Terrifying & True Episodes

The murder of Brian Barrett became one of the most disturbing true crime cases of the early internet age: a deadly online love triangle built on catfishing, fake identities, chatroom deception, jealousy, and obsession. In 2006, 22-year-old Brian Barrett was shot and killed outside Dynabrade Corporation in Clarence, New York, near Buffalo. At first, the murder seemed almost motiveless. Brian was a college student, athlete, Little League coach, and future teacher with no obvious enemies. But inve...

The Taos Hum is one of America’s strangest unexplained sound mysteries: a low-frequency noise heard by only a small percentage of people, often described as a distant diesel engine, electrical drone, vibration, or pulsing hum with no visible source. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we investigate the mystery of the Taos Hum in northern New Mexico, where residents including Steve Walters, Bob and Catanya Saltzman, and K.C. Grams reported a persistent unexplained hum that disrupted sleep, co...

The murder of Jeffrey Hall is one of the most disturbing modern American true crime cases — not because the killer was hidden, but because the person who pulled the trigger was only 10 years old. On May 1, 2011, in Riverside, California, 32-year-old Jeffrey Hall was asleep on the couch when his son, Joseph Hall, took a .357 revolver from a closet, walked downstairs, and shot him in the head. Jeffrey Hall was not just a father. He was a local leader in the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi...

Terrifying & True | The Murder of Katarzyna Zowada: Krakow's Darkest Unsolved Murder On November 12, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Katarzyna Zowada vanished in Krakow, Poland. This disappearance marked the beginning of a case that would become one of modern horror history's most disturbing. Weeks later, a horrific discovery on the Vistula River unveiled forensic details and unanswered questions that continue to haunt the city. Join us as we delve into the baffling details and the chilling mystery...

The Beast of Bray Road is one of America’s most chilling modern cryptid legends — a terrifying true story of werewolf sightings, dogman encounters, rural folklore, eyewitness reports, and haunted highway horror from Elkhorn, Wisconsin. In the early 1990s, strange reports began spreading around Bray Road, a quiet country lane in Walworth County. Drivers claimed they saw something impossible in the headlights: a massive wolf-like creature crouched by the ditch, feeding on roadkill, then rising on...

The Setagaya Family Murders remain one of Japan’s most disturbing and baffling unsolved true crime cases: a brutal family killing, an overwhelming amount of forensic evidence, and a killer who somehow vanished anyway. On December 30, 2000, in Setagaya, Tokyo, the Miyazawa family — Mikio, Yasuko, Niina, and Rei — spent what should have been an ordinary night at home before New Year’s. Sometime between late night and the next morning, an intruder entered from the park side of the house and murder...

The Fox Sisters, Hydesville, and the birth of modern Spiritualism began with something terrifyingly simple: a knock in the dark. In 1848 Hydesville, New York, two young sisters, Maggie and Kate Fox, claimed they could communicate with a mysterious spirit inside their family farmhouse. What started as eerie nighttime rappings soon became a national obsession, drawing neighbors, skeptics, journalists, believers, and grieving families desperate for proof that death was not the end. The phenomenon ...

What really happened when a monstrous black dog with burning eyes was said to crash through two churches during a violent storm in East Anglia in 1577? In this episode of Terrifying & True, we dig into the chilling legend of Black Shuck, the infamous hell hound of Suffolk and Norfolk, and the real storm disaster that may have given one of England’s most terrifying folklore creatures its lasting power. From the shattered calm of church services in Bungay and Blythburgh, to stories of death omens...

The Lead Masks Case is one of the strangest unsolved mysteries in true crime history: two Brazilian electronics technicians, found dead on a hillside in Niterói, Brazil, wearing homemade lead eye masks, with a cryptic note instructing them to take capsules, await a signal, and use the mask afterward. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we dig into the eerie facts, the failed investigation, the missing cause of death, and the theories that have kept this bizarre case alive for decades—from UFO ...

The Anneliese Michel exorcism remains one of the most disturbing and controversial cases in modern religious history—a story of alleged demonic possession, failed medical treatment, Catholic ritual, and a young woman whose death still fuels arguments about faith, mental illness, epilepsy, and neglect. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we go beyond the sensational “real exorcism” legend and into the documented tragedy behind the case: a deeply religious woman in West Germany, months of ritual...

The Deer Woman is one of the most haunting figures in Indigenous folklore and modern paranormal legend—a beautiful woman with deer hooves who appears at the edge of the woods, the roadside, the party, or the dark place where safety ends. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we explore the chilling shape of the Deer Woman story, the many ways it appears across traditions and retellings, and the reason this legend still hits so hard today: because in many versions, she is not random evil. She is ...

What are the Men in Black really — secret government agents, UFO cover-up operatives, paranormal enforcers, or something even stranger? In this episode of Terrifying & True, we dig into the chilling history of the real Men in Black phenomenon, from the earliest UFO-era intimidation reports to later encounters that made witnesses fear for their lives. We trace the legend back to the Maury Island incident, the terror and sudden silence surrounding Albert K. Bender, the disturbing Point Pleasant / ...

A locked garage behind a quiet holiday cottage. A car filling with exhaust. And two bodies posed to tell a simple story: a suicide pact between two “betrayed” spouses. On May 19, 1991, in Castlerock, Northern Ireland, Lesley Howell (31) and Trevor Buchanan (32) are found dead inside a vehicle with a hose running from the exhaust into the car—an apparent double suicide that the community quickly accepts. Lesley is a mother of four. Trevor is a police constable and father. Both are mourned as vic...

A remote mountain lodge in the Sierra Nevada. A busy wedding weekend. And a violent break-in after midnight that leaves one woman dead and a key witness barely alive. On August 19, 1990, in Camp Nelson, California, Bonnie Hood (46) is shot and killed inside a cabin at Camp Nelson Lodge, a secluded retreat in Tulare County. Her handyman, Rudy Manuel, is shot in the head—but survives long enough to describe what he says happened. Investigators initially believe it’s a robbery… until the details d...

The Stanley Hotel isn’t just a famous haunted hotel in Estes Park, Colorado—it’s a place where real disaster and pop-culture horror fused into one unstoppable legend. Tonight, we trace the true story that begins with a stormy night in 1911, when acetylene gas silently pooled inside Room 217… and a single candle turned the west wing into a blast zone. A young head chambermaid, Elizabeth Wilson, is hurled through collapsing floors—and somehow survives. From there, the Stanley’s history becomes a ...

In 1845, Sir John Franklin and 129 men sailed into the Arctic chasing the Northwest Passage—and vanished into a white maze of ice, darkness, and slow collapse. This episode follows the chilling, evidence-anchored timeline of the Lost Franklin Expedition, from the first quiet graves at Beechey Island to the brutal trap of Victoria Strait, where the ice held two war-built ships like insects in amber: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. We trace the expedition’s last clear message—the Victory Point note—an...

A remote Arctic camp. Tents standing open in the wind. A half-finished mitten, needle still threaded—like someone stood up mid-stitch and never returned. The legend of Angikuni Lake is one of the most chilling “vanishing village” mysteries ever told: an Inuit camp along the Kazan River corridor in Nunavut—found eerily intact… but empty. In the campfire version, everything is wrong in the most cinematic way: food left behind, supplies untouched, dogs silent on their lines, and even a grave distu...

Portugal folklore turns feral in the mountain village of Podence, where the only warning is the clatter of cowbellsricocheting off stone walls. Then the Caretos burst from the dark—men (and now women and kids, too) swallowed in ragged ribbons of red, yellow, and green, faces erased behind blood-red demon masks, hips loaded with heavy bell harnesses that turn every lunge into a metallic scream. It’s Carnival… but it moves like a hunt. This is Entrudo—a tradition believed to reach back to pre-Rom...

A blizzard. A vanished trail. The San Juan Mountains in the winter of 1874. Six men leave safety behind—and only one walks back into town. This is the infamous Alfred (Alferd) Packer story: the “Colorado Cannibal” case that refuses to stay settled, because the evidence is brutal… and the survivor’s account keeps shifting. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we follow the doomed decision to cross the high country after Chief Ouray’s warning, the slow collapse into starvation, and the moment th...

Dive into chilling stories and eerie folklore with this terrifying true mystery from Siberia...A true crime / survival mystery in August 1993, seven hikers entered the Hamar-Daban Mountains of Buryatia (near Lake Baikal)—and only one walked back out. What happened on that windswept ridge has been called the “Buryat Dyatlov Pass”: a sudden storm, a frantic descent, and then a cascade of bizarre symptoms—foaming at the mouth, blood, panic, and collapse—leaving six bodies scattered on an exposed le...

Dive into Christmas true crime, Santa Claus history, and holiday folklore with the real medieval relic heist that helped shape the legend of Santa. In 1087, sailors from Bari, Italy break into the tomb of St. Nicholas in Myra (modern Turkey)—and the world’s most famous Christmas icon gets a disturbingly real origin story. Inside the candlelit crypt, witnesses claim the tomb is flooded with mysterious liquid—the “manna” of St. Nicholas—and the thieves interpret it as a sign the saint approves. B...

When most people think of Christmas, they picture cozy lights, warm cocoa, and jolly Saint Nick. But in parts of France and Belgium, children grew up with a much darker figure stalking the snowy streets: Père Fouettard, the “French Krampus” — Saint Nicholas’ brutal Christmas punisher. In this chilling episode of Terrifying & True, we unwrap one of Europe’s scariest Christmas legends, where miracle stories, war, and fear-based parenting all twist together in the shadows of the holiday season. We ...

Terrifying & True returns with dark Christmas horror rooted in real Alpine folklore and chilling winter horror stories. Long before cozy Hallmark snowfalls, families in the high Alps spent the Twelve Nights of Christmas fearing a “Christmas Witch” who might reward your hard work… or split you open and stuff you with straw if you broke her rules. This is the terrifying legend of Frau Perchta and her horned horde, the Perchten – where festive lights, fasting days, and spinning wheels turn into a d...

A Victorian Christmas looks cozy on greeting cards—glowing candle-lit trees, shimmering tinsel, children gathered around the fire. But behind the snow-globe charm was a season of deadly house fires, toxic decorations, poisoned sweets, and experimental electric lights that turned “old-fashioned Christmas” into a very real nightmare. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we dig into the true history of how festive traditions nearly burned homes to the ground, poisoned entire families, and forced t...