SYMHC Classics: Bell Witch

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Missed in History Class

Episode: "SYMHC Classics: Bell Witch"

Hosts: Holly Frey & Tracy V. Wilson
Date: October 4, 2025

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Overview

In this Halloween-season classic episode, Holly and Tracy dive into the eerie legend of the Bell Witch—a famous haunting in early 19th-century Tennessee. The hosts recount the story as it was popularized, then take a critical, investigative look at the evidence (or lack thereof), unpacking folklore, historical records, and likely explanations for the haunting tales that surrounded the Bell family.

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Episode Structure

1. Introduction & Context (02:16–03:30)
2. The Bell Witch Story: As Legend Tells It (03:30–25:12)
3. Critical & Skeptical Perspectives (29:30–39:17)
4. Notable Quotes & Moments
5. Episode Tone & Style

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Introduction & Context (02:16–03:30)

• October marks the "spooky" season for the podcast; fans expect haunted history stories.
• The Bell Witch is "often requested" and perfectly fits the Halloween mood.
• Acknowledgement that the legend is surrounded by folklore and "made up" elements.

Holly (03:05):
"But we're going to talk about how the legend of the Bell Witch became a well-known part of American lore. But first, we are going to indulge in the fall fantasy of talking about the alleged paranormal story as it is often told."

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The Bell Witch Story: As Legend Tells It (03:30–25:12)

The Bell Family Background (05:26–07:28)

• John Bell, born 1750 in North Carolina, married Lucy Williams.
• The couple moved with their young family (and slave Chloe, plus Chloe’s children) to Red River, Tennessee in 1804.
• The Bells prospered and became respected members of their community.

The Haunting Begins (07:28–09:14)

• Thirteen years into their Tennessee life, strange events began:
  • John saw a creature “with a dog's body and a rabbit's head.” (07:36)
  • A son saw a massive, unidentifiable bird.
  • Betsy Bell spotted a mysterious girl in a green dress.
  • Servant Dean encountered a black dog on nightly walks.

Holly (08:06):
"Betsy, at one point, was walking in the woods... when she saw what appeared to be a little girl in a green dress swinging in the trees. That girl was not actually there."

Escalation of Supernatural Activity (09:14–10:51)

• Tapping noises inside the home became frequent and loud.
• Faint voice of an "elderly woman," then:
  • Bedcovers pulled off
  • Chewing/gnawing sounds
  • Dogs fighting and chains dragging
  • Smacking of lips and gulping

Tracy (10:03):
"It's like we're just gonna have a buffet of strange things happening, and then we're gonna have new strange things and then different strange things."

Pestering Turns Direct: "Kate" Targets the Family (10:51–15:04)

• The witch, eventually referred to as "Kate," sidles into family business:
  • Told Betsy not to marry fiancé Joshua Gardner.
  • Poltergeist activity directed towards John Bell (hair pulling) and others.

Community Involvement & Famous Guests (15:33–21:03)

• John Bell confides in neighbor James Johnson, whose family experiences the phenomena, advises to involve the community.
• The entity, "Kate," declares:
  "I am a spirit. I was once very happy but have been disturbed. Later, after she grew more adept at communicating, the spirit apparently said that she had been buried nearby, but that her grave had been disturbed and that one of her teeth was under the Bell home and she was looking for it." (16:34–17:20)
• The legend claims Major General Andrew Jackson visited and fled after one haunted night, but evidence for this is dubious.

Escalation to Harm & Death (21:28–25:12)

• Betsy Bell reportedly attacked:
  • Pricked with pins, slapped, shoes pulled off, witnessed by friends.
• John Bell suffered progressive illness:
  • "Stiffness of tongue" sensation, food falling from mouth (15:04–15:33)
  • Attacks mirror Betsy’s—slapping, clothes/shoes pulled off.
• Mystery vial and death:
  • John found unresponsive, mysterious vial administered to a cat (which dies), liquid thrown in fire yields blue flames. John dies Dec. 20, 1820.
  • The witch ("Kate") "sang joyously throughout his burial." (23:59)

The End of the Haunting (24:23–24:43)

• After John’s death, "Kate" declared she’d return in seven years (allegedly reappeared in 1828 for just two weeks and left when ignored).

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Critical & Skeptical Perspectives (29:30–39:17)

Possible Motives & Alternatives (29:30–31:43)

• Theories:
  • The haunting aimed to break up Betsy’s engagement to Joshua Gardner; it worked—she broke off the relationship in 1821.
  • The Bell brothers learned ventriloquism, perhaps faked the haunting. But timing doesn't always line up.
  • Betsy attractive to many suitors; perhaps a rival orchestrated the events.

Suspicion Around Richard Powell (31:06–32:00)

• Betsy’s teacher and later husband, Richard Powell, is suspicious:
  • Married to an older woman (Esther) who died in the same year Betsy broke off her engagement.
  • Powell openly pursues Betsy after this and marries her in 1824.

The Real Reason for Excommunication (32:00–32:32)

• John Bell was excommunicated from the church not for supernatural reasons but "shady lending practices and usury in relation to the sale of slaves.”

Debunking The Kate Batts Origin & Andrew Jackson Visit (32:32–34:35)

• Kate Batts, a neighbor, was painted as the witch, but had little motive and outlived John Bell by decades.
• No evidence Andrew Jackson visited or wrote about it.

Problems with the Primary Source (34:35–36:08)

• The main source, Ingram’s 1894 book, was written two generations after the supposed events; extant evidence for his sources is lacking.

• The book is described as possibly “assembled... as a deceptive fiction to capitalize on its sensational nature." (35:18)

• Ingram’s own strident insistence on believability is held up as a red flag.

  “Knowing the character of the men and women who testify to these things, no one can disbelieve them or believe that they would have willfully misrepresented the facts...” — Ingram, read by Holly (36:08)

The Shape-Shifting Story & Modern Exploitation (37:16–38:25)

• Numerous versions; details vary widely.
• Today the legend is commercially exploited (e.g., Bell Witch Cave tours).

Possible Rational Explanations (38:25–39:17)

• Blue flame from the vial: possible arsenic poisoning.
• Sensational “spooky” details don’t withstand historical scrutiny.

Holly (38:25):
"When you really start to look at the facts of things, all of the elements that get sensationalized as super spooky don't really hold up to scrutiny."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you were just lying in bed and you heard what sounded like someone gulping or smacking their lips near you, wouldn't that be delightfully creepy?”
  — Holly (09:49)
• “It's like we're just gonna have a buffet of strange things happening, and then we're gonna have new strange things and then different strange things.”
  — Tracy (10:03)
• “Ghostly dentistry is where Tracy draws the line.”
  — Holly, about the spirit's missing tooth (17:51)
• “You're horrible if you doubt it.”
  — Holly, joking about Ingram’s insistent tone (37:12)
• The segment on the haunting being a device for social order:
  “Everybody got good. The wicked left off swearing, lying, and whiskey drinking. The avaricious were careful not to covet... lest Kate might tell on them.”
  — Ingram (18:40)

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Episode Tone & Style

• The hosts maintain their trademark blend of enthusiasm, skepticism, humor, and historical rigor.
• They indulge in the spooky storytelling for seasonal effect (“indulge in the fall fantasy”) but maintain a clear-eyed, critical analysis.
• Gentle banter and asides help keep the narrative engaging:
  e.g., Holly’s playful take on creepy sound effects, Tracy’s “haunting smorgasbord” joke, their shared insistence on historical accuracy amid tales of the macabre.

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Conclusion

The episode delivers a vivid retelling of the Bell Witch legend, weaving together supernatural claims, folk memory, and historical fact-checking. Holly and Tracy dissect the evidence behind one of America's most famous ghost stories and illuminate how folklore evolves, endures, and is sometimes exploited—just in time for the Halloween season.

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Timestamp Index (selected):

• 03:30 – Story beginning, background
• 07:28 – First strange events
• 15:04 – John Bell’s illness
• 17:20 – Spirit’s identity & tooth story
• 18:40 – “Everybody got good” quote
• 21:28 – Haunting becomes more sinister
• 23:59 – John Bell’s death & witch’s celebration
• 24:43 – Witch’s promised return/ending
• 29:30 – Skeptical section begins
• 32:00 – Real reason for excommunication
• 36:08 – Ingram’s defensive rhetoric
• 38:25 – Poisoning & rational explanations

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Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

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[Alena Sada]

Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.

[Elena Sada]

When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almaser, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.

[Alena Sada]

Surviving meant hiding. Escaping. Took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.

[Dr. J]

And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. But I didn't kill him.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues. By talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

All, we basically sold our soul and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, why don't you help her?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Happy Saturday. It is October. Today's classic is one where we kick things off being very excited about it being October. And that is the Bell Witch.

[Holly Fry]

Oh, I love this story. And it originally came out on October 5, 2016.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Enjoy.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

Tracy, what is that time of year again?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Is that time autumn?

[Holly Fry]

It's the best time of year. Not just autumn, but Halloweeny time. So as we get into October, for any of our new listeners that might not know, we can talk about some fun spooks and haunts and scary stories. We can talk about them year round. There's no law against it, but we like to get some extra spooky stuff going on here. As we get into the Halloween season.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We make a special point. Yeah, it's a special enough point that for longtime listeners, last year, when literally the first two podcasts in October were not Halloween, some people got real mad.

[Holly Fry]

And today's topic is one that we often get requests for. And it's a little bit tricky, as many stories along these lines can be, because a lot of the information is not just apocryphal, it is flat out made up. But we're going to talk about how the legend of the Bell witch became a well known part of American lore. But first we are going to indulge in the fall fantasy of talking about the alleged paranormal story as it is often told. So the primary account of the Bell family and what happened on their Tennessee land is a book that was written in 1894 by Martin Van Buren Ingram, and it's entitled An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch. But that book was written more than 75 years after the events of the story and even in the introduction. And it kind of sets up this scenario that makes it impossible to refute. Ingraham claimed that he was working from an account that was written by a member of the family, William Bell, and that the family had declined to publish that account while any of the involved parties were still living, but that he had come in and, you know, managed to, to make this deal and, and promised that he would tell the true story. By the way, that that manuscript that he claimed to have used, there's no evidence of it ever existing. But he also. And when I say he, I mean Ingram also acknowledges that many people had already come to the conclusion that the entire haunting was a hoax possibly perpetrated by members of the Bell family for some sort of financial gain. But he dismisses that by describing how Williams account was written in an effort to clear the family name and prove once and for all that the whole thing really happened.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's one of those things that once he lays it all out there, like the rebuttal is sort of nuh like.

[Holly Fry]

Right. So first we're going to talk about the story as it is laid out in that book, and then we will talk about it from a more skeptical perspective.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The story all starts with the family patriarch John Bell, who was born in Halifax County, North Carolina, in 1750. He apprenticed as a cooper for a while, but eventually decided to become a farmer. At the age of 32, he got married to Lucy Williams, who was 20 years younger than he was.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, that was one of those things that when I first did the math there, I got real creeped out. And then I was like, oh, this can't be right. And then I kept looking at other sources, and it kept lining up. The couple had their first child, a son named Jesse, eight years later. So at that point, Lucy would have been 20 in 1790. And the bells initially did really well with their farm in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, and they also had three more sons over the course of several years.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Starting in 1801, though, they started to have issues with their crops, and eventually they decided to leave that farm in North Carolina and move west, as so many of their friends and acquaintances had already done. So in 1804, John, Lucy, and their children, along with a slave named Chloe, who had been given to the couple by Lucy's father when they got married. And Chloe's eight children made their way to Red River, Tennessee. This is near the area that's now known as Adams, Tennessee, which is not far from Nashville.

[Holly Fry]

And the Bells were welcomed into the community, where John bought a home and some property that included both barns and an orchard. And the family established their farm. And they were, again, pretty prosperous. And everyone really adored Lucy. That comes up over and over that everyone just loved this woman. And over time, Bell added to his land holdings, and he became one of the most wealthy, influential, and respected men in the area.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As the farm got bigger, as is so often the case, the family did, too. The Bells had several more children, including a daughter born in 1805 named Elizabeth. She was called Betsy. And she becomes central to this whole haunting legend.

[Holly Fry]

After 13 years in red river, things started to shift from the happy prosperity that the Bell family had enjoyed up to that point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Initially, the first thing that happened was that John Bell saw a weird animal. He spotted a creature out in the cornfield that he would later describe as having a dog's body and a rabbit's head. He shot at it, and he missed. And one of his sons, Drew Bell, saw a massive bird on a fence near the home when he went to get a gun to shoot at it. The bird, which he thought was a turkey, revealed itself to be a strange bird that he just couldn't identify.

[Holly Fry]

Betsy, at one point, was walking in the woods with the younger children of the family one evening when she saw what appeared to be a little girl in a green dress swinging in the trees. That girl was not actually there. And then one of their servants, named Dean, claimed that he had seen a black dog on his regular walks to visit his wife, who was also a slave and was owned by a friend of the family named Alex Gunn. And this dog would allegedly trot along in front of Dean while he walked over to the gun home. And then the dog would vanish just as they arrived there.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The next strange happening was a variety of tapping noises inside the family home. And they couldn't figure out what the source of these noises was. These noises had actually been going on for some time, and at first they had been attributed to much more ordinary things, like the children being mischievous. But it continued to get more frequent and louder. And then there was a faint voice that the members allegedly started to hear. It was too feeble for anyone to make out the words or the songs, but they sounded like they were coming from an elderly woman.

[Holly Fry]

And according to the Bell children, their bedding began to be pulled off of them in the night. And they also reported that animals, possibly rats, could be heard chewing on their bedposts, but that whenever the noises were investigated and someone lit a candle or tried to look, nothing was actually there.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Then they started to report that they heard what sounded like dogs fighting in the house. And then there were sounds of chains on the floor. And then additional creepier noises were also detailed in William Bell's account, including what sounded like the smacking of lips and occasional gulping.

[Holly Fry]

Those are, like, the sort of great details for me. Like, that's such a good creepy noise detail. Like, if you were just lying in bed and you heard what sounded like someone gulping or smacking their lips near you, wouldn't that be delightfully creepy?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And at this point, the symptoms of their haunting are kind of like a haunting smorgasbord. It's like we're just gonna have a buffet of strange things happening, and then we're gonna have new strange things and then different strange things.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. And the next strange thing was that William recounted that he felt as though someone had grabbed his hair in the night and began to lift him off the bed by his head with it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So this. This elderly woman's frail voice we've been talking about that have been too faint to make out. Not so much the case when speaking to Betsy. This witch is said to have given some very clear direction that Betsy should not marry her intended, which was a boy named Joshua Gardner. And we're gonna get back to that in a little bit.

[Holly Fry]

But before we talk about how the family handled all of this wacky stuff that was happening, like Tracy said, it is sort of the haunting smorgasbord, we're gonna pause for a word from one of our fantastic sponsors.

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[Sacred Scandal Narrator]

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pulled back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Marcial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of peace purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[Elena Sada]

My name is Elena Sada and this is my story. It's the story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually, how I got out.

[Sacred Scandal Narrator]

This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the clothes and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Secret Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel as part of the Mikeultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell Here this season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988 to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control 35 years that's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Alabama Murders Narrator]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry, to the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From revisionist history, this is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. J]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm going to walk away feeling very healed and feeling like, yes, I'm going to continue my healing journey and I'm going to get some keys from you.

[Dr. J]

Listen to just healed with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

So getting back to the Bells, John Bell, the patriarch of the family, started to have some medical issues during all of this, and his condition gradually worsened. Initially it was described as, quote, a stiffness of tongue. So when he was having an episode of this illness, he couldn't eat. And he described it as feeling as though a stick was lodged sideways in his mouth between his cheeks, preventing him from eating. So when he would try to eat, the food would kind of fall right back out.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At first, John was encouraging the family to keep the strange happenings at the farm and his mystery illness under wraps. But eventually he disclosed what was going on to a neighbor and friend named James Johnson. Johnson and his wife spent a night at the Bell home at John Bell's request, and they were hoping that they could maybe shed some light on the situation and offer an outsider's perspective as to what's going on.

[Holly Fry]

And after leading the family in prayer and then retiring to bed, Johnson and his wife witnessed the same phenomena that the Bells had been experiencing, including hearing all of the noises and racket, having their bed covers pulled off of them as they slept, and Mr. Johnson apparently had the presence of mind to try to speak with the mysterious entity. And he determined that A, it was intelligent and B, it. It would cease its actions when spoken to and then see that John Bell should no longer keep this situation secret, but should seek the help of the community.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So a lot of people started going to the Bell home to visit and to investigate this spirit, who at this point, people were saying was called Kate. And really all they were figuring out was that Kate really hated John Bell and seemed like basically a gossipy busybody and not an actual problem. Her manifestations did start to become stronger, and it became clear that she was speaking Bible verses and singing hymns. When asked who she was and what she wanted, she replied, I am a spirit. I was once very happy, but have been disturbed. Later, after she grew more adept at communicating, the spirit apparently said that she had been buried nearby, but that her grave had been disturbed and that one of her teeth was under the Bell home and she was looking for it.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, there is a whole whack a doodle story about an animal's head showing up and a tooth falling out of it and into a crack in the floor, but we don't know.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Well. And this whole thing we were talking about before the break, that was like. And then there were noises, and then there was singing, and then there was levitation, and then there was someone grabbing my hair. I'm like, none of these things are really creepy to me. But then we get to this part where she's like, and my tooth is under your house. And I'm like, all right, I'm out. Out of the story.

[Holly Fry]

Ghostly dentistry is where Tracy draws the line. And this witch, though, was devoted to John's wife, Lucy. Just like everyone else, she loved Lucy. And as we said, she had come to be known as Kate. And this consequently has associated her with a neighbor of the Belles, a woman named Kate Batts. And we're going to talk about Kate Batts a little bit later in the episode. And there's even the suggestion that she, this disembodied voice, claimed herself to be Kate Batts. But whatever her true origin, whether it was Kate Batts or just a mystery person, she became downright famous in the area. And for a time, she almost seems to have been seen as a good influence. People were just afraid enough of her that they lived good, honest lives.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

According to Ingram's writings, quote, everybody got good. The wicked left off swearing, lying, and whiskey drinking. The avaricious were careful not to covet or lay hands on that which belonged to their neighbors, lest Kate might tell on them. No man allowed his right hand to do anything that the left might be ashamed of.

[Holly Fry]

And the story of what the spirit was troubled about, I. E. That that lost tooth, among other things, did not stay consistent, though. So later she told a visitor that she had once had a great deal of we, but had buried it, and she would only tell Betsy Bell the location of this buried treasure. She later eventually told several men in the family, as well as close friends of the family, on the stipulation that they give every dollar that was buried to Betsy. And these men went out and they dug, and they dug in the named spot, which was this very tricky area. I think it was near a stream, but it was like a. There was a lot of heavy rock over it, and they found nothing. And the spirit, when they reported back to the house that, no, there's nothing in that spot, the spirit allegedly laughed at them that night and taunted them for being so easily duped.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1818, as the stories of Kate were becoming a lot more well known in the area, the church excommunicated John Bell. Sometimes this is reported as being due to his association with supernatural events. But there was a more mundane element to the story, which we're going to talk about in a bit.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. And I will give you a slight spoiler alert that for my money, the reason he was excommunicated is way more troubling than any paranormal thing. There was also allegedly a notable human visitor to the bell Farm in 1819. The claim is that Major General Andrew Jackson came to stay, and during the War of 1812, the three eldest Bell sons had served served under Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. Jackson had heard, according again to this tale, of the alleged haunting and even made a joke that the witch must be holding them up when the horses he was that were part of his. His travel group suddenly stopped as they approached the Bell farm. And according to Ingram's accounts of the visit, this entourage that was following Andrew Jackson was intending to spend a week there, but they left after just one night.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

She went on to spend different yarns to subsequent visitors to the Bell home, claiming at one point to be the spirit of a young girl and another to be the ghost of a family friend's stepmother. Nothing was consistent, much like all the earlier symptoms of the haunting. And it seems like things were shifting away from jovial toying into being a little more sinister.

[Holly Fry]

At one point, when family friend William Porter was staying at the house, Kate claimed to want to get in the bed with him. And he said that the bed cover slowly twisted into a human shape next to him and sort of curled up next to him. And thinking at that point that he had the witch captured, Porter picked up all of those bedclothes and intended to throw them in the fire, but they began to emit a really foul smell, and he dropped them on the floor.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In September of 1820, Lucy Bell had pleurisy. And the spirit allegedly acted as a nursemaid. So singing to her and checking in on her and what's described as a very loving way. According to William's account, Kate even brought hazelnuts and grapes to the sick woman.

[Holly Fry]

And the manifestations then had shifted from irritating. We said they kind of ratcheted up and were less jovial. But then they became downright chilling. So Betsy Bell began experiencing attacks that hearkened back to the descriptions of spirit torture from the Salem witch trials that had happened more than 100 years prior to the events on the bell farm. She described the sensation of feeling like she was being pricked with pins and as though she was being slapped by a disembodied, non corporeal hand. And her friends actually said that they witnessed welts appearing on her face and saw, at times, even her shoes being forcibly pulled off of her body.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The attacks on Betsy slowly subsided, but as they did, John Bell's health really deteriorated. He started having spells that lasted a day or two, during which his tongue would once again seem to stiffen and his face would go into spasms. Once these spells had passed, he seemed to be in fine health and he went about his life. But the incidents became more frequent and longer and more severe over time.

[Holly Fry]

Additionally, John Bell was tormented in a more assaultive way. He started to experience this feeling of being slapped in much the same way that Betsy had described, as well as also having his shirt, shoes jerked off of his feet repeatedly as he attempted to walk in the fields.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On the morning of December 19, 1820, John Bell could not be roused from sleep. A vial was found near his body that contained a dark liquid. And according to William's story, the family sent for a doctor from port Royal. And the spirit could be heard saying that the family patriarch would never rise from his bed again.

[Holly Fry]

This part's really hard for me, so if you're an animal person, maybe don't listen. For the next 20 seconds, the remaining contents of that mystery vial were tested by giving it to a cat. And that cat, of course, quickly died. The remaining bits of liquid were thrown in the fire and then produced a blue flame. John bell died on December 20, and the witch is said to have sung joyously throughout his burial there on the farm.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

After John's death, the spirit is said to have largely stopped in her activities, although she lingered into 1821 before she told Lucy that she would go, but return another seven years later. Of course, she stayed true to that in Ingram's book and appeared at the farm again in 1828.

[Holly Fry]

So when she reappeared, she started doing the same sorts of things as she had been doing early on in 1817 tapping around the house, pulling covers off of beds. But this only went on for two weeks and then Kate once again vanished. So at that point William, his brother Joel and their mother Lucy were the only people still living in the house, and they had all agreed to ignore the spirit and not engage with it. And apparently that worked as she left the Bell family seemingly for good.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And now that we've given some of the highlights of the Bell witch's time in Tennessee as based on William Bell's alleged recollection, we will talk about things from a more critical perspective. Before we do that, we're going to take a brief word from a sponsor.

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[Sacred Scandal Narrator]

At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of sacred scandal, we pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ.

[Elena Sada]

My name is Elena Sada and this is my story. It's a story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out.

[Sacred Scandal Narrator]

This season on Sacred Scandals, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History, we're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control. 35 years. That's how long Elizabeth Senate's family waited for justice to occur. 35 long years. I want to figure out why this case went on for as long as it did, why it took so many bizarre and unsettling turns along the way, and why, despite our best efforts to resolve suffering, we all too often make suffering worse.

[Alabama Murders Narrator]

He would say to himself, turn to the right, to the victim's family and apologize. Turn to the left. Tell my family I love him. So he had this little practice. To the right. I'm sorry. To the left. I love you.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Revisionist History, this is the Alabama Merchant Murders. Listen to Revisionist History, the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. J]

But the humility in knowing that life is this classroom that we should never graduate from is what is going to keep you growing, and that's all that matters. World Mental Health Day is around the corner. And on my podcast, just heal with Dr. J, I dive into what it really means to care for your mind, body and spirit. From breaking generational patterns to building emotional capacity, healing is a journey, and wholeness is the destination.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm gonna walk away feeling very healed and feeling like, yes, I'm gonna continue my healing journey and I'm gonna get some keys from you.

[Dr. J]

Listen to just heal with Dr. J from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

There are a lot of theories about the reality of the Bell witch and what was actually going on at this farm. If it was a ruse. One of the theories is that someone wanted to break up the relationship between Betsy Bell and her fiance, Joshua Gardner. And if that had been the motivation, the ruse was, in fact, successful. Betsy was frightened enough by the witch's admonitions against her marriage to Gardner that she broke up with him in 1821.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One of the contemporary explanations and one that we alluded to in the intro to the episode was that two of the bellboys had learned ventriloquism when they had traveled to New Orleans on trading trips. And then they had taught Betsy the skill, and the three of them got together to basically launch a big hoax. But there were some times during these events of the alleged haunting when one or the other of the Bell boys was away from the family home. And then there were also times when all three of them were present in plain sight, when the noises and the witch's voice were heard.

[Holly Fry]

And Betsy was, by all accounts, a lovely girl and very bright as well, who was admired by virtually all of the young men in the area. And there have been theories that a romantic rival may have been behind the haunting. And while the issues began when she was only 12, by the time she had been moved to break up with her longtime sweetheart, Joshua, she was 16.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One of the more likely suspects in the whole suitor theory is a man named Richard Powell. Richard had been the Bell children's teacher, but as Betsy grew toward adulthood, he seemed to take a romantic interest in her. And he was also a close friend of the family.

[Holly Fry]

And one of the things that makes Powell look so suspicious is that while he did not apparently tell his friends in the area, he was married. His wife, esther, was almost 20 years older than he was, and she died of unspecified causes the same year that Betsy finally broke off her engagement to Joshua Gardner. And I just want to note that while this is mentioned in several texts with a citation of the records of Robertson County, Tennessee, I found this little bit of information too late in the game to actually get eyes on those records. First confirmation. But it does show up in multiple different accounts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Richard Powell started to openly pursue Betsy after her ties to Gardner were severed, and he and Betsy were married in 1824. Richard died 17 years later, and Betsy remained a widow for the rest of her life until her death in 1890.

[Holly Fry]

So, yeah, some people think that that sort of chain of events points circumstantially to Richard Powell having orchestrated the whole thing. And remember that thing about John Bell being excommunicated from the church? It did not have to do with anything paranormal. It actually had to do with some shady lending practices and some usury in relation to the sale of slaves. So John Bell was basically making some shady business deals, and the church did not like that. So that is why he was excommunicated. It did not have anything to do with demonic possession.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Another incongruity from the Ingram book, which is the primary source that most other Bell witch authors draw from, is that visit from Andrew Jackson. There's never been anything to document Jackson making this trip and Andrew Jackson never wrote about it in his personal diaries. One would think that such a novel experience would merit at least a line or two in a diary.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. And as for Kate Batts, it's kind of a world of no. While there have been a vast array of rumors about her, including that she and John Bell had a bad business dealing that led her to curse him, and another that she was in fact pregnant by John Bell and that he killed her, she actually died decades after John Bell. So she could not have been vengeance haunting him and he definitely did not kill her.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It does appear, at least in the Ingram account, that Kate Batts was kind of an outsider in the community and was viewed with some suspicion. She was loud and brash, which for a woman in the late 18th and early 19th century basically meant scary rumors of witchcraft had been attached to her at various points in time, but more because it seems like she was peculiar and not because of any actual malicious behavior. So it seems like she was really more of a convenient figure for the people making up this story to pin on her rather than somebody that actually was a ghost.

[Holly Fry]

And there was even in that first account the link between the two suggesting that Kate Batts was somehow manifesting the various events through witchcraft. But apparently, even when the Bell witch was being perceived as a good thing, Kate Batts was incensed to be associated with it. So that idea really doesn't hold much water. And she was also, we should point out, Lucy Bell's niece. She was related to the Belles. Her father was actually Lucy Bell's brother. And there's also no record of this business deal gone bad between her and John Bell that instigated this ill will. And there's no real motive for her to go to so much trouble to pester this family.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On top of all these facts that don't really add up, there's the matter of the Ingram book and its truthfulness. Ingram, a newspaper man, was writing it, two generations removed from the actual events. We always talk about how unreliable even fresh eyewitness accounts can be. So even if he did have a manuscript that really was written by William Bell, that manuscript would have been written, according to Ingram's own introduction, in the 1840s, 20 years after the then adolescent William had experienced the so called Bell witch events. So it's like number one, a book Ingraham was writing much later, after William Bell had allegedly written it down 20 years after it had purportedly happened.

[Holly Fry]

And there's also the possibility that Ingraham assembled this tale as a deceptive fiction to capitalize on its sensational nature. There are just enough verifiable details about the family that it might convince readers while the supernatural elements of it are entirely unverifiable, none of it really passes muster as a true historical account of this alleged haunting.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And then, I mean, this reminds me of when we were talking about Anne, Bonnie and Mary Reid. One of the things that seems the most telling about how this, this whole account is that Ingram was incredibly insistent about how it was completely indisput. Here is a passage that we're going to read that's particularly unrelenting in how no one with any integrity could possibly ever doubt it.

[Holly Fry]

Knowing the character of the men and women who testify to these things, no one can disbelieve them or believe that they would have willfully misrepresented the facts. Nor can it be reasonably said that so many reputable witnesses had fallen into an abnormal state of mind and were so easily deceived. In all of their rigid investigations. A man may be arraigned for trial on the charge of murder, the court and jury knowing nothing about the facts and circumstances, but they are bound by both physical and moral law to believe and find the man guilty on the testimony of reputable witnesses detailing the facts and circumstances, and yet may form no opinion or idea as to the state of mind or cause that prompted the prisoner to commit the murder. So it is in this instance, the testimony is convincing of the truth of the wonderful phenomena at John Bell's, but the motive or cause is beyond our comprehension. And to this extent, the facts must be accepted.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It really happened, y'. All.

[Holly Fry]

You're horrible if you doubt it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Of course, today the Bell witch is a moneymaker. People love a good haunting story. So it gets told and retold and the details shift and change just like gooey ectoplasm. Aside from the dates associated with things like births and deaths, writings about the Bell witch often are really different in their details. I remember somebody telling me a story about the Bell witch, I think when I was in college that had basically a completely different cast of characters.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, there. There was even a book written recently by a clairvoyant that dispelled the long standing myth that the family was cursed. And this instead indicated that the land that they had moved to in Tennessee was the source of this curse.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Not only has the story been used as an ingredient in numerous films, but also a variety of, quote, documentary examinations of the paranormal. For a small fee, you can tour the Bell Witch Cave, which is on the property and is allegedly haunted, possibly by Kate herself. So if you're hankering to try to meet her, you can. It's probably what you're gonna see as a cave. Yeah, yeah.

[Holly Fry]

It's one of those things there you'll have people talk about, like all of the various components of it and how, you know, the blue flame, one of the things that's a little more science based is that when they threw that liquid from that vial into the fire and it burned blue, that that could be an indication of arsenic. So that perhaps someone had been systematically poisoning John Bell. But again, it's unclear who might have been doing that, although apparently he was kind of a weasel in some business dealings. So we don't know. But it definitely doesn't. When you really start to look at the facts of things, all of the elements that get sensationalized as super spooky don't really hold up to scrutiny. So that's the scoop on the Bell Witch.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Alena Sada]

Sacred Scandal is Back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Alena Sada was a nun for the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.

[Elena Sada]

When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Marcia Almaser, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.

[Alena Sada]

Surviving meant hiding. Escaping. Took courage. Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel on the island, Diehard Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

Malcolm Gladwell here. This season on Revisionist History. We're going back to the spring of 1988, to a town in northwest Alabama where a man committed a crime that would spiral out of control.

[Dr. J]

And he said, I've been in prison 24, 25 years. That's probably not long enough. I didn't kill him.

[Malcolm Gladwell]

From Revisionist History. This is the Alabama Murders. Listen to Revisionist the Alabama murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues. By talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

All, we basically sold our souls and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, why don't you.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Help her listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. J]

What's up everybody? It's snacks from the Trapped nerds. And all October long, we're bringing you.

[Holly Fry]

The Horror Boogity boogity boogy.

[Sacred Scandal Narrator]

We kicking off this month with some.

[Dr. J]

Of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always die first.

[Holly Fry]

And it's the return of Tony's Horror show side Quest, written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode reading with commentary, and we'll cap it.

[Dr. J]

Off with a horror movie Battle Royale. Open your free iHeartRadio app and search Trap Nerds podcast and listen now.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.