Latest / Crime and Horror / This mystery made an ENTIRE TOWN believe in ghosts

Transcript

This mystery made an ENTIRE TOWN believe in ghosts · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to tell you two stories that really
0:03
Speaker 1: have shock endings. I mean, the plot twists in both
0:06
Speaker 1: these stories are absolutely worth waiting for. But before we
0:09
Speaker 1: get into those stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark,
0:12
Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
0:15
Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do. So if
0:18
Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, please remove the batteries from
0:21
Speaker 1: the like buttons TV remote and then once they're out,
0:24
Speaker 1: go ahead and you super glue and glue the back
0:26
Speaker 1: back on. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn
0:29
Speaker 1: on all notifications so you don't miss any of our
0:32
Speaker 1: weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. On the
0:51
Speaker 1: night of May third, eighteen ninety seven, a forty three
0:55
Speaker 1: year old widow named Mary Titus lay in her bed
0:58
Speaker 1: inside of her house in the small town of them At, Pennsylvania. Mary.
1:01
Speaker 1: As she laid there, she just could not fall asleep
1:05
Speaker 1: because she kept hearing this strange tapping sound coming from
1:09
Speaker 1: somewhere in her house. Eventually, Mary just stopped trying to
1:12
Speaker 1: fall asleep altogether, and she just sat up and just
1:16
Speaker 1: listened really intently to figure out, you know, where the
1:18
Speaker 1: sound is coming from. But she just couldn't do it. It
1:20
Speaker 1: was sort of erratic, and it seemed like it was
1:22
Speaker 1: coming from all over the house, and at one point
1:25
Speaker 1: it felt like it was right below her, and then
1:26
Speaker 1: it was over here. I mean, it really was hard
1:29
Speaker 1: to pinpoint where it was even coming from, let alone
1:31
Speaker 1: what was actually causing it. And then on top of that,
1:34
Speaker 1: the volume of this tapping was also changing. Sometimes it
1:37
Speaker 1: would get really loud, and then it would be super
1:40
Speaker 1: faint and she could barely hear it, but it was
1:42
Speaker 1: still there somewhere in her house. But then, sort of inexplicably,
1:45
Speaker 1: the tapping sound just abruptly stopped. Mary is sitting up
1:49
Speaker 1: in bed. You know, it's two three in the morning,
1:51
Speaker 1: and it's just silence in her house. And at that
1:53
Speaker 1: point Mary told herself, okay, well, clearly it was some
1:56
Speaker 1: animal or maybe it's a branch tapping on the outside
1:59
Speaker 1: of her house or something thing. You know, she's rationalizing
2:02
Speaker 1: this sound it's gone now, so it can't be harmful
2:04
Speaker 1: and I should just stop thinking about it and actually
2:07
Speaker 1: go to sleep now. But shortly after laying her head
2:10
Speaker 1: back down on the pillow, when she was almost asleep,
2:13
Speaker 1: she started hearing this sound again and again. She just
2:15
Speaker 1: could not tell where it was coming from. Now, Mary
2:18
Speaker 1: she was a widow, but she did have somebody else
2:20
Speaker 1: who lived with her in the house. It was her daughter,
2:22
Speaker 1: her eighteen year old daughter, whose name was Cora. Cora's
2:25
Speaker 1: father and Mary's husband had passed away tragically eleven years
2:29
Speaker 1: earlier in this terrible mining explosion, and really, even though
2:33
Speaker 1: it had been eleven years, Mary and Cora were still
2:36
Speaker 1: very much living in the shadow and the grief of,
2:40
Speaker 1: you know, his death. This is something that they really
2:42
Speaker 1: had never been able to move past. And so as
2:44
Speaker 1: Mary is laying here in bed and she's hearing this
2:46
Speaker 1: tapping sound starting again, you know, part of her thinks
2:49
Speaker 1: maybe it's Cora, you know, maybe she's doing something. But really,
2:52
Speaker 1: what was going through her head when this tapping sound
2:55
Speaker 1: began again was how utterly alone she felt, and how
2:59
Speaker 1: badly she missed her husband, like she really just wished
3:02
Speaker 1: he was here, because then she would have told him, hey,
3:04
Speaker 1: go investigate. I'm going to stay here. You go make
3:07
Speaker 1: sure the house is safe. But obviously he was gone.
3:09
Speaker 1: He'd been gone for over a decade, and so eventually,
3:12
Speaker 1: even though Mary really didn't want to get up, and
3:14
Speaker 1: go look for this tapping sound, because truthfully, she was
3:17
Speaker 1: just scared at this point. But she's thinking about her daughter, Cora,
3:20
Speaker 1: who's downstairs, and you know, heaven forbid, there's some problem
3:23
Speaker 1: in the house. Maybe an animal has literally gotten into
3:25
Speaker 1: the house and it could be hazardous. She doesn't know,
3:28
Speaker 1: so she needs to go and be the brave one
3:31
Speaker 1: and go find out where the sound is coming from
3:33
Speaker 1: and make sure her daughter's okay. And on top of that,
3:35
Speaker 1: her daughter Cora had recently had this really bad case
3:38
Speaker 1: of strep throat and while she was recovering, you know,
3:41
Speaker 1: she really was not back to one hundred percent. And
3:44
Speaker 1: so Mary told herself, you know, this is an opportunity
3:46
Speaker 1: as much as anything to go down and just check
3:49
Speaker 1: on her daughter and make sure she's okay. And so
3:51
Speaker 1: finally Mary musters the courage and she takes her sheets
3:54
Speaker 1: off and she gets up out of her bed, and
3:56
Speaker 1: at the same time, the tapping is sort of rocketing
3:58
Speaker 1: all around the house. It's all over the place, and
4:01
Speaker 1: right as Mary steps onto the ground she's out of
4:04
Speaker 1: her bed, the tapping stops. Mary starts walking towards the
4:07
Speaker 1: door and there's nothing. She gets to the door, she
4:10
Speaker 1: opens it up. She listens, she's looking out, but there's nothing,
4:14
Speaker 1: and the house is completely silent, and there was something
4:17
Speaker 1: kind of eerie about it. It's like the sound was
4:20
Speaker 1: responding to Mary's actions. And suddenly all of Mary's courage
4:23
Speaker 1: evaporated and she thought, you know what, the sound has stopped.
4:27
Speaker 1: Everything's okay. I'm sure Cora's okay. I'm getting back in
4:30
Speaker 1: bed and I'm going to sleep. And that's what she did.
4:32
Speaker 1: She rushed back to her bed. She did not go
4:34
Speaker 1: check on Cora. She just got under the sheets, pulled
4:36
Speaker 1: him up to her chin, and just hoped the sound
4:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't come back. And it didn't, and eventually Mary fell asleep.
4:43
Speaker 1: The following morning, when Mary woke up, she immediately kind
4:46
Speaker 1: of took stock and realized, okay, you know, I'm okay.
4:49
Speaker 1: You know, everything seems fine in the house. She listened
4:51
Speaker 1: and didn't tear any knocking sounds, and she quickly got up.
4:55
Speaker 1: She got dressed. She went downstairs into the kitchen and
4:58
Speaker 1: Cora was actually already down there doing some needle point,
5:01
Speaker 1: and she seemed perfectly fine, albeit still recovering from her
5:04
Speaker 1: struck throat, but she was okay. She was in the
5:06
Speaker 1: kitchen in good spirits, and so Mary just kind of,
5:09
Speaker 1: you know, breathed a sigh of relief here, even though
5:11
Speaker 1: again she really has no idea what that tapping was.
5:14
Speaker 1: She has no idea if it was sinister or not.
5:16
Speaker 1: This could be totally benign, but there was just something
5:19
Speaker 1: uneasy about it, and so it was just really nice
5:22
Speaker 1: to come down here and have life be totally normal.
5:24
Speaker 1: And so pretty quickly Mary just fell into her everyday routine.
5:28
Speaker 1: She began prepping some food for her in core to eat,
5:31
Speaker 1: and then she and her daughter just started chatting. At
5:34
Speaker 1: no point did Mary bring up the tapping sound, in
5:36
Speaker 1: part because she didn't really even know what they meant.
5:39
Speaker 1: She was kind of spooked by it, didn't want to
5:40
Speaker 1: scare her daughter, so it never came up. But they're chatting,
5:44
Speaker 1: having their completely normal warning when suddenly there's very clear
5:48
Speaker 1: and fairly loud tapping that starts not in the kitchen
5:52
Speaker 1: but below the kitchen, in the cellar. And as soon
5:55
Speaker 1: as the tapping starts, Mary immediately stops because she recognized
5:59
Speaker 1: it as the same sounds she was hearing the night before.
6:02
Speaker 1: That spooked her so badly, and she looked over at
6:04
Speaker 1: Cora without saying anything, just seeing if maybe Cora heard
6:07
Speaker 1: the noises too, and Cora, as well as looking at her,
6:10
Speaker 1: mom like did you hear that? And Mary's like, you
6:13
Speaker 1: heard that too? You heard that tapping? And Cora's like, yeah,
6:16
Speaker 1: I think it's coming from the cellar. And Mary she's like,
6:19
Speaker 1: I could have sworn I heard that tapping last night.
6:21
Speaker 1: It was actually keeping me up. And Cora she said, well,
6:24
Speaker 1: you know, it sounds like it's in the cellar. Maybe
6:26
Speaker 1: we have mice down there and they're rummaging around or something.
6:29
Speaker 1: That's probably what it is. And so Mary, who at
6:32
Speaker 1: this point is desperate to find a logical, non scary
6:36
Speaker 1: explanation for what's going on here, just immediately goes down
6:39
Speaker 1: the stairs into the cellar and begins looking for mice
6:42
Speaker 1: that would prove that's all this is. It's mice making
6:45
Speaker 1: these sounds. But when she's down there, she's looking around
6:48
Speaker 1: and there's no mice. There's no sign of mice. And
6:51
Speaker 1: as she's down there, she starts hearing the tapping again,
6:55
Speaker 1: but now it's not coming from the cellar where they
6:57
Speaker 1: thought the sounds were originating. It's coming from somewhere above
7:01
Speaker 1: her and as soon as Mary hears this tapping sound,
7:03
Speaker 1: she hears Cora reacting to it upstairs in the kitchen,
7:06
Speaker 1: like she was kind of startled by it, and so
7:08
Speaker 1: Mary runs back upstairs to the kitchen. She looks at Cora,
7:11
Speaker 1: and Cora is visibly distressed because she's like, I heard it.
7:14
Speaker 1: It was in here, It was in the kitchen or
7:16
Speaker 1: or somewhere nearby. I didn't see anything, but I heard it.
7:19
Speaker 1: As soon as you went down there, I heard it.
7:21
Speaker 1: And so at this point, Mary is undeniably scared. She
7:24
Speaker 1: doesn't know what this is, but it's gotten to the
7:26
Speaker 1: point where she cannot deny there is something strange happening
7:29
Speaker 1: in her house. Her daughter has now fully corroborated that,
7:32
Speaker 1: and so Mary said, you know what, I'm going next door.
7:35
Speaker 1: They had a friend who lived next door, a guy
7:37
Speaker 1: that actually used to work with Mary's husband, who was
7:39
Speaker 1: sort of like their handyman and the guy they would
7:41
Speaker 1: call on to kind of help them around the house.
7:43
Speaker 1: And so Mary she left her house and she went
7:45
Speaker 1: next door, knocked in this guy's door, and when he came,
7:48
Speaker 1: you know, she explained that there's something happening. There's knocking
7:50
Speaker 1: sounds happening in my house. It's scaring me and Cora.
7:54
Speaker 1: We can't figure out what it is. Can you please
7:55
Speaker 1: come take a look, and he was like absolutely, I'll
7:57
Speaker 1: be over in a second. And so Mary goes back
7:59
Speaker 1: to her house and she and Cora are standing in
8:02
Speaker 1: the kitchen and periodically they're hearing these tapping sounds. And
8:06
Speaker 1: then the neighbor he comes over. He comes inside and
8:09
Speaker 1: right away, you know, when he comes in, he starts
8:11
Speaker 1: to hear the tapping too, and Mary's like, what is that?
8:14
Speaker 1: And Cora she's totally spooked. And the guy's like, I
8:17
Speaker 1: think it's your pipes. I think that's all this is.
8:19
Speaker 1: It sounds very much like your pipes are banging against
8:22
Speaker 1: the wood inside your house or something. So let me
8:24
Speaker 1: just check your plumbing. That's probably what this is. And
8:27
Speaker 1: so Mary and Cora they're like great, Like he seems
8:29
Speaker 1: pretty confident that that's all this is, and so Mary
8:32
Speaker 1: and Cora they kind of hover around the neighbor as
8:35
Speaker 1: he begins to check the kitchen and the bathroom plumbing.
8:37
Speaker 1: But as he's checking all the pipes and the fittings
8:40
Speaker 1: and kind of looking for the origin of these strange
8:42
Speaker 1: tapping sounds. He realizes as he's checking all these different
8:46
Speaker 1: areas that as he's checking them, the tapping sound is persisting,
8:50
Speaker 1: and it's not coming from the pipes. Sometimes it sort
8:54
Speaker 1: of seems like the tapping is coming from near the pipes,
8:57
Speaker 1: but other times, as he's working right here, the tapping
9:00
Speaker 1: sound is coming from somewhere else on the other side
9:03
Speaker 1: of the house. And eventually Mary and Cora started to
9:06
Speaker 1: sense that the neighbor, who had come in very confident
9:09
Speaker 1: that this was no big deal, was starting to show
9:12
Speaker 1: signs that he too felt a little uncomfortable, like something
9:15
Speaker 1: was off here. And then sort of out of nowhere
9:18
Speaker 1: when the tapping got really loud, and it was now
9:20
Speaker 1: apparent not only to this guy but also to Mary
9:23
Speaker 1: and Cora that the tapping could not be coming from
9:26
Speaker 1: the plumbing because it's nowhere near here. It's behind us.
9:29
Speaker 1: And the man he turned around and he looked at
9:31
Speaker 1: Mary and Cora. His face is ashen. He really looked
9:34
Speaker 1: pretty upset, and he said, you know, the last time
9:38
Speaker 1: I heard this sound was in the mine. It was
9:41
Speaker 1: when your husband was killed in that explosion. You know,
9:44
Speaker 1: he died, but other men got trapped in the mind
9:47
Speaker 1: behind all this rubble from the explosion, and they couldn't
9:50
Speaker 1: get out, and they were tapping on the rocks over
9:53
Speaker 1: and over again until they all died. That's what this
9:57
Speaker 1: sounds like. After that, the man just got up and
10:01
Speaker 1: hastily left and just told them I'm sorry, I can't
10:03
Speaker 1: help you. And he was out the door and back
10:05
Speaker 1: over to his house. And so Mary and Cora they're
10:07
Speaker 1: left wondering, like, what do we even do? Who do
10:10
Speaker 1: we talk to? What's happening here? But for Mary specifically,
10:14
Speaker 1: even though she couldn't believe that this guy had just
10:16
Speaker 1: told her that, what a horrible thing to tell her.
10:18
Speaker 1: I mean, he knows she's grieving the loss of her husband.
10:21
Speaker 1: How could you possibly say that to me? But she's
10:23
Speaker 1: thinking about what he told her that it sounds like
10:26
Speaker 1: the tapping of these doomed men, including her husband, tapping
10:30
Speaker 1: on the mine walls before they perished, And she started
10:32
Speaker 1: to wonder, what if these are ghosts. What if it's
10:37
Speaker 1: my husband and these men who died in the mines
10:40
Speaker 1: eleven years ago trying to get my attention. What if
10:43
Speaker 1: they're trying to communicate with me. Over the next four days,
10:46
Speaker 1: the tapping sound inside of their house continued, and the
10:50
Speaker 1: story about what was happening here spread all across town.
10:54
Speaker 1: In fact, all sorts of neighbors and actually news outlets
10:57
Speaker 1: were coming to Mary and Cora's house to hear the
11:00
Speaker 1: tapping sounds for themselves, and when they'd come in the house,
11:03
Speaker 1: Mary would walk them around the house. Sure enough, the reporters,
11:06
Speaker 1: the neighbors, they'd all hear the tapping sounds and nobody
11:09
Speaker 1: could explain it. It was like this unbelievable phenomenon. And
11:12
Speaker 1: Mary and Cora by this point, I mean, they were
11:14
Speaker 1: convinced that these sounds were very likely, you know, Mary's
11:18
Speaker 1: dead husband and the other men who perished in the mind. Finally,
11:22
Speaker 1: on May ninth, so six days after this haunting began,
11:25
Speaker 1: by this point, the story is out in newspapers. People
11:28
Speaker 1: are talking about it all over the place, and in
11:30
Speaker 1: some ways that legitimized Mary and Cora's plight. But they
11:33
Speaker 1: also really didn't know what to do about this. This
11:36
Speaker 1: had become sort of a spectacle, but nobody had any
11:39
Speaker 1: solutions for them. So Mary and Cora they're sitting at
11:42
Speaker 1: the table weighing out their options, like, what do we
11:44
Speaker 1: even do? Even if this is you know, our dead husband,
11:47
Speaker 1: our dead father are trying to communicate with us. We
11:50
Speaker 1: can't live with this. This is this is kind of terrifying.
11:52
Speaker 1: And if it just goes on and on, do we
11:54
Speaker 1: eventually move? And so they're having that kind of discussion,
11:58
Speaker 1: and as they're sitting at the kitchen table, suddenly the
12:01
Speaker 1: tapping starts again, except now the tapping sound is so
12:05
Speaker 1: close it's practically on top of Mary and Cora, so
12:09
Speaker 1: much so that their conversation immediately stopped when this tapping started,
12:13
Speaker 1: and they both kind of looked at each other, like,
12:15
Speaker 1: it's right on top of us, what's going on? And
12:17
Speaker 1: then as this tapping continued, they realized it was basically
12:21
Speaker 1: right below them, almost like in the cellar, right underneath them,
12:24
Speaker 1: And so Mary sort of reflexively leaned back in her chair,
12:29
Speaker 1: just kind of trying to get out of the bubble
12:31
Speaker 1: of this really intimate, close tapping sound that they were in.
12:35
Speaker 1: And as she's sitting back, she saw something something she
12:39
Speaker 1: had never noticed before, and immediately she understood what was
12:44
Speaker 1: going on. It would turn out the tapping sounds that
12:46
Speaker 1: were plaguing Mary and Cora were not being caused by
12:51
Speaker 1: Mary's dead husband or the other men that died in
12:53
Speaker 1: the minds eleven years ago. However, the actual origin of
12:58
Speaker 1: these tapping sounds was in some way equally as bizarre. So,
13:02
Speaker 1: Cora had recently had a bad case of strep throat
13:05
Speaker 1: and she was doing better, but she still was feeling
13:08
Speaker 1: kind of under the weather, and that was in part
13:10
Speaker 1: because the bacteria that causes strap throat was still in
13:14
Speaker 1: her system. And that same bacteria is also responsible for
13:19
Speaker 1: causing a totally different condition known as Synonym's korea, which
13:24
Speaker 1: Cora also had. In fact, she had it likely at
13:27
Speaker 1: the same time that she had strep throat, and Synonym's
13:30
Speaker 1: korea has a very different set of symptoms to strep throat.
13:34
Speaker 1: This condition, which is also known as the dancing plague,
13:37
Speaker 1: causes your body to have these involuntary movements that the
13:41
Speaker 1: person who has this condition is often totally unaware of.
13:45
Speaker 1: These people can flail around suddenly and not even know
13:49
Speaker 1: they're doing it. And so what was happening is Cora
13:53
Speaker 1: was making the tapping sound but had no idea she
13:57
Speaker 1: was making the tapping sound because it was being caused
14:00
Speaker 1: by synonyms korea. Now it seems like, well, how did
14:03
Speaker 1: Mary catch on that her own daughter is tapping her
14:06
Speaker 1: feet or flicking her hand and causing this tapping sound. Well,
14:09
Speaker 1: the reality was, when the tapping first started, a lot
14:13
Speaker 1: of times Mary was not in the same room as
14:16
Speaker 1: her daughter, and her daughter did not know she was
14:20
Speaker 1: making the tapping sounds. So her daughter is genuinely scared
14:24
Speaker 1: of the tapping sounds because she doesn't know she's making them,
14:26
Speaker 1: and Mary doesn't know it's her daughter making them, and
14:29
Speaker 1: so combined they're like, oh my gosh, what's happening in
14:31
Speaker 1: our house? And then before long they had kind of
14:34
Speaker 1: gone down this path of it's my dead husband, it's
14:37
Speaker 1: my dead father, He's the one making these sounds. And
14:40
Speaker 1: then it's like they had tunnel vision, as did all
14:43
Speaker 1: the other neighbors, as did the reporters. Everybody wanted this
14:46
Speaker 1: in some ways to be a haunting, and so nobody's
14:49
Speaker 1: checking to see if maybe Cora is tapping her feet
14:52
Speaker 1: her hands and creating these tapping sounds, because again, Cora
14:55
Speaker 1: was fully convinced she was not making those sounds. But
14:59
Speaker 1: then finally, when she and her mom were sitting at
15:01
Speaker 1: the table discussing what they were going to do six
15:03
Speaker 1: days after the haunting, began, and they hear this really
15:07
Speaker 1: intense close tapping sound. When Mary kind of leaned back
15:11
Speaker 1: to kind of take stock of the room and figure
15:13
Speaker 1: out what was going on, she noticed under the table
15:16
Speaker 1: Cora's foot stomping on the ground. Coorra didn't know it
15:21
Speaker 1: was Sydenham's career. One afternoon in November of twenty twenty one,
15:39
Speaker 1: a middle aged woman named Nicole Petti was on break
15:42
Speaker 1: at her job in the city of Decatur, Alabama, and
15:44
Speaker 1: while she was sitting in the break room, she pulled
15:47
Speaker 1: out her phone and she called her twenty one year
15:49
Speaker 1: old daughter, Hannah. The phone rang a couple of times,
15:51
Speaker 1: then eventually Hannah picked up, and right away Nicole could
15:55
Speaker 1: tell her daughter Hannah was still very much not feeling well.
15:58
Speaker 1: She could hear it clearly. So Nicole's daughter was a
16:02
Speaker 1: stay at home mom to two very young kids, which
16:04
Speaker 1: you know, was totally exhausting in its own right, and
16:07
Speaker 1: in fact, on this phone call, Nicole could hear in
16:09
Speaker 1: the background the sound of the kids yelling and running
16:12
Speaker 1: around and crashing into things, so clearly it was just
16:15
Speaker 1: chaos over there. But Nicole knew Hannah could not just
16:18
Speaker 1: be tired from tending to her kids, because over the
16:20
Speaker 1: last couple of months, what Nicole had noticed was every
16:24
Speaker 1: time she spoke to her daughter, whether her daughter's kids
16:27
Speaker 1: were going crazy or not, Hannah just completely sounded under
16:31
Speaker 1: the weather. And in fact, Hannah often was complaining again
16:35
Speaker 1: over the past few months, of not only feeling a
16:37
Speaker 1: deep exhaustion, but also of feeling really dizzy and nauseous. Now,
16:42
Speaker 1: over the past few months, Nicole had been telling her daughter,
16:45
Speaker 1: you have to go see a doctor. This is not normal.
16:48
Speaker 1: This is not just parenting fatigue. Something is off. You
16:51
Speaker 1: need to go get looked at. But Hannah, who was
16:54
Speaker 1: known to be very, very tough and you know, generally,
16:56
Speaker 1: didn't really go to the doctor much. She said to
16:59
Speaker 1: her mom like, I'm fine, I'm just exhausted from the kids.
17:01
Speaker 1: It's no big deal. And so she kind of pushed
17:04
Speaker 1: that idea aside. And so this time, as Nichole's talking
17:07
Speaker 1: to her daughter and she can clearly hear that her
17:09
Speaker 1: daughter is not better, she's still feeling awful, she knew
17:13
Speaker 1: trying to push her daughter to go see the doctor
17:15
Speaker 1: wasn't going to work. So instead she said, Okay, Hannah,
17:18
Speaker 1: when's Brian going to be home Brian was Hannah's husband,
17:21
Speaker 1: and Hannah just sighed and she said, no, he's not
17:24
Speaker 1: home yet. I don't know when he's going to be here. So,
17:26
Speaker 1: for the most part, Brian was, you know, a very
17:28
Speaker 1: active parent and husband, but he also was a very
17:32
Speaker 1: successful chiropractor, and in fact, he had had so much
17:35
Speaker 1: success at his private practice that recently he'd even been
17:38
Speaker 1: able to fully renovate his building. And so with this
17:41
Speaker 1: new building and all this extra space and all this
17:43
Speaker 1: new staff, he was working even more than usual, which
17:46
Speaker 1: you know, financially was great for the family, but it
17:49
Speaker 1: meant he basically was absent all the time. And so
17:52
Speaker 1: it had become kind of commonplace that Brian was nowhere
17:55
Speaker 1: to be seen. It was kind of Hannah alone with
17:57
Speaker 1: the kids and this mystery illness she was suffering from.
18:00
Speaker 1: Now Nicole obviously understood the nuance here. She knew that,
18:03
Speaker 1: you know, Brian's practice was very important, not just to him,
18:06
Speaker 1: but to Hannah and their family. And so instead of
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, being upset with Brian, Nicole had tried very
18:12
Speaker 1: hard to make herself available to her daughter, to take
18:15
Speaker 1: care of her kids, to help her out whenever she could.
18:18
Speaker 1: But there was a limit to how much Nicole could help,
18:21
Speaker 1: because Nicole also worked full time and so she couldn't
18:24
Speaker 1: just be around all the time to help with her daughter.
18:26
Speaker 1: Like today, you know, she was working. She wished she
18:28
Speaker 1: wasn't so she could go be with her daughter, but
18:31
Speaker 1: that was just the way it was. For the next
18:33
Speaker 1: couple of minutes, Nicole and Hannah just chatted like mother
18:35
Speaker 1: and daughter. And then at some point towards the end
18:38
Speaker 1: of the call, like Nicole always did, she she told
18:41
Speaker 1: her daughter, like, Hey, I really think you ought to
18:43
Speaker 1: go to the doctor. You know, if you tell me
18:45
Speaker 1: what day you're gonna go and you make an appointment,
18:47
Speaker 1: I'll go over and take care of your kids. I'll
18:49
Speaker 1: even take you to the appointment whatever you need. Don't
18:52
Speaker 1: let logistics be the reason you don't see a doctor. Like,
18:54
Speaker 1: whatever you need, you let me know and I will
18:56
Speaker 1: help you. If I can't, I'll flex my schedule to
18:58
Speaker 1: accommodate yours. Like Hannah always did, she just kind of
19:01
Speaker 1: brushed off her mom and said, Okay, you know, maybe
19:04
Speaker 1: maybe I'll go see a doctor. I don't know, but
19:06
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna be fine. You know, I'm gonna rest,
19:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take vitamins, I'm gonna eat well, I'm gonna
19:12
Speaker 1: do all the things, and I'm sure this will pass.
19:14
Speaker 1: Nicole sighed when she heard this, because basically she hears
19:17
Speaker 1: her daughter saying I'm not going to the doctor still,
19:20
Speaker 1: but Nicole didn't argue. She just told her daughter that
19:22
Speaker 1: she loved her and she would see her soon, and
19:24
Speaker 1: then the two hung up. Over the next few weeks,
19:27
Speaker 1: Hannah continued to feel completely awful, nauseous, dizzy, I mean,
19:31
Speaker 1: all of her symptoms persisted and in some ways even
19:34
Speaker 1: got worse. But no matter how much pressure was put
19:36
Speaker 1: on her, namely by her mom to go see a doctor,
19:40
Speaker 1: Anna didn't. She really had convinced herself that this was
19:43
Speaker 1: just you know, parenting fatigue, and that she would just
19:46
Speaker 1: get through it and she would be fine, which again
19:48
Speaker 1: was sort of very much her personality. She was this tough,
19:51
Speaker 1: hard charging woman. She was gonna just grit this one out.
19:55
Speaker 1: But then finally in January of twenty twenty two, so
19:58
Speaker 1: now it's been months and months of Hannah having these
20:01
Speaker 1: symptoms and her mom basically begging her to go see
20:04
Speaker 1: a doctor, and by this point, Hannah can't argue with
20:08
Speaker 1: the fact that she is basically falling apart. She's lost
20:11
Speaker 1: so much weight she actually can't even walk around her
20:13
Speaker 1: house anymore. She literally sits on a swivel chair like
20:16
Speaker 1: a desk chair and just pushes herself around the house.
20:19
Speaker 1: I mean, she is absolutely sick, and it's something that
20:22
Speaker 1: she can't even deny anymore. And so finally, in January
20:26
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, Hannah says, okay, mom, I'll go
20:29
Speaker 1: to the hospital. Nicole in some ways was incredibly relieved
20:32
Speaker 1: that finally her daughter is doing the thing she should
20:35
Speaker 1: have done a long time ago. And then also Nicole
20:37
Speaker 1: was just so annoyed with her daughter, like why didn't
20:40
Speaker 1: you go sooner? This is so silly. But regardless, Nichole's
20:43
Speaker 1: like great. She tells her daughter, I'm gonna come over
20:46
Speaker 1: pick you up. I'm gonna take you to the hospital.
20:47
Speaker 1: I'll be there with you. And so she goes over
20:49
Speaker 1: to Hannah's house and when she gets there, Hannah in
20:52
Speaker 1: her chair wheels over to the door, and Hannah looks awful.
20:56
Speaker 1: She looks like she weighs less than one hundred pounds.
20:58
Speaker 1: She's so pale, her head hair looks like it's falling out.
21:01
Speaker 1: I mean, she looks absolutely sick. She looks like there's
21:04
Speaker 1: something seriously wrong with her. But Nicole, she just takes
21:07
Speaker 1: her daughter and assists her down the stairs, puts her
21:09
Speaker 1: in the car. She also gets her kids and brings
21:12
Speaker 1: them along as well, and they drive to the hospital.
21:14
Speaker 1: And when they get there, eventually Hannah is brought into
21:17
Speaker 1: an exam room along with Nicole and the kids, and
21:19
Speaker 1: a nurse comes in and they begin checking Hannah's vital
21:22
Speaker 1: signs and asking her some questions, and they also weighed Hannah,
21:25
Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, after that was done, the nurse
21:28
Speaker 1: told Hannah that, hey, you only weigh eighty four pounds.
21:32
Speaker 1: This is way below what's considered healthy. This is like
21:35
Speaker 1: an emergency. And based on the other things you're telling
21:38
Speaker 1: me about over the last few months having these symptoms,
21:41
Speaker 1: I'm worried you might actually have stomach cancer. Now. Even
21:45
Speaker 1: though Nicole had anticipated that something seriously was wrong with
21:48
Speaker 1: her daughter, it still hit her like a freight train
21:51
Speaker 1: to hear that her twenty one year old daughter had
21:54
Speaker 1: stomach cancer. I mean, she had never even heard of
21:57
Speaker 1: somebody that young having stomach cancer. And when Nicole looked
22:00
Speaker 1: over at her daughter, Hannah too was horrified. I mean
22:03
Speaker 1: for her, she's still believed this was all just going
22:06
Speaker 1: to pass. You know, whatever this is, it's it'll go away.
22:08
Speaker 1: But obviously, stomach cancer is not something that just goes away.
22:12
Speaker 1: A couple of minutes later, a doctor came in the
22:14
Speaker 1: room and explained to Hannah and Nicole that the next
22:17
Speaker 1: step here was to test Hannah to see if she
22:20
Speaker 1: actually had stomach cancer. Now, the doctor said, it was
22:23
Speaker 1: entirely possible this could be something else, but again, based
22:26
Speaker 1: on all the symptoms you've described and the sudden extreme
22:30
Speaker 1: weight loss, unfortunately, this really does appear to be stomach cancer.
22:34
Speaker 1: But we're going to check and in a couple of
22:36
Speaker 1: days we should have an answer. And so Nicole and Hannah,
22:39
Speaker 1: despite obviously being shocked and scared, they both said, you know,
22:43
Speaker 1: whatever we need to do, that's what we're gonna do.
22:45
Speaker 1: A few days later, Nicole was at home when her
22:48
Speaker 1: phone rang and it was her daughter calling. Now to
22:50
Speaker 1: this point, Hannah had gone in and begun doing some
22:53
Speaker 1: of the tests to see if she had stomach cancer,
22:56
Speaker 1: and they were waiting for some of the results to
22:57
Speaker 1: come back. And so when Nicole saw this coming in,
23:00
Speaker 1: she's thinking, oh, my goodness, this could be it. I
23:02
Speaker 1: could be getting the call where Hannah has been told
23:05
Speaker 1: one way or the other about this being stomach cancer.
23:07
Speaker 1: And so, with quite a bit of anxiety, Nicole answered
23:10
Speaker 1: the phone, and when she heard her daughter, her daughter
23:13
Speaker 1: was not telling her about test results. Her daughter, she
23:16
Speaker 1: was speaking in such a low tone that she could
23:18
Speaker 1: barely hear her, but she basically croaked out to her
23:21
Speaker 1: mother that she felt so sick she had to be
23:24
Speaker 1: taken to the hospital right now. And so Nicole she
23:27
Speaker 1: dropped everything, sped over to her daughter's house, and when
23:31
Speaker 1: she found Hannah inside, it was like Hannah could barely move.
23:34
Speaker 1: She was so fatigued, she was so sick, so pale,
23:37
Speaker 1: so skinny and malnourished. It was like her daughter was dying.
23:41
Speaker 1: And so she scooped her daughter up and she rushed
23:44
Speaker 1: her to the hospital. Later that day, Hannah was in
23:46
Speaker 1: a hospital room and was stabilized. When she had come in,
23:50
Speaker 1: she actually was showing signs of what's called acute respiratory failure,
23:54
Speaker 1: which basically meant her lungs were shutting down. And in fact,
23:57
Speaker 1: one of her doctors had told Nicole that had Nicole
24:01
Speaker 1: not gone over there and rushed her daughter to the hospital.
24:04
Speaker 1: On that day, very likely she would have died. She
24:06
Speaker 1: would not have survived another twenty four hours at home.
24:09
Speaker 1: So this was as close as you can come to,
24:12
Speaker 1: you know, your daughter dying. But they had been able
24:14
Speaker 1: to stabilize Hannah and she was now resting in bed,
24:17
Speaker 1: and they were now trying to figure out what to do,
24:20
Speaker 1: and one of the doctors pulled Nicole aside and said, look, like,
24:23
Speaker 1: we know she's being tested for stomach cancer and we
24:26
Speaker 1: don't know if she has that or not yet, but
24:28
Speaker 1: acute respiratory failure is not connected to stomach cancer, and
24:33
Speaker 1: on top of that, it's incredibly rare for someone as
24:36
Speaker 1: young as Hannah, So we really don't know what's going
24:39
Speaker 1: on here. All we can do is keep her here,
24:42
Speaker 1: keep her stable, monitor her, and run some additional tests.
24:46
Speaker 1: And so Nicole, you know, she said, okay, let's do it.
24:49
Speaker 1: And so for a few days that's what the medical
24:51
Speaker 1: staff did. They just continued to monitor and keep Hannah
24:55
Speaker 1: stable while testing her to figure out how somebody her
24:58
Speaker 1: age and in her condition could be contracting respiratory failure.
25:02
Speaker 1: But after a few days of this, out of nowhere,
25:05
Speaker 1: Hannah has this severe sudden seizure. But after her seizure passed,
25:11
Speaker 1: the medical staff began investigating Hannah's brain because a seizure
25:15
Speaker 1: is a brain related event, and as they're looking into
25:18
Speaker 1: Hannah's brain, they discover that she has also contracted viral meningitis,
25:24
Speaker 1: which is inflammation of the membrane surrounding the brain. And
25:27
Speaker 1: generally speaking, viral meningitis is not life threatening, but in
25:32
Speaker 1: rare cases it can be. And considering the fact that
25:35
Speaker 1: Hannah had other very serious medical issues going on, and
25:39
Speaker 1: the fact that her particular viral meningitis case was very severe,
25:43
Speaker 1: doctors were worried that she could be someone who could
25:46
Speaker 1: die from this meningitis or potentially have very serious brain
25:50
Speaker 1: damage if they didn't do something drastic to combat this
25:54
Speaker 1: swelling in her brain. And so a decision was made
25:56
Speaker 1: to put Hannah into a medically induced coma that she
26:00
Speaker 1: would lay perfectly still and they could just wait for
26:03
Speaker 1: the swelling in her brain to go down. But what
26:06
Speaker 1: that meant functionally was that Hannah would be in this
26:10
Speaker 1: coma indefinitely until you know, the swelling goes down in
26:14
Speaker 1: her brain or who knows what I mean. Basically, the
26:17
Speaker 1: doctors didn't know what was going on with her. However,
26:20
Speaker 1: just a couple of days after Hannah had been placed
26:22
Speaker 1: in this medically induced coma, some of her imaging tests
26:26
Speaker 1: came back from all the testing they had run on
26:29
Speaker 1: Hannah to try to figure out what was going on here.
26:31
Speaker 1: And in particular, there were these imaging tests that came
26:34
Speaker 1: back from her abdomen. They had scanned her abdomen, and
26:37
Speaker 1: what they discovered inside of her abdomen was truly shocking.
26:42
Speaker 1: Hannah's entire digestive tract was covered in white spots, and
26:48
Speaker 1: the doctors all knew that those spots were not cancer,
26:52
Speaker 1: they were something worse. And after running a few more
26:54
Speaker 1: tests to confirm their theory, you know, once they had
26:57
Speaker 1: that information that yep, what we suspect is going on here,
27:01
Speaker 1: they called the police. So remember Hannah's husband, Brian, he's
27:04
Speaker 1: the very successful chiropractor. Well, his practice had been so
27:08
Speaker 1: successful that he had had the funds to fully renovate
27:12
Speaker 1: his office and build this bigger, better chiropracting practice. And
27:16
Speaker 1: that was great, not just for him, but also for
27:18
Speaker 1: Hannah her whole family. They were making money hand over fist.
27:22
Speaker 1: Everything was great, except there was an issue. One of
27:25
Speaker 1: the upgrades that Brian wanted to do within this renovated
27:29
Speaker 1: space was to include an X ray room. And when
27:33
Speaker 1: people build X ray rooms, they actually line the walls
27:37
Speaker 1: of the room with these big sheets of lead to
27:40
Speaker 1: keep the radiation from penetrating the walls. But lead is
27:44
Speaker 1: incredibly toxic and harmful to humans, especially if you adjest
27:48
Speaker 1: it or you touch it. It's not something you really want
27:51
Speaker 1: to interact with at all. It needs to be kept
27:53
Speaker 1: at a safe distance. But after the renovations were done
27:56
Speaker 1: and the X ray room was built, there were several
28:00
Speaker 1: sheets of lead that didn't make it into the walls.
28:03
Speaker 1: They were sort of extra sheets of lead that just
28:05
Speaker 1: didn't get used, and they were out in the open.
28:07
Speaker 1: And when police discovered that and they began investigating, they
28:11
Speaker 1: found somebody had been shaving off pieces of those extra
28:17
Speaker 1: lead sheets, little bits of lead. They were shaving them
28:20
Speaker 1: off and planting them inside of Hannah's vitamins that she
28:26
Speaker 1: took religiously every day, believing those were the things that
28:30
Speaker 1: were gonna make her healthy again. But in reality, sort
28:33
Speaker 1: of ironically, they were doing the opposite. She was literally
28:36
Speaker 1: poisoning herself every time she took one of those vitamins,
28:40
Speaker 1: and who was the person who was shaving off all
28:43
Speaker 1: that lead and literally trying to kill Hannah her own
28:47
Speaker 1: husband ran. All those white spots inside of Hannah's that
28:51
Speaker 1: just abtract were literally just pools of lead that had
28:54
Speaker 1: accumulated inside of her because her husband had been trying
28:57
Speaker 1: to poison her to death for months wilessly. Though Hannah
29:01
Speaker 1: would survive after nearly two months in a medically induced coma,
29:05
Speaker 1: Hannah was healthy enough to be woken up and got
29:08
Speaker 1: to go back home with her kids. As for Brian,
29:10
Speaker 1: he was arrested, found guilty of attempted murder, and sentenced
29:14
Speaker 1: to life in prison. His motive was the one point
29:17
Speaker 1: three million dollars in life insurance policies that he had
29:20
Speaker 1: taken out on Hannah. Thank you so much for watching.
29:31
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
29:33
Speaker 1: the comments, And remember we have hundreds of videos for
29:37
Speaker 1: you to binge right now. But if you're looking for
29:39
Speaker 1: a recommendation for me of that one video that's worth
29:42
Speaker 1: your time, well it's this one right here, So give
29:46
Speaker 1: it a watch, all right, Until next time, see y