Show notes
As the 1900 hurricane flooded Galveston, the Sisters at St. Mary's roped the orphans to their own bodies, and Walmart employees working on that ground today say they've heard a child calling for her mother – one of fifteen orphanages on three continents where people report the sound of children crying, singing, and walking where no children are.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HauntedOrphanages
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8ctdbc
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We’ll explore chilling stories of haunted orphanages, where the echoes of heartbroken and lonely children linger long after the buildings have been abandoned. (Haunted Orphanage Stories) *** “If only these walls could talk,” we’ve heard people say. But what if the walls could talk? In the world of paranormal investigations, the “Stone Tape Theory” is gaining recognition – or at least raising eyebrows and intrigue. Could the walls of your home have recorded your horrific death – and then replay that scene as a haunting? (The Stone Tape Theory) *** One thing is for sure in this life – and that is, your life will eventually cease. How you go out could make or break your legacy. Freak accidents are something you’d probably want to avoid, but they happen – and I have a few examples to share. (Weird Deaths) *** In the misty expanse of Bodmin Moor, a tragic tale of love, jealousy, and murder unfolded in 1844. When Charlotte Dymond's lifeless body was found, all eyes turned to her lover, Matthew Weeks, whose subsequent execution left many questioning his guilt. (The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond) *** The Urantia Book – a fascinating and controversial text that blends science, religion, and philosophy into a cosmic narrative of divine beings and celestial order. But no one knows who wrote it. (The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought) *** I’m trying something new by telling a true story of old murder in an old detective style… I call it “Murder Noir” and tonight’s case will be the death of Jeanette Earnest in Fort Worth in 1954. (Murder Noir, Jeanette Earnest) *** On Monday 17th October 1814, a terrible disaster claimed the lives of at least 8 people. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a tsunami onto the streets of London… comprised entirely of beer. (A Sudden Wave of Suds)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:01:11.492 = Show Open
00:04:10.942 = Haunted Orphanage Stories
00:17:48.879 = The Urantia Book of Cosmic Thought ***
00:24:05.611 = The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond
00:29:32.417 = The Stone Tape Theory
00:39:39.607 = Weird Deaths ***
00:48:28.523 = A Sudden Wave of Suds
00:54:06.174 = Murder Noir: “The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” (The Death of Jeanette Earnest) ***
01:00:46.424 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
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*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Haunted Orphanage Stories” source: Elle Tharp, Graveyard Shift: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yjhkvhs7
“The Urantia Book Of Cosmic Thought” source: Zoe Mitchel, Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2yax9yes(Read the Urantia Book online: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4e5a45ca)
“The Tragic Tale of Charlotte Dymond” source: Les Hewitt, Historic Mysteries: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4aczfd8r
“Murder Noir: The Case of the Obsessed Uncle” source: Robert A. Waters, Kidnapping, Murder and Mayhem:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/39mw7shb
“Weird Deaths” written by Kelsie Christine McConnell for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckzkny2
“A Sudden Wave of Suds” source: Ben Johnson, Historic-UK.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8br9ap
“The Stone Tape Theory” by Rachel Elizabeth for The-Line-Up.com (used with permission):https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8rfdy8(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 04, 2024
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This episode of Weird Darkness runs from haunted orphanages on three continents to a cosmic scripture with no known author, an 1844 murder on Bodmin Moor, the Stone Tape Theory of residual hauntings, a string of freak deaths, the London Beer Flood, and a 1954 Fort Worth child murder told as detective noir.
It opens at orphanages where visitors report the voices of long-dead children, from the Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institution, where misbehaving boys and girls were shut in unlit "naughty cupboards", to St. Mary's Orphanage in Galveston, Texas, where the Sisters roped the children to themselves during the Great Storm of 1900 and 90 orphans died when the roof came down. Along the way are the Guthrie Boy's Home in Oklahoma, the Old Orphanage in Savannah, Georgia, the Gore Orphanage legend of Vermilion, Ohio, and the cellar where matron Rosa Carmichael punished children at the National Soldiers' Orphan Homestead in Gettysburg.
From there the episode turns to The Urantia Book, published in 1955 and presented as the work of celestial beings, which lays out a universe governed by the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, and the Infinite Spirit and retells the life of Jesus, while critics point to passages that closely track earlier writers.
Charlotte Dymond, a servant at Penhale Farm in Cornwall, walked out with her sweetheart Matthew Weeks on April 14th, 1844, and was found days later on Bodmin Moor with her throat cut; a jury convicted Weeks in 35 minutes, and he was hanged at Bodmin Jail before a crowd of about 20,000, though some still believe the wrong man went to the gallows.
Next comes the Stone Tape Theory, the idea that stone such as quartz and limestone can record a violent moment and replay it as a residual haunting, followed from Nigel Kneale's 1972 BBC Christmas ghost story The Stone Tape back to Charles Babbage's 1837 Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and parapsychologist William G. Roll's concept of place memory.
A run of freak deaths follows, including a Brazilian hospital patient killed in 2012 when soup went into her vein instead of her feeding tube, Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy's 24-story fall in 1993 while proving an office window wouldn't break, Isadora Duncan's scarf catching in a car wheel in Nice in 1927, the Strasbourg dancing plague of 1518, and the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.
That sets up the London Beer Flood of October 17th, 1814, when a 22-foot vat of porter burst at the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road and sent more than 320,000 gallons of beer into the St Giles Rookery, killing eight people, four of them mourners at a wake for a two-year-old boy.
The episode closes with a true case told in the voice of a hardboiled detective: the November 17th, 1954 abduction of 11-year-old Jeanette Earnest from a Fort Worth washateria by her uncle by marriage, Thurman Priest, who drove her through motels in Texas, Kansas, and Missouri before his arrest, led police to her body in an oak grove off Highway 66, and was sentenced to life in prison.
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