Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories
Darren Marlar | Weird Darkness
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LIZZIE BORDEN’S FINAL TESTIMONY: Inside The Mind of the Most Famous Murderess In History
What really happened inside the Borden house that bloody summer morning — and could Lizzie’s silence have been hiding more than just guilt? EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/LizzieBordenFinalTestimony READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mb5xas3d FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: She looms large in the annals of American crime lore. A romantic relationship gone awry and troubles at home could explain why many still believe Lizzie Borden killed her parents. (Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden) *** Many years before Adolph Hitler and Germany’s Nazis created Auschwitz, there was another concentration camp that experienced deaths in tens of thousands. But this encampment of turpitude wasn’t located in Germany – or anywhere near Europe. It was located in the land of the free… the home of the brave. The USA. (The Devil’s Punchbowl) *** Several people have returned from their near-death experiences reporting they were briefly in the fiery pits of hell. Is there any truth to their claims? (They Escaped Hell’s Clutches) *** Have you ever seen what appears to be a shadow person or dark figure (stationary or moving) with your own eyes, close up or far away, maybe even in your peripheral vision or dream state? Perhaps you have felt the sensation of someone standing behind you and then you turn around but no one was there? What is it that you are seeing when this happens? (Who Are The Shadow People?) CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:00:50.704 = Show Open 00:02:54.240 = Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden 00:20:37.798 = They Escaped Hell’s Clutches *** 00:27:49.967 = The Devil’s Punchbowl: America’s Concentration Camp 00:35:51.569 = Who Are The Shadow People? *** 01:03:24.576 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Spending The Night With Lizzie Borden” written by Darren Marlar ***Sources include Aliza Polkes:http://bit.ly/2X60g70, Zillow: http://bit.ly/2X6TmOM, Kelly McClure: http://bit.ly/2KDy3hj, Catherine Phelan: http://bit.ly/2xkNsdv, Sarah Mangiola: http://bit.ly/2xdVd55. Lizzie Borden monologue written by Brandy Purdy:https://amzn.to/2IRCCTb, female narration by voice actor Katrina Carpenter: http://bit.ly/2Jdd8hZ “The Devil’s Punchbowl: America’s Concentration Camp” by Claire Bernish: http://bit.ly/2YeAlqd “They Escaped Hell’s Clutches” posted at Earth Chronicles: http://bit.ly/2xoGl49 “Who Are The Shadow People?” by Natalia Kuna: http://bit.ly/2X10esl(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness. Originally aired: June 05, 2022 LIKE WHAT YOU’RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar spends this episode on the 1892 Borden murders in Fall River, Massachusetts, visions of hell brought back from near-death experiences, a disputed Union Army camp for freed slaves in Natchez, Mississippi, and the dark figures known as shadow people. It opens in Fall River, where the Second Street house in which Andrew and Abby Borden were killed on August 4th, 1892, now takes overnight guests as the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. Andrew's daughter, Lizzie Borden, was tried and acquitted in June 1893, and the episode covers the dress she burned days after the murders, the real count of 18 or 19 blows for Abby and 10 or 11 for Andrew against the rhyme's 40 and 41, and author Brandy Purdy's novel The Secrets of Lizzie Borden, which builds a motive around a suitor named David Anthony. Columnist Kelly McClure booked a night in the John V. Morse room, where Abby was killed, and fled to a friend's house in the middle of the night, coming back only for the complimentary breakfast. From there, it turns to people who say their near-death experiences took them to hell. Matthew Botsford, shot in the head outside an Atlanta restaurant in 1992, says that during a 27-day coma he hung bound hand and foot over a pit of something like magma; Howard Storm, an atheist art professor who later became a pastor, describes being led into a fog by figures that turned on him and bit him until he started shouting a prayer; and in his 1978 book Return from Tomorrow, George Ritchie, a young Army private declared dead during World War II, wrote about the tormented souls he saw. Next comes the Devil's Punchbowl, a bowl-shaped gulch in the bluffs above the Mississippi River at Natchez, where Paula Westbrook and former Natchez City Cemetery director Don Estes say the Union Army confined freed slaves in a camp and as many as 20,000 died of smallpox and starvation. History professor Jim Wiggins calls that figure inflated tenfold, and local stories, none of them verified, tell of human bones washing out of the ravine after heavy rains. The episode closes with shadow people, the dark human outlines reported in bedrooms at night and at the edge of sight, including the Hat Man in his hat and long coat or cape. Psychic Natalia Kuna shares her own encounters and runs through the theories, from demons and jinn to astral travelers, time travelers, and entities drawn to electromagnetic energy, along with Cherokee elder Thunder Strike's belief that people see them through a "dream eye", and the protection she recommends, starting with the name of Jesus.
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