Loreplay

In 1985, Dorothy Lou Thompson vanished from her home at a Louisiana pet cemetery. Nearly three weeks later, her body surfaced in the Mississippi River, wrapped in chains. Decades later, witnesses came forward with information about her death and a disturbing explanation for finally talking: they said Dorothy’s ghost wouldn’t leave them alone. This week on Loreplay, Dayna Pereira explores the true crime case featured in HBO’s The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story. From her mother Grace’s murder trial to Dorothy’s troubled marriages, a bitter property dispute, and rumored buried treasure, this story had enough secrets to fill the cemetery. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Dorothy that dead women were supposed to stay quiet. We also discuss the 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre and why its victims deserve to be remembered beyond the region’s ghost stories, with a full episode to follow. A Louisiana cold case, a haunted pet cemetery, and a woman with unfinished business.

• HBO. The Pet Cemetery Murders: A Ghost Story. Documentary directed by Philip Cairney.

• St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Office. Guilty plea, investigation details, and sentencing in Dorothy Thompson’s case. July 11, 2014.

• Reuters, Jonathan Kaminsky. “Louisiana man pleads guilty in 1985 pet cemetery slaying.” July 17, 2014.

• Gone South. “The Pet Cemetery Murders, Part 1” transcript and “The Pet Cemetery Murders, Part 2.”

• Supreme Court of Missouri. State v. Wynne (1944). Court opinion concerning Grace Wynne’s murder conviction and its reversal.

• Chris Dier. “A Forgotten Massacre in Southeast Louisiana.” January 12, 2014.

• Vanity Fair, Savannah Walsh. Interview with documentary director Philip Cairney about Dorothy Thompson and The Pet Cemetery Murders.

• Autopsy of Architecture, David Bulit. “Azalea Original Pet Cemetery.” June 12, 2020.

• U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana. James Tregler arrest announcement. November 9, 2011.

• WDSU. Coverage of the 2012 arrest and original investigation.

• WDSU. Coverage of Nodier’s 2014 plea and sentence.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

In the woods outside Clifton, Virginia, there’s a railroad overpass locals call Bunny Man Bridge. Legend says an escaped asylum inmate, a man who murdered his family on Easter Sunday, hid there and lived on rabbits. He left their mutilated bodies hanging in the trees, and every Halloween since, teenagers who stay under the bridge past midnight have turned up hanging there too. It’s a fantastic story. It’s also built on an asylum that never existed, a prison that hadn’t opened yet, and a library you can’t visit because nobody ever built it.

But in October 1970, someone really did put on a bunny suit and throw a hatchet through a parked car’s window in Fairfax County. Eleven days later, he was back with a long-handled ax. This week on Loreplay, Dayna follows the Bunny Man from campfire legend into the newspaper archives and an actual police file. Along the way, she finds out how one very angry man in rabbit ears turned into a 32-victim folk monster, and why nobody ever caught him. Lock your car doors.

Sources

• Brian A. Conley, "The Bunny Man Unmasked: The Real Life Origins of an Urban Legend," Fairfax County Public Library, Virginia Room. research.fairfaxcounty.gov/local-history/bunnyman. The backbone of this episode; includes excerpts from the 1970 Washington Post articles, the Fairfax County Police investigation report, and the 1973 folklore paper.
• "Man in Bunny Suit Sought in Fairfax," Washington Post, Oct. 22, 1970, B2 (via Conley).
• "The 'Rabbit' Reappears," Washington Post, Oct. 31, 1970, B1 (via Conley).
• Fairfax County Police Dept., Investigation Report 858-748 (Officer J.S. Brown, Oct. 29, 1970; Investigator William L. Johnson, Mar. 14, 1971), redacted copy cited by Conley.
• Patricia C. Johnson, "The Bunny Man" (May 12, 1973), Maryland Folklore Archive, Box 32, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries.
• Timothy C. Forbes, "The Clifton Bunny Man," Castle of Spirits website, c. 1999 (the source of the asylum / Grifon / Wallster version).
• Scariest Places on Earth, Fox Family Channel, 2001 ("Terror on Bunnyman's Bridge").
• Washingtonian, "The Scary, Weird, Somewhat True Story of the Fairfax 'Bunny Man'" (Oct. 23, 2015) — Conley interview; notes he tracked down the still-married couple and his view of the bridge as a teen party spot.
• Connection Newspapers, "Legend Lives on at Bunnyman Bridge" (Nov. 4, 2003) — Halloween road closures near the bridge.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Six hundred dead husbands. One infamous poison. And a little bottle with a saint on it. Apparently, marriage counseling in seventeenth century Italy could get extremely fucking dark. In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira explores the legend of Giulia Tofana and Aqua Tofana, the notorious arsenic poison said to have helped women escape dangerous marriages by becoming widows. From Palermo and Naples to Rome, the story features secret poison sellers, a suspiciously helpful priest, holy remedies, and husbands who allegedly never realized what was happening.

But how much of this infamous tale is folklore, and what do the historical records actually reveal? After telling the legend, we examine the Roman poisoning investigation of 1659, Gironima Spana, Giovanna de Grandis, and the women whose lives became tangled in a scandal involving murder, domestic abuse, money, and unequal justice. Was Giulia Tofana a serial killer, a feminist folk hero, or a woman whose reputation grew far beyond the evidence?

Expect dark history, true crime, Italian folklore, female rage, and some deeply unfortunate branding involving Saint Nicholas. Grandma’s holy little bottle has questions to answer.

Follow Loreplay for strange history, chilling legends, paranormal mysteries, and dark storytelling with humor. Listen, share, and tell us what you think: does the truth make this story less frightening, or even worse?

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

The Beautiful Stranger: Kate Morgan & the Hotel del Coronado

On Thanksgiving 1892, a young woman checked into the Hotel del Coronado alone, under a fake married name, with one small handbag and no luggage. For five days she told the staff she was dying and that her brother, a doctor, was on his way. He never came. On the morning of November 29th, the hotel electrician found her dead on the beach stairs, a newly bought revolver by her hand.

The papers called her "the Beautiful Stranger," because of course her face was the headline. Then a coroner ruled it suicide in record time, an anonymous doctor told reporters she'd tried to end a pregnancy, and her grandfather wired from Iowa: bury her and send me the bill. The San Diego Union's headline? "He Owns Her."

This week, we follow Kate Farmer Morgan from Iowa orphan to Los Angeles housemaid to the Del's most bankable ghost. Along the way we look at the lawyer who decided she was his great-great-grandmother, the theory that she was really someone else entirely, and a haunted room that can't settle on its own number. Underneath all of it is a question nobody in 1892 asked: what does a woman alone do when she runs out of options?

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Sources

• Kate Morgan, Wikipedia: birth, family, marriage, son's death, burial, May overview
• Randy Dotinga, "At the Hotel Del, a Deadly Obsession," Voice of San Diego (2011): anonymous physician, "He Owns Her" headline, Bush agent story, 1992 straw-slurping report, May's ancestor claim, gravestone text
• Jennifer Jones, "Kate Morgan: The Tragic Mystery of the Hotel del Coronado," The Dead History (2024): day-by-day timeline from 1892 papers, Harry West, R. Gomer, David Cone, trunk contents, telegrams, $16.50, women at the viewing, 1983 Eagle and Journal quote; comments include Elizabeth McGovern's corrections
• Terry Girardot, "The Ghost of the Hotel Del Coronado," Fremont County IAGenWeb (2001): Alan May's research path, Room 3312, headstone date, critique of May
• "I Tried It: Room 3327 at Hotel Del Coronado," San Diego Magazine (2021): hotel historian Gina Petrone on Kate's shifting stories
• "Coronado's Haunted Hotel Del Still Won't Let Kate Morgan's Mystery Rest," Hoodline (2026): May's 1990 book and caliber claim, Cullen's 2007 theory, hotel book by Christine Donovan
• Beautiful Stranger, Hotel del Coronado Heritage Department: official account summary
• Ghost City Tours, "The Haunted Hotel del Coronado": Wyllie misidentification and Toronto detail (secondary, tour-company source)
• John T. Cullen, Dead Move listing: Lizzie Wyllie and Spreckels theory
• All That's Interesting, "Kate Morgan": $3.80 room rate, ghost phenomena
• San Diego History Center, Hotel del Coronado Collection: rabbit-hunting founding story, 1885 purchase
• Historic Hotels of America, Hotel del Coronado history and Famous Hotels: 1888 opening, 1,440 guests, land-boom collapse, Spreckels
• PCAD, Hotel del Coronado: February 19, 1888 opening date, Spreckels buyout timing

The Flatwoods Monster: the 1952 West Virginia cryptid and UFO encounter, told campfire-style and then ripped apart.

On September 12, 1952, a fireball streaked across the sky over Flatwoods, West Virginia. A group of boys, a mom named Kathleen May, a teenage National Guardsman, and one very smart dog went up a hill to find where it landed. What they found was a ten-foot creature with a blood-red face, a spade-shaped hood, and a glowing green body that hissed and glided toward them. Within a week, the Braxton County Monster was national news.

In this episode of Loreplay, we tell the legend the way it scared a whole country, then dig into what actually happened. That includes the meteor logged in the Air Force's Project Blue Book, the red aircraft beacon, a guy named Max and his pickup truck, Joe Nickell's barn owl theory, and the lesser-known sightings from Audra Harper and George Snitowsky. We also follow the story's afterlife, from Gray Barker and the birth of the Men in Black legend to Kathleen May's claims of a government visit and Frank Feschino's theory of a secret alien dogfight over the East Coast.

Was it an alien, a monster, or a very angry owl? Either way, Flatwoods leaned all the way in, with a Flatwoods Monster Museum, giant monster chairs, and a spot in Fallout 76 right next to Mothman. Which brings us to the big question: which West Virginia sky daddy wins Best Loreplay Cryptid? Paranormal history, folklore, cryptids, UFOs, and weird legends, with a skeptic's eye and a believer's heart.

Sources

• Charleston Gazette coverage, September 1952
• Project Blue Book case file on the Flatwoods sighting (U.S. Air Force).
• We the People (NBC, 1952). Kathleen May and Eugene Lemon's national TV appearance.
• George Snitowsky's account in Male magazine, July 1955.
• Gray Barker, "The Monster and the Saucer," Fate magazine, January 1953.
• Gray Barker, They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers (1956).
• Frank Feschino Jr., The Braxton County Monster: The Cover-Up of the Flatwoods Monster Revealed (2004).
• Joe Nickell, "The Flatwoods UFO Monster," Skeptical Inquirer, November 2000: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2000/11/the-flatwoods-ufo-monster/ This covers the barn owl theory, the beacon, "saw, heard and smelled nothing," and Eugene throwing up.
• Snopes, "What Was the Flatwoods Monster?": https://www.snopes.com/articles/383097/flatwoods-monster-mothman-owl/
• HISTORY, "In 1952, the Flatwoods Monster Terrified 6 Kids, a Mom, a Dog—and the Nation": https://www.history.com/articles/flatwoods-monster-west-virginia This has the John Gibson quotes about Rickie and a boy peeing his pants, Gray Barker's background, and the May brothers standing by their story.
• All That's Interesting, "Inside the Legend of the Flatwoods Monster": https://allthatsinteresting.com/flatwoods-monster This covers Audra Harper's sighting.
• Magonia magazine's critical re-examination of the case. It's the source for Max Lockard's timing and the plant-sap explanation for the residue. I don't have the exact link, so search "Magonia Flatwoods monster" to grab it.
• Visit Braxton, "The Flatwoods Monster": https://braxtonwv.org/the-flatwoods-monster/
• The Flatwoods Monster Museum, Sutton, WV. It holds the Audra Harper typewritten account and the original New York sketch.
• Wikipedia, "Flatwoods monster": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatwoods_monster
• Wikipedia, "Gray Barker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Barker

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Everyone knows the rhyme. Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. The problem is that almost every word of it is bullshit.

In this episode, Dayna heads to Fall River, Massachusetts, to uncover the actual story behind one of America’s most infamous unsolved murders. We’re talking family resentment, inheritance drama, a mysterious note, an alleged attempt to buy poison, a suspiciously burned dress, a spectacularly messy investigation, and the courtroom decision to bring Andrew and Abby Borden’s actual skulls to trial. Because apparently cyanide testimony was too prejudicial, but placing Daddy’s skull on the prosecution table was perfectly reasonable.

We’ll separate documented history from folklore, fact-check Netflix’s Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, examine the evidence against Lizzie, and explore how gender, wealth, class, and Christian respectability shaped her acquittal. Was Lizzie an innocent woman destroyed by suspicion, a calculating murderer who got away with it, or something history can no longer prove?

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Bekah Page joins Dayna to talk about her paranormal investigations at The Whaley House. Bekah has always been sensitive to energies and drawn to the paranormal. As a child, she visited the Whaley house and has been called back to it several times since. In this bonus episode, Dayna and Bekah discuss Violet Whaley, how a house can hold both grief and joy, Bekah's relationship with Violet Whaley, and what her paranormal investigation journey has looked like.

Find Bekahon Instagram @itsbekahpage and @beksboos
TikTok: @beksboos

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

A hanged man, two tragic young deaths, and a whole lot of frontier judgment. The Whaley House, built on top of a killing ground, had no choice but to be haunted. This week, Dayna tells the story of all the tragedy one house can hold. But if it can hold that much sorrow, can't it also hold that much joy? The Whaley House still stands today and is widely recognized as one of the most haunted houses in America. And THIS is why.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

For the first time in Loreplay HISTORY, we have a guest on the show! Jenn Scott Pickett has been deep diving reincarnation and sharing the stories for years. She is an author, podcaster, and social media creator. In this episode, Dayna and Jenn talk about past life regressions, if it's woo woo bullshit, the many cases of past lives, scars, memories and more. Find Jenn on social media @jennscottpickett

For her book, "Reincarnation Explained without Religion": https://a.co/d/01lxb7ou
For her podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/researching-reincarnation-with-jenn-scott-pickett/id6795738792

Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Imagine you're a hard boiled cop that doesn't believe in woo woo nonsense, and then you are forced to face that the woo woo nonsense might be on to something. Robert L. Snow, a police detective, was essentially dared to do a past life regression session. He went into the experience fully determined to debunk it all, even bringing his own recorder to the session, and ended up on a journey that took him to very unexplained places. With a list of 28 things that could be proved or disproved, Bob investigated his own PAST life. And what he found, changed his whole view on past lives.

This episodes primary source was from The Psychic and The Doc Youtube. found here: https://youtu.be/mfIBLHwHAao?si=pY4K-fCPnzr__6F0

Robert Snow's Book: https://a.co/d/0bCpl03o

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable.. send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here.. death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow, and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

The trials ended. The executions stopped. But according to the ghost stories, some of North Berwick’s dead never really left.

In this bonus episode of Loreplay, we’re heading back to Scotland to dig into the hauntings and paranormal legends that linger in the shadow of the North Berwick Witch Trials. From Agnes Sampson, better known in ghost lore as “Bald Agnes”, and her alleged appearances at Holyrood Palace, to the spirits, strange encounters, and centuries-old stories attached to the places touched by Scotland’s witch-hunting past, we’re looking at what happened when horrific history eventually became haunted history. And this time, there’s an important question hanging over all of it: are these really ghost stories… or are they one of the ways we’ve kept the memories of people like Agnes alive after history tried so damn hard to erase them? Either way, if anyone earned the right to haunt a royal palace, it’s Agnes fucking Sampson. Welcome back to North Berwick.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

Season 2 is HERE, and apparently we’re kicking things off with Satan’s cold ass, witches sailing the Scottish seas in kitchen colanders, a weaponized cat, and one very paranoid king. The North Berwick Witch Trials started with a royal wedding, some seriously shitty weather, and King James VI becoming convinced that witches were personally trying to murder him. What followed was one of Scotland’s most infamous witch hunts. This week, we’re getting into the stories of Geillis Duncan, Agnes Sampson, John Fian, Euphame MacCalzean, and the other real people who found themselves accused of belonging to an enormous satanic conspiracy. There’s torture. Forced confessions. A Devil who apparently takes attendance. A supernatural assassination attempt involving a toad. And yes, an alarming amount of discussion about the Devil’s bare ass. But underneath all of that ridiculousness is a story that gets very real, very fast—because once powerful people decided the conspiracy existed, every denial became evidence, every confession created another suspect, and innocent people paid for it with their lives.

Welcome back, my feral little lore lovers.

Season 2 is about to get fucking weird.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

Sources & Further Reading

I went down a DEEP rabbit hole for this one. If you want to join me—or just make sure I’m not personally inventing Satan’s cold ass—here are some of the main sources used for this episode:

• The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft — University of Edinburgh — This is probably the single best resource for the Scottish witch trials. The database was created by historians Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin, Joyce Miller and Louise Yeoman and contains records for thousands of accused people, including the North Berwick cases.
Explore the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft
• Lawrence Normand & Gareth Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland: James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches — One of the major scholarly works on the trials, including surviving indictments for Agnes Sampson, John Fian, Barbara Napier and Euphame MacCalzean, as well as Francis Stewart's later trial.
• Newes from Scotland (1591/1592) — The infamous contemporary pamphlet describing the North Berwick cases, John Fian, the alleged witches' meetings, attempts to sink James VI's ship, and examinations conducted in the king's presence. This is also where some of the episode's wildest details come from. Important disclaimer: contemporary does not mean unbiased. This thing was basically 16th-century witch-panic propaganda, so I treated its supernatural claims accordingly.
View the Folger Shakespeare Library record for Newes from Scotland
• Liv Helene Willumsen, “Witchcraft against Royal Danish Ships in 1589 and the Transnational Transfer of Ideas” — Research based on Danish court records, state papers and diplomatic correspondence examining the witch trials surrounding Anne of Denmark's disastrous voyage and how those ideas traveled from Denmark to Scotland.
Read the research article
• Scottish Witchcraft Trials / Barbara Napier & Francis Stewart, Earl of Bothwell — Surviving trial material is particularly useful here because Barbara's case shows James's personal involvement after her jury refused to convict her on everything, while Bothwell became the highest-status person formally accused of witchcraft in Scotland.
• Scottish Government & Scottish Parliament records — In 2022, Nicola Sturgeon issued a formal posthumous apology on behalf of the Scottish Government to people accused, convicted, vilified or executed under Scotland's Witchcraft Act. A proposed bill that would have pardoned those convicted was later withdrawn in 2023, and the Scottish Government has explicitly confirmed that an apology was made, but no legal pardon was given.
Read the Scottish Government's 2022 apology

A note on the history: A lot of what survives from North Berwick comes from interrogations, accusations, legal records and Newes from Scotland. So when I say someone “confessed” to sailing across the sea in a sieve, kissing the Devil's ass, raising storms or doing some other absolutely unhinged shit, I'm describing what the historical record claims they confessed to—often after torture—not suggesting those things actually happened. Torture was used to obtain confessions during Scottish witch investigations, and the North Berwick panic was particularly notorious for physical torture.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

In 1928, on the night before Thanksgiving, a sixty-year-old Pennsylvania folk healer named Nelson Rehmeyer was beaten to death in his farmhouse by three men who believed he had cursed them. The house they tried to burn wouldn't burn. The clock above the stove stopped at 12:01. And the trial that followed became one of the most surreal legal spectacles in American history — partly because the judge edited the word "witch" out of the murder confession before the jury ever heard it. This week: Hex Hollow, Pennsylvania Powwow, the grimoire you can still buy on Amazon (four and a half stars), and the question of what happens when a community's entire system for understanding suffering points to a person. Dark, accurate, and genuinely strange.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

Key Sources

Arthur Lewis, Hex (1969) — foundational narrative account. Still widely cited.

David W. Kriebel, Powwowing Among the Pennsylvania Dutch (Penn State University Press, 2007) — definitive academic treatment of Braucherei. Source for cure specifics (wound chant, hog bladder remedy, dollar bill vision test).

Johann Georg Hohman, Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend (1820, multiple editions) — free on Internet Archive; annotated academic edition from Penn State University Press; also Amazon.

Shane Free, dir., Hex Hollow: Witchcraft and Murder in Pennsylvania (2015) — free to stream; features descendants of all parties and modern Powwow practitioners. Highly recommended companion viewing.

CrimeReads (2021), "A Tale of Witchcraft and Murder in Jazz Age America" — best single account of the trial proceedings and courtroom dynamics.

Wikipedia, Rehmeyer's Hollow — for baseline fact-check. Note: some popular sources contain errors on dates and childhood healer details; trial transcripts are the more reliable source.

Hey hey, my fellow Lore Lovers… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

Public executions were already brutal… but then came Jack Ketch—the executioner who somehow made death worse. Known across 17th-century England for his shockingly bad aim, Ketch didn’t just take lives—he botched them, turning executions into slow, horrifying spectacles that crowds couldn’t look away from. From nobles begging for mercy to audiences watching in disbelief, this is the story of the man who became infamous not for killing… but for how badly he did it. Because nothing says “career failure” like needing multiple swings of an axe.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

Hey hey, my fellow weirdos… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

Primary Sources

• Evelyn, John. The Diary of John Evelyn. Entry for July 15, 1685. Evelyn was a direct eyewitness to the Monmouth execution and his account is considered one of the most reliable contemporary records.
• The Apologie of John Ketch (1683). Pamphlet published under Ketch's name following the execution of Lord Russell. Authorship disputed — some historians attribute it to Ketch himself; others note the provenance is uncertain. Cited with that caveat in-episode.
• Proceedings of the Old Bailey. January 14, 1676. First recorded court mention of Ketch by name.
• The Plotters Ballad, Being Jack Ketch's Incomparable Receipt for the Cure of Traytorous Recusants (1678). Satirical broadsheet pamphlet. Held at the British Library.

Secondary Sources

• Wales, Tim. "John Ketch." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004. The most authoritative modern biographical summary.
• Engel, Howard. Lord High Executioner: An Unashamed Look at Hangmen, Headsmen, and Their Kind. Key Porter Books, 1996. Covers Ketch in the context of execution history broadly.
• Wade, Stephen. Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths series. Cites and questions the provenance of the Apologie pamphlet.
• Stephenson, Neal. The Baroque Cycle (2003–2004). Historical fiction; useful for period color on the execution economy and aristocratic tipping customs, not cited as fact.
• Jullian, Philippe. Robert de Montesquiou (1965). Not directly relevant to Ketch but cited in the Moberly-Jourdain literature — flagged here only because it came up in research adjacently.

Online / Reference Sources Used in Research

• "Jack Ketch." Wikipedia. Consulted April 2026. Used for general chronology and cross-referencing broadsheet citations.
• "Jack Ketch." EBSCO Research Starters / Biography. Consulted April 2026.
• "1685: James Scott, Duke of Monmouth." Executed Today (executedtoday.com). Consulted April 2026. Particularly useful for scaffold dialogue sourcing and crowd response detail.
• Sherrat, Tim. "Jack Ketch." AllThatHistory (allthathistory.com). Consulted April 2026.
• "Fall of Monmouth: Sedgemoor, Capture & Botched Execution." History Defined (historydefined.net). Consulted April 2026.
• "An Execution Timeline: The Duke of Monmouth's Last Days." English Historical Fiction Authors (englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com). Consulted April 2026. Useful for detailed scaffold dialogue reconstruction.
• "Execution of the Duke of Monmouth." Warwalks (warwalks.com). Consulted April 2026.
• "The Execution of Monmouth." Our Civilisation — sourcing Macaulay's History of England. Consulted April 2026.
• Historic Royal Palaces — Tower of London official records. Referenced for the five-blow count on the Monmouth execution.

In this absolutely chaotic slice of history, we dive into one of the strangest—and most painful—medical mysteries ever recorded: exploding teeth. Yes. Actual human teeth. Exploding. Inside people’s mouths. Set in the early-to-mid 1800s, this episode centers around several documented cases—most famously that of Reverend D.A. Spriggs—whose sudden, violent dental pain didn’t just throb… it detonated. Victims reported intense pressure, unbearable agony, and then—BANG—teeth cracking, shattering, or even bursting apart with an audible pop.

We follow the timeline of these bizarre incidents, focusing on personal accounts that read more like horror fiction than medical documentation. People described flashes of light, gunshot-like sounds, and immediate relief after the explosion—as if their mouth just rage-quit.

So what the hell was happening?

We break down the leading theories:

• Early dental fillings made from unstable metals (hello, 1800s chaos chemistry)
• Hydrogen gas buildup inside decaying teeth (yes, your mouth potentially becoming a tiny bomb)
• Galvanic reactions—basically a battery forming in your mouth because of mixed metals

…and why none of these explanations fully hold up under scrutiny.

Because here’s the thing: even modern dentistry can’t fully explain how a tooth could generate enough internal pressure to literally explode.

So was this a weird cluster of misdiagnosed dental abscesses? A case of experimental dentistry gone wrong? Or something even stranger—something we just don’t understand anymore?

Either way, this episode will make you:

• Fear toothaches on a whole new level
• Deeply appreciate modern dentistry
• And maybe… never ignore mouth pain again

Because in the 1800s, a toothache wasn’t just annoying.

It might have been a ticking time bomb.

SOURCES

Primary Source

"Explosion of Teeth With Audible Report"

W.H. Atkinson. The Dental Cosmos, Vol. 2, January 1861. University of Michigan / Hathi Trust digital archive.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/dencos/acf8385.0002.001/333:78

Note: The archive page is image-based and requires institutional access. The Atkinson quotes used in this episode are reproduced via the secondary sources below, both of which cite this original directly.

Secondary Sources

"The gruesome and mysterious case of exploding teeth"

BBC Future, 1 March 2016. Includes expert commentary from Hugh Devlin (Professor of Restorative Dentistry, University of Manchester) and Andrea Sella (Professor of Inorganic Chemistry, UCL).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160301-the-gruesome-and-mysterious-case-of-exploding-teeth

Note: This URL was blocked from direct fetch during production. Content confirmed via the Amusing Planet piece below, which reproduces both expert quotes and cites BBC Future as source.

"From the archive: The mysterious case of 'exploding teeth'"

British Dental Journal, vol. 219, pp. 376–377. Published 23 October 2015.

https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2015.809

Reproduces BDJ correspondence originally published 1965–1966: Cyril Tomes (21 Sept 1965), B. Eady (5 Oct 1965), Basil G. Bibby / University of Pennsylvania (Dec 1965), Louis I. Grossman / University of Pennsylvania (Feb 1966). The Grossman letter quotes directly from J. Phelps Hibler's 1874 book. Directly fetched and verified.

"The Case of The Exploding Teeth"

Amusing Planet, 21 February 2023.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2023/02/the-case-of-exploding-teeth.html

Reproduces the full Atkinson quote from The Dental Cosmos, summarizes the Hibler and BDJ cases, and includes the Devlin and Sella quotes from BBC Future. Directly fetched and verified. Used as the primary route to Atkinson's text.

Hey hey, my fellow lore lovers… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

In 1837, something started terrorizing the outskirts of London. It had eyes like red balls of fire, metallic claws, and a deeply unsettling habit of vomiting blue flame directly into women's faces. It leapt over nine-foot walls. It slapped soldiers and laughed at bullets. It turned up in Devon as a four-legged bear-thing, starred in Victorian penny dreadfuls, got adopted as a bogeyman for misbehaving children, and then — after 67 years of sightings across England and into Scotland — simply vanished into the dark.

This week on Loreplay, we're covering Spring Heeled Jack: England's most chaotic urban legend and the Victorian era's most aggressively uncatchable public menace.

We'll dig into the documented 1838 attacks on Jane Alsop and Lucy Scales — two women whose detailed, police-recorded accounts are the closest thing this legend has to a paper trail. We'll meet the Lord Mayor of London, who had a very bad January trying to explain all of this to a crowded public session at Mansion House. We'll examine the mountain of press coverage that turned a probable aristocratic prank into a national panic. And we'll spend some quality time with Henry de la Poer Beresford, the 3rd Marquess of Waterford — known to his contemporaries as the Mad Marquis — who is either the most compelling suspect in Victorian folklore history, or just a very convenient scapegoat.

Nobody was ever convicted of being Spring Heeled Jack. This is going to bother us both.

SOURCES

Academic and book sources

Bell, Karl. The Legend of Spring-Heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures. Boydell Press, 2012. The definitive academic study. Bell's analysis of the class-based disparity in press coverage of the Alsop and Scales cases is essential.

Dash, Mike. "Spring-heeled Jack: To Victorian Bugaboo from Suburban Ghost." Fortean Studies, vol. 3, 1996. The most rigorous forensic accounting of which sightings are documented vs. fabricated. The necessary corrective to Haining.

Haining, Peter. The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring-Heeled Jack. Frederick Muller Ltd, 1977. Influential but unreliable in places. Read alongside Dash.

Contemporary newspaper accounts

The Times (London), January 9–11, 1838. Coverage of the Mansion House public session, the Peckham letter, and the volume of correspondence from suburban London.

The Times (London), March 2, 1838. "The Late Outrage at Old Ford." The Jane Alsop attack and the Thomas Millbank trial.

The Morning Post, March 7, 1838. The Lucy Scales attack in Limehouse.

The Examiner, March 4, 1838. The Millbank case and magistrates' questioning.

The Times (London), April 14, 1838. Reprint of the Brighton Gazette report on the Rosehill, Sussex gardener incident.

Reference and secondary sources

Wikipedia contributors. "Spring-heeled Jack." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 2026.

Wikipedia contributors. "Henry Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed April 2026.

Upton, Chris. "Spring-Heeled Jack." BBC Legacies (archived). Black Country sightings and local context.

Mackley, Jon. "The Return of Spring-Heeled Jack: The Terror of London." jonmackley.com, 2020. Traces the legend's documentation history and flags Haining's fabrications in detail.

Castleton, David. "Spring-Heeled Jack — Did a Fire-Breathing Phantom Haunt Victorian London?" The Serpent's Pen, 2023.

Unresolved.me. "Spring-Heeled Jack." Detailed on the Turner Street incident and the embroidered coat of arms.

Waterford Treasures. "Spring Heeled Jack: Notorious Urban Legend or the Work of the 'Mad Marquess' of Waterford?" waterfordtreasures.com, 2020.

Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1880 edition. First published naming of the Marquess of Waterford as the Spring Heeled Jack suspect.

Hey hey, my fellow weirdos… welcome to Loreplay. 🖤

This is the podcast where history gets messy, folklore gets questionable, and I willingly spiral so you don’t have to. I’m your host, Dayna Pereira—your resident investigator of all things creepy, cursed, and deeply side-eye worthy.

Each week, we dig into the stories that make you go “wait… what the hell actually happened?”—from haunted places and urban legends to true crime and historical chaos. We separate fact from fiction… and then stare directly into the uncomfortable space in between.

📲 Come hang out with me outside the void:
Instagram and TikTok: @loreplaypod
Website: https://loreplaypod.com

Prefer to Watch 👀
Find us on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP49XVyr_raHi3VVxXr91_w

👀 GOT A STORY? (I know you do…)
If you’ve experienced something weird, spooky, glitchy, or straight-up unexplainable—send it in. Your story might be featured in a future episode.

📩 Submit here: loreplaypod@gmail.com

⚠️ Listener Discretion:
We talk about dark stuff here—death, violence, and the occasional deeply cursed human behavior. If that’s not your vibe, totally fair… but if it is? Welcome home. 🖤

💀 If you liked this episode:
Follow, rate, review, share it with a friend who also loves questionable life choices and spooky stories. It helps the show grow—and keeps me emotionally stable (barely).

And remember…
Just because it’s folklore… doesn’t mean it’s (all) fiction. 😏

In the shadow of colonial Rio de Janeiro, beneath the historic Arco do Teles, lives the legend of Bárbara dos Prazeres—a woman remembered as beautiful, powerful… and possibly monstrous.

Said to have lived between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Bárbara’s story blends documented history with chilling folklore. Some versions claim she murdered her husband and lover, escaped justice through wealth and influence, and later became the center of horrifying rumors involving missing children and blood rituals tied to youth and beauty.

But here’s the truth: very little of this is firmly documented.
What survives is a story shaped by:

• colonial power structures
• gender expectations
• religious fear
• and a city built on both wealth and exploitation

Today, the Arco do Teles remains a real historical site—by day, a bustling corridor; by night, a place many claim still carries echoes of the past.

So was Bárbara a killer… a scapegoat… or something much harder to define?

Let’s step under the arch and find out.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

Sources:

• Ribeiro, Fernando Barata. Crônicas da Polícia e da Vida do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Departamento de Imprensa Nacional, 1958. (the foundational primary source — directly quoted in most modern accounts)
• Rezzutti, Paulo. Mulheres do Brasil: A história não contada. Rio de Janeiro: Leya, 2018.
• Flores, Fernanda. "A lenda de Bárbara dos Prazeres, a prostituta que aterrorizou o Rio de Janeiro." Saiba História, February 12, 2020. saibahistoria.blogspot.com
• "Arco do Teles." Rio Memórias (virtual museum). riomemorias.com.br
• "A lenda de Bárbara dos Prazeres, a temida 'Bruxa do Arco do Teles.'" Brazilian Times, November 11, 2025. braziliantimes.com
• Serqueira, Carlos. "A Bruxa do Arco do Teles." Mapas Antigos, Histórias Curiosas. Referenced via diariodorio.com
• "Roda dos Expostos da Santa Casa de Misericórdia do Rio de Janeiro." História Hoje. historiahoje.com
• "Arco do Teles." FreeWalker Tours Rio. freewalkertours.com
• "Uma história de terror no centro do Rio de Janeiro." Instituto de Longevidade. institutodelongevidade.org
• "Bárbara dos Prazeres: a bruxa que aterrorizou o Arco do Teles." Iconografia da História, February 1, 2021. iconografiadahistoria.com.br

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This week we're going fully unhinged in the Mississippi Delta, and I need you to be prepared for that emotionally. We're covering the Witch of Yazoo — a nameless woman, a swamp shack, a very unfortunate boy on a raft, and a dying curse so specific it included a date, a year, a time of day, and somehow still got dismissed by an entire town. We'll get into the legend itself (fishermen, arsenic, skeletons on the ceiling, yes really), the fire of 1904 that happened on the exact date she said it would, the chained grave in Glenwood Cemetery that someone is literally employed to maintain to this day, and what this legend is actually about underneath all the chaos. Also Willie Morris, who chose to be buried thirteen paces from her grave and is an icon for it.

Spooky? Yes. Funny? Absolutely. A little bit sad if you think about it too hard? Unfortunately also yes.

Sources:
Morris, Willie. Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. — This is the one. The book that put the Witch of Yazoo on the map. Semi-autobiographical, beautifully written, and the primary source for the version of the legend most people know. Worth reading in full.

Morris, Willie. Good Old Boy and the Witch of Yazoo. Oxford, MS: Yoknapatawpha Press, 1989. — The sequel, in which Willie and his friends get tangled up with a woman rumored to be the witch's granddaughter and chaos ensues. A delight.

McElreath, Leisa S. and Lindsley, Ashley McElreath. "1904 Destruction of Yazoo City: A Case Study of Community Resilience." 2018. — A genuinely fascinating academic paper about the fire itself and how the town recovered. Available via ResearchGate. If you want the non-supernatural account of what happened, start here.

Yazoo County Convention and Visitors Bureau — The Legend of the Witch of Yazoo. visityazoo.org — The official tourism page, which is somehow both completely earnest and deeply charming. Also has a downloadable map to the grave. Yes, really.

The Clarion-Ledger — "Great fire in Yazoo City." May 25, 1904. — The contemporary newspaper account of the fire. Available digitized via various Mississippi newspaper archives.

The Clarion-Ledger — "The Witch of Yazoo still haunts the town she burned." Therese Apel. October 28, 2014. — A lovely modern piece on how the legend lives in Yazoo City today.

The Yazoo Herald — "It's Time To Bury the Witch of Yazoo for Good." April 4, 1998. — The editorial that prompted Willie Morris to write a letter to the editor at age 63 defending the witch. Iconic behavior.

The Yazoo Herald — "Chained Grave Holds Jealous Wife, Says Longtime Yazoo City Resident." July 5, 1978. — The alternate theory that the grave is actually a woman buried by a controlling husband. Somehow more disturbing than the witch.

Hinds Community College LibGuide — Paranormal Mississippi Case Files: The Witch of Yazoo. libguides.hindscc.edu — A well-sourced academic overview of the legend with the Willie Morris short story text. Great starting point for research.

Country Roads Magazine — "The Witch of Yazoo." September 2025. — A recent retelling with good detail on the oral tradition and the grave itself.

Mississippi Folklore (msfolklore.wordpress.com) — "The Witch of Yazoo." August 2022. — Thorough overview with good historical context on Yazoo City before the legend.

Only in Your State — "The Witch of Yazoo City Is a Mississippi Legend." — Accessible overview with details on the grave's current state.

OTIS (Odd Things I've Seen) — "Deadknobs and Broomsticks: The Witch Grave of Yazoo City." September 2014. — A firsthand account of visiting the grave. I read this one at midnight and do not recommend that.

WANT MORE?

Subscribe to Loreplay wherever you get your podcasts. Rate and review if you're feeling generous — it helps more than you know and costs you nothing except thirty seconds and a little love, which I will accept gratefully and without shame.

Follow along on socials for episode updates, behind-the-scenes chaos, and me spiraling at 1am about whatever legend I'm currently researching.

And if you've ever been to the Witch of Yazoo's grave — if you've rattled those chains or stood in that cemetery at night — I want to hear about it. Slide into my DMs. Tell me everything.

Hey hey, lore-loving weirdos — before Salem, before witch trials became a cultural shorthand for mass hysteria, Europe spent roughly two hundred years putting people on trial for turning into wolves. And executing them. Tens of thousands of them.

In this episode of Loreplay, host Dayna Pereira dives into the real, documented, court-certified history of the European werewolf trials — the paranoia, the pamphlets, the torture, the confessions, and the people ground up inside the machinery. We're talking official government decrees authorizing citizens to hunt werewolves (yes, that was a real legal document), the most sensationalized and brutal execution of the sixteenth century, and — the story Dayna cannot stop thinking about — the eighty-year-old man who showed up to his own werewolf trial, admitted everything cheerfully, and walked away with twenty lashes because he was simply too chaotic for the court to deal with.

From Lizzie Borden to Elizabeth Báthory, the infamous Blood Countess, Loreplay explores true crime, haunted history, paranormal mysteries, and the people behind the legends. Join host Dayna Pereira for ghost stories, witch trials, urban legends, cryptids, and dark history told with researched storytelling, sharp sarcasm, and absolutely no patience for historical bullshit.

Follow Loreplay wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on Instagram at @loreplaypod.

Come play.

Primary Sources:

• Anonymous. A True Discourse Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter. London, 1590. [The only surviving record of the Peter Stumpp case — two copies exist, held at the British Museum and Lambeth Library]
• Trial transcript of Thiess of Kaltenbrun, Provincial Court of Venden, April 28, 1691. Hofger-Archiv Kriminalakte n. 30 v. J. 1692. First published by Hermann von Bruiningk in Mitteilungen aus der livländischen Geschichte 22 (1924–28): 203–20. English translation by Bruce Lincoln available via University of Chicago Press: press.uchicago.edu
• Boguet, Henri. Discours des sorciers. Lyon, 1602. [Legal treatise by the Grand Judge who presided over the Gandillon case]
• Fründ, Johannes. Chronicle of the Valais witch trials, c. 1428–1430. [Earliest documented lycanthropy accusations]

Modern Scholarly Works:

• de Blécourt, Willem, ed. Werewolf Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — The definitive modern academic collection on European werewolf trials
• Ginzburg, Carlo and Bruce Lincoln. Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf: A Classic Case in Comparative Perspective. University of Chicago Press, 2020. — Includes first full English translation of the Thiess trial transcript: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo46813477.html
• Ginzburg, Carlo. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983
• Scot, Reginald. The Discoverie of Witchcraft. 1584

Accessible Articles & Further Reading:

• "Before America Had Witch Trials, Europe Had Werewolf Trials" — History.com: history.com/articles/werewolf-trials-europe-witches
• "Werewolf Witch Trials" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_witch_trials
• "Gilles Garnier" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Garnier
• "Peter Stumpp" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stumpp
• "Thiess of Kaltenbrun" — Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiess_of_Kaltenbrun
• "Beasts and Believers: A History of Werewolf Trials in Early Modern Europe" — DIG History Podcast, October 2025: digpodcast.org/2025/10/26/werewolves/
• "Gandillon Family" — Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology via Encyclopedia.com
• "Jacques Roulet" — Monstrous.com: monstrous.com/jacques-roulet/

🎙️ ABOUT LOREPLAY Loreplay is the comedy-paranormal podcast where haunted history meets hot takes. Host Dayna Pereira is equal parts storyteller and skeptic — blending dark humor, spooky vibes, and genuine historical research into binge-worthy deep dives on ghost stories, folklore, paranormal history, and the weird, dark corners of the past.
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In July of 1518, one woman in Strasbourg walked into the street and began to dance. She didn’t stop. Within days, dozens joined her. Within weeks, hundreds were convulsing, leaping, and collapsing in the streets. And instead of stopping it… local authorities encouraged it. They hired musicians. They built stages. They prescribed more dancing. By the end of the summer, people were reportedly dying from exhaustion, heart attacks, and strokes. Was it ergot poisoning? Religious hysteria? A psychological contagion? A trauma response to famine and disease? Or something darker moving through a population already stretched to its breaking point? In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna dives into the Dancing Plague of 1518 — the bizarre historical event where 400 people allegedly danced for weeks, and no one knew how to stop it. We unpack the timeline, the death peak, the cultural panic, the failed “treatment,” and the modern psychological theories that might explain it. Because if there’s one thing history has taught us… it’s that humans will absolutely panic in groups.

Sources:
John Waller, A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518 (2008)

Robert Bartholomew & Erich Goode, Mass Hysteria in Schools and Workplaces (2000)

Hecker, Justus Friedrich Karl, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages (1832)

BBC Future – “The Dancing Plague of 1518”

History.com – “Dancing Plague of 1518”

University of Michigan Medical History Center – archival analysis of medieval epidemics