after tonight. Then,
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  Speaker 1: like always, he pulled out a cutting board and a knife,
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  Speaker 1: and he began chopping vegetables for dinner. And as he
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  Speaker 1: was doing that, he heard his 77-year-old wife, Marie, call
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  Speaker 1: out to him from the bedroom. So he went to
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  Speaker 1: see what she needed, and he found her sitting up
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  Speaker 1: in bed, but propped up with some pillows, which was
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  Speaker 1: exactly how he had left her. So two years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: Marie had gotten very sick with a mysterious illness, and
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  Speaker 1: she had been totally paralyzed ever since. Now, she could talk,
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  Speaker 1: and she could move her eyes, and sometimes she could
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  Speaker 1: even shift her shoulders around with quite a bit of effort,
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  Speaker 1: but that was about it. And so ever since this
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  Speaker 1: paralyzation happened, ever since this mystery illness set in, Julian
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  Speaker 1: had become her full-time caretaker, which was exhausting and somewhat depressing.
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  Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, at least from Julian's perspective,
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  Speaker 1: over time, his wife had really only gotten more bitter
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  Speaker 1: and more demanding. So taking care of her had basically
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  Speaker 1: taken over every waking moment of Julian's life, both physically
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  Speaker 1: and mentally. And so now, as he, you know, with
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  Speaker 1: a sigh, walked over and reached the bed that his
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  Speaker 1: wife was in, Marie told Julian that he needed to
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  Speaker 1: change her diaper because she had gone to the bathroom
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  Speaker 1: while he was gone and he hadn't been there to
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  Speaker 1: help her with the bedpan. Now, Julian could tell that
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  Speaker 1: sort of in this statement was quite a bit of resentment,
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  Speaker 1: that she was annoyed that he had left her alone
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  Speaker 1: while he went to the store.
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  Speaker 2: But he didn't argue.
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  Speaker 1: He just nodded and started pulling back the sheets. And
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  Speaker 1: as Julian did this, he actually felt a wave of
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  Speaker 1: calm come over him, because he knew this would be
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  Speaker 1: the last time. Julian had known for a while now
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  Speaker 1: that he simply could not keep living like this.
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  Speaker 2: It just was not going to fly for him. He
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  Speaker 2: couldn't do it.
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  Speaker 1: But he also knew that Marie's quality of life, which
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  Speaker 1: was already quite poor, would.
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  Speaker 2: Be even worse without him.
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  Speaker 1: Which is why he'd made up his mind to end
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  Speaker 1: it all tonight, not only for himself, but also for Marie.
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  Speaker 1: Later that night, after Julian had cleaned up his wife
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  Speaker 1: and then also made dinner and fed them both and
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  Speaker 1: then cleaned up after dinner, he sat in the bed
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  Speaker 1: next to Marie, reading her a book like he did
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  Speaker 1: every night. And when he noticed that she was beginning
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  Speaker 1: to drift off, he put the book aside and he
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  Speaker 1: gently adjusted the pillows so his wife could lie flat
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  Speaker 1: and sleep comfortably. Then after that, he switched off the
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  Speaker 1: lamp and then he got out of bed and he
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  Speaker 1: left the room. He went to a closet and he
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  Speaker 1: pulled out a rope. And then he took the rope
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  Speaker 1: to the bathroom and he spent a few minutes setting
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  Speaker 1: it up. After it was set up, he grabbed a
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  Speaker 1: knife from the kitchen and went back into the bedroom
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  Speaker 1: where his wife was. And for a few minutes, he
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  Speaker 1: just stood there, you know, with this knife in hand,
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  Speaker 1: staring at his wife as she slept. And, you know,
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  Speaker 1: for a minute there, he didn't know if he could
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  Speaker 1: do it. But then he decided he had to. And
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  Speaker 1: now was the time. And so after taking a few
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  Speaker 1: deep breaths, Julian raised the knife up. His whole body
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  Speaker 1: is shaking from nerves and adrenaline, like he can't believe
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  Speaker 1: what he's about to do. And so he ended up
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  Speaker 1: gripping the knife with two hands, and then he closed
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  Speaker 1: his eyes, and he plunged the knife.
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  Speaker 2: Down into Marie.
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  Speaker 1: At that same moment, in the next apartment over, Julian's neighbor,
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  Speaker 1: a man named Roger Moncuso, was getting ready to go
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  Speaker 1: to bed. And as he was about to climb into
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  Speaker 1: his bed, he hears this piercing scream coming through the walls.
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  Speaker 1: And he could tell right away it was coming from
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  Speaker 1: Julian's place, jumped up, and he ran outside, went around,
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  Speaker 1: and began banging on their door.
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  Speaker 2: But nobody was answering.
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  Speaker 1: But Roger could clearly still hear screaming coming from inside
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  Speaker 1: of Julian's place. And so Roger began slamming his shoulder
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  Speaker 1: into the door over and over and over again until
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  Speaker 1: it burst open, and then he rushed in. And as
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  Speaker 1: soon as he was in there, he just followed the
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  Speaker 1: constant screaming into the bedroom where it was coming from.
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  Speaker 1: And when he got to the doorway and saw what
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  Speaker 1: was happening in the bedroom... He just froze because he
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  Speaker 1: was looking at a miracle. It would turn out when
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  Speaker 1: Julian went to murder his wife, he was so nervous,
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  Speaker 1: he was shaking so badly that when he brought the
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  Speaker 1: knife down, he missed her chest where he was trying
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  Speaker 1: to stab, and he wound up stabbing her in the
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  Speaker 1: side of the head. Now, this didn't kill her, but
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  Speaker 1: it did wake her up, and it shocked her so
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  Speaker 1: much that she jumped to her feet and began screaming.
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  Speaker 1: And so Roger, the next door neighbor, barrels into the apartment.
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  Speaker 1: He makes it to the doorway of the bedroom.
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  Speaker 2: He looks in.
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  Speaker 1: He sees Marie screaming. But really what he sees, the miracle,
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  Speaker 1: is that she's standing. He knows she's paralyzed.
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  Speaker 2: Like she hasn't moved in years.
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  Speaker 1: And she's standing, hand on her head from the stab wound.
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  Speaker 1: Not that Roger knows that. But he can't believe she's
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  Speaker 1: just standing there. How did this happen? Later, Marie's doctors
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  Speaker 1: would determine... that her paralysis was very real. She could
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  Speaker 1: not move. That was absolutely real. But the cause for
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  Speaker 1: it was psychological. There wasn't anything wrong with her body.
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  Speaker 1: It was due to this very serious mental block. But
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  Speaker 1: when she was stabbed in the head in her sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and she woke up to find her husband standing there
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  Speaker 1: with the bloody knife, That was such a shock to
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  Speaker 1: her system that it effectively reset her. It got rid
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  Speaker 1: of the mental block and cured her paralysis. Now, in
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  Speaker 1: the moment, like immediately after the stabbing, Julian had been
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  Speaker 1: so horrified by what he'd done that he'd actually gone
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  Speaker 1: through with the second part of his plan. As his
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  Speaker 1: wife is screaming there holding her stab wound, he went
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  Speaker 1: right into the bathroom and hung himself. But, thankfully, because
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  Speaker 1: Marie was screaming so loudly... Their neighbor Roger, who busted
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  Speaker 1: into the apartment, he was there within minutes, and he
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  Speaker 1: was able to cut Julian down and revive him. And so,
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  Speaker 1: of course, Marie and Julian lived happily ever after. There
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: were no issues whatsoever with Julian stabbing his wife in
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  Speaker 1: the head because he cured her. As a business owner,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I know my time is valuable, so I've gotten pretty
• 7:22
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• 7:26
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• 7:29
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• 7:32
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• 7:35
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• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. On the evening of Sunday,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: March 15th, 1970, a woman named Lisa Cooper sat in
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  Speaker 1: the living room of her home in Daytona Beach, Florida,
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  Speaker 1: along with her husband and two kids. The kids were
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  Speaker 1: playing a board game and her husband was reading the
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  Speaker 1: newspaper while And Lisa was dealing with a really bad headache.
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  Speaker 1: But this was not really unusual for Lisa. She'd had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of dental issues in the past, and the
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  Speaker 1: result of that was getting headaches quite a bit. But now,
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  Speaker 1: as she closed her eyes and just kind of hoped
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: her head would stop hurting, Lisa heard someone turn on
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  Speaker 1: the radio, like, really, really loudly. And it was this aggressive,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: orchestra-style marching song that was, like, blaringly loud, which made
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  Speaker 1: her headache instantly worse. She immediately opened her eyes and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: looked over at her son, who was sitting closest to
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  Speaker 1: where the radio was on the side table, and she
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  Speaker 1: yelled at him to turn it off or at least
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  Speaker 1: turn it way down.
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  Speaker 2: But her son just looked at her.
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  Speaker 1: With this confused look and said he didn't even know
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: what she was talking about. The radio wasn't on. But Lisa,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, she was so annoyed because she could literally
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  Speaker 1: hear it playing, and it was so loud that, like,
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  Speaker 1: she couldn't stand it for another second. So she just
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: got up and walked over to switch it off herself.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: But when Lisa got to it, she saw that her
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  Speaker 1: son was right. The radio really was off, which didn't
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  Speaker 1: make any sense at all because the song was still
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: currently blasting in her head.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: It was so loud.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: It had to be coming from somewhere in this room.
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  Speaker 1: But then just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
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  Speaker 1: And Lisa stood there, dazed, and asked her husband and
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: kids if they knew where the music had been coming from.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Like it wasn't our radio, but it had to be
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: coming from somewhere. And they all looked kind of bewildered
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: for a moment and then said, There hadn't been a
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: song playing. Like, you must be hearing things. Now, this
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: was obviously jarring and really weird for Lisa. But Lisa
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: decided that, well, her family must be right. Like, there
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: was three of them and one of her. They didn't
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: hear anything. She must have just somehow imagined it. So
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: she just kind of awkwardly went back to the couch
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and closed her eyes again. And then she heard the
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: crinkle of the newspaper as her husband went back to
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: reading it. And the kids started playing and laughing and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: just doing their game. One week later, Lisa was in
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: her kitchen cooking up some scrambled eggs and bacon. Her
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: family sat at the table nearby and they were waiting
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: for breakfast to be ready. And as Lisa was cooking,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: she suddenly heard a bunch of loud, abrupt bells start chiming.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: It was definitely music and she realized right away it
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: must be some kind of Christmas song playing. And when
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: she looked over at her family to ask where it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: was coming from, they definitely did not appear to be
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: hearing it at all. They were all just laughing and
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: talking and carrying on like there was nothing playing, there
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was no music playing. But she hears this Christmas music
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: playing very clearly, and so she asked about it anyway.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And once again, they all just kind of looked confused
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and said, no, they definitely cannot hear any music. But
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: at this point, because of what had happened a week earlier,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: they started gently teasing her, like, oh, looks like you're
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: hearing things again.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: But Lisa, she understood the spirit of the joke. But
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: for her, this was serious. Like, she didn't think this
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: was funny.
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  Speaker 1: Like, right this second, as they're joking with her, she
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: can hear the music playing. And she felt like, you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: when this music was playing, she couldn't do anything but
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: hear it. Like, it just overtook her entire sensory perception.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: And in fact, for the whole rest of that day
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and the next.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Day, Lisa kept hearing music.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: And at first, because her family had sort of lightly
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: teased her about it, she thought, Maybe they're playing some
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: really tasteless, horrible prank on me. But she found over
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: these couple of days that the music just wouldn't stop,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: even when her family wasn't home. It was the same
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: rotation of songs, too, over and over and over again.
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  Speaker 1: And for days, Lise looked all around the house for
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: anything that might be causing it.
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  Speaker 2: But she didn't find anything.
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  Speaker 1: And it was kind of making her feel crazy, like really,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: like she was losing her mind. Over the coming days
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and weeks, this music situation only got worse to the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: point where she literally couldn't even sleep. She would just
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: lay in bed, wide awake, listening to these bells and all.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: This orchestra music playing. It was like constant.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And in fact, it was where she was one morning
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in early April, in her bed, just sort of laying
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: there listening to this music, when her husband suddenly burst
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: into the room And he said he knew exactly what
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: was going on with this music because he just read
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: about it in the newspaper. After her husband told her
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: what he discovered in the paper, Lisa did two things. First,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: she went to a very specific type of doctor. And
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: then second, she took out a paid advertisement in the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: newspaper with a very particular request. And the combination of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: these things mostly solved Lisa's problem. It would turn out
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Lisa was not going crazy. she actually was hearing music
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: that nobody else could hear. Because the dental work that
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: she'd had years ago had left her with metal fillings
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and crowns, and she'd had enough of them that her
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: mouth actually started working like a radio. So in certain cases,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: metal dental fillings and crowns can actually act.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Like small radio wave detectors.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: If a filling is both loose and made of the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: right types of metal, Radio waves can actually make the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: filling vibrate, which basically turns it into a speaker inside
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of a person's skull. So Lisa had been hearing real
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: music from a real radio signal, just projected through her teeth.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Now, this is.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Medically possible, but incredibly rare.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: But it had happened before.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Lisa's husband had read about a similar case in the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: newspaper of all places.
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  Speaker 2: which was how he knew what was going on. And
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: he recommended that she go see a dentist.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And so the dentist, the specialized doctor she saw, ended
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: up swapping out one of her clearly loose crowns, which
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: greatly reduced the music, but didn't completely get rid of it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Like she still would hear music when it was being
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: played by this apparent one station out there that was
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: playing these same songs on repeat.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: And so she also put an ad out in.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The paper listing those songs along with her phone number
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: being like, hey, this is happening to me. If this
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is your playlist, stop because it's driving me crazy. But
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: no one ever got in touch. And so she never
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: found out who was doing it. And she continued to
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: periodically hear that same music, especially around Christmas time. Hey, Mr.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Ballin here, getting ready to tell some strange, dark, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: mysterious stories around a campfire. And I just wanted to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: remind you that you can right now get your hands
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: on our newest graphic novel called Terror Within.
• 15:30
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• 15:32
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• 15:40
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• 15:53
  Speaker 1: get it at your favorite bookstore or click the link
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in the description below. One morning in 2008, A 27-year-old
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: woman named Mary Silva knelt down next to her crying
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: four-year-old son in their living room in a small village
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in Portugal. He was throwing a tantrum for no clear reason.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And across the room, Mary's other son, who was eight
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: years old, was jumping up and down on the couch
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and throwing toys everywhere. So Mary, in this moment, is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: like completely overwhelmed. Her kids are out of control. And
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: she looks through the doorway, just kind of glances over
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: through the doorway, and she sees her mother-in-law, who obviously
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: hears the kids crying. But her mother-in-law is just sitting
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: at the dining room table, calmly eating her breakfast, no
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: care in the world. And it's like Mary's thinking, like,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like, why wouldn't you come help?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Mary would have loved to go eat, but she can
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: never get a moment to herself. But for Mary, this
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: was actually very typical.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: This was a normal day for her.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Now, when she'd gotten married a decade ago, she had
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: pictured a completely different life for herself. She'd always been
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: smart and ambitious, and at first, her husband had fully
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: supported her goal of continuing her education. But just a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: few months after their wedding, she'd gotten pregnant. And around
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that same time, her husband had immigrated abroad for work,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: leaving Mary behind in Portugal to live with her mother-in-law,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: who was really overbearing and frankly just didn't like Mary
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: at And so in short order, Mary had to abandon
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: her dreams of going to school to take care of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: the kids, which she was happy to do. But her
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: mother-in-law was really no help. And all she ever did
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in some ways was just criticize Mary for not being
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: able to keep her kids under control, even though they're
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: just kids.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: They're little. They have tantrums. It happens.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Now, over the last decade, Mary had developed some coping
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: mechanisms to handle all the stress. But lately, it had
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: become almost too much to handle. She was having trouble sleeping,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: she was losing weight, and recently she'd been having really
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: intense stomach pain and bouts of nausea that she was
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: sure were connected to her stress. And so she'd kind
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of reached a breaking point. She knew something in her
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: life needed to change, but she was just too exhausted
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: to even begin to see a way out of this. Now,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Mary's four-year-old son, who was currently down on the floor
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: kicking and screaming, he He reached up and he grabbed
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Mary's hair and he started yanking on it, which was
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: really painful. And so Mary's like telling him, like, please
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: let go, like, calm down. The eight-year-old's going crazy still.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, Mary hears her mother-in-law
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: shout from the dining room as she's still eating, like,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: please get your kids to shut up. And Mary's like
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: yelling back at her, I'm trying, as she's having her
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: hair pulled out of her head. And then just as
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Mary is about to pull her own hair out, She
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: felt this really sudden, sharp pain in her stomach that
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: was way worse than any stomach pain she had had before.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: And then this really intense.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Wave of nausea overtook her, and she keeled over and
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: she threw up right on the floor. And at that moment,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, if Mary had thought she'd reached a breaking
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: point before, she was wrong.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: This was it. This was her low point.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: She knew that her current living situation was like killing her, basically.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: And she couldn't keep ignoring these symptoms. Like, she's having
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: these crazy pains in her stomach and nausea.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: She needed help.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: A few hours later, in a hospital in the nearby
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: city of Aveiro, Mary lay on an exam table while
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: a doctor pressed on her abdomen. Mary, by this point,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: had explained her symptoms and all the stress she was under.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And the doctor had told her it might be an
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: ulcer or stress-induced gastritis, which were both quite serious but treatable.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So right now, as Mary laid there, she was actually
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: feeling cautiously optimistic and glad that she had ultimately come