Terrifying & True Episodes

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...

Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel connects a real explosion with the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining. Terrifying & True visits Estes Park, Colorado, tracing the 1911 disaster, Elizabeth Wilson's survival, and the ghost stories surrounding F. O. and Flora Stanley. King's 1974 stay helped turn empty corridors into horror history; later television and tourism carried the legend further. Reported hauntings remain distinct from documented events. Explore how a hotel became a destination for pa...

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...

In August 1993, six members of Lyudmila Korovina’s hiking group died rapidly in Siberia’s Hamar-Daban Mountains; Valentina Utochenko was the only survivor. - The trek: Lyudmila Korovina leads six young hikers into the Hamar-Daban range - The turn: August 4–5 — a brutal storm hits at roughly 2,300 meters - The collapse: eyewitness survivor account of sudden convulsions and rapid deaths - The recovery: why the scene looked “impossible,” and what time + wildlife can do - The official file: why aut...

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...

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...

Every November we hear the cozy legend of the First Thanksgiving—Pilgrims, turkey, and a peaceful feast in the New World. But the real story behind Thanksgiving is much darker. Long before it became a holiday, the land around Plymouth was a plague-ravaged, haunted wilderness, where the Pilgrims saw the Devil in every tree… and the Wampanoag saw spirits in every swamp. This is the terrifying true story behind the celebration we remember every Thanksgiving. In this Thanksgiving horror history ep...

The First Thanksgiving wasn’t a cheerful myth—it was born from starvation, epidemic, and uneasy diplomacybetween the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims at Plymouth in 1620–1621. In this Terrifying & True deep-dive, we peel back comforting legend to confront the Great Dying, the stark winter that followed the Mayflower landfall, and the fragile accord brokered through Samoset, Squanto, and Massasoit. We unpack the mutual-defense treaty, the practical lifelines of corn, fish, and eels, the political subt...

The true story of the Donner Party—cannibalism and survival in the Sierra Nevada. In winter 1846–1847, nearly 90 pioneers were snowbound at Truckee/Donner Lake after betting on the Hastings Cutoff and losing critical weeks in the Wasatch Mountains and Great Salt Lake Desert. What followed—starvation, the Forlorn Hope snowshoe escape, and cannibalism—became America’s most infamous saga of westward migration. This documentary-style episode of Terrifying & True traces the route from Springfield, I...

When the Halloween season rolls in, few names cast a darker shadow than Ed and Lorraine Warren—the real-life ghost hunters behind The Conjuring, Amityville Horror, and Annabelle. Their stories have fueled decades of scary movies, haunted house legends, and late-night whispers. But how much of it was true… and how much was carefully crafted myth? This Terrifying & True deep dive unearths the real case files, skeptical investigations, and shocking contradictions that made the Warrens the most pol...

Richard Trenton Chase killed six people in Sacramento between December 1977 and January 1978 while suffering violent delusions centered on blood. Richard Trenton Chase, the “Vampire of Sacramento,” whose 1977–1978 crimes turned neighborhood fear into a citywide lockdown. We connect the early warning signs to the unlocked-door “invitation” pattern, the frantic manhunt and FBI profile, and the courtroom fight over sanity and responsibility. With clear sourcing and zero fluff, we trace how untreat...