Horrorwood: True Crime in Tinseltown

In 1878 a 13-year-old girl moved in with another family and lived with them for three months...as their dead daughter.

 

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Episode Sources:

“The Watseka Wonder” by Dr. E. Winchester Stevens, 1878

“Lurancy Vennum (Watseka Wonder)” PSI Encyclopedia

“Ghost Brothers: Lights Out” S1E1 - Roff Family Rituals

“Buried Secrets” NBC, 1996

“The Watseka Wonder” by Monica Otoide, Univ. of IL Urbana-Champaign, Oct 29, 2018

“Through a glass darkly: patients of the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville, USA (1854–80)”

“Nevins v. the City of Peoria” Supreme Court of IL, 1866

Asa Berry Roff Biography - Iroquois County Genealogical Society

Roff House - 2020 Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award for Restoration

“The Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reform” by Rachel Williams, Jan 31, 2017

 

Creeptastic theme music by:

Nicholas Davio - nicholasdavio.com, @mr.nick.davio, @huron_coast

 

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*Special Announcement* We've got a little something for ya in this episode. Be sure to listen!

 

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Creeptastic theme music by:

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On a chilly December evening in 1926, British crime author Agatha Christie walked out of her house, got in her car and drove away. When she didn't return home that night her house staff grew concerned. When her car was found the following morning, halfway down a grassy embankment with her driver's license and other belongings still inside, the entire nation waited on pins and needles to learn her fate.

 

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Episode Sources:

“Agatha Christie and the 11 Missing Days” by Jared Cade, 1998

“Mrs. Agatha Christie, Novelist, Disappears In Strange Way From Her Home in England” The New York Times, Dec 6, 1926

“Mrs. Agatha Christie: Her Own Story of Her Disappearance” Daily Mail, 1928

“The Curious Disappearance of Agatha Christie” by Ben Johnson, Historic UK, Dec 19, 2014

“The Original Gone Girl: Agatha Christie’s Mysterious Disappearance” by Catherine Ostler, The Independent, Nov 4, 2014

“Christie's most famous mystery solved at last” by Vanessa Thorpe, The Guardian, Oct 14, 2006

Agatha Christie Website

 

Creeptastic theme music by:

Nicholas Davio - nicholasdavio.com, @mr.nick.davio, @huron_coast

 

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We're back with Part 2 of the Hull-House Devil Baby, and this week we're talking all about its influence on "Rosemary''s Baby" and the tragedies that seemed to curse those involved with the film.

 

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Episode Sources:

“Rosemary’s Baby” on IMDb

“11 Allegedly Cursed Movie Productions And The Eerie Incidents That Surrounded Them” by Austin Henry, Edited by John Kuroski, Published October 10, 2023, Updated July 2, 2026, All Things Interesting

“Rosemary’s Baby: The Devil Was Not Only in the Details” by Wojciech Oleksiak, Published March 26, 2015, Updated April 16, 2015, Culture.Pl

“Dissecting the curse of Roman Polanski’s horror classic ‘Rosemary’s Baby’” by Swapnil Dhruv Bose, November 24, 2020, Far Out Magazine

“The Most Cursed Hit Movie Ever Made” by Rosemary Counter, June 1, 2017, Vanity Fair

““Stuck with Satan”: Ira Levin on the Origins of Rosemary’s Baby” by Ira Levin, April 2003, November 5, 2012, Criterion

“Bill Stoner and the Cotton Club Case” by Steven Powell, June 14, 2024, The Venetian Vase

“4 CONVICTED IN SLAYING OF THEATRICAL PRODUCER” by Deseret News, July 23, 1991

 

Creeptastic theme music by:

Nicholas Davio - nicholasdavio.com, @mr.nick.davio, @huron_coast

 

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Jane Addams opened Hull-House in 1889 with a mission to help Chicago’s immigrant communities. There were stories of ghosts to begin with, but nothing caused more chaos than the legend of a demonic baby supposedly hidden inside. Thousands came looking for a child that Addams insisted never existed, and decades later the story inspired the horror classic "Rosemary's Baby." More than a century later, the history and hauntings of Hull-House remain tangled together in one of Chicago’s strangest stories.

 

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Episode Sources:

“Our History” from the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

“History” from the Jane Addams Hull House Association

“Chicago Hauntings: Ghosts, A Portal, And A Devil Baby At Jane Addams' Hull House” by Adam Harrington, October 28, 2021, CBS Chicago

“Hull House Haunting” by JAPP, October 23, 2015, Jane Addams Papers Project

“The Haunted Lore of Hull-House” by Nadia Maragha, August 14, 2026, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

“The Hull House Museum” by Windy City Ghosts, Posted November 13, 2019, Updated April 22, 2026

“The Devil Baby at Hull-House” by Tim Nealon, Ghost City Tours

“The Devil Baby of Hull-House” by Adam Selzer, March 3, 2008, Adam Chicago Tours

“The Haunted History of Hull House Chicago & the Devil Baby” by American Ghost Walks, February 10, 2022

“The Devil Baby at Hull House” by Jane Addams, October 1916 Issue, The Atlantic

“Jane Addams Hull-House Museum” added by Avalon, Atlas Obscura

 

Creeptastic theme music by:

Nicholas Davio - nicholasdavio.com, @mr.nick.davio, @huron_coast

 

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