Mr. Ballin (0:00)

Hey prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two horror stories about manipulative people who twisted other people's faith into fear. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called the New Nanny and it's about a very busy family who tries to hire a new nanny for their daughter. And the second and final story you'll hear is called Take My Soul. It's about a man who's found on the side of the road and his discovery leads detectives down a very dark rabbit hole. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do. And we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the Amazon Music follow button. A nice fresh batch of donuts, but instead of filling them with custard, fill them with mayonnaise. Okay, let's get into our first story called the New Nanny Foreign.

TJ Raphael (1:33)

My name is TJ Raphael. I'm the host of Liberty Lost, a new podcast about who gets to be a mother and the control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith. Binge all episodes of Liberty Lost ad free right now on wondery. Plus.

Mr. Ballin (1:59)

One day in March of 2012, a five year old girl named Maria sat on the floor of her kitchen in a city in Northeast Brazil eating an empada and watching her aunt cook some stew. An empada is very similar to the empanada in that it is a pie filled with meat, but the empada is the Brazilian version of that pie. Maria's family was actually known for their cooking, specifically their empadas. In fact, at this very moment, Maria's mother was out selling their famous empadas on street corners and in bars and local restaurants. Now, the family got by okay this way, but despite their notoriety around these empadas, they really wanted more. They wanted their family name to be respected, to be powerful. And so to try to make that happen, Maria's family basically worked 24 7, not just on making empadas, but basically in looking for ways to kind of grow and expand the family name in Fact, while Maria was sitting on the kitchen floor, she could hear her father in the other room working. And the reason she knew he was working is because periodically she could hear him yell out with excitement. He was basically sitting there coming up with ideas of how he could make the family name even bigger and better. And when he had a good idea, he would shout out and be like, oh, I found it. And in addition to constantly sort of brainstorming for ideas of how to become rich and powerful, Maria's father also was an author, and he was writing a book that he was convinced was gonna be another thing that would kind of ratchet their family up the social hierarchy. But because Maria's mother and father and basically everybody in her family were so completely immersed in work all the time, it meant they didn't really pay much attention to her. And so most of the time, Maria was just kind of on her own, usually playing in the kitchen or playing in the backyard. Just then, the front door opened, and in walked Maria's mother. And she was grinning ear to ear, not only because she now had an empty tray, meaning she had sold all her empadas, but also she had brought someone along that she was really excited to introduce to Maria. Maria's mom stepped all the way into the kitchen, and right behind her was this young woman. And Maria's mother pointed at this young woman and then gestured for Maria to come over and say hi. And she told Maria that this young woman wants to become her new nanny. And so you guys can play together all the time while me and your father are out doing our work. Maria stood up and gave a shy smile to the young woman, but she wasn't sold that this woman actually would become her nanny, because in the past, there had been other women who had come by to be her nanny, and they didn't seem to last very long. And so Maria was not getting her hopes up. Still, Maria wanted to be friendly, so. So she walked over and as a gesture of goodwill, she handed this woman her half eaten empada. And the young woman took the empata and laughed and said, thank you. After that, Maria's mother told her to head on out back and go play by herself for a bit while she and this new nanny hammered out the details of her new job. And she told Maria that as soon as they were done, the new nanny would come outside and join her and they could play together. And so Maria, who was always very obedient, did as she was told, and she headed out back and entertained herself. And the whole time, as she's just kicking rocks around and pulling grass up and just kind of doing what kids do. She kept looking back at the house, waiting for the nanny to come outside, but she didn't. And after a whole hour had passed by and still this new nanny had not come outside, Maria felt really bored, and so she went inside to go look for her. A month later, Maria was out in her backyard playing by herself like usual when she heard a commotion happening inside of her house. She looked over at the house and couldn't really tell what was going on. And then she heard the sound of her mother and her father and her aunt raising their voices like they were fighting with somebody. And then all of a sudden, these uniformed police officers came charging out the back door towards Maria. One of the officers came right up to her and asked her what her name was. And Maria was so scared, remember she's five years old here, that she didn't even know what to say. So she just stood there staring, being totally terrified. She had no idea what was going on. But as these police officers would soon tell her, it would turn out her entire life was one big horrific lie. Maria's father, George Silvera, was not actually her father, nor was Maria's mother, Isabel Silvera, her actual mother, nor was her aunt, Bruna Silva, actually her aunt. In reality, those three people were not related to Maria. They were instead members of a cult called the Cartel sect. And all these three cult members cared about was impressing the members of the cult when they thought about, you know, making it big, their so called family name becoming bigger and more powerful. That was all in relationship to the Cartel Sect. They wanted the members of this cult to look at them as the most powerful and important members of that cult. And the way they tried to do that was by performing the duties of this cult to the best of their abilities, better than anybody else in the cult. And so what did this cartel care about? Well, the literal purpose of the Cartel sect was to eliminate women they deemed unclean in order to reduce and purify the world's population. And Maria's family, the mother, the father and the aunt had become very well versed at doing this. All those nannies that came around to see Maria, well, the reason they kept vanishing is because shortly after the mother, the father and the aunt introduced them to Maria and said, oh, she's gonna be your new nanny. They would shoo Maria out into the backyard and then they would murder the nanny because this person had been deemed unclean. They would cut their throats and stab them to death. But that wasn't all. That wasn't enough cleansing. After they murdered these women, they would then butcher them and stuff the human meat into their famous empadas and sell them to the people in town. They literally were feeding people in this city human meat. But the cult and the cannibalism and the murders were not actually the biggest shock of the story. The biggest shock of the story is actually the real identity of little five year old Maria. She was actually the daughter of the very first victim of the cartel sect, the mother. Along with Maria, three and a half years earlier, when Maria was just a year and a half, they had been lured to this very house where her mother was murdered right in front of Maria. And then after her mother was killed, they cooked her mother and fed pieces of the mother to Maria. And ever since, they had just kept Maria and treated her like she was a member of the family, basically turning her into an unwitting cannibal. The existence of the cult and their hideous murders were ultimately discovered after they used one of the credit cards of their victims sometime in the spring of 2012. That's when all the cops rushed into the backyard and confronted Maria. George, Isabel and Bruna. Maria's fake family were convicted of three murders, including the murder of Maria's real mother. And they are currently serving what amounts to life sentences in Brazil. Police believe the actual number of women that they murdered is as many as eight. As for Maria, according to recent news articles, she was reunited with distant family. Maria is not her real name, that is a pseudonym to protect her identity. Hey listeners. Big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts. Completely ad free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads. Because, let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve wracking part of true crime. To start your ad free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to Amazon.com ballin that's Amazon.com B A L L E N Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. Hey, it's Mr. Ballen here. If you haven't discovered redacted declassified mysteries yet, what? Well, you're in for a fascinating journey through history's hidden files. As a fellow military veteran, I can tell you that the host of the show, Luke Lamanna brings a very unique insider perspective to these wild stories. From covert operations to historical deceptions, Luke examines verified stories that sound almost too incredible to be true. Like Anna Montes, the defense intelligence analyst who maintained a perfect cover while secretly working for Cuba for nearly 20 years. Or the Tic Tac incident where a decorated Navy pilot encountered something in the skies that the Pentagon couldn't explain. Luke and his team dive deep into declassified documents to bring you thoroughly researched, eye opening stories from the darkest corners of history. Follow Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad free right now by joining Wondery. The next and final story of today's episode is called Take My Soul. On the afternoon of July 18, 1997, a man was driving down a road surrounded on both sides by trees in a rural part of Wisconsin called Douglas County. There were no other cars on the road. And so this guy was driving pretty fast. And as he rounded this bend in the road, something out the passenger side window on the side of the road in the grass caught his eye. He couldn't tell what it was, but it was a pretty big object. And after he drove right past it, he just couldn't stop thinking about it. Like whatever it was, it just seemed out of place. And so for whatever reason, this man felt compelled to actually stop and go see what it was. And so he slowed down and parked on the shoulder. He got out and began walking along the road back in the direction of this object. And as he got closer, you know, he began to see this object again in the shoulder of the road. It was sort of obscured by grass and other things, so he couldn't see what it was. But as he got closer, he saw the object was pretty big and it was all white. And as he took a few more steps and got within maybe 20 or 30ft, he finally got a better look at this object. And he just froze. Because the object was a man. A man wearing all white. A white suit, a white belt, white shoes, all white. And he was laying on the side of the road just totally motionless. And for a second the driver thought, you know, maybe this guy is sleeping. But after taking only a few more steps and getting a totally unobstructed view at the sky, he saw there was a gaping hole in this man's chest. He was obviously dead. And so the driver turned around, ran back to his car, sped to the nearest house and called 911. The next morning, a Douglas county detective named Steven Long was sitting at his desk looking at the photos of the dead man in white. This murder case was less than 24 hours old, but already this was one of the weirder cases that this detective had ever been assigned to. The victim had pretty much immediately been identified because he was carrying on his person his wallet. And in his wallet was his driver's license. And so they knew who he was. But the man in white's identity actually made the whole case more confusing, not less. The dead man was a 45 year old millionaire named Mark Foster. Mark lived three hours away in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and had no discernible ties to Douglas County. And so the detective was thinking, like, what is this rich guy doing here dressed head to toe, all in white, getting murdered on the side of some local random back road? But things only got more confusing from there. After the medical examiner did Mark's autopsy, he told Detective Long that he had discovered a note inside of Mark's shoe. And the note just said, jack Frazier isn't here, but it's Jimmy Bailey or a look alike. I hope I'm okay. Now, nobody, including Detective Long, had any idea what this note meant. It was far too cryptic. But when they ran Jack Frazier and Jimmy Bailey's names through their database, the police discovered that both of those men, one, existed and two, they lived in Minnesota, same as Mark Foster. And so naturally, Detective Long began to suspect that maybe those two, those two men were connected in some way to Mark Foster. You know, maybe they were involved in his murder or maybe they were actually his killer or killers. He didn't know, but it was his best lead. So Detective Long decided he would just have to go to Minneapolis to try to find out more. A few hours later, Detective Long parked his car at the Minneapolis police station. He got out and walked inside the building. Waiting for him inside was the local detective who Mark had already spoken to. And so after meeting this detective, the two of them went into an interview room where Mark Foster's wife was waiting for them. And right away, Detective Long noticed that she was very pregnant and at least 15 or 20 years younger than Mark. But despite that, she seemed very composed. It would turn out she'd already been told about her husband's death, and she was basically resigned to the fact that she was here to try to answer questions to figure out what happened. And so the detectives sat down and they began to interview her. And then when they brought up the note that was found in Mark's shoe, specifically when they said the two names that were on that note, Jack Frazier, And Jimmy Bailey. When they said that, it triggered something in Mark Foster's wife, she immediately began to cry. And then in between sobs, she would tell the detectives that she knew who those two men were. She told them that she had previously had relationships with both of them before marrying Mark. And she said after she married Mark, Jack and Jimmy became very jealous. They didn't like the idea that she had chosen Mark over them. And so she had always felt like those two, Jack and Jimmy, sort of had it out for Mark as a result of this romantic rivalry. After the interview with Mark's wife ended, Detective Long began to think that, you know, despite this case appearing on the surface to be very odd and confusing, that perhaps in reality it was quite simple. Maybe Jimmy and Jack were so jealous of Mark that they killed Mark. I mean, based on what Mark's wife had just told them in the interview about them being romantic rivals of Mark, and also the fact that that note was in Mark's shoe and named those two men, it certainly seemed very possible. But over the next couple of days, that Detective Long began digging into this theory. That theory fell apart because it would turn out Jack Frazier and Jimmy Bailey had absolutely airtight alibis. They simply couldn't have been the killers. Now, Detective Long was obviously frustrated. He felt like he really had it here. But he was not deterred. He decided his next move would be to try to better understand his victim. To this point, he had already interviewed a lot of Mark's friends and family, but something he had not done yet was simply go to Mark's house and have a look around. So Detective Long got a search Warrant. And on July 29, roughly a week after Mark was killed, Detective Long, along with another detective, pulled up in front of Mark Foster's large two story home in the middle of a quiet suburban neighborhood. Now, from the outside, the home looked totally ordinary relative to its neighbors. But once they got inside the house, it was anything but. The detectives made their way up to the front door and knocked. And a few seconds later, Mark Foster's wife opened up the door and let them inside. And right away, Detective Long is looking around and he's seeing all over the walls on the first floor of the house are these graphic pictures and paintings of naked people. And then in addition to that, on some of the coffee tables and various surfaces on the first floor, right when you walk in are all these pornographic magazines and books everywhere. And Mark's wife didn't acknowledge any of it. She acted like it was completely normal to have all this stuff right in the front part of your house. And so the two detectives are looking at each other. As you know, Mark's wife is leading them on this tour through the first floor. And at some point, Detective Long just said, hey, you know, Mrs. Foster, why don't you have a seat on the couch and you just let us take a look around your house on our own. And so she said, okay. She sat down on the couch. And then the two detectives, they left the living room, went back to the front of the house and made their way upstairs. And once they got upstairs, they found the master suite. And there was all this bondage gear inside. There were leather straps attached to the bedposts. There was whips and handcuffs. There was also additional pornographic material in there. But, I mean, considering what the detectives had seen downstairs, there was this sort of felt on par for this house. And so after searching the other bedrooms and other rooms on the second floor and finding more pornographic material basically everywhere, the detectives found their way back to the hallway in the second floor. And they noticed there was a rope hanging down from the ceiling. And it was attached to the pull door that led to the attic. And so the two detectives, they walked over, they pulled the rope down, it revealed this fold out set of stairs that came down from the attic. And once those were in place, the two detectives began climbing up. And once they got up there, they discovered that this attic was not a storage space like many attics are in American homes. Instead, this attic was a fully functional room that sort of resembled like a satanic dungeon of sorts. All the walls were totally jet black, and there were all these burned out candles all over the place and tarot cards littering the floor. And on the back of the attic, basically all the way on the other side, the, there was what appeared to be an altar that sort of overlooked the entire room. And on the altar were more candles. And there was a voodoo doll. I mean, it's totally creepy. And the two detectives are looking at each other like, what's going on here? And so the detectives, they climbed all the way into the attic and then slowly began walking across towards the altar. And when they got close enough to actually see the altar up close, they just froze. Because sitting on the altar, in addition to the candles in the voodoo dollar, were two business cards, their own business cards. Hey, guys, Mr. Ballin here. You know how I tell strange, dark and mysterious stories? Well, I've stumbled on some strange, dark and mysterious medical stories that really are just as wild. Like there was a story about this woman who accidentally swallowed something that got lodged in her heart. There was a story about a guy where a tree grew in his lung. Or there was a story about this person who their skin turned bright blue. Or this town. Everybody started laughing uncontrollably. That lasted for months. I mean, the list goes on. And these are not urban legends. These are real mysteries that we dive into that have left doctors and scientists baffled, sometimes for years. And so that's why I created Mr. Bolland's medical mysteries, a totally separate show all about these wild mysteries of the human body. Follow Mr. Bolland's medical mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Want to listen to episodes early and ad free? Well, join Wondery or listen on Amazon Music with Prime.