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- [00:00]
Daniel
Hey. Welcome to Scary Stories and Rain. Before we begin, be sure to check out my brand new podcast, Scary Stories and Fire. If you would prefer the same great stories but with a super relaxing campfire background, the link is in the description. Also, if you haven't yet, I highly recommend you subscribe to this podcast. If you enjoy listening to Relax or Fall Asleep, hundreds of hours of stories and rain for 299Amonth that will get you access to all episodes with zero ads. Consider subscribing and I hope you enjoy this episode. If you're reading this, Congratulations. I am probably dead or worse. My name is Daniel and I own quite a bit of land up in the Appalachian Mountains left to me by my great aunt. So far in the years I have lived here, paranormal and downright disturbing things have happened to me.
- [01:03]
Narrator
People told me to just leave or.
- [01:05]
Daniel
Report it, as I have never done that before. To them, I'm just the young guy that went crazy a little too early. It bothers me that normal people have no idea what goes on up here all alone. My first encounter with them, I didn't know how to deal with them. Heck, I didn't even know what they were called until recently. It's important, or at least it's important to me, that some of the tricks I have learned throughout the three years I have lived up here could be of use to somebody My second, or maybe third time I was stalked by a skinwalker. It felt like I was walking in circles. I had a trail camera with an SD card pretty deep in the woods, but when I tried to walk back to my cabin, I kept passing the camera. I was effectively walking in circles and it went on for hours. The sun was setting soon and I was quite thirsty at the time. I remember I sat up against the tree my camera was mounted on and started softly crying. It was watching me, I guess, waiting for me to fall dead. I hit myself in desperation a few times trying to think.
- [02:23]
Narrator
I sat up and took a very.
- [02:24]
Daniel
Deep breath, wiped the water from my eyes and it dawned on me. It's gotta be messing with my equilibrium. I have to be off balance. There's no other way. Teleportation, in hindsight, sounded stupid. I could still walk, but my depth perception was slightly off. All I had to do was tilt my head as far as it would go into my shoulder and walk back to my cabin. My ear was pressed into my shoulder, but even with one ear I could still hear how anxious the creature sounded, pacing in the woods, hoping I didn't get away. Once I Made it inside my cabin. I didn't come out for a couple of days for safety measures. Another trick they know is mimicking animals. I have found that they like coyotes. I used to coyote hunt quite a bit back home, but never up here in the mountains. I saw on a couple of my deer cameras that it looked like right after I left my camera, a coyote would follow me a while, if not all the way home. I had to stop that real quick and set out some snares. All a snare would and could do was jam the coyote's leg into the mechanism until the button is pressed and the thing would unlock. I set out a couple of them but also rubbed white ash on all of the traps and sure enough, the next time I started walking back from my camera, I heard the sound of one go off. I quickly ran back to where I had laid the traps and all that was left was the trap in three separate bent up pieces and the subtle scent of burning hair in the air Every time I checked the camera. After that, a coyote with a nasty burn scar on its leg would stop where the camera was mounted and turn around and walk back into the brush. And lastly, do not engage in any type of combat with them. Warding them off is one thing, but actively hunting them is a mistake. I'd wish I would have known that sooner. I had two buddies back in town I used to tell my stories to. Alcohol loosens the lips. Their names were James and Cole. I'm pretty sure they were cousins, but I never asked. Thinking about it now, I wish I would have gotten to know them better. Long story short, they are dead and I'm dying. This morning they came and pounded on my door insisting that we hunt these skinwalkers. I told them it was a very bad idea, but they even took the liberty of buying silver bullets. They told me how much they cost, but I can't remember right now. I finally caved and we prepared all day. We first started making a large amount of white ash, cleaning our guns and heck they even packed MREs and special high dollar spotlights. We set off right as the sun went down. We weren't even three hours in when disaster struck and we were all sitting around a tree. I could tell these skinwalkers were watching us. They are all around us. Multiple of them. I was frantically scanning everything with my spotlight, not even realizing Cole wasn't with us anymore. I asked James where he was, but he didn't seem nervous at all and just told me that he may have gone to pee. I turned back to face my front and there I saw Cole. He's a good distance out, but something wasn't right. He was contorting in ways a human could never I started to turn around to ask James what we should do, but halfway around I heard James guttural sounding breathing, like his lungs were filled with blood. I couldn't stand to be there anymore and returned back to the cabin. The forest seemed like it was laughing at me. In my desperation to run home, I knocked my flashlight running and it was slowly getting dimmer and dimmer. I eventually had to ditch it and use some of the flares Cole and James brought. I pulled the top off and struck it against a tree and the red flame lit up the surrounding forest. There were so many of them. 10, 12, 20, probably more. But as luck would have it, they never attacked me. I could see the cabin and flung the door open and shut it behind me. I ran for the upstairs bedroom and quickly got into the old wooden closet where I am typing this now. I don't hear them, but they are outside my house. Unfortunately, I did end up getting close clawed or maybe even bitten. It's not a terrible wound, but it's bleeding black. If you can send help, please do. I really need it this time.
- [07:57]
Narrator
The Hinterkaifeck murders, a notorious and unsolved crime, sent shockwaves through the quiet rural community of Hinterkaifeck in Germany. The heinous incident, which occurred on March 31, 1922, claimed the lives of six individuals and left a community traumatized and forever haunted by the gruesome events that unfolded on that fateful night. The Andreas Gruber, 63 years old, the patriarch of the Gruber family, a respected farmer in the area, Andreas met a particularly brutal fate. He was attacked first, his face bearing the brunt of the violence. The killer struck him repeatedly with a blunt object, leaving his features unrecognizable, his skull fractured. Blood splattered across the room, a testament to the savagery of the attack. Cazilia Gruber, 72 years old. Andreas, wife and the matriarch of the family. Cazilia suffered a similar fate to her husband, her frail body subjected to a merciless onslaught. The attacker's blows rained down upon her, the sheer force of each strike cracking her bones and shattering her face. The once peaceful farmhouse became a chamber of horrors as the life drained from her. Victoria Gabriel, 35 years old. Andreas daughter from a previous marriage. Victoria too met a gruesome end. The killer targeted her, inflicting agonizing pain as they pummeled her head with unrestrained fury. Her body lay sprawled on the floor, her face an unrecognizable mass of crushed bones and torn flesh. Cazylia Gruber, 7 years old. The youngest daughter of Andreas and Cazilia Gruber. Cazilia became an innocent victim of unspeakable violence. Joseph Gruber, 2 years old. The son of Victoria Gabriel and an unknown father. Joseph's young life was cruelly cut short. Maria Baumgartner, 44 years old. The family's maid, Maria unwittingly found herself caught in the grip of unimaginable evil. She became yet another victim of the killer's merciless onslaught. Blow after blow struck her. The sound of bone against bone echoing through the house as her face became an unrecognizable mask of terror, terror and suffering. Hinterkaifeck, an isolated farmstead located approximately 43 miles north of Munich, became the haunting backdrop of this chilling crime. The secluded location, surrounded by dense forests and vast fields, added an eerie element to the already horrific events that unfolded. The discovery of the murders came days after the crime occurred as suspicions arose to to the family's absence from the community. A neighbor, noticing that no one had seen or heard from the Gruber family, alerted authorities. Upon arriving at Hinterkaifeck, investigators were met with a very chilling scene. The bodies of the victims had been brutally bludgeoned, their faces unrecognizable due to the severity of the injuries inflicted upon them. Disturbingly, it appeared that the perpetrator or the perpetrators had stayed at the farm for several days after the murders, using the household's resources. A meticulous examination of the crime scene revealed that the murders had taken place in a brutal and calculated manner. Autopsies confirmed that the victims had suffered multiple blows to their heads inflicted by a blunt object, resulting in their untimely deaths. Despite an extensive investigation, the Hinterkaifeck murders remain unsolved, leaving behind a web of speculation and theories. Number one, a family feud. Some investigators initially suspected a possible family feud as a motive, as Andreas Gruber was known for his contentious relationships with neighbors and family members. However, no concrete evidence linking any any family members to the crime was ever found. Number two, personal vendetta. Another theory suggests that the killer or killers may have held a personal grudge against the Gruber family, seeking revenge for an undisclosed reason. This theory, however, lacks substantial evidence to support it. Number three, stranger in the night. Many believe that the killer or killers may have been an outsider who carefully planned and executed the murders. The fact that the perpetrator or perpetrators remained on the property for several days after the crime, seemingly undetected, supports this theory. The Hinterkaifeck murders continue to captivate the public's imagination and intrigue both amateur sleuths and seasoned investigators. The case has inspired countless books, documentaries and discussions, each seeking to shed light on the events that unfolded on that gruesome night. Despite the passage of time, the truth behind the Hinterkaifeck murders remains elusive. The haunting question of who committed this heinous act and why continues to haunt the collective consciousness of those familiar with this channel. Chilling True Crime Mystery the legacy of the Hinterkaifeck murders serves as a reminder of the darkness that can reside within the human soul and the chilling power of unsolved mysteries that continue to grip our darkest imaginations. In the vast labyrinth of unsolved true crime cases, few have captured the public's imagination quite like the perplexing vanishing of Drs. Sneha and Philip. A brilliant and ambitious young physician, Dr. Phillips life came to an inexplicable halt on September 10, 2001, right before the tumultuous chaos of the 911 terrorist attack attacks in New York City. Her sudden disappearance, overshadowed by the devastating events of that fateful day, left law enforcement, friends and family grappling with the question, what happened to Sneha and Philip? Dr. Sneha Ann Philip was born on October 7, 1969 in India, and from an early age it was evident that she possessed an unwavering determination to succeed. She ventured to the United States to pursue her dream of becoming a medical professional, eventually graduating with honors from the Chicago College of osteopathic Medicine in 1995. With her aspirations firmly rooted, she moved to the vibrant metropolis of New York City, where she completed her residency at the prestigious Cabrini Medical center in Manhattan on the morning of September 10, 2001. The world had no inkling of the darkness that was about to envelop it, nor did anyone anticipate the inexplicable fate that awaited Dr. Sneha and Philip. She was seen leaving her Battery Park City apartment that morning, her energy and optimism a reflection of the city's bustling atmosphere. Like countless other New Yorkers, she was heading to work, preparing to fulfill her duties as a physician at the Cabrini Medical Center. Surveillance cameras captured footage of Dr. Philip at a local grocery store near her apartment that day, making a routine purchase, providing the last glimpse of her before she vanished into thin air. However, as night descended upon the city, she failed to return Home. Setting into motion a series of events that would unravel an enigmatic puzzle. In the wake of the devastating 911 attacks, the search of Dr. Sneha and Philip was inevitably overshadowed by the urgency of finding survivors and victims at ground zero. Amidst the rubble and destruction, the hunt for the missing physician was hampered, with her case receiving only fragmented attention. As the dust settled and the enormity of the tragedy sank in, investigators turned their focus to uncovering the truth behind Dr. Phillips disappearance. Early on, they considered the grim possibility that she had been tragically killed in the terrorist attacks. Her apartment's proximity to ground zero fueled this hypothesis, but it was soon challenged by emerging evidence. Piecing together fragments of her life, investigators unearthed a hidden side of Dr. Philip that few knew about. They discovered that she had struggled with alcohol related issues, and her past included a brush with law for shoplifting at the very grocery store that she was seen visiting on the day she vanished. This line of inquiry suggested that she might have wandered into observations, obscurity, intentionally disappearing to escape her problems. However, just as investigators seemed to be settling on this theory, eyewitnesses began to emerge, offering possible sightings of Sneha and Philip after September 10, 2001. One individual claimed to have seen her in a Manhattan Hospital on September 11, 2001, while others testified to spotting her in different parts of the city in the days immediately following the attacks. These accounts injected fresh uncertainty into the case and reignited hope that she might still be alive. As the investigation progressed, it became increasingly apparent that the circumstances surrounding Dr. Phillips disappearance were far from straightforward. The trail group colder with each passing day, leaving investigators with more questions than answers. The inexplicable disappearance of Dr. Sneha and Philip opened the floodgates of speculation and gave rise to a myriad of theories. One prevailing theory was that she met with a tragic end on September 11, and her remains were obliterated amidst the rubble of the collapsing World Trade center towers. This idea, while tragic, offered a measure of closure to some, though it failed to explain the alleged sightings of her in the days that followed. Conversely, the theory of a voluntary disappearance gained traction as investigators uncovered the complexities of Dr. Phillips personal struggles. Some postulated that the stress of her past legal troubles and potential relapse may have culminated in her deciding to reinvent herself in a new life far removed from the constraints of her previous existence. But even this theory left many unanswered questions, especially regarding the alleged sightings and the absence of any communication from the missing doctor. As time passed, darker theories emerged. Suggesting that Dr. Phillip might have fallen victim to human trafficking or abduction, explaining the lack of contact contact with her family and friends. These conjectures, while terrifying, lacked concrete evidence and only added to the complexity of the case. The disappearance of Dr. Sneha and Philip remains an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, concealed by the shroud of time and tragedy. As the years drift by, hope to finding her alive diminishes, but the embers of determination to solve the case still flicker within the hearts of her family and friends. The mystery of Dr. Phillips disappearance serves as a haunting reminder of the frailty of human existence and the profound impact a single individual can have on the lives they leave behind. Until new evidence comes to light, the fate of Dr. Sneha and Philip will continue to remain an indelible stage, stain on the canvas of true crime history, an enduring enigma that defies resolution.
- [20:52]
Daniel
I didn't set out to hurt anyone. I certainly didn't want to kill anyone. I didn't have a choice, though. The pumpkin demanded sacrifice. I bought the damn seeds at Reggie's vegetable stall. David Decker bought his seeds from there, too, I was quite sure. David was a bit of a local celebrity, you see. He had grown the biggest pumpkins in the county for the last five years and counting, and for the last five years I had to be content with second place. This year was different, though. This was the year where I beat David Decker and reclaimed my prize as the biggest pumpkin grower in the county. This year was different because Reggie said that he had something special for me. A secret weapon, if you will, and he assured me that it would finally wipe the smile off old Decker's face once and for all. Reggie found some special seeds. Blood pump pumpkins, I said skeptically. The package was old. It looked older than God. The paper had taken on that soft, velvety feel of a material that had seen the fall of the Second World War, and the seeds inside felt hard little bullets under my thumb. The paper declared them to be Blut Kerbis, and if Reggie hadn't told me what they were, I would have never known. Everything on the package was in a foreign language, and I would have sworn it was something that he had bought from a joke shop. If he had not been so serious. Reggie was a practical joker, but his face was stone serious as he looked at me from across the counter of his vegetable stand. Blood pumpkins, he intoned back with deep seriousness. I don't know, Reggie. These things look older than God. Are you sure they'll grow? Absolutely. Reggie stretched the word into three granddad brought them back from Germany, and he said the pumpkins he saw over there were huge. I scoffed. Your granddad was a sod buster, just like mine, Reggie. When did he go to Germany? During the war. Same as your granddad, except your granddad spent it in Alaska. I wanted to take offense to that, but he was right. Grandad got a very cushy post while Reggie's granddad had gotten half his leg blown off by a potato masher and was sent home with honors. Let me get my usual spread of regular pumpkins, too, Reggie, just to be safe. So how did these work anyway? Any special instructions for these German pumpkins? Granddad always said that the man who gave him the seeds said that a sacrifice was needed to see them reach their full potential. What that sacrifice was, the man wouldn't say. But Granddad figured if anyone knows anything about sacrifices, it's farmers like us. He wasn't wrong. All the farming these past few years were one sacrifice after another. You sacrificed your time, your love, your family, your hair, and damn nearly everything else so you could afford to keep the taxes paid and the lights on year after year. Sod bustin was nothing but sacrifice in many ways, and I figured I would plant the seeds and see what came of them. I honestly figured I would get more out of the other packs of seeds than those two old pumpkin bullets. Anyway, looking back, I realized that I had no idea about sacrifice yet. I planted the seeds as I had done for years and years in the east field. As I stood up and rubbed the dirt off my hands, I looked across my field and felt the same sense of pride I always felt. The corn was coming up, potatoes and yams, beans and peanuts. The fruit trees were starting to bear fruit in the orchard, and my 20 acres was abuzz with growth. The July sun had beaten down on me as I shaded my eyes to survey my kingdom, and I knew it wouldn't be long before harvest time. Packing time and time to take another load down to Reggie so we could sell my harvest and I could lay enough back to make it through the winter. And once I win this year's grand prize for the biggest pumpkin contest, I would open my own stall in the following spring and sell my harvests like my father used to do. I was such a fool. The pumpkins grew slowly, as pumpkins do, but after a month, I had my eye on three that looked to be coming along nicely. I named them Hercules, Goliath, and Samson. They outgrew the others by quite a bit. It might seem silly to name a Pumpkin, but I always named the ones I thought would be my entries into the fair that year.
- [25:43]
Narrator
The other 40 or so would be.
- [25:44]
Daniel
Sold to pie makers and pumpkin carvers and all sorts of other folks. But these three would be weighed, judged, and then made into pies by the Mrs. For the pie contest to be held two days hence. I always laughed about it, but I always felt a little sorry to see her make those pumpkins into a pie after I worked so hard on their rearing. I named the blood pumpkin Fritz. It's a little different from the others. It was underperforming. Fritz wasn't even as big as most of the regular pumpkins, but I kept tending to him and hoping that maybe he was just a late bloomer. When I had gotten a pumpkin at all from the seeds, I had held out hope that maybe Reggie's grandad was right and that these pumpkins would be bigger than the regular ones I usually entered. I pruned it and weeded it by hand, just as I did with the other three, hoping that maybe it would grow bigger and I could sell it as an oddity at Reggie's stand. While my other pumpkins were orange, this one was a deeper orange, like blood orange, and its leaves had a strange, wilted look on them. I was certain it would make someone an extra creepy jack o'lantern when Halloween rolled around. But I really didn't have too high of hopes for the stunted little thing. Other than that. Then one day in August, I got a surprise. A painful surprise. I was out tending to the pumpkins. My top three are still growing larger and fuller than the others. And while I was pruning around Fritz, I accidentally cut my hand with the shears. It wasn't a deep cut, just took a little skin off a knuckle. But like any wound, it bled a bit. And before I could snatch my finger back to put it in my mouth, a few drops of blood splattered around the pumpkin. I didn't think much of it at the time. It was just a cut, after all, and I wrapped it in a bandana and got back to work. The next day, however, when I went to go check on the pumpkins, I noticed that something amazing had happened. The blood pumpkin had grown. Grown. It was smaller than even my smallest pumpkin the day before, and now it was almost as big as Samson, the smallest of my three entries. I had done nothing different. Nothing besides giving it my blood. Then I remembered what Reggie said. He had said that the plant required a sacrifice, and I thought to myself that maybe this sacrifice was more than my time in it. Energy. The sacrifice I would give to any crop. What if this sacrifice was my blood? As though I was in a daze, I pulled out my buck knife and slid the blade across the meat of my palm. This sting was little more than an afterthought. As I squeezed my hand, I sent a dozen fat drops onto the ground beside the pumpkin. The drops splashed onto the vines as well, swell a single fat drop splattering the body of the gourd. And as it fell, I could swear I heard it grow. It was a soft, whispery noise, like the trees in light. Wind and the ground drank up my blood and left nothing behind. It seemed to grow before my eyes, looking bigger than it was a minute ago. And the next day I measured 3 inches of growth, seemingly overnight. For the next two weeks, I began giving the pumpkin my blood. It was never much the amount you'd get from a diabetes test, but in two weeks I noticed a change in the size of the blood pumpkin. In those two weeks, it grew as big as any of the pumpkins I had planned to enter. By the last week of August, it was twice as big as any of the pumpkins I had planned to enter. And Fritz was my new entry for sure. I imagined that anyone who cared to look would have seen the bruises on my fingertips and palm. My wife certainly made a lot of them as she aided them at the dining room table. But she was the only one. I had a lot of visitors in the last week of August. Actually, someone, it seemed, had seen the blood pumpkin. My neighbor was the first. He could hardly miss a pumpkin that was nearly 5ft tall and 4ft wide and wondered if he could come have a look. After that, I was visited every day by curious townspeople wanting to see my pumpkin. As I spent more and more time with the pumpkin, I began to worry that this was as large as it was going to get, topping out just shy of five feet, and started increasing the amount of blood I gave it. I was back to cutting my palm for the fat red drops I'd gotten before. But even that didn't make it grow. The ground drank, but the whispering growth didn't occur. I slept poorly. I began to neglect my other crops, and Fritz. The blood pumpkin became somewhat of an obsession. On the 4th of October, I got the visit I had been expecting. He called on me early, just a short series of knocks that dragged me from the table where I had been listlessly eating my breakfast. He wore overalls and a blue work shirt, boots with the rundown heels of many years of use and a round top brown hat that probably was meant to make him look like a cowboy but just made him look even more like a farmer from a John Wayne movie. He hadn't taken the hat off, just stood grinning on my front porch as though we were the best of friends. David, what brings you out my way this early? I asked with no real emotion. He grinned. Well, I'd heard that I might have a spot to worry about this year. Seems like you've got a real contender of a pumpkin on your hands. Might I get a look? I considered it. Sure, he had seen pictures and heard gossip, but in the end I decided that I really didn't want him to see my pumpkin. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was mean spiritedness, but I think it was something else. I don't believe the pumpkin wanted him to see it. Sorry, David, but if you want to see my pumpkin you'll have to wait till the contest. I tried to close the door and found the tip of one of those rundown boots blocking the way. Come on now, just a peek. Hell, you've let half the time town see it, so what's the harm in letting me have a glance? I said, no, David, you can see it in three weeks when it's got a blue ribbon attached to it. He moved his foot then, allowing me to close the door. But when he nodded his head and showed me his grin again, I knew it wasn't the genial smile I had seen before. Suit yourself then. I'm sure I'll see it in due time. You was right, of course. Worse. But the seeing would prove to be his undoing. He got his look. Three nights later I was in bed, my wife snoring peacefully beside me, and as my eyes made a map of the dark topography of the ceiling, I heard a noise from the barn. It was subtle, could have been the wind, but I felt myself getting out of bed and walking down the hall and into the kitchen. I moved around the dark table and stood in the screen door as I gazed at my east field. It was late midnight by the clock on the stove, and there should have been no way for me to see anyone in the field at all. Standing in the dark kitchen, though, I became very sure that I could see someone walking into my east field carrying something with a long handle. I slept, slept, walked from the house silent as a ghost, and though the October wind sent goosebumps up my bare legs, I hardly noticed. I paused by the woodpile and wrapped my scarred hand around the old splintery axe that sat buried in the ancient stump. As I approached, I saw the person staring at the pumpkins, staring at Fritz, and in the moonlight it was easy to see them, transfixed by the silhouette of the swollen gourd. He stood stock still, contemplating the thing for nearly a minute, and I was less than 30ft when he raised the tool in their hand and swung it down into the pumpkin with a wet, meaty thunk. I started to run then, bare feet slapping the earth, and he must have heard me because he turned. In the moonlight I got a glimpse of a round crowned hat and a face full of white, snarling teeth. I didn't register who it was, didn't even register that he was human. And my only thought was that this person would die for harming my pumpkin. I buried the axe in his chest, blade biting into the wood of the hoe which he tried to use to block the swing. And as the wood splintered, I saw the blood splash across my underwear shirt and stain it red. David Decker looked at me with stunned and unbelieving eyes. But those eyes didn't fill with fear until something wrapped around his ankle. His blood had fallen on the ground between us, and even now the earth was drinking it greedily. He turned suddenly, axe still buried in his chest, and as he did, he fell to his knees.
- [35:06]
Narrator
Knees.
- [35:07]
Daniel
As the blood began to bubble from his lips. The red fell on the face of that unholy gourd, and I saw it grow and writhe before my very eyes. Its vines twined around him, long stalks wrapping around him like the coils of some monstrous snake. And all at once the earth began to writhe and churn as its roots came up to join its vines. In his terror, David struggled. His hands lashed out feebly with a broken hoe as he was dragged beneath the soil by the grasping vines. I watched. God help me. I watched as he disappeared into the earth. And all at once I felt my knees unhinge. And I too was knee bound on the soil of my east field as the roots began to slide over me as well. I felt my mind slip away as the the shadow of the blood pumpkin fell across me. Now six or seven feet tall and five or six feet wide, I could hear it growing and groaning. It grew with a sound like thin trees in a high wind. And as I blacked out, I never expected to have another thought on God's green earth besides that last. My thought was that I finally made my sacrifice and that this pumpkin was. Would take me into the earth as its next meal. I Almost wished that it had. I awoke in the field with my wife standing over me and the pumpkin, that seven foot tall behemoth of orange skin and green vines towering over us both. My shirt was clean, the ground was undisturbed, and all signs pointed to the night's events being just a dream. Except for the broken, broken hoe and the ugly little scar on the left side of Fritz where the hoe had bitten into him when David swung it. David Decker was never seen again. The sheriff found his truck not far from my farm and they came by one afternoon to ask some questions. Had I seen him, had he been here and did I know anything about his disappearance? I told them no. I couldn't very well tell them that one of my pumpkins had eaten him and stayed out of the nut house. And they believed me. They said that the visit was just a courtesy anyway and that they wouldn't keep me from my harvest. The harvest that year was tremendous. The blood pumpkin wasn't the only thing that had benefited from David's sacrifice and the yield that year was so great that I could have bought my own stand without the money from winning the contest. That hardly mattered now, though. Nothing really mattered at this point. By this time I didn't care about anything but the pumpkin and keeping it happy. October 15th. Five days before the contest, I began to notice a change in Fritz. Though still connected to the ground and still seven feet tall, it was beginning to take on a definite sag. It was waxy looking, had an over ripened look to it, and I had serious doubts that it would make it to the time of the fair. My blood would no longer sustain it and whatever it had gotten from David was gone now. It appeared that another sacrifice was required, but I did not have the strength to catch its food for it. I had not the resolve to feed my neighbors to this unholy thing. I was sitting at the kitchen table and contemplating what I would do next when the knock came at the door. It was Reggie, the only one left in town who hadn't come to see the pumpkin. My wife was out visiting a sick friend. It was just he and me and he wanted to see the pumpkin, the one he had heard so much about around the stand. Reggie had walked from his farm a few blocks away. He had probably told no one where he was going. I took him to the east field and as he marveled at the pumpkin, I slipped my hand into my pocket. This is wild. Granddad said. They were big, but this is huge. I wrapped my hand around the buck knife I had used to feed it my own blood. Even if Decker hadn't disappeared, I'm pretty sure that not even he would be able to grow anything big enough to compete with this. Reggie had his back to me and thus didn't see the knife slide out. What have you been feeding this thing? Granddad said it took a sacrifice. You must have spent a lot of time out here. He was so lost in his own rambling that he didn't hear the metallic click as the knife came open. Unless you've been making actual sacrifices out here in your east field, he said jokingly. What's the secret, buddy? Virgin's blood? Goats? A little full moon? He stopped talking when the knife slipped into the side of his neck, stopped talking and started gurgling. The ground accepted him, and when my wife got home from a friend's house, the pumpkin was 12ft tall. The judges came to my house that year to see 4 Fritz the behemoth, and I won hands down. It wasn't even a contest, really. The judges couldn't find a pumpkin even half as large as mine, and when my wife came for her early sacrifice for the pie contest, I gave her the other three instead. She seemed disappointed. Maybe she had noticed what a mania this pumpkin had become for me. But she took them anyway and won the pie contest that that year with the tastiest pie that the judges had ever tasted. As she left my field, her arms laden with pumpkins, I first heard the slithery voice of the serpent as it offered me its apple. The voice was autumn wind and winter's promise, and I had heard it before, hadn't I? It was the voice that tells you that you can squeeze in one more crop before the winter, the voice that tells you that it wouldn't be that cold tonight so there's no need to bring the livestock in. The voice of creeping winter that's hungry for its sacrifice, the voice told me that if I gave it my wife, my fame would be eternal. On that day I turned away from it. On that day I was strong. That year at my annual pumpkin patch, I was not so strong. I had arrayed my smaller pumpkins for sale, and even Hercules sat amongst them since he had been spared. The people milled about the patch, looking in awe at Fritz the Behemoth as they made their choices, and I saw the kid when he stepped a little too close to the massive pumpkin. He was a porker, a hefty kid from a family of hefty adults, and he had stopped to stare at the pumpkin as he held one of its smaller cousins in his pudgy hands. All at once he shifted the pumpkin under his arm and stepped towards the mountainous gourd with a hand outstretched to touch. I started to stop him. I should have stopped him. But as I started to rise from my chair and raise my voice to warn him, I heard the voice of the serpent again, commanding me to stand aside. I sat back down and cast my eyes away, but even that didn't fully save me from witnessing the end. The police were called when they noticed his absence, and they searched my field in the forest beyond for a week without finding anything. His parents sat at my kitchen table, his mother crying into a square of silk as my wife poured tea and assured her that he would turn up until nearly 10 o'clock that first night. I am lucky my wife was such a hostess, because all I could do was sit shell shocked in a chair as she puttered about and made small talk. Everyone thought I was broken about the kid, and in a way they were right. After all, it's not every day you watch a child get pulled under the soil while no one's looking. I won the contest the next next year too. People said I had a knack for growing pumpkins, but really it was the same one. When it got 18ft tall and 12ft wide, it started to attract tourists. Some of them never made it back to wherever they were from. By that point I was numb to the sacrifices the pumpkin ate. The pumpkin grew, and as the tourists began to to pay to see it, I found that I no longer had to grow anything to get by. The pumpkin made my farm a natural stop for tourists on the road, and they never grumble too much about a few dollars here or there to see it. This was the year we took it on the road. We loaded it up on a flatbed trailer and took it to county fair after county fair so the whole state could see the world's biggest pumpkin. We did it for five years, and in those five years I remember hearing about a suspected serial kidnapper plaguing the state. They dubbed him County Fair Kidnapper as I recall, and in five years he abducted more than 20 children and five adults from state fairs across the state. The state police even questioned me, not as a suspect, but to see if I had seen anything amiss. And I always told them no. What choice did I have? As I told you, when the pumpkin took Decker, I would have been slapped into a loony bin if I had come to them with stories of killer pumpkins or blood sacrifices. I Am not blameless in this whole affair, I know that, and I have never claimed otherwise. But the pumpkin was good for my family. The pumpkin was good for the town. My pumpkin brought in the crowds, and the crowds stopped in the cafes to have a bite. They stopped at the gas station for gas and road snacks and stopped at the farmer's market to buy fresh produce. They spread their money up and down the street from May till November, and the town always had a corn maze or a fair of some sort to draw them away from the pumpkin and back into the town proper. At one point, my face and a picture of the pumpkin were even on the town's sign. When you drove over the city limits, come see the world's biggest pumpkin, it stated in bold black letters. And at one point you could damn near see the thing from the city outskirts. In its heyday, it towered up nearly 30ft high and was wider than my house. It was blind to its feet. Meetings for the most part. Hell, I suppose you'd say I was complicit in the murders. I killed two for Fritz and I'm responsible for all the rest. And that I turned aside. But I didn't really grasp its slyness, its cunning, until the last time I watched it kill. When I watched it take my wife. I was standing in the back door watching her, trying to ignore the creeping voice as it told me it must feed. She was out in the field tending some vegetables in the space I no longer used. And as I watched her, I began to wonder if I might resist this evil and win free. I had been this pumpkin's puppet for nearly eight years. Eight long years of dragging its burden around my neck. And my heart was growing health heavy with the burden of that sin. As I watched her, watched her in her purity and her love, I began to think that I might escape this evil thing and be the man I once was. We could leave, just pack our things and go and leave this cursed earth behind us as we set out to start anew. She had noticed something was off. Likely noticed from the start that something was off. But she was dutiful and she was obedient and she loved me more than I could ever love her. If I had loved her, I would have never let her get near that field again. She was coming in carrying a basket of produce, and I remember the way she smiled when she saw me. Her face, that old young face of hers stretched into a smile. And she raised her hand to wave as I stood framed in the doorway. I think I waved back. Can no Longer remember, really. But whatever I was doing ended abruptly when she dropped into the earth. Dropped. Dropped is the right word. She didn't sink. She wasn't pulled. It was as though a hole had opened up and swallowed her in one gulp. Her basket, it fell, tumbling vegetables across the dirt. And it was all the evidence that I had that she was there at all. It laughed at me as I dug up the field, dug it up in furious crumping sweeps of the shovel. But I never found a trace of her. She was the last sacrifice I was a part of. I set up a fence after that and never let the tourists get close. They could pay their money and observe from a distance, but no one was allowed to go into the field again. It caught at me as I stood in my chair by the fence, saying that this was a useless gesture. But I ignored it and kept my silence. People will ask me why I didn't destroy it, didn't burn it to the ground. And to them I would ask how stupid they think I am. I threw coal oil on it the night it took. My wife got loaded on whiskey first to muster my courage, and had intended to walk into the flames myself. But the bastard wouldn't burn Any damage I did to it, just healed. And all the while it laughed at me. So I kept my vigil, kept my silence. And as we both lived, the town shriveled around us. It had gotten too powerful to, you see, too evil to be contained. And those who spent time close to it became susceptible to its voice. They came in the night. They died silently in the field. As they were drawn into the earth. They sustained that cursed thing. By now they are all gone. The town is deserted. A ghost town is a country full of such towns. And the only thing to see is Fritz. Fritz, the world's oldest pumpkin. We are both shriveled now. A couple of relics from a bygone age. And if you come, you too can see him and have your picture taken. For $5 you can get your selfie and have a pamphlet on the ninth wonder of the world. But I wouldn't stay for too long. Long. He's a shriveled old thing, small as he was before I dropped my blood on him. But if you spend too long in his company, you can start to hear his creaky old voice. You can start to feel his influence in your head. And one night you'll drain your blood for him upon the soil. I'm old. Over 100 years old now. And Fritz is a man. Methuselah of a pumpkin. My end is soon. I can feel it. And I often wonder if my guardianship of this cursed thing will mean a hill of beans when I am gone. Who will guard the world from him? When I am dust in the ground, who will keep the tourists back and the kids away at night? If you're listening to this, it may be you. And if it is, I am eternal, eternally sorry. If you have found yourself in the custodian of Fritz the Pumpkin, then I give you only one piece of advice. Watch him close and keep that which you love away. Don't let him have the blood. Don't let him take another as his sacrifice. Let the cycle end with me, God help me, and let that damned thing wither in the field.
- [51:38]
Narrator
On December 14, 2014, a teenage boy is exploring the woods around the back roads of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Around 30ft from the neighborhood nearest path. It is a quiet, rarely traveled area where the nearest tarmac road is just under a mile away, one that cuts through a residential area that hosts only around a dozen or so homes with minimal traffic, little more than a locally known shortcut to and from Route 989. The young lad is in a world of his own, enjoying the peace and tranquility of nature, completely unaware of what he is about to stumble across. He only spots what he is about to discover because it looks extremely out of place, even among the death and decay of the Pennsylvania winter. The thing has a distinct air of morbidity about it. When he recognizes what it is, he turns on his heels and runs screaming from the woods, tears in his eyes, his heart racing in his chest. Because what he had discovered that gray December day was a severed head. Only this wasn't the disembodied head of a newly murdered person. This particular head had been embalmed, preserved. When the police finally arrived hours later, they discovered that the eyes of the severed head were shut, but the mouth was wide open. They intensively searched the surrounding area for any signs of the body it had once been attached to, but found nothing. The head was so well preserved that its face was still definitively recognizable, but a subsequent facial reconstruction yielded no clues to the owner's identity. Forensic examiners estimated that it had been there for between one week, week, and a month, just lying there among the fallen leaves, waiting to be discovered. If the gray hairs that covered her scalp were anything to go by, it was thought that the owner of the severed head was anything from 50 to 80 years of age. An anatomy professor turned forensic artist by the name of Michel Vitali examined The head in excruciating detail by request of the local police police department. After hours upon hours of study, she came to a shocking conclusion. That whoever had severed the head had done so with the skill of an expert pathologist. That they must have had some kind of anatomical training to have completed the task with such precision. A conclusion shockingly reminiscent of the world famous 19th century serial killer, Jack the Ripper. When we lifted the skin flap at the nape of the neck, we could see that the whole purpose of that was to access the key joint that would preserve both the head and the vertebral column. She told local news reporters during a horrifying interview. This is not anybody going with a kitchen knife or anything remotely like that. It was well done and it was placed perfectly. She was dismembered professionally. Another piece of evidence that supported the theory that whoever had severed the head had done so with professional skill was the use of what are known as eye caps, A common mortician's tool. These are devices that reassemble contact lenses and are worn in a chillingly similar way. They slip between the eyeball and the eyelid of the deceased person and are complete with small ridges or spikes that main the natural curvature of the eye whilst holding the eyelids shut. The pathologists who examined the embalmed head removed these eye caps and found that the person's eyeballs had been removed. But also made a disturbing discovery. The eyeballs had been replaced with small red rubber bouncing balls, the kind a child might play with. Whoever had done such a thing obviously had a sick sense of humor and was undoubtedly a very dangerously disturbed individual. After the initial forensic analysis, the embalmed head was sent over to Salt Lake City based ISO forensics who undertook isotope testing on it. For those unfamiliar with the technique, isotopes are particles that can be found in the human body that come from drinking water that can be traced back to a particular geographical location. When the results of the isotope testing came back, investigators were able to conclude that the woman had spent the previous several months being something of a nomad, having lived or at least stayed in areas including West Virginia, western Maryland, southern Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania and even as far as eastern Ohio and New York State. Yet despite there being evidence to the owner of the severed head, having lived in so many places, there was little to show that she had ever lived in Beaver county during time leading up to her death or discovered. However, the use of embalming fluid meant that determining the exact time of death was almost impossible. It also made DNA matching no, next to impossible as the Fluid destroyed nucleotide bonds that enabled such analysis to be undertaken. The small amount that was obtained was so damaged that it could not be matched to any other samples in the national database. But much to the relief of those involved with the analysis, it was discovered that there was no criminal element to her death, that the cardiac arrest was the most likely explanation for her demise. This was due to toxicology tests that had shown that there were trace amounts of lidocaine and atropine in her system, which are both varieties of medication that are used to treat irregular heart issues. Most likely a cardiac arrest, but not completely confirmed. One homicide detective was said to have been extremely skeptical that the owner of the embalmed head had died of natural causes, having seen far too many cases in which the possessiveness of the killer was displayed in their willingness to tamper and toy with the body of their quarry. When interviewed by journalists, Beaver County Coroner Terry Tatilovich Rossi said, could it have been someone with a great deal of anatomical knowledge? Yes. Could it have been someone who is just peculiar or bizarre? The answer to that question is also yes. We just don't know at this point. Michael O'Brien, the borough police chief, claimed the embalmed head was found so far off the road that it was entirely possible that it could have been simply thrown from a passing car. It was also determined that the scent and flavor of the embalming fluid would have made the flesh very unappealing to scavenger animals, so there was little chance it had been dropped by some hungry fox. The placement was deliberate. Someone had wanted it to be found sooner or later. A number of funeral homes that associated with the Pennsylvania Funeral Directors association were contacted with pleas for information, and details of the bizarre case were even shared at a National Funeral Directors association conference. But unsurprisingly, no one could shed any light of the gruesome situation. Every theory, with the exception of grave robbery, had been dismissed, with many agreeing that the most likely explanation is that the owner of the embalmed head had been a victim of the black market trade that deals in the illegal acquisition of human remains, either for professional or recreational purposes. There's a black market market on body parts, and that market is pretty extensive, Beaver County District Attorney Anthony was reported to have said. Detectives have repeatedly stated that they believed the head may have been removed from the corpse of a natural cause death by what's known as a body broker, an individual or firm who purchases and sells cadavers or remains. One solid reason that this line of investigation is thought to be the most plausible is because the black market cadaver industry. Had been linked to similar abuses in the past. Due to the plethora of firms where you can purchase human remains, any attempt to discover where the severed head came from is, according to professor Michel Vitaly, extremely hard to track. If the owner of the severed head is to ever be identified, it would almost certainly require the assistance of a dentist. The forensic investigation discovered that the owner of the severed head had work done on every single tooth. One of them as many as seven times. On one of the three teeth that had been pulled, Forensic dentists discovered a filling compound that wasn't available to dentists before 2004, indicating that the woman must have died after that particular year. So far, analysis of the woman's dental work had produced no leads. But with a forensic facial reconstruction, investigators still hope that someone someday will be able to identify the woman and give her name back. Almost six years later, we are still no closer to discovering the identity of whoever owned the embalmed head or that of the sick individual individual who had severed or stolen it by replacing the eyeballs with red rubber balls. It might well remain a total mystery who exactly placed the head in the woods out in Pennsylvania. But perhaps the real question is, do we really want to know the whole story behind it, or are we most likely able to sleep easier Remaining in blissful ignorance? It's.