Latest / Crime and Horror / She had a DEADLY sixth sense - MrBallen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Today, I have three really good stories that, all in
- 0:03Speaker 1: their own way, demonstrate that sometimes the truth really is
- 0:07Speaker 1: stranger than fiction. But before we get into today's stories,
- 0:10Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
- 0:12Speaker 1: delivered in story format, and you come to the right place,
- 0:15Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
- 0:18Speaker 1: even four times every week. So if that's of interest
- 0:21Speaker 1: to you, please steal the like Buttons car and drive
- 0:24Speaker 1: it to the busiest four way intersection you can find
- 0:27Speaker 1: and simply park it in the middle and then leave. Also,
- 0:30Speaker 1: please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications
- 0:34Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
- 0:37Speaker 1: let's get into today's stories. On the night of September eleven,
- 1:00Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine, a twenty three year old student named
- 1:03Speaker 1: Alice Nott sat in her bedroom in the Washington, DC
- 1:06Speaker 1: boarding house where she lived, doing what she did every
- 1:08Speaker 1: single night, which was to study. So Alice rarely left
- 1:12Speaker 1: her room. She'd spent the last few months preparing to
- 1:16Speaker 1: take this really important civil service exam, which she had
- 1:19Speaker 1: to pass if she wanted to land the stable government
- 1:22Speaker 1: job that she desperately wanted. But studying was not the
- 1:25Speaker 1: only reason that Alice seemingly never went out. Alice was
- 1:29Speaker 1: also sort of naturally a recluse, in part because she
- 1:32Speaker 1: had a lot of health issues, like a weak heart
- 1:35Speaker 1: and poor circulation, and she just generally got sick a lot,
- 1:38Speaker 1: so being out in the world was really tiring for
- 1:41Speaker 1: her and also sort of scary, and it was just
- 1:43Speaker 1: easier and safer to stay inside. Now, it was getting
- 1:47Speaker 1: late in the night, and there was some cold air
- 1:49Speaker 1: coming in through her open bedroom window, and it was
- 1:51Speaker 1: actually unusually cold outside tonight, and since she got sick
- 1:54Speaker 1: pretty easily, she didn't want to risk this draft coming
- 1:58Speaker 1: in giving her a cold or something. So she set
- 2:00Speaker 1: her work down for a moment, and she went up
- 2:02Speaker 1: to close the window, and then on her way back
- 2:05Speaker 1: to her desk, she smiled at the other very important
- 2:08Speaker 1: reason that she spent so much time in her room.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Her beloved pet parrot, Polly and Pollie, was sitting on
- 2:15Speaker 1: his typical perch one of the room's light fixtures, and
- 2:18Speaker 1: as he saw Alice approaching, he got really excited and
- 2:20Speaker 1: began squawking really loudly. Now Alice knew that basically any
- 2:24Speaker 1: minute now she was very likely going to hear a
- 2:26Speaker 1: loud knock at her door about the loud noise, because
- 2:29Speaker 1: most of the people who lived in this boarding house
- 2:32Speaker 1: with her hated Polly, and Polly admittedly was kind of
- 2:36Speaker 1: a mean bird. Not only was he really loud, but
- 2:39Speaker 1: he bit people and made really threatening noises and handso
- 2:43Speaker 1: bad disruptive habits that pretty much drove everybody who lived
- 2:46Speaker 1: in the building crazy. Like right now, Polly, in addition
- 2:49Speaker 1: to squawking really loudly, was also pecking the metal frame
- 2:53Speaker 1: of the light fixture that it was on, which not
- 2:55Speaker 1: only made additional noise, but it also damaged the light fixture,
- 3:00Speaker 1: which you know, to most people in the building, they
- 3:02Speaker 1: didn't care so much about the light fixture, but the
- 3:04Speaker 1: landlord did, and so it was just this general consensus
- 3:07Speaker 1: that Polly is sort of nasty and loud and also
- 3:11Speaker 1: damages stuff. So like, nobody liked Polly, and they really
- 3:14Speaker 1: told Alice that she needed to get rid of Polly
- 3:17Speaker 1: and soon because he is a real problem. But Alice
- 3:19Speaker 1: would not get rid of Polly. She loved Polly, and
- 3:22Speaker 1: Polly loved Alice. He wasn't mean to Alice. He followed
- 3:26Speaker 1: her around everywhere and was very sweet to her. And
- 3:28Speaker 1: so Alice just she felt very attached to the spurd.
- 3:31Speaker 1: In fact, in many ways, she viewed Polly as being
- 3:34Speaker 1: sort of like her only family. You know, the only
- 3:37Speaker 1: reason she was in this boarding house to begin with
- 3:40Speaker 1: is because her brother and both her parents had passed away,
- 3:43Speaker 1: and so a lot of time it was just Alice
- 3:46Speaker 1: and Pollie in this room together, and so it was
- 3:48Speaker 1: just a very important relationship. It was like the only
- 3:51Speaker 1: relationship that Alice really had. And so Alice just walked
- 3:54Speaker 1: over to Polly, who was still squawking loudly and pecking
- 3:57Speaker 1: at this light fixture, and she just told him to
- 4:00Speaker 1: to stop what he was doing, and he listened, he
- 4:02Speaker 1: went completely quiet, and you know, she pet him for
- 4:04Speaker 1: a second, and then a moment later she was back
- 4:06Speaker 1: at her desk, back to studying, and for the next
- 4:09Speaker 1: few hours, that's what she did until her eyes got
- 4:11Speaker 1: too tired to stay open and she went to bed.
- 4:15Speaker 1: Hours later, in the middle of the night, Alice suddenly
- 4:18Speaker 1: stirred awake, and she sat up in her bed, and
- 4:20Speaker 1: she had no idea what caused her to wake up,
- 4:23Speaker 1: but what she did know is something just felt wrong.
- 4:26Speaker 1: Her chest felt incredibly tight, and she she actually felt
- 4:29Speaker 1: kind of dizzy, and so she got out of bed
- 4:31Speaker 1: and she stumbled her way over to the door to
- 4:34Speaker 1: get help, but she didn't get there. After taking only
- 4:37Speaker 1: a few steps, her legs suddenly gave out from under
- 4:40Speaker 1: her and she fell to the ground. The next day,
- 4:43Speaker 1: just before one pm, the landlord of the boarding house
- 4:46Speaker 1: bustled around the kitchen putting some lunch on the table,
- 4:49Speaker 1: and then when he was done and all the food
- 4:51Speaker 1: was laid out for his guests, he called out to
- 4:53Speaker 1: the house to let everybody know that lunch was ready
- 4:55Speaker 1: and to come on down. And a few moments later,
- 4:58Speaker 1: all the guests appeared at the table except for Alice.
- 5:01Speaker 1: Now the landlord immediately noticed this, and it did bother them.
- 5:05Speaker 1: I mean, they hadn't seen Alice all morning. However, you know,
- 5:08Speaker 1: they did know that Alice typically stayed up late studying,
- 5:11Speaker 1: so it wasn't all that unusual for her to sleep
- 5:14Speaker 1: in but even by her standards, one pm was very late,
- 5:18Speaker 1: and so the landlord decided they would just go up
- 5:20Speaker 1: to her room and make sure she was okay. And
- 5:23Speaker 1: so the landlord went down the hallway to the last door,
- 5:26Speaker 1: which was Alice's, and they knocked but there was no answer.
- 5:29Speaker 1: So after trying a few more times and still not
- 5:31Speaker 1: getting an answer, they just reached down, turned the knob.
- 5:34Speaker 1: It was unlocked, and they opened the door. And immediately
- 5:38Speaker 1: as soon as that door opened, the landlord began to gag.
- 5:42Speaker 1: So there were a lot of things about Alice's pet parrot, Polly,
- 5:46Speaker 1: that really concerned people, and Alice, who loved her bird
- 5:50Speaker 1: and considered it the only thing saving her from total
- 5:53Speaker 1: awful loneliness, sort of looked the other way when it
- 5:56Speaker 1: came to all those concerns. However, there was one thing
- 5:59Speaker 1: that Alice should not have ignored, and that was her
- 6:03Speaker 1: parrot's drug problem. So in eighteen ninety nine, interior lighting
- 6:08Speaker 1: inside of Holmes was almost exclusively open flames, and those
- 6:13Speaker 1: flames were powered by gas, and it would turn out
- 6:16Speaker 1: Polly regularly liked to inhale that gas. He would basically
- 6:20Speaker 1: get high when he was pecking at the light fixture.
- 6:23Speaker 1: He wasn't doing it just to make noise or to
- 6:26Speaker 1: damage it. He was doing it to turn the valve
- 6:29Speaker 1: in order to suck on this gas until he basically
- 6:32Speaker 1: passed out. Now Alice did know Polly did this, but
- 6:35Speaker 1: she would typically stop him while he was in the
- 6:38Speaker 1: process of trying to get high and just kind of
- 6:40Speaker 1: keep him from doing it. Or if after he had
- 6:43Speaker 1: turned the valve and passed out, she would just move
- 6:45Speaker 1: her parrot and then close the valve. Or she would
- 6:49Speaker 1: keep her window open to ensure that the gas wouldn't
- 6:53Speaker 1: get trapped in her room. But on this night it
- 6:56Speaker 1: was so cold outside she shut the window, and then
- 6:58Speaker 1: she fell asleep because she so exhausted from all the studying.
- 7:01Speaker 1: And it was after she had fallen asleep that Polly
- 7:04Speaker 1: pecked the valve open, got high on the gas, passed out,
- 7:08Speaker 1: and then the room continued to fill with this poisonous gas.
- 7:12Speaker 1: So when the landlord opened up the door, the reason
- 7:15Speaker 1: they gagged is they were hit by this the surge
- 7:18Speaker 1: of gas that had been trapped inside the room for hours.
- 7:21Speaker 1: And then when they looked inside, they saw Alice's body
- 7:24Speaker 1: lying on the ground by the bed, not moving, and
- 7:27Speaker 1: then at the landlord's feet, flattened on the ground with
- 7:30Speaker 1: their beak wedged under the crack at the bottom of
- 7:33Speaker 1: the door was the parrot. Alice would die from inhaling
- 7:37Speaker 1: the gas, but the parrot survived because he was able
- 7:40Speaker 1: to make his way over to the door and breathe
- 7:42Speaker 1: in that fresh air. And so the parrot recovered and
- 7:45Speaker 1: would continue to hugh gas whenever it got the chance.
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- 8:40Speaker 1: September of nineteen ninety three, forty three year old Linda
- 8:43Speaker 1: Goudi suddenly startled awake inside of her bed in her
- 8:47Speaker 1: home in Stoneham, Massachusetts. She had just had this really
- 8:51Speaker 1: horrible nightmare about how she was going to die. So
- 8:54Speaker 1: in a few weeks, Linda and her boyfriend, whose name
- 8:57Speaker 1: was Tim, were planning to go on a Caribbean crew
- 9:00Speaker 1: and in Linda's dream that she just had, she had
- 9:03Speaker 1: been on that vacation and during that trip she had
- 9:07Speaker 1: basically seen herself dying in a car. And this dream,
- 9:11Speaker 1: I mean, it was no ordinary dream. It had been
- 9:14Speaker 1: so vivid, so awful that even now, you know, she
- 9:18Speaker 1: knew she was awake, but her heart was still racing,
- 9:20Speaker 1: she was still dripping sweat. It was like she couldn't
- 9:22Speaker 1: fully escape from this nightmare. And as she's just kind
- 9:26Speaker 1: of sitting there with these horrible thoughts in her mind,
- 9:29Speaker 1: she began to realize that this was no ordinary dream,
- 9:33Speaker 1: this was a premonition. So Linda was a doctor. She
- 9:36Speaker 1: was an obstetrician and gynecologist who worked at a hospital
- 9:40Speaker 1: in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and by all accounts, she was excellent
- 9:43Speaker 1: at her job, not just because she was smart and experienced,
- 9:47Speaker 1: but also because she was just naturally intuitive and had
- 9:51Speaker 1: this sort of like sixth sense when it came to
- 9:53Speaker 1: her work. In a lot of cases, trusting her gut
- 9:56Speaker 1: and going off of her intuition had actually saved the
- 9:59Speaker 1: line of her patients and their babies, and so she
- 10:02Speaker 1: had sort of developed a reputation for being this way,
- 10:04Speaker 1: and it had led to many patients actually traveling to
- 10:08Speaker 1: her from all over the region to have their babies
- 10:10Speaker 1: or just to see her in general, because it just
- 10:13Speaker 1: sort of seemed like she was the person who could
- 10:15Speaker 1: handle any problem, mostly because she would get ahead of
- 10:18Speaker 1: it and sort of predict complications and treat them before
- 10:22Speaker 1: they became complications. But this sixth sense that she had
- 10:26Speaker 1: did not just pertain to work. She also would have,
- 10:29Speaker 1: you know, these sort of gut feelings or premonitions, like
- 10:31Speaker 1: the dream she just had about her personal life, and
- 10:35Speaker 1: almost always, you know, her intuition on these things, or
- 10:38Speaker 1: her her visions of the future would pan out to
- 10:41Speaker 1: be right. So Linda knew that in order to literally
- 10:44Speaker 1: protect herself, she needed to cancel her trip to the Caribbean,
- 10:48Speaker 1: And even though she knew this was the right call,
- 10:51Speaker 1: it didn't stop it from being hugely disappointing. She'd planned
- 10:54Speaker 1: this whole trip, she'd been really looking forward to it,
- 10:56Speaker 1: as was her boyfriend Tim, and also she sort of
- 10:59Speaker 1: felt like this was an important trip for her relationship
- 11:02Speaker 1: with Tim. She had been with Tim now for four years,
- 11:05Speaker 1: and he too was a doctor and they spent all
- 11:08Speaker 1: their time together at the hospital. They both worked at
- 11:10Speaker 1: the same hospital, but lately they'd been struggling and fighting
- 11:13Speaker 1: a little bit more. Tim had sort of become pretty
- 11:16Speaker 1: overprotective of her, like he was becoming sort of like controlling,
- 11:20Speaker 1: and so it was just sort of exhausting dealing with
- 11:22Speaker 1: their relationship issues. And this trip to the Caribbean she
- 11:25Speaker 1: saw as like this easy way to like get out
- 11:28Speaker 1: of their normal lives and work on their issues but
- 11:31Speaker 1: in a happy, sort of fun environment. It felt like
- 11:34Speaker 1: they needed it for their relationship. But now Linda knew
- 11:37Speaker 1: she would not only have to break the news to
- 11:39Speaker 1: Tim that they were going to go ahead and cancel
- 11:41Speaker 1: this trip, but also she would need to go find
- 11:44Speaker 1: something else, some other way for her and Tim to reconcile,
- 11:48Speaker 1: you know, call it a different vacation or some other
- 11:51Speaker 1: outing or something to like break the norm which had
- 11:53Speaker 1: become sort of toxic. So on this night, eventually Linda
- 11:57Speaker 1: calmed down from the shock of waking up to the
- 12:00Speaker 1: horrible nightmare, and she laid back down and she just
- 12:02Speaker 1: told herself that she would figure it out in the morning,
- 12:05Speaker 1: Like this was obviously bad, but at least she wasn't
- 12:08Speaker 1: gonna die in a car crash in the Caribbean. A
- 12:11Speaker 1: few weeks later, on the night of September thirtieth, Linda
- 12:15Speaker 1: stormed down the hallway of the hospital where she worked
- 12:17Speaker 1: towards her office. Linda was fuming. So she should have
- 12:21Speaker 1: been leaving for her trip to the Caribbean with Tim
- 12:23Speaker 1: in just a few days, but she had gone ahead
- 12:25Speaker 1: and canceled the cruise because of her dream, which Tim
- 12:29Speaker 1: was very annoyed with her about. He'd been vocal about
- 12:32Speaker 1: the fact that her reason for canceling this trip was
- 12:34Speaker 1: ridiculous and it had made things really tense between them,
- 12:38Speaker 1: and it was already tense between them, so this is
- 12:40Speaker 1: like doubly bad. And now just a few minutes ago,
- 12:43Speaker 1: they had actually run into each other in the hospital
- 12:45Speaker 1: hallway because they both worked there together, and they had
- 12:48Speaker 1: gotten into this huge fight about the cancelation of this trip,
- 12:51Speaker 1: and other coworkers had actually overheard it. And so now
- 12:55Speaker 1: Linda was not only mad but also embarrassed, you know
- 12:58Speaker 1: that other people saw her fighting, And so as soon
- 13:01Speaker 1: as she got into her office, she just slammed the
- 13:03Speaker 1: door behind her and sat down and tried to focus
- 13:06Speaker 1: on her work, reviewing patient charts and other things like that.
- 13:09Speaker 1: But she just couldn't. Now, Linda knew that canceling this
- 13:12Speaker 1: trip was the right thing to do. She was sure
- 13:15Speaker 1: that if she had gone to the Caribbean, she and
- 13:17Speaker 1: maybe even Tim would have died in a car like
- 13:20Speaker 1: she knew that she was preventing that. But at the
- 13:23Speaker 1: same time, she also just hated how this premonition was
- 13:26Speaker 1: now further complicating her relationship. And so now Linda just
- 13:30Speaker 1: told herself to calm down. She took a few deep
- 13:33Speaker 1: breaths and told herself, you know, you have other things
- 13:36Speaker 1: that are coming up that will help distract her from
- 13:39Speaker 1: the drama of her relationship and this trip. Like she
- 13:42Speaker 1: had a massage she had booked for herself on her
- 13:44Speaker 1: day off tomorrow, and she also had her college reunion
- 13:47Speaker 1: this weekend, two things she was definitely looking forward to
- 13:50Speaker 1: that so far, anyways, she had not had a premonition
- 13:52Speaker 1: about so she had not canceled. Finally, around eight fifteen PM,
- 13:56Speaker 1: when Linda's shift finally came to an end and she
- 13:58Speaker 1: had left the hospital to make her way home, she
- 14:01Speaker 1: actually was in pretty good spirits. You know, even though
- 14:03Speaker 1: she had certainly not resolved things with Tim. They were
- 14:06Speaker 1: still very much fighting. You know, this Caribbean trip really
- 14:08Speaker 1: had become a pain in both of their sides. Despite
- 14:11Speaker 1: all that, Linda was determined that, you know what, She's
- 14:14Speaker 1: not going to let this be just a constant drag
- 14:17Speaker 1: on her life. She needs to just live her life
- 14:20Speaker 1: and just go forward and in time things will sort
- 14:23Speaker 1: themselves out. Four days later, on the afternoon of Monday,
- 14:27Speaker 1: October fourth, one of Linda's friends was driving towards the
- 14:30Speaker 1: hospital where Linda worked, and this friend was very worried
- 14:34Speaker 1: about Linda, since she hadn't heard from Linda since they
- 14:37Speaker 1: spoke on the phone last Thursday, which in and of
- 14:40Speaker 1: itself was not a particularly big deal since they didn't
- 14:43Speaker 1: speak every day, But this friend had also spoken to
- 14:46Speaker 1: one of Linda's coworkers that morning, who was also worried
- 14:50Speaker 1: about Linda, because Linda apparently didn't show up for work
- 14:53Speaker 1: that morning, and the staff at the hospital were very worried,
- 14:56Speaker 1: and they had even sent someone to Linda's house to
- 14:58Speaker 1: check on her to make sure she was okay, but
- 15:01Speaker 1: she wasn't home, and Linda she rarely missed work and
- 15:05Speaker 1: if she did, she called in, and so to find
- 15:08Speaker 1: out that she hadn't called in and nobody knew where
- 15:10Speaker 1: she was, combined with the fact that this friend has
- 15:12Speaker 1: not heard from her, Like, the friend is thinking something's
- 15:14Speaker 1: wrong here, and so they were going to the hospital
- 15:17Speaker 1: to basically get together with their coworkers to just get
- 15:20Speaker 1: to the bottom of this, to figure out what happened
- 15:22Speaker 1: to Linda. But now as the friend turned into the
- 15:25Speaker 1: hospital's parking lot, she could immediately see that something was
- 15:29Speaker 1: terribly wrong here because the lot was crawling with police officers.
- 15:33Speaker 1: They'd completely roped off the whole area, and then there
- 15:36Speaker 1: was this one big group of people sort of standing
- 15:39Speaker 1: over at the perimeter. And so when the friend pulled
- 15:41Speaker 1: up and parked their car, she got out and she
- 15:44Speaker 1: rushed over to this group to see what they were
- 15:46Speaker 1: all looking at, and when she saw she just gasped.
- 15:50Speaker 1: It would turn out Linda's premonition was eerily accurate, but
- 15:55Speaker 1: Linda had misinterpreted it so on the previous Thursday when
- 16:00Speaker 1: she had left work after that long shift, and she's
- 16:02Speaker 1: looking forward to her massage the next day and the
- 16:04Speaker 1: college reunion that weekend. She's trying not to think about
- 16:07Speaker 1: the toxicity with her boyfriend. Tim she heads out, you know,
- 16:11Speaker 1: to head back home and just be done for the weekend,
- 16:14Speaker 1: but she never makes it home. In fact, she never
- 16:17Speaker 1: leaves the hospital grounds because shortly after leaving the hospital,
- 16:22Speaker 1: Linda was attacked and strangled to death inside of her car.
- 16:27Speaker 1: Linda had been convinced that the death in the car
- 16:31Speaker 1: was going to take place in the Caribbean, and so
- 16:33Speaker 1: avoid the Caribbean. What she didn't realize is that it
- 16:36Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the Caribbean. It was simply
- 16:39Speaker 1: that she was going to die in a car, and
- 16:41Speaker 1: she did, meaning the premonition she had was right. She
- 16:46Speaker 1: did die in a car. The location was just wrong.
- 16:49Speaker 1: So Linda's boyfriend, Tim Striker was the only suspect in
- 16:52Speaker 1: her murder. He had no alibi, and he still went
- 16:56Speaker 1: on that cruise to the Caribbean without Linda right after
- 16:59Speaker 1: her was found, and he was later caught paying a
- 17:03Speaker 1: witness to give the police false information about seeing Linda
- 17:06Speaker 1: with another man at the time of her death. However,
- 17:10Speaker 1: Tim was never officially charged with Linda's murder and denied
- 17:14Speaker 1: all involvement. However, he was convicted of perjury and was
- 17:18Speaker 1: sentenced to four years in prison, where he would die
- 17:21Speaker 1: in twenty eleven. On a spring evening in seventeen oh five,
- 17:45Speaker 1: a middle aged man named John McCall sat by his
- 17:48Speaker 1: wife's bedside in Lergan, Ireland, crying so hard he could
- 17:51Speaker 1: barely catch his breath. His wife, Marjorie had unfortunately just
- 17:55Speaker 1: passed away minutes ago from what appeared to be a
- 17:58Speaker 1: horrible fever. So John was actually a doctor and a
- 18:02Speaker 1: few days ago when his wife came down with this fever,
- 18:05Speaker 1: even though John had not been able to actually diagnose
- 18:08Speaker 1: what was causing her fever, what he did know is
- 18:11Speaker 1: that the fever was just ravaging her body and it
- 18:14Speaker 1: was going to kill her. And so over the next
- 18:16Speaker 1: couple of days, John just had to watch in horror
- 18:19Speaker 1: as his wife basically just shut down. And now, in
- 18:23Speaker 1: some ways her death was like a mercy, but it
- 18:25Speaker 1: was still devastating for John, in part because he felt
- 18:28Speaker 1: so helpless, like he's a doctor and he couldn't save
- 18:31Speaker 1: his wife. But now, you know, despite how unfair this
- 18:34Speaker 1: whole thing seemed, John had to kind of like pick
- 18:37Speaker 1: up the pieces. I mean, his wife in many ways
- 18:39Speaker 1: was like his whole world. You know, they had kids,
- 18:42Speaker 1: they had grandkids. You know, they were only in their fifties,
- 18:45Speaker 1: but much of those fifty years have been spent together,
- 18:48Speaker 1: and so now it's like he was this lost soul,
- 18:51Speaker 1: and so he just looked down at his wife and
- 18:53Speaker 1: he just reached out and he grabbed her hand, you know,
- 18:56Speaker 1: the hand that he was so familiar with, and he
- 18:58Speaker 1: squeezed it. It was just limb, and it made it
- 19:01Speaker 1: even more upsetting that, like, she was really gone. And
- 19:03Speaker 1: then he looked at her actual hand and he saw
- 19:06Speaker 1: the beautiful gold wedding ring that he had saved all
- 19:09Speaker 1: this money for, that they both had loved so much.
- 19:12Speaker 1: Just seeing that ring on her finger, on that limp
- 19:15Speaker 1: hand of hers, it just sort of it really reinforced
- 19:18Speaker 1: the finality of this moment. You know, he couldn't believe
- 19:21Speaker 1: this had happened, but it was real. His wife really
- 19:24Speaker 1: was gone. And so now as John continued to cry
- 19:27Speaker 1: and squeeze his wife's hand and just sort of reflect
- 19:30Speaker 1: on this horrible situation, he also in tandem knew that
- 19:34Speaker 1: he had to start thinking about her funeral. He would
- 19:37Speaker 1: have to plan it really quickly so they could bury
- 19:39Speaker 1: her really quickly. So at this time in Ireland, it
- 19:42Speaker 1: was traditional to hold a multi day wake when somebody died,
- 19:45Speaker 1: so that friends and relatives could have time to pay
- 19:48Speaker 1: their respects before the actual burial took place. But if
- 19:51Speaker 1: somebody died from disease, like obviously John's wife had, something
- 19:55Speaker 1: had caused the fever. He didn't know what, but it
- 19:58Speaker 1: had to be some sort of disease. If that was
- 20:00Speaker 1: the case, the wake was off the table and the
- 20:03Speaker 1: person was buried pretty much right away, just to prevent
- 20:07Speaker 1: the sickness from spreading further. But even though John knew this,
- 20:11Speaker 1: he couldn't quite bring himself to face that reality, the
- 20:14Speaker 1: idea that his wife would be in the ground as
- 20:16Speaker 1: soon as like tomorrow, But for right the second, John
- 20:19Speaker 1: did not get up and start making arrangements here. He
- 20:22Speaker 1: just wanted to soak up the last few moments he
- 20:25Speaker 1: had with his wife before she was in the ground.
- 20:28Speaker 1: The following day, John stood beside his wife's casket as
- 20:32Speaker 1: it was lowered into the ground at their local cemetery
- 20:34Speaker 1: in front of a crowd of other mourners. Even though Marjorie,
- 20:37Speaker 1: because of the disease factor, had not had a wake,
- 20:41Speaker 1: John had still expected to spend this day focused primarily
- 20:45Speaker 1: on grieving and thinking about all the things he loved
- 20:48Speaker 1: about his wife, But instead he found himself on this
- 20:52Speaker 1: particular day very fixated on something else, his wife's wedding ring.
- 20:57Speaker 1: So John really wanted his wife's wedding ring, just to
- 21:01Speaker 1: have something to remind him of Marjorie, you know, And
- 21:03Speaker 1: he loved that ring. It was something that meant a
- 21:05Speaker 1: lot to him. But pretty much right after Marjorie had died,
- 21:09Speaker 1: as part of the decomposition process, her fingers had begun
- 21:12Speaker 1: to swell really badly, and he could not remove the
- 21:16Speaker 1: ring from his wife's finger. Nobody could. Other people tried,
- 21:19Speaker 1: they couldn't do it, and so ultimately the decision was
- 21:22Speaker 1: made to just bury her with the ring. And so,
- 21:24Speaker 1: of course that in and of itself was sad for John.
- 21:27Speaker 1: He really wanted that ring. But also as John stood
- 21:30Speaker 1: there watching her casket get lowered into the ground with
- 21:33Speaker 1: this ring inside, he was worried that now her grave
- 21:37Speaker 1: site could potentially become a target for grave robbers. Now,
- 21:41Speaker 1: grave robbing has been a thing as long as there
- 21:43Speaker 1: have been graves, but it was especially common in Ireland
- 21:48Speaker 1: in the early seventeen hundreds when the story took place,
- 21:51Speaker 1: because the country at the time was experiencing widespread famine
- 21:55Speaker 1: and poverty, and people were desperate, and so things like
- 21:59Speaker 1: gold wedding ring inside of graves became things worth taking.
- 22:03Speaker 1: And so John just felt like, am I always going
- 22:06Speaker 1: to be worried that my wife's final resting place is
- 22:09Speaker 1: going to at some point be disturbed. But you know,
- 22:12Speaker 1: by the time Marjorie was actually buried that day and
- 22:15Speaker 1: people had sort of moved on. You know, as much
- 22:17Speaker 1: as John really wished that ring wasn't in there, that
- 22:20Speaker 1: he had it, you know, there was nothing he could do,
- 22:22Speaker 1: and so he decided he would just try to honor
- 22:24Speaker 1: his wife's memory in other ways. That night, John was
- 22:28Speaker 1: back in his home in front of the fire with
- 22:30Speaker 1: his kids and his relatives all around him, and they
- 22:33Speaker 1: were all crying and laughing and sharing their favorite memories
- 22:36Speaker 1: of Marjorie. And then every time someone told a story
- 22:40Speaker 1: about Marjorie, they would all lift their drinks and they
- 22:42Speaker 1: would toast to her. Now, for John this was very cathartic.
- 22:46Speaker 1: I mean, this definitely was helping him grieve. But John
- 22:50Speaker 1: was also just exhausted from his grief and also the
- 22:54Speaker 1: whirlwind of the last few days and just how wretched
- 22:56Speaker 1: they had been. And so even though people definitely were
- 22:59Speaker 1: intended to stay up for quite a while here. John,
- 23:02Speaker 1: at some point, in a lull in all the stories
- 23:05Speaker 1: and laughter and crying, he stood up to head off
- 23:08Speaker 1: to bed. But as soon as he did, as he
- 23:10Speaker 1: began leaving the crowd and they're all kind of watching him,
- 23:14Speaker 1: he heard a knock at the door, and so John
- 23:16Speaker 1: sighed and headed towards the door, assuming it had to be,
- 23:19Speaker 1: you know, one or more mourners who want to come
- 23:21Speaker 1: in and pay their respects and just sort of be
- 23:23Speaker 1: there for him. But when he opened the door, it
- 23:27Speaker 1: was not a mourner. It was something else entirely, and
- 23:30Speaker 1: when he saw what was out there, it made his
- 23:33Speaker 1: breath catch in his chest. And then suddenly he felt this,
- 23:36Speaker 1: the shooting pain rocketing through his chest. Then he felt
- 23:40Speaker 1: his legs buckle underneath him, and before he knew it,
- 23:43Speaker 1: he was falling to the ground. It would turn out
- 23:46Speaker 1: John had been right to be worried about the fact
- 23:48Speaker 1: that his wife was buried with her wedding ring, because
- 23:52Speaker 1: not long after she was laid to rest, word had
- 23:54Speaker 1: gotten out that there was this ring inside of her grave,
- 23:58Speaker 1: and grave robbers they dug her up. But just like
- 24:01Speaker 1: John and everybody else who tried the grave robbers also
- 24:05Speaker 1: could not get the ring to come off of Marjorie's
- 24:08Speaker 1: swollen finger, so they had to cut off her finger
- 24:11Speaker 1: to get the ring. But when they did that, a
- 24:15Speaker 1: very unexpected thing happened. Marjorie sat up and started screaming.
- 24:22Speaker 1: So even though John was a doctor, he had been
- 24:25Speaker 1: wrong when he thought she had died. I mean, he
- 24:28Speaker 1: wasn't the only one. Lots of people thought she had died. However,
- 24:31Speaker 1: nobody caught it, and they were so quick to bury
- 24:34Speaker 1: her because they were fearful of whatever had caused her
- 24:37Speaker 1: fever that disease, that it would continue to spread, that
- 24:40Speaker 1: they buried her while she was alive, just nobody knew.
- 24:44Speaker 1: And then those grave robbers when they cut off her finger, well,
- 24:48Speaker 1: the pain of having her finger lopped off basically jolted
- 24:51Speaker 1: her out of this catatonic state she was in, and
- 24:54Speaker 1: she sat up and she was fully alive again. But
- 24:57Speaker 1: when Marjorie basically stumbled from the s cemetery, fresh from
- 25:01Speaker 1: her grave, back to her home to tell her husband that, hey,
- 25:04Speaker 1: I'm still here. When John opened the door and he
- 25:07Speaker 1: saw his wife standing there, covered in dirt and missing
- 25:10Speaker 1: a finger and looking horrible, he was so shocked and
- 25:14Speaker 1: so scared that he had a heart attack and he
- 25:18Speaker 1: actually died. John was buried in the same plot that
- 25:22Speaker 1: Marjorie had just been dug out of. And Marjorie, you know,
- 25:25Speaker 1: despite what happened to her, she went on to live
- 25:27Speaker 1: for many more years, just without her ring finger. And
- 25:31Speaker 1: then when she finally did die, she was buried in
- 25:33Speaker 1: the same cemetery and was given a headstone with the
- 25:36Speaker 1: inscription lived once buried twice. That headstone is still at
- 25:42Speaker 1: Shankill Cemetery in Ireland today. Thank you so much for
- 25:53Speaker 1: watching today's episode. Let me know what you thought of
- 25:55Speaker 1: it in the comments below, And remember we have a
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- 26:01Speaker 1: for you to binge right now, so go ahead and
- 26:04Speaker 1: click here and give them a watch. All right, until
- 26:07Speaker 1: next time see it