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The-Bell-Witch-HAUNTING · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: One night, four young brothers were sleeping in their bedroom
0:03
Speaker 1: in their little house in Tennessee when they started to
0:06
Speaker 1: hear what sounded like a rat gnawing on one of
0:09
Speaker 1: their bedposts. So the two oldest brothers climbed out of
0:13
Speaker 1: their bed to go find this rat, but the second
0:16
Speaker 1: their feet touched the wooden floor, the gnawing sound stopped.
0:19
Speaker 1: The boys checked the room, they checked the bedposts. There
0:22
Speaker 1: was no sign of any rat, and so eventually the
0:24
Speaker 1: two oldest brothers just kind of shrugged it off and
0:27
Speaker 1: got back in bed.
0:28
Speaker 2: But when they closed their eyes.
0:30
Speaker 1: Again, the gnawing sound filled the room again, except this
0:33
Speaker 1: time it was louder and more frantic. Little did they
0:37
Speaker 1: know these sounds were just the beginning of a multi
0:40
Speaker 1: year long nightmare that they and the rest of their
0:43
Speaker 1: family would have to endure. Their terrifying story is known
0:47
Speaker 1: as the bell Witch Haunting, and it is considered to
0:50
Speaker 1: be one of the most frightening documented hauntings of all time.
0:54
Speaker 2: And today I'm going to share their story with you.
0:57
Speaker 1: But before we get into the bell Witch Haunting, if
0:59
Speaker 1: you're fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in
1:02
Speaker 1: story format, then you've come to the right place because
1:05
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Speaker 1: of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:34
Speaker 1: In eighteen oh four, a man named John Bell decided
1:37
Speaker 1: his farm in North Carolina was just too small for
1:41
Speaker 1: his growing family, so he, along with his wife Lucy,
1:44
Speaker 1: and their six kids, packed all their belongings onto wagons
1:48
Speaker 1: and then traveled more than six hundred miles west to
1:51
Speaker 1: this thousand acre patch along the Red River in northern Tennessee.
1:55
Speaker 1: The area they settled was known as Robertson County, and
1:59
Speaker 1: at the time it was very rural and basically nobody
2:02
Speaker 1: lived there, and so the Bell family when they arrived
2:05
Speaker 1: in Robertson County fully expected to have to work with
2:09
Speaker 1: the few families that were there to build up the settlement. Basically,
2:13
Speaker 1: they wanted to build a town from scratch. But this
2:16
Speaker 1: was the kind of work that John Bell was born for.
2:19
Speaker 1: He was raised on a farm where he had a
2:20
Speaker 1: reputation for working extremely hard and never giving up. John
2:24
Speaker 1: was very generous and excellent at working with other people.
2:28
Speaker 1: In fact, when his family was still in North Carolina,
2:31
Speaker 1: John and his very gentle and sweet wife Lucy would
2:34
Speaker 1: open their door to anybody who needed a place to
2:36
Speaker 1: stay or a hot meal. And sometimes John would just
2:40
Speaker 1: give money to his neighbors when he felt like they
2:42
Speaker 1: were down on hard times. So after arriving in Robertson
2:46
Speaker 1: County and after the Bell family had met their few neighbors,
2:49
Speaker 1: John Bell got right to work. First he began clearing
2:52
Speaker 1: trees off of his land, and then with that lumber,
2:55
Speaker 1: he built a one and a half story log house
2:58
Speaker 1: up on this hill not far from the Red River.
3:01
Speaker 1: And in fact, the Red River was a very popular
3:03
Speaker 1: picnic spot and fishing spot for the few people that
3:06
Speaker 1: lived in Robertson County, and so in virtue of the
3:09
Speaker 1: Bell's house being so near the river, the Bell family
3:12
Speaker 1: was always running into their neighbors and saying hi and
3:14
Speaker 1: making friends. And so it wasn't long after John and
3:17
Speaker 1: his family had arrived and built this house that the
3:20
Speaker 1: Bell family became one of the most popular families in
3:23
Speaker 1: the area. And for many years, the Bell family lived
3:26
Speaker 1: a very happy and prosperous life in Robertson County. Most mornings,
3:30
Speaker 1: John would wake up first, and then he would rouse
3:32
Speaker 1: the children, who would then leave the house and walk
3:35
Speaker 1: through the nearby woods to go to their school, and
3:37
Speaker 1: then they'd come back before sunset. And then while the
3:40
Speaker 1: kids were at school during the day, John and his
3:43
Speaker 1: older sons would go out and work the land or
3:45
Speaker 1: help build structures around town to build the settlement up,
3:48
Speaker 1: or they would build the boats that they would use
3:50
Speaker 1: to transport the tobacco and meats they produced on their
3:53
Speaker 1: farm down south for trade. John and Lucy would have
3:57
Speaker 1: three more kids while in Robertson County, and before long
4:00
Speaker 1: their oldest children began getting married and starting families of
4:04
Speaker 1: their own and building their own houses nearby. But one
4:07
Speaker 1: summer day in eighteen seventeen, so thirteen years after the
4:12
Speaker 1: Bell family first arrived in Robertson County, John would have
4:16
Speaker 1: a very strange experience that at the time he would
4:19
Speaker 1: completely write off, but years later they would look back
4:22
Speaker 1: and say, that's when it started. On that summer day
4:25
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventeen, John was by himself. He was out
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Speaker 1: walking through his cornfield near his house when he looked
4:32
Speaker 1: out and he saw this big dog just sitting in
4:35
Speaker 1: the middle of the cornfield. Now, there were lots of
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Speaker 1: dogs around Robertson County, so it wasn't unusual to run
4:41
Speaker 1: into a dog while you were out and about. But
4:43
Speaker 1: there was something off about this dog. It almost looked misshapen,
4:47
Speaker 1: like its bones had broken many times over and reset
4:51
Speaker 1: at awkward angles. And this dog just looked way too
4:54
Speaker 1: big to be a dog. It almost looked more like
4:57
Speaker 1: a big wolf. And this dog was sta erring at
5:00
Speaker 1: John in a very human way, not breaking eye contact,
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Speaker 1: staring right at John. Now John was not someone who
5:07
Speaker 1: easily spooked, but standing in this cornfield staring at this
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Speaker 1: dog who was staring right back at him, John couldn't
5:14
Speaker 1: help but feel totally unsettled and a little bit panicked.
5:17
Speaker 1: And so John, who had his rifle with him, raised
5:20
Speaker 1: it and fired in the direction of this dog. And
5:24
Speaker 1: when he did, the dog took off running, and so
5:26
Speaker 1: John he watched as this dog galloped away from him
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Speaker 1: and disappeared into the treeline of the forest far away.
5:33
Speaker 1: And once the dog was totally out of view, John
5:36
Speaker 1: marched forward to the spot in the cornfield where this
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Speaker 1: dog had been sitting, and when he got there, he
5:42
Speaker 1: was expecting to see the corn kind of pressed down
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Speaker 1: from where this big animal had been sitting, but it wasn't.
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Speaker 1: There was no sign that any big creature had been
5:51
Speaker 1: sitting right there, and as he looked around him, he
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Speaker 1: saw there were no pop prints, no tracks on the ground,
5:57
Speaker 1: either coming to this spot or going in the direction
6:01
Speaker 1: that he watched this big dog run off. John was
6:04
Speaker 1: totally confused by this, but after sitting there kind of
6:07
Speaker 1: wondering how this could be, he just told himself, you
6:09
Speaker 1: know what, I'm overthinking this. It was just some big,
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Speaker 1: ugly dog and a mist shot. This is no big deal.
6:16
Speaker 1: And so John promptly turned around and walked back to
6:19
Speaker 1: his house forgetting all about the dog. But not long
6:22
Speaker 1: after John saw this dog in the cornfield, his family
6:26
Speaker 1: began experiencing other strange things back at their house. At night,
6:30
Speaker 1: after the Bell family had climbed into bed, they would
6:33
Speaker 1: start hearing a knocking sound on the side of their house,
6:37
Speaker 1: and as soon as they got up to go inspect it,
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Speaker 1: the knocking would stop, and then they'd lay back down
6:41
Speaker 1: again and they would hear it again, except it was
6:43
Speaker 1: coming from another side of the house. It was like
6:46
Speaker 1: there was someone or something outside of their house, just
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Speaker 1: kind of circling around them, periodically knocking on their walls.
6:53
Speaker 1: Now John was convinced this was not the work of
6:56
Speaker 1: some animal.
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Speaker 2: This was a.
6:57
Speaker 1: Person, a prankster, and they were hiding out the woods somewhere,
7:01
Speaker 1: and so he instructed his family not to mention the
7:04
Speaker 1: tapping sounds to anybody in town, because he thought somebody
7:07
Speaker 1: in town was doing this to them, and he didn't
7:09
Speaker 1: want them to know that they were on to them.
7:11
Speaker 1: He wanted these pranksters to come back and do it
7:13
Speaker 1: again so he could catch them in the act. But
7:17
Speaker 1: over the course of several weeks, the tapping continued, and
7:20
Speaker 1: every time John would lay in wait and try to
7:22
Speaker 1: run out and see who was there, there'd be no
7:25
Speaker 1: one and there'd be no tracks anywhere around the house
7:28
Speaker 1: indicating that anyone had ever been there. And as unsettling
7:32
Speaker 1: as these knocking sounds were for the family, they were
7:35
Speaker 1: nothing compared to the things that happened next. My pet
7:44
Speaker 1: frog Seagull Lung, is a huge fan of the strange,
7:47
Speaker 1: dark and mysterious delivered in story format, and so for
7:50
Speaker 1: his birthday, which was last week, he asked me if
7:53
Speaker 1: I would take him on a special camping trip where
7:55
Speaker 1: all we did was sat around the fire and I
7:57
Speaker 1: just told crazy stories. I said, char Lung, I can
8:03
Speaker 1: do that for you. And then on his big day,
8:05
Speaker 1: Oh Hungy came bounding down the stairs, all excited for
8:09
Speaker 1: his big camping.
8:10
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8:12
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8:16
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8:17
Speaker 3: And then from behind my back, I presented a gift
8:21
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8:26
Speaker 3: with the side of koala stew.
8:28
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8:31
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8:36
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8:39
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8:47
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8:50
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Speaker 2: And free shipping. Okay, back to the story.
10:11
Speaker 1: One Sunday night in May of eighteen eighteen, so roughly
10:15
Speaker 1: one year after John had seen that big dog in
10:18
Speaker 1: the cornfield, and a couple of months after the knocking
10:21
Speaker 1: on the walls had begun in the Bell's household, four
10:24
Speaker 1: of John's sons were asleep in their bedroom inside of
10:27
Speaker 1: their home when they woke up to the sound of
10:29
Speaker 1: what sounded like a rat gnawing on one of their bedposts. Now,
10:33
Speaker 1: these boys were sleeping in two bunk beds, and the
10:36
Speaker 1: two oldest brothers were sleeping on the lower bunk, and
10:39
Speaker 1: so they instinctively got up stepped onto the floor to
10:42
Speaker 1: go find this rat. But the second they stepped onto
10:45
Speaker 1: the floor, the gnawing sound completely disappeared. The two boys
10:49
Speaker 1: searched the room for this rat, they couldn't find it,
10:51
Speaker 1: and when they checked all of the bedposts, there was
10:54
Speaker 1: no sign that any of them had been gnawed on.
10:57
Speaker 1: So the two older brothers finally just kind of shrugged
10:59
Speaker 1: it off and climbed back in bed. The moment they
11:02
Speaker 1: closed their eyes, the gnawing sound began again, except now
11:06
Speaker 1: it was louder and more frantic, like whatever was under
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Speaker 1: there was desperately trying to chew through the wood of
11:12
Speaker 1: their beds.
11:13
Speaker 2: But again, when the.
11:14
Speaker 1: Two older brothers leapt out of their bed to go
11:17
Speaker 1: find whatever animal was doing this, the sound would completely
11:20
Speaker 1: stop and the room would go still. The boys searched
11:23
Speaker 1: the room again, there was no sign of any rat
11:25
Speaker 1: or any animal. There were no marks on the underside
11:28
Speaker 1: of their beds, and so they had no idea what
11:30
Speaker 1: to make of this. The gnawing sounds would continue all
11:32
Speaker 1: that night, making it nearly impossible for these boys to sleep,
11:36
Speaker 1: and it would happen again the next night the same way,
11:39
Speaker 1: but on the night after that. So the third night,
11:43
Speaker 1: the boys heard a new sound in their room. As
11:46
Speaker 1: they're laying in their beds, exhausted from barely sleeping the
11:49
Speaker 1: last two nights, they began hearing what sounded like someone
11:52
Speaker 1: gasping for air underneath their beds, like they were being choked.
11:56
Speaker 1: They were gulping and smacking their lips and clawing at
11:59
Speaker 1: the underside of the beds. The two oldest boys were terrified,
12:02
Speaker 1: but eventually worked up the courage and leapt from their
12:05
Speaker 1: bed to confront whatever was underneath them. But again, as
12:08
Speaker 1: soon as their feet hit the floor, the sounds.
12:11
Speaker 2: Completely stopped and the room went still.
12:13
Speaker 1: But this time the boys were so frightened they decided
12:16
Speaker 1: not to try to just go back to sleep. Instead,
12:19
Speaker 1: they woke up the rest of their family, and the
12:21
Speaker 1: Bell family searched the entire house top to bottom looking
12:25
Speaker 1: for any indication of what could have been making those sounds.
12:29
Speaker 1: But there was nothing in their house. There was no
12:31
Speaker 1: marks from some animal or rat, I mean, there was
12:34
Speaker 1: no indication that anything was other than normal. Now, to
12:37
Speaker 1: this point, the Bell family had not told anybody in
12:40
Speaker 1: town about either the knocking sounds on the walls, or
12:44
Speaker 1: the rat gnawing sounds, or now the gulping for air sounds.
12:48
Speaker 1: And a part of that was because John had told
12:50
Speaker 1: the family, don't tell anyone, because we're going to catch
12:52
Speaker 1: whoever's doing this. But another part of it was the
12:55
Speaker 1: family knew as soon as they brought this stuff up
12:57
Speaker 1: they could be the target of ridicule because people wouldn't
13:00
Speaker 1: believe them. But after this night, with the gulping and
13:03
Speaker 1: gasping sounds, the Bell kids really could not sleep anymore.
13:07
Speaker 1: They were just up all night terrified, and so finally
13:10
Speaker 1: John went to one of his neighbors who he was
13:12
Speaker 1: very close with, and confided in him that something weird
13:16
Speaker 1: was happening inside of his house. Now John was not
13:19
Speaker 1: the kind of person who made things up. He was
13:21
Speaker 1: very straightforward, very honest. He didn't even tell jokes. And
13:25
Speaker 1: so this neighbor, as he's listening to this unbelievable story,
13:28
Speaker 1: just takes John at face value and says, you know what,
13:31
Speaker 1: I'll stay the night in your house and I'll see
13:33
Speaker 1: if I can hear all these strange sounds. That night,
13:36
Speaker 1: the neighbor would stay with John Bell and his family
13:39
Speaker 1: in the Bell household, and sure enough, the neighbor would
13:42
Speaker 1: hear the tapping on the walls, he would hear the
13:44
Speaker 1: rat gnawing on the woodpost in the boy's room, as
13:47
Speaker 1: well as that gasping and gulping sound coming from the
13:50
Speaker 1: boy's room. And this neighbor was so terrified that he
13:53
Speaker 1: did not last the night in John's house. He left
13:56
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night to go back to
13:58
Speaker 1: his house. After this, words spread quickly around Robertson County
14:02
Speaker 1: about what was happening at the Bell household, and the
14:05
Speaker 1: way the townspeople.
14:06
Speaker 2: Reacted was very supportive.
14:08
Speaker 1: I mean, the Bell family had been instrumental in building
14:11
Speaker 1: up the settlement, and John and his wife Lucy were
14:14
Speaker 1: so kind and generous, and so the townspeople decided that
14:18
Speaker 1: they were going to find a way to rally around
14:20
Speaker 1: the Bell family and try to help them. So other
14:23
Speaker 1: people in town began volunteering to spend the night inside
14:27
Speaker 1: of the Bell household with the Bell family. One because
14:30
Speaker 1: they wanted the Bell family to feel some security having some.
14:33
Speaker 2: More people around them.
14:34
Speaker 1: And two, these people were thinking that maybe just their
14:37
Speaker 1: presence inside of the Bell household would scare off whoever
14:41
Speaker 1: or whatever was tormenting the Bells. But no matter who
14:45
Speaker 1: stayed inside of the Bell household, the noises persisted every
14:49
Speaker 1: single night. Townspeople came up with all sorts of explanations
14:53
Speaker 1: for what was happening to the Bell family, ranging from
14:57
Speaker 1: John's youngest daughter must be behind this because she attention,
15:01
Speaker 1: or other people said maybe there's a family or an
15:03
Speaker 1: individual that hates the Bell family and they're targeting them
15:07
Speaker 1: and they're behind this. There was even a theory that
15:10
Speaker 1: someone in town had learned ventriloquism, which is a kind
15:13
Speaker 1: of performance where the ventriloquist throws their voice so it
15:18
Speaker 1: sounds like it's coming from somewhere else, not from their body.
15:21
Speaker 1: And so the idea was this ventriloquist was just a
15:24
Speaker 1: prankster and they were screwing with the Bell family. But
15:27
Speaker 1: the townspeople searched the Bell's house with the Bell family
15:30
Speaker 1: over and over again, and they never found any sign
15:34
Speaker 1: of what could be making these noises. The people in
15:36
Speaker 1: town even went so far as to have people watch
15:40
Speaker 1: each member of the Bell family as they slept at
15:43
Speaker 1: night to make sure none of them were responsible for
15:47
Speaker 1: these sounds. And sure enough, as the Bell family was
15:50
Speaker 1: being closely monitored, the noises would start, and it was
15:53
Speaker 1: very clearly not coming from anyone in the Bell family.
15:57
Speaker 2: As the months went on and the.
15:59
Speaker 1: Bell family was forced to endure whatever was going on
16:02
Speaker 1: inside of their home, the people in town started to
16:05
Speaker 1: notice something odd about John Bell. Normally, John was a
16:09
Speaker 1: very engaged person that when he spoke to you, he
16:11
Speaker 1: was locked on to you and really paying attention. But
16:14
Speaker 1: at some point after these mysterious things began happening at
16:17
Speaker 1: his house, John would be talking to someone and then
16:21
Speaker 1: suddenly his eyes would kind of gloss over and his
16:23
Speaker 1: jaw would go slack, and it would look like he
16:25
Speaker 1: was staring off into the distance, and then his face
16:28
Speaker 1: would start to twitch. And at first these twitches were
16:31
Speaker 1: fairly minor and were centered just around his eyes. But
16:34
Speaker 1: over time these twitches became much more dramatic, to the
16:37
Speaker 1: point where his jaw would start to kind of quiver
16:39
Speaker 1: up and down and his eyes would begin blinking out
16:41
Speaker 1: of sync. And then when the twitching finally stopped, John,
16:45
Speaker 1: without saying a word to the person he had just
16:47
Speaker 1: been talking to, would just wander back to his house.
16:50
Speaker 1: He'd go up to his bedroom and he would sit
16:52
Speaker 1: on his bed for hours and hours and hours, just
16:55
Speaker 1: staring at the wall, not eating, not drinking, not saying anything.
16:59
Speaker 1: The Bell family I felt like they were hostages in
17:01
Speaker 1: their own home. They had no idea what was causing
17:04
Speaker 1: these things to happen or why they were happening, and
17:07
Speaker 1: they were all filled with this constant sense of dread.
17:10
Speaker 1: As for the townspeople, most of them had come to
17:13
Speaker 1: believe that whatever was happening to the Bell family was
17:16
Speaker 1: likely caused by their neighbor, Kate Bats. Kate was known
17:20
Speaker 1: to be very eccentric and kind of unpleasant, and she
17:23
Speaker 1: was known to be fairly unlucky because her husband had
17:26
Speaker 1: become disabled and her three kids had all died young.
17:30
Speaker 1: Kate also had this strange habit of using really big,
17:33
Speaker 1: complex words in her conversations, but she misused the words,
17:38
Speaker 1: and so everything she said kind of sounded off. Townspeople
17:41
Speaker 1: would talk about Kate bats Witch, and they started referring
17:45
Speaker 1: to whatever was causing these strange phenomenon at the Bell
17:48
Speaker 1: household as just Kate. However, when Kate found out about this,
17:52
Speaker 1: she was totally offended and said she had nothing to
17:55
Speaker 1: do with whatever was happening to the Bells. By September
17:58
Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty, the terrifying happenings at the Bell household
18:02
Speaker 1: had been going on for three years, and somehow the
18:06
Speaker 1: Bell family had just learned to live with it. However,
18:09
Speaker 1: John Bell was not doing good. It was like the
18:12
Speaker 1: longer these strange things were happening, the more and more
18:15
Speaker 1: John seemed to become a shell of his former self.
18:18
Speaker 1: His sudden dazes and twitching fits began to happen more
18:21
Speaker 1: and more frequently, and the time he would spend afterwards
18:25
Speaker 1: sitting in his bedroom staring at the wall in silence
18:28
Speaker 1: would go on longer and longer and longer. In private,
18:31
Speaker 1: John would tell his wife Lucy that he believed someone
18:35
Speaker 1: or something was torturing him to death. And then, one day,
18:39
Speaker 1: as John was getting sicker, and sicker. One of his daughters,
18:42
Speaker 1: Esther left the house to go gather up some eggs
18:45
Speaker 1: in the henhouse, which was across the lane from where
18:48
Speaker 1: the bell house was, and so she left the house,
18:50
Speaker 1: she crossed over the road she began walking up towards
18:53
Speaker 1: this hen house, and as she was walking, she heard
18:56
Speaker 1: what sounded like someone moving behind her, and so she
18:59
Speaker 1: turned around and she saw there was this woman dressed
19:01
Speaker 1: all in black with her head down, walking slowly down
19:04
Speaker 1: the road she had just walked on towards her house.
19:08
Speaker 1: So she's basically walking exactly where Esther had just come from.
19:12
Speaker 1: But Esther had not seen her until just now, so
19:14
Speaker 1: she wasn't really sure how this woman had arrived on
19:17
Speaker 1: the road. But Esther wasn't worried. She looked at this woman,
19:20
Speaker 1: she didn't recognize her, but just assumed she was somebody
19:23
Speaker 1: from town and that was it. And so Esther turned
19:25
Speaker 1: away from this woman and walked the rest of the
19:28
Speaker 1: way up to the penhouse. She went inside, she got
19:30
Speaker 1: the eggs in her basket. And then when she came
19:33
Speaker 1: back outside again and she was back on that road
19:35
Speaker 1: now facing in the direction of her house, she saw
19:38
Speaker 1: this woman in black with her head down, was still
19:41
Speaker 1: trudging along slowly, now much closer to the Bell household,
19:45
Speaker 1: and so Esther she began walking down the road looking
19:47
Speaker 1: at this woman, trying to figure out who she was,
19:50
Speaker 1: And as she got closer and closer, she realized she
19:53
Speaker 1: recognized her as somebody from the village. This was a
19:56
Speaker 1: neighbor of hers, and so Esther yelled out a friendly hello.
19:59
Speaker 1: But this woman in black, with her head down, didn't
20:01
Speaker 1: turn around, she didn't react. She just kept on slowly
20:05
Speaker 1: walking down the lane towards the Bell house, and so
20:07
Speaker 1: Esther began walking a little bit faster, getting closer and
20:10
Speaker 1: closer to this woman, and she yelled out a few.
20:13
Speaker 2: More times, Hey, Hello, how are you?
20:14
Speaker 1: But each time this woman in black just appeared not
20:17
Speaker 1: to hear esther, and Esther she's looking around and there's
20:21
Speaker 1: nobody else out. It's just her and this woman, who's
20:24
Speaker 1: now about fifteen feet away from her, and so Esther
20:26
Speaker 1: starts to feel really uncomfortable about this woman, and so
20:29
Speaker 1: Esther just stops on the road and stares at the
20:32
Speaker 1: back of this woman, and the second Esther stopped. This woman,
20:35
Speaker 1: who was trudging along also suddenly stopped, and then she
20:39
Speaker 1: reached up with her hands, her back is still to Esther,
20:41
Speaker 1: and she took her bonnet off of her head. A
20:44
Speaker 1: bonnet is a type of hat, and then she dropped
20:46
Speaker 1: the bonnet on the ground, and right away this woman's black,
20:49
Speaker 1: matted hair kind of tumbled down over her back. And
20:53
Speaker 1: then this woman, without moving, began reaching up and stroking
20:57
Speaker 1: her hair, running her fingers through her hair as if
21:00
Speaker 1: she was trying to comb it out. And so Esther
21:02
Speaker 1: is watching this kind of wondering what's going on here,
21:05
Speaker 1: And so Esther began walking slowly closer and closer to
21:08
Speaker 1: this woman to make sure she was okay. But with
21:10
Speaker 1: each step that Esther took towards this woman, this woman
21:14
Speaker 1: began running her hands faster and faster through her hair,
21:17
Speaker 1: until it almost looked impossible she was moving so fast.
21:21
Speaker 1: And then Esther realized with horror that she wasn't just
21:24
Speaker 1: combing her hair. This woman was grabbing clumps of her
21:28
Speaker 1: hair and pulling them out of her head. In fact,
21:30
Speaker 1: Esther could literally hear the hair being ripped from this
21:34
Speaker 1: woman's scalp, and so before long there was hair all
21:37
Speaker 1: over the ground around this woman. And so Esther at
21:40
Speaker 1: this point is terrified. She thinks there's something wrong with
21:42
Speaker 1: this woman, and so she runs around this woman without
21:45
Speaker 1: looking at her, charges into her.
21:47
Speaker 2: House, which is right in front of this lady.
21:49
Speaker 1: She goes inside, she locks the door behind her, and
21:51
Speaker 1: then Esther calls out for one of her sisters who
21:54
Speaker 1: is home, and said, came here, Camire. And the two
21:56
Speaker 1: of them went to the front window and they look
21:58
Speaker 1: out onto the road and they the woman. She's still
22:01
Speaker 1: there in the same spot, ripping her hair out. But
22:04
Speaker 1: Esther makes eye contact with this woman, and the second
22:07
Speaker 1: that happens, the woman freezes. Her hands are still in
22:10
Speaker 1: her hair, and she's looking directly up at Esther, and
22:12
Speaker 1: Esther and her sister they're kind of taken it back
22:14
Speaker 1: by the way this woman is looking at them. And
22:16
Speaker 1: then this woman slowly brings her hands down, and she's
22:18
Speaker 1: staring up at Esther the whole time, and then she
22:21
Speaker 1: turns suddenly and walks around the side of the property,
22:24
Speaker 1: out of view of Esther and her sister, and so
22:26
Speaker 1: Esther and her sister they shriek. They leave the front
22:28
Speaker 1: window and they run over to the side window where
22:31
Speaker 1: this woman was heading, and they saw this woman climbing
22:34
Speaker 1: up and over their fence, getting into their side property,
22:38
Speaker 1: and behind her were now three children who they had
22:41
Speaker 1: not seen before, just marching right behind this woman in black.
22:44
Speaker 1: And so this woman and these three children, in plain
22:47
Speaker 1: sight of Esther and her sister, they walk into this
22:50
Speaker 1: grove of trees on the Bell property, and so Esther
22:53
Speaker 1: and her sister they're just staring.
22:54
Speaker 2: They have no idea what's happening.
22:56
Speaker 1: And then one by one, the woman first, then each
22:58
Speaker 1: of the children climbed their own trees, and then once
23:02
Speaker 1: all four of them were up in these trees, they
23:05
Speaker 1: turned around so they were all looking directly at Esther
23:08
Speaker 1: and her sister, and then they all began swaying with
23:11
Speaker 1: their bodies in the trees, getting these trees to bend
23:14
Speaker 1: and wave hard left and right. And so Esther and
23:17
Speaker 1: her sister are horrified. And as they're staring, Esther's husband
23:22
Speaker 1: just happens to come through the front door, and so
23:24
Speaker 1: Esther yells for him to come over here and look
23:26
Speaker 1: out the window, look what they're doing out there. And
23:28
Speaker 1: so Esther's husband he runs over to the window and
23:31
Speaker 1: he looks out, but he can't see the woman or
23:34
Speaker 1: the three kids. He can only see trees swaying unnaturally
23:38
Speaker 1: left and right, and so esther and her sister they
23:41
Speaker 1: realize he's not seeing what we're seeing, what's happening, And
23:45
Speaker 1: before long they're screaming. The husband's trying to figure out
23:48
Speaker 1: what's going on, and finally the trio just ran from
23:50
Speaker 1: the window, went out the back door, and ran around
23:53
Speaker 1: to the sideyard to go confront this woman and these children.
23:57
Speaker 2: But when they got out to the grove of.
23:58
Speaker 1: Trees, the woman, the kids, they were gone, and there
24:01
Speaker 1: was no tracks anywhere on the ground to indicate that
24:04
Speaker 1: anybody had been there recently.
24:06
Speaker 2: Not long after this incident, sometime in.
24:09
Speaker 1: October of eighteen twenty, John Bell and one of his
24:12
Speaker 1: sons were out for a walk on their farm, and
24:15
Speaker 1: as they walked, suddenly John stopped and threw his hands
24:18
Speaker 1: up to his face, as if he was protecting himself
24:20
Speaker 1: from someone trying to hit him. And then all of
24:22
Speaker 1: a sudden, John's face just went totally slack, and his
24:25
Speaker 1: body began to contort into these horrible, grotesque angles, and
24:29
Speaker 1: his back began to arch so far it looked like
24:32
Speaker 1: his back would break. And so John's son, he's watching
24:34
Speaker 1: this happen. He has no idea what to do, and
24:37
Speaker 1: so he just runs over and grabs his dad and
24:39
Speaker 1: tries to pull him upright and as he does this,
24:42
Speaker 1: this horrifying shriek fills the air. John's son has no
24:46
Speaker 1: idea where it's coming from, but it's so loud it
24:48
Speaker 1: stops him in his tracks. And then as fast as
24:51
Speaker 1: all of this had happened, it all stopped. John was
24:53
Speaker 1: back to normal, laying on the ground coming to and
24:56
Speaker 1: the shrieking was gone. It was silent on their farm,
24:59
Speaker 1: and so John turns to his dad and he sees
25:02
Speaker 1: John is crying on the ground, and he says to
25:05
Speaker 1: his son, I don't have much time left. John's son
25:08
Speaker 1: would help him up, and then the two of them
25:10
Speaker 1: silently just walked back to the house and John went
25:13
Speaker 1: straight to bed. A few weeks later, on the morning
25:16
Speaker 1: of December nineteenth, eighteen twenty, John didn't come down for breakfast,
25:20
Speaker 1: and so his family went up to his bedroom to
25:23
Speaker 1: make sure he was okay. But when they found him,
25:25
Speaker 1: he was still laying in bed. He was breathing, but
25:28
Speaker 1: no matter what they did, they couldn't wake him up,
25:30
Speaker 1: and so one of John's sons ran to the medicine
25:33
Speaker 1: cabinet inside of their house, but when he opened it up,
25:36
Speaker 1: all the medicine was gone, and in their place was
25:39
Speaker 1: this strange glass vial that contained a smoky, dark liquid
25:44
Speaker 1: that the sun had never seen before, and no one
25:46
Speaker 1: in the family had seen before. And so the family
25:49
Speaker 1: immediately called for a doctor to come to their house,
25:52
Speaker 1: both for John and also to see what this liquid was.
25:55
Speaker 1: And so the doctor showed up. He didn't really know
25:57
Speaker 1: what to do for John. It didn't make sense that
25:59
Speaker 1: he was not waking up. And then the doctor checked
26:02
Speaker 1: on this liquid and he said, you need to test
26:05
Speaker 1: this on.
26:05
Speaker 2: Some farm animals to make sure we know what it does.
26:08
Speaker 1: And so the family went out and found a stray
26:10
Speaker 1: cat and they force fed it some of this liquid, and.
26:14
Speaker 2: Within minutes the cat had died.
26:16
Speaker 1: The Bell family swore they had not put that vial
26:19
Speaker 1: in the medicine cabinet.
26:20
Speaker 2: They had no idea what it was or how it
26:22
Speaker 2: got there.
26:23
Speaker 1: As for John, he would not wake up that day,
26:25
Speaker 1: and in fact, the following morning, when he was still
26:28
Speaker 1: in bed, he died. After John's death, these strange occurrences
26:32
Speaker 1: at the Bell household basically all came to a stop
26:35
Speaker 1: for the most part, Some people in town reported after
26:39
Speaker 1: John's death seeing strange lights floating around the Bell property,
26:43
Speaker 1: and also sometimes they reported hearing a strange singsong voice
26:47
Speaker 1: kind of coming from somewhere out around their property. John's wife, Lucy,
26:51
Speaker 1: would remain inside of that house until eighteen thirty eight,
26:55
Speaker 1: when she passed away. Today there's nothing left of the
26:58
Speaker 1: Bell household. However, there is a cave on their property,
27:02
Speaker 1: an underground cave, and people swear that's where whatever tormented
27:07
Speaker 1: the Bells came from.
27:12
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
27:13
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27:15
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