Terrifying & True Episodes

The Golem of Prague is one of the most famous monsters in Jewish folklore: a silent giant shaped from clay, awakened by sacred Hebrew letters, and ordered to defend Prague's Jewish community. But did Rabbi Judah Loew - the Maharal of Prague - really create a supernatural protector, and could the golem's body still be hidden in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue? This pre-Halloween Terrifying & True investigation traces the golem legend from Psalm 139 and the Babylonian Talmud to Sefer Yetzirah,...

When Legends Turn Deadly is a nearly five-hour Terrifying & True true crime and folklore marathon featuring eight stories about monsters, cultural memory, Spiritualism, murder, extremist violence, and fatal belief. The Hat Man, the Deer Woman, Djinn, the Melonheads, the Fox sisters, the Greenbrier Ghost, the murder of Jeffrey Hall, and the exorcism of Anneliese Michel form one escalating journey from modern nightmare to documented human tragedy. The journey begins between dreaming and waking, w...

Elisa Lam's death at the Cecil Hotel remains one of the internet age's most haunting true crime mysteries, even though the case received an official ruling. In January 2013, the twenty-one-year-old Canadian traveler disappeared from the notorious downtown Los Angeles hotel after appearing in the now-famous Cecil Hotel elevator video. Nineteen days after she was last publicly seen, she was found inside a rooftop water tank. This pre-Halloween true crime investigation follows the documented Elisa...

The Pale Crawler is a modern cryptid legend and Halloween Favorite tied to The Rake, a creepypasta deliberately created online in 2005. What began as an anonymous forum experiment soon became a wave of alleged humanoid sightings, viral trail-camera images, Reddit stories and YouTube horror. In this episode of Terrifying & True, we trace Operation Crawler and the birth of The Rake creepypasta, the alleged Effingham, Illinois and rural Kentucky encounters, the notorious Louisiana “swamp monster” ...

William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin stand at the center of one of the most famous and ethically troubling stories in the history of human experimentation. After an accidental musket blast on Mackinac Island in 1822 tore through St. Martin's ribs, lung, diaphragm and stomach, Army surgeon Beaumont saved his life. The wound healed into a permanent gastric fistula - a living opening through which Beaumont could observe human digestion directly. Beginning in 1825, Beaumont tied food to silk thre...

The USS Indianapolis sinking remains one of the most devastating naval disasters of World War II. On July 30, 1945, Japanese submarine I-58 torpedoed the heavy cruiser in the Philippine Sea after it completed a secret mission delivering components for the Little Boy atomic bomb to Tinian. Indianapolis sank in about twelve minutes. Nearly nine hundred sailors and Marines reached the water alive, but only 316 of the nearly twelve hundred people aboard survived. For more than three days, the survi...

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, c...

The Greenbrier Ghost is one of the strangest true crime cases in American history: a West Virginia murder trial where testimony about a ghost helped expose the truth. In 1897, Elva Zona Heaster Shue was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Her husband, Erasmus Stribbling “Trout” Shue, quickly took control of her body, covered her neck, and helped rush her toward burial before a complete medical examination could be performed. At first, Zona’s death was treated as natural. Then her m...

On spring break 2006, Ohio State medical student Brian Shaffer walked into a crowded Columbus bar—and vanished without a trace. Security cameras captured him near the Ugly Tuna Saloon moments before closing, but footage mysteriously never showed him leaving. Explore one of Ohio's most baffling true crime mysteries: the search for answers, theories that haunted the South Campus Gateway, and the supernatural questions that remain unsolved nearly two decades later. This episode of Terrifying & Tru...

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...

On November 12, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Katarzyna Zowada vanished in Krakow, Poland—a disappearance that would transform into one of modern horror history's most disturbing cases. Weeks later, a discovery on the Vistula River revealed forensic horror and unanswered questions that still haunt the city. Join Henrique as we explore the gaps, the inexplicable details, and the paranormal mystery behind one of Poland's most chilling unsolved murders. Inside this episode: • The disappearance of Ka...

The Beast of Bray Road is a chilling modern cryptid legend and one of America's most terrifying werewolf sightings — a true story of eerie folklore, haunted highways, and eyewitness horror from rural Wisconsin. In the early 1990s, drivers on Bray Road in Elkhorn reported seeing a massive wolf-like creature that defied explanation. Explore the chilling accounts, the rural legend that gripped a community, and the cryptid mystery that remains unsolved. Perfect eerie suspense storytelling for horror...

The Setagaya Family Murders remain one of Japan's most horrifying unsolved cases—a brutal true crime mystery wrapped in eerie forensics and supernatural dread. On December 30, 2000, investigators discovered the Miyazawa family in the aftermath of a nightmare that would baffle authorities for decades. With overwhelming evidence yet no killer ever caught, Henrique uncovers the haunting details, chilling theories, and the darkness that still surrounds this case. The killer did not immediately flee...

The Fox Sisters sparked spiritualism's biggest hoax in 1848 Hydesville, New York. Maggie and Kate claimed they could communicate with spirits through mysterious knockings—a deception that captivated millions, spawned folklore legends, and shaped paranormal belief for generations. Explore how two sisters' ghost story became history. But was it a true haunting… or one of the most consequential paranormal hoaxes ever performed? Inside this episode: - The Hydesville Rappings: How strange knocks i...

When a black hell hound with burning eyes supposedly crashed through two churches during a violent 1577 storm in Suffolk and Norfolk, was it folklore or fact? In this episode of Terrifying & True, we investigate Black Shuck—the most fearsome cryptid in English folklore—and uncover the real storm disaster that may have birth one of the world's most enduring eerie legends. From eyewitness accounts to historical records, we separate the supernatural from the historical truth. From the shattered ca...

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 ...

Anneliese Michel underwent months of Catholic exorcism while epilepsy, psychiatric distress, malnutrition, and dehydration pushed her toward a preventable death. Michel was a deeply religious young woman from Klingenberg, West Germany, with a documented history of seizures and years of medical treatment. As depression, hallucinations, aversion to religious objects, and frightening voices intensified, she and her family came to interpret her condition as demonic possession. Bishop Josef Stangl a...

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...