EP 68 "The Bloodiest 47 Acres In America": The Harrowing History of the Missouri State Penitentiary PART I

In today’s episode, we’re exploring some chilling true crime cases that unfolded during the holiday season,with some true stories from our friends on good ol’ Reddit. Full of mysterious disappearances and grim realities, these stories remind us that not everything is merry and bright during the holidays.So grab your spiked cocoa, sit back, and get ready for a series of eerie tales that prove the holiday season can sometimes be the most dangerous time of year. Lights out campers.Sources:Nikole Bettersonreddit Joyce Marilyn Meyer Summersreddit link washington post article link r/UnresolvedMysteriesTaraCalicosBikePodcast Host - Across State LinesOn Christmas Day, 2007, Aaron Taylor was set on fire and burned alive outside of a Subway restaurant, in Phoenix, Arizona. Three local teens were known to torture and harass him, and seen flicking matches on his beard that night. Who are the three men that murdered Aaron Taylor?

THE FINAL INSTALLMENT IS HERE.SOURCES:"Buried Alive:18 Years in the Missouri Penitentiary" by James B.Johnson & Chas E. Hoffmanhttps://www.missouripentours.com/history/timeline/https://www.visitjeffersoncity.com/blog/post/the-tough-guys-stories-from-within-the-missouri-state-penitentiary/https://hauntedus.com/missouri/missouri-state-penitentiary-haunted/

If you don't like to think about having to eat a rat raw.....or not seeing the sky for 18 years.... might not be the story for you. Just to jog your memory, we spent EPISODE 68 doing a deep-dive into the very morbid history of one of the US’s oldest and most infamous prisons—the Missouri State Penitentiary—and we ended with a promise to give you the full scoop on one of the most gripping survival stories from one of its inmates that we’ve ever encountered. Definitely go listen to Part 1 if you haven’t but just as a quick refresher; this story begins in the year 1882 when unlucky thief JB Johnson decided that he couldn’t bear to spend one more day sharing one tiny cell and a poop bucket with 12 other men. So, he and a few like-minded buddies swung for the fences and made a dramatic escape attempt that dramatically failed. Since the Mo Pen had a reputation for being a place where a prisoner could be whipped within a millimeter of his life for simply speaking during meal time….it will come as no shock that JB now found himself—for lack of a better phrase—utterly fucked. In the prison’s (insert number of years) lifespan, JB would be the only man who would spend more years in solitary confinement than any other inmate in recorded prison history and live to tell his story. So. Take a deep breath of fresh air and one last glance at the sky before we must follow JB Johnson down, down, down into the dungeon of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Lights Out Campers.SOURCES:"Buried Alive:18 Years in the Missouri Penitentiary" by James B.Johnson & Chas E. Hoffmanhttps://www.missouripentours.com/history/timeline/https://www.visitjeffersoncity.com/blog/post/the-tough-guys-stories-from-within-the-missouri-state-penitentiary/

This is Part 1 of the 2 parter the tales of horror, the bright spots of human spirit, and eventually, the hauntings that linger within the limestone walls of the Missouri State Penitentiary. Tales that, as 1800's inmate JB Johnson later wrote, will make your blood creep and chill. At the start of spooky season, we got to spend a few hours wandering its cell blocks and dungeon ourselves—and we can say with absolute certainty that this is not the place you want to find yourself alone after dark. Lights Out Campers. SOURCES:"Buried Alive:18 Years in the Missouri Penitentiary" by James B.Johnson & Chas E. Hoffmanhttps://www.missouripentours.com/history/timeline/https://www.visitjeffersoncity.com/blog/post/the-tough-guys-stories-from-within-the-missouri-state-penitentiary/

This week, we hear from the brave souls of Reddit who have worked in prisons all over the world....and had unexplained experiences on night shift that made even the toughest COs sing heeeell to the nooooo. SOURCES:

Today we’re taking a bit of a turn from our typical trail of true crime and once again scraping the barrel of the internet for stories that leave us going what in the actual hell is this world we live in? Don’t get us wrong–we love the rules of forensic science and a justice system doing its job well— we need that certainty to pick up the pieces of the constant chaos caused by shitty human behavior and we’ll never stop obsessing over it. But sometimes things do happen to people with no rhyme or reason that seem to defy the laws we learn about in grade school: like the laws of time or space or someone appearing in one place while also standing in another. The most relatable example we can think of from pop culture was the 1999 movie The Matrix—where (sorry, spoiler alert) Humanity is living in a software simulation of reality called “the matrix”. This software glitches sometimes and creates visuals that seem odd or unexplainable. And there’s more people out there than you might think who believe this concept in the movie is not just made up for a fun film experience. At some point or another, we’ve all made a comment about experiencing “a glitch in the Matrix”--but for the folks who took the time to share their tales on Reddit today, that glitch was more than a joke. You’ll have to tell us what you think in the end–but for now, let’s get glitchy. Lights Out Campers.SOURCE:https://www.reddit.com/r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/search/?q=parallel+dimension++&cId=52db346b-8a4b-4fb2-8ee3-662b89e535f9&iId=df2a7b5a-cc15-4432-8a52-d84b1ee77310

We're diving into a mystery that has stumped law enforcement and internet sleuths alike for almost 20 years. In 2008, loving parents Annette and Brian Swanson were talking on the phone with their 19 year old son Brandon after a minor car accident–and they’d been on the phone for the better part of an hour, when Brain suddenly stopped responding even though the call was still running. So they hung up & called him back, but the phone just rang and rang until it went to voicemail. Every other call they made—voicemail. And in that moment, Brandon’s parents Annette and Brian had no idea that they were at the start of every parent’s worst nightmare—and that those would be the last words that they ever spoke to their son. Today we’re going to tell you campers everything we know about the facts and the theories for one of the most bizarre missing persons we've ever come across. This is the vanishing of 19 year old Minnesota West college student Brandon Swanson. Lights Out Campers. SOURCES:https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/the-vault/rural-roads-of-minnesota-remain-last-known-location-of-19-year-old-brandon-swanson-1https://www.grunge.com/640372/the-biggest-brandon-swanson-theories-what-really-happened/"What Happened to Brandon Swanson?" by Rebecca Klein: http://immelman.net/brandon-swanson https://discover.hubpages.com/politics/Missing-Since-2008-Brandon-Swanson

CONSIDER THIS YOUR NO-EATING WARNINGIt's as American as apple pie for every small town to have a house that local children whisper is haunted and full of unspeakable horrors–a house that they dare each other to run up and touch without getting snatched and boiled in a cauldron. But everyone knows these houses aren’t really real…..they’re just stories that kids tell to spook each other and adults might chuckle over. But when it comes to the house we have to tell you about today— the one in Plainfield Wisconsin that slowly sunk into a state of disrepair after all but one of its family members had died—and the person who lived there: odd but friendly bachelor Eddie Gein—the truth about the horrors behind its walls turned out to be far more terrifying than any ghost story ever whispered about it. This is the true account of the man, the dark myth, the madman legend, who walked alone through the halls of his mother’s beloved home so that the likes of horror film icons Norman Bates and Leatherface could run. This is the story of Ed Gein: the Butcher of Plainfield. Lights Out Campers.SOURCES:Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original "Psycho" by Harold Schechterhttps://murderpedia.org/male.G/g/gein-edward.htmhttps://www.houseofgein.com/timeline/#google_vignettehttps://allthatsinteresting.com/ed-gein

And welcome finally, to the long awaited conclusion, the ending; the dramatic wild west tale of Skidmore Missouri and its infamous bully, Ken Rex Mcelroy. If you’ve made it this far with us, you know Ken has lots of hobbies: like stealing livestock and terrorizing people with guns and knives; and let’s not forget his personal favorite–grooming 13 year old girls the second they start 8th grade to get them to marry him and have his babies. By the time Ken started waiting outside the Nodaway County grade school to pick up 13year old Trena Wood, he had this pattern down pat. But he didn't stop there....in this episode, we dive into Ken's antics ramping up to such a dangerous degree that it pushed an entire town to their breaking point.It’s gonna be a rough ride today, but this story does have an ending—and you’re about to hear it. Lights Out Campers.SOURCES:SunDance TV Documentary Series "No One Saw A Thing" Directed by Avi Belkin (2019-2021)Book: In Broad Daylight by Harry N. MacLean

Welcome back, Campers! Here we are once again, diving into the unhinged wild west-esque tale of Ken Rex Mcelroy and Skidmore Missouri: The Town That Got Away With Murder. This is DEFINITELY going to be a three parter—and here’s why.When we first started researching this case, we thought Skidmore’s situation was going to be a case of tough lessons learned—where people took the law in their own hands, and nothing good came of it. But the deeper we dug into the decades of terror countless individuals endured at the hands of Ken Mcelroy–and the constant failing of the law enforcement system to protect them, maybe we aren’t finding ourselves so quick to judge anymore.Perhaps you guys will disagree, but please give us these next two episodes to wait and see where you end up. If you haven’t listened to Part 1–that would be episode 61–what are you even doing–go do that now or this episode will be pointless. For the rest of you campers—Lights Out.SOURCES:SunDance TV Documentary Series "No One Saw A Thing" Directed by Avi Belkin (2019-2021)Book: In Broad Daylight by Harry N. MacLean