Terrifying & True Episodes

Kirtland, Ohio, folklore warns of childlike figures with oversized heads hiding near lonely roads—but no record proves that the Melonheads ever existed. Terrifying & True follows the regional urban legend through Ohio, Michigan, and Connecticut, where its location and origin change with every retelling. The best-known Ohio version centers on Dr. Crow, Crowe, Krohe, or “Dr. Melonhead.” In one story he shelters children with hydrocephalus; in another he subjects them to cruel experiments until th...

Charlie Brandt murdered his pregnant mother as a teenager, then lived an apparently ordinary life until a brutal 2004 double murder exposed his past. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, on January 3, 1971, 13-year-old Brandt shot his parents, killing his mother Ilse and her unborn child. His father survived, and sister Angela escaped when the gun failed. After roughly a year in psychiatric care, Brandt returned to his family and the crime was kept secret from those who later knew him. That hidden history ...

Lynnette Craft was preparing to leave an abusive marriage in June 1999 when she disappeared from her Swanton, Ohio, home with her infant son nearby. Her husband, Thomas Craft, gave relatives conflicting stories about where the 36-year-old had gone. That evening, investigators in Michigan recovered severed remains from a McDonald’s trash container along with Lynnette’s Ohio driver’s license. Blood evidence in the family home and Thomas’s inquiries about trash pickup undermined his claim that Lyn...

The wendigo is more than a winter monster: in Algonquian-speaking traditions, its endless hunger warns what happens when greed consumes a person. Terrifying & True explores windigo or wendigo stories among Ojibwe, Cree, Saulteaux, Naskapi, Innu, and other Indigenous peoples of North America. Accounts vary across communities, but many connect the being to famine, isolation, cannibalism, moral corruption, and an appetite that grows with everything it devours. Ojibwe scholar Basil H. Johnston desc...

Seven people died around Chicago in 1982 after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules secretly laced with cyanide, and the killer was never identified. The poisonings began with 12-year-old Mary Kellerman and rapidly spread through the suburbs. Adam Janus died after taking a capsule; his grieving brother Stanley and sister-in-law Theresa then used the same bottle and became victims themselves. Investigators eventually connected seven deaths to contaminated packages that appeared to have been re...

Who is Indrid Cold? The Grinning Man is a figure in West Virginia UFO folklore, made famous by Woodrow Derenberger’s reported 1966 encounter near Mineral Wells. Listen to Terrifying & True as we trace the witness account, its connection to Mothman lore, and the questions that remain.

Say “Bloody Mary” into a darkened mirror and a blood-covered woman may appear—or so generations of sleepover dares, schoolyard warnings, and urban legends insist. Terrifying & True explores a ritual whose rules change with every teller. Her name may be repeated three times, thirteen times, or until the participant’s fear turns an ordinary reflection into something hostile. Some versions promise a ghostly face; others warn of scratches, screams, prophecy, or a figure reaching through the glass. ...

The chupacabra began as a spined, reptilian creature in 1990s Puerto Rico, then transformed on the U.S. mainland into a hairless canine. Terrifying & True traces the “goat-sucker” from earlier livestock panic in Moca to the 1995 attacks around Canóvanas. Witness Madelyne Tolentino described a gray-green, upright being with large eyes and spikes down its back, while radio host Silverio Pérez helped give the new cryptid its name. Television, tabloids, UFO speculation, and the early internet carri...

Ohio’s Bigfoot legend—the Grassman—haunts Salt Fork State Park, Hocking Hills, and the Appalachian foothills through sightings, howls, footprints, and stories that resist proof. Terrifying & True follows the state’s reputation as a major center of reported Sasquatch activity. Witnesses describe tall, hair-covered figures crossing roads and driveways, moving through old strip mines, shaking trees, throwing rocks, or calling from deep forest. Salt Fork State Park became a particular focus for inv...

Nine experienced hikers fled a damaged tent on a frozen Ural Mountains slope in 1959, leaving behind footprints, severe injuries, and the enduring mystery of Dyatlov Pass. Igor Dyatlov’s group camped on Kholat Syakhl during poor weather after one member had turned back because of illness. When searchers reached the site weeks later, they found the tent cut from inside and the party’s shoes, clothing, food, diaries, and equipment abandoned. Footprints led toward the forest, where the first bodie...

The Fouke Monster turned a small Arkansas town into the home of one of America’s most enduring regional Bigfoot legends—and inspired a landmark drive-in horror film. Terrifying & True traces reports of a tall, foul-smelling, red-eyed creature around Fouke and the Texarkana region, including stories that predate the best-known wave of sightings. The episode centers on Bobby and Elizabeth Ford’s alleged May 1971 encounter, the three-toed tracks found near their home, later highway sightings, the ...

Elizabeth Short’s 1947 murder became known as the Black Dahlia case, transforming a 22-year-old victim into one of Los Angeles’s most enduring unsolved true-crime symbols. Short’s body was discovered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park area on January 15. It had been severed, washed, drained of blood, and deliberately posed. The condition of the remains led investigators to consider whether the killer had anatomical or medical knowledge, while the lack of blood at the lot suggested she had been...

Brandon Lee was filming The Crow when a prop revolver fired a lodged bullet, turning a carefully staged death scene into a fatal on-set accident. On March 31, 1993, Lee was performing as Eric Draven in what was expected to become his breakthrough role. The revolver used in the scene had previously been loaded with improvised dummy cartridges for a close-up. One cartridge still contained an active primer, which pushed its bullet into the barrel without producing the force or sound of a normal gu...

Project Blue Book investigated 12,618 UFO reports for the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War—and closed with 701 cases still classified as unidentified. The program grew from Project Sign and Project Grudge before receiving the Blue Book name in 1952. Its mission was to determine whether unidentified flying objects threatened national security and to analyze sightings scientifically. Under Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, investigators standardized reports and examined radar contacts, photographs, pi...

Ed Gein’s Plainfield, Wisconsin, farmhouse concealed grave robbery, murder, and objects made from human remains—crimes that reshaped American horror fiction. Gein grew up under the control of his mother Augusta, whose extreme religious teachings portrayed women and sexuality as corrupt. After the deaths of his closest family members, he lived alone on the farm and began exhuming recently buried women. He removed bodies and used skin and bones to create masks, clothing, containers, and household...

The Bermuda Triangle is blamed for vanishing ships, lost aircraft, broken compasses, and supernatural forces—but its most famous cases have more earthly explanations than the legend suggests. Terrifying & True maps the region commonly drawn between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, then follows the disappearances that built its reputation. The USS Cyclops vanished in 1918 with more than 300 people aboard and no confirmed wreckage. In 1945, five Navy bombers known as Flight 19 became disoriented ...

Anonymous letters from “The Watcher” turned 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, from a family’s dream home into an unsolved stalking mystery. Derek and Maria Broaddus purchased the house in 2014 and began renovations before moving in with their three children. Within days, a typewritten letter arrived from someone claiming a generational duty to watch the property. Later messages referred to the children, vehicles, movements around the home, and details that convinced the family they were u...

Sleep paralysis can leave a person awake but unable to move while a shadowy presence appears beside the bed or an invisible weight presses against the chest. Terrifying & True explores the frightening overlap between waking consciousness and rapid-eye-movement sleep. During REM sleep, the brain temporarily suppresses most voluntary muscle movement. An episode can occur when awareness returns before that protection has fully lifted, producing seconds or minutes of immobility, fear, and dreamlike...

Marty Markowitz sought help from psychiatrist Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf—then watched the doctor take control of his relationships, business, money, home, and sense of self for nearly three decades. The relationship began in 1981 as Markowitz struggled with grief, family conflict, and pressure surrounding his fabric business. Herschkopf gradually moved beyond the boundaries of therapy, becoming a constant adviser and social presence. Marty cut off family members labeled “toxic,” changed his will, g...

Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster, swims through Indigenous tradition, disputed historical claims, modern photographs, and a thriving regional cryptid culture. Terrifying & True begins with stories associated with Abenaki and Iroquois communities before examining a frequently repeated claim that Samuel de Champlain saw the creature in 1609. His surviving description more closely resembles a large fish, and historians debate whether it belongs in the Champ story at all. The episode th...

Rodney Alcala appeared as a charming bachelor on national television while concealing a history of sexual violence and murder that stretched across years. On September 13, 1978, Alcala won a date with Cheryl Bradshaw on The Dating Game. Bradshaw declined to go out with him after the taping because his behavior made her uneasy. The show had not uncovered his criminal record, including the brutal attack on eight-year-old Tali Shapiro and an earlier place on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives lis...

Jinn are far older and more complex than the wish-granting genies of Western popular culture: unseen beings of Islamic tradition and pre-Islamic Arab folklore with moral choice of their own. Terrifying & True explores descriptions of jinn as beings created from smokeless fire, distinct from humans and angels. In the Qur’an they are accountable for their decisions and may be good, harmful, faithful, rebellious, or indifferent. Earlier traditions linked them with wilderness, abandoned places, poe...

Twelve-year-old Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke planned the murder of her family in Medicine Hat, Alberta, after her parents tried to end their relationship. On April 23, 2006, Marc and Debra Richardson and their eight-year-old son were found killed inside their home. Jasmine was initially treated as a missing child, but emails, online messages, and evidence recovered by investigators pointed to a conspiracy between her and Steinke. Their relationship had develop...

Oak Island’s Money Pit has drawn treasure hunters into a centuries-long cycle of excavation, flooding, tantalizing finds, and theories that grow faster than the hole itself. The popular origin story begins in 1795, when Daniel McGinnis and two friends noticed a depression and signs of earlier activity on the Nova Scotia island. Their digging reportedly revealed layers of timber at regular intervals, encouraging later companies to descend in search of pirate gold. As shafts deepened, seawater ru...