Phantasmal Crime

Muriel C. Pfeil (File) is buried in the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery next to her husband Emil, who preceded her in death by 47 years and her namesake daughter who died 25 years prior. That daughter had been the victim of domestic violence and a bitter divorce and custody battle ended with her blown to bits in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. It was a shocking murder and so it is no wonder that Muriel's spirit is at unrest. Anchorage is the most populous city in the state of Alaska and while it is an economic powerhouse and a very modern city now, its beginnings were very different. Captain James Cook was one of the first Europeans to explore along Alaska as he searched for the Northwest Passage. One of the places that he ended up anchoring his ship, he named Anchor Point. That name eventually became Anchorage. The Russians brought trading posts in the 19th century and small pox, which decimated the indigenous population. In 1912, Alaska became a United States territory and at the ti...

The Herald's cover story read "…if her death was accidental, it was as strange an accident as was ever conceived by the brain of Poe." Old Hollywood and mysterious deaths seem to go hand in hand, whether it's the case of the Black Dahlia or the mysterious "suicides" of Marilyn Monroe and George Reeves. In the same vein as the mysterious suicides of the latter stars, comes the tale of the mysterious death of movie star Thelma Todd. It is a story that contains all the elements of a perfect Hollywood drama: fame, fortune, gangsters, love and betrayal. Was she murdered, did she die by accident or did she die at her own hand? Whatever the truth may be, her spirit is at unrest. Blonde bombshells and Hollywood. They went together well in Hollywood's Golden Age, but many of those stories ended in heartbreak or tragedy. Thelma Todd was one of those promising starlets who came to an unhappy end in what has become one of Hollywood's enduring mysteries...

David Gring built a grist mill in Berks County in 1811. Today, that mill and Gring's homestead are owned by Berks County and used as a Visitor's Center and offices. In 1875, the Gring home would host the dead bodies of four members of the Bissinger family following a murder-suicide. A mother, Louisa Bissinger, took the lives of her children in retaliation for a wrong by the father. The tragic circumstances have left the ghosts of the family to haunt this area of Berks County in Pennsylvania. And then there was Ethel Major. A woman an ocean away from Pennsylvania. She was not happy in her marriage. Her husband was an angry man and their relationship had gone sour long ago. Rather than leave her husband, she decided to make the ultimate break. And for that, she paid with her life. She spent the end of her life at HM Prison Hull in Yorkshire, England. And it would seem that her spirit has decided to stay at that prison in the afterlife. Join us as we share these tragic tales that ...

Murder is a ghastly matter. At the hands of a loved one, it truly becomes heinous. Most murder victims are murdered by someone they know and a high percentage are killed by either a lover or spouse. This is not a new statistic. History proves that to be a fact. Polstead, Suffolk, England was not a place where one would expect a murder to occur, particularly in 1827. But a crime of passion did take place here and a young woman was left dead. The horrifying murder was nicknamed the "Red Barn Murder" because of the location of the murder. The paranormal takes center stage in the solving of this case as the victim's stepmother was visited by her spirit at night, three times. And then there is the cursed skull of the murderer and his spirit. Thomas Marten was a molecatcher in Suffolk, England. While molecatching doesn't sound very glamorous, it was a lucrative business at the time, making more money than a teacher and about the same as a police officer, and it t...

(Suggested by: Boyd Wright) Many a murder case has been won in court on just circumstantial evidence. This is true of present day cases and it was true back in the 1840s when a man named David Sheely lost his life at the end of a hangman's rope. Many believe he was an innocent man. And perhaps that is why his ghost haunted people for decades after his hanging. Sheely certainly isn't unique. Through the centuries, many wrongly convicted people have been put to death. It's one of the reasons why many people don't support the death penalty. There are many stories of murder victims coming back as spirits to find justice. Is it possible that wrongfully executed people have ghosts that return as well? And what of the truly guilty? Do they not make the transition out of fear? Do their spirits stay as they seek penance? Or were they just so evil, even Hell won't have them? The city of Cynthiana is slightly northeast of Lexington in the state of Kentucky. It was here that Da...

The Black Donnellys were an Irish family looking for a new start across the Atlantic Ocean in the early 1840s. James and Johannah Donnelly had lived in poverty and strife and they hoped that Canada would bring a new start for their little family. So they packed up what little they had, along with their son James, Jr., and migrated to Forest City, Canada from Tipperary, Ireland.  They would find a new life in this new world, but they would not gain it in the right way. They would take what was not theirs and this would lead to strife for their family. It would eventually lead to a lot of death as well. And now spirits roam the former Donnelly homestead. James found work in Canada and Johannah gave birth to their second son William, who was nicknamed “Clubfoot Will” because he was born with a clubfoot. They were happy for a while, but they really longed to have their own land and their own farm. Around 1845, the Donnellys moved to Biddulph, Ontario, which was in the Ca...