Oct. 12, 2026

Terrifying & True | Hex Hollow Murder: Killing to Break a Curse

Show Notes
Transcript

The Hex Hollow murder began with a search for a book and a lock of hair. In 1928, three attackers killed Pennsylvania farmer Nelson Rehmeyer, believing he had cursed them. Their attempt to burn away the evidence failed. Follow the York County investigation, the trials, and the headlines that turned a folk healer into a sinister legend. With voices from the Hex Hollow documentary, we separate Pennsylvania Dutch powwow traditions from accusations of harmful magic and return to the man behind the story. How did fear of a curse become permission for violence?

We're telling that story tonight.

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They came for a lock of hair to break a curse.

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They left a murdered man and a burning farmhouse. But

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the flames went out before the evidence disappeared. What convinced

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three people that this neighborhood simply had to be stopped?

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What you are about to hear is believed to be real.

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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is

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Terrifying and True.

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Tonight, in York County, Pennsylvania, a farmhouse has survived a

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fire that was meant to conceal a killing. It's Thanksgiving week, 1928.

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Inside lies Nelson Riemeyer, a farmer and folk healer, whose

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name will become inseparable from a story about witchcraft. Three

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people have attacked him. They came looking for a book,

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and a lock of his hair. Believing these things could

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free them from a curse, one of them, John Blymeyer,

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had known Remyer long before that night. On an earlier visit,

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Remyer had given him and a young companion a place

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to sleep. In the morning, he made them breakfast. They

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came back with help. The trials would expose... A terrible crime.

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The headlines would turn it into a spectacle, and somewhere

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between the testimony and the legend, the man who died

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would become harder to see. What happened in Hex Hollow

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asks us to look beyond the scorched floor and the

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supposed spellbook into a world where healing prayers and accusations

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of harmful magic could become... dangerously confused. Tonight, we follow

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the evidence behind the legend and the family voices trying

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to bring Nelson Remyer back into focus. So make sure

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you're subscribed as we tell that story tonight. Thanksgiving Day

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fell on a Thursday, November 29th, 1928. Around noon, concern

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settled over a farm in North Hopewell Township, roughly 15

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miles from York. Nelson Remyer's animals had not been properly attended.

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Their noise carried far enough that neighbors went to investigate.

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Oran's trial reconstruction names neighbor David Vanover as the man

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who entered around noon. Some later accounts instead name Oscar Glatfelter.

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They agree on what drew attention to the property. The

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ordinary rhythm of the farm had ceased. Inside the house,

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the kitchen had been scorched. Riemeyer lay face down on

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the floor. His ankles bound, his body and clothing badly burned.

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The fire had gone out before consuming the house. The

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room still held the story the killers had tried so

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hard to erase. Investigators recorded pieces of a broken chair,

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an oil burner, a flashlight, a metal halter snap, burning

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bedding material, and lengths of rope. Some of that rope

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would be connected to a 25-foot clothesline bought in York

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only days earlier. Medical witnesses described bruising, cuts, and a

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compound fracture of the skull, severe enough that it might

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have caused death. They also documented extensive burning. What the

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accessible medical record does not establish is whether Riemeyer was alive.

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when the fire was lit. The later claim that he

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was burned alive goes beyond what the evidence can prove.

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Years later, Jeanette Harvey, who had known Nelson as a girl,

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remembered how the news reached her.

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The lady across the street, she said, did you know

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that Nelson Raymar was killed?

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Nothing supernatural had protected the farmhouse. The attempted arson simply failed.

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But that failure changed everything. The burned floor, the ropes,

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the shattered furniture, and the body remained available to investigators.

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Whoever had done this had not made a victim disappear.

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They had left a room full of evidence. and a

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trial leading backward through two visits, one printed book, and

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a belief that Nelson Riemeyer was responsible for hardships he

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had never been proven to cause. Before the headlines converted

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him into the Witch of Hex Hollow, Nelson D. Riemeyer

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was a 60-year-old farmer. Patrick Donmire's research describes a modest

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45-acre property where Riemeyer raised potatoes, corn, apples, and chickens

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with comparatively little livestock. He was married to Alice Riemeyer

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and had children, although he and his family were living separately.

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Later scholarly accounts connect that arrangement in part to the

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stream of people who came seeking his help. But the

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surviving record does not tell us enough to turn a

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private family arrangement into either scandal or sentiment. Riemeyer was

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known as an outspoken man. Historian Owen Davies identifies him

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as an active socialist, a position that could make a

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person conspicuous in rural York County. He was also associated

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with Pennsylvania Dutch folk healing. Neighbors knew he practiced what

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English speakers called how-wow. Some apparently regarded him as helpful.

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Others considered him peculiar. Neither reputation proves anything about a curse.

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The most important documented fact about his relationship with the

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men who killed him is painfully simple. When two of

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them arrived at his house on their first visit... He

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accepted them as guests, allowed them to stay overnight, and

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made them food in the morning. To understand why they came,

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we have to separate a living tradition from the lurid

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category imposed upon it after the murder. Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow

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is also called Brauw Keraai. Its roots are primarily European

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and Pennsylvania German. and its customary purposes were healing, blessing,

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and protection. Practitioners used Christian prayers, passages of scripture, gestures,

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spoken or silent formulas, household objects, and knowledge passed through

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families or teachers. A person might seek help for bleeding, burns, fever, pain,

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a sick animal, or the fear that some harmful influence

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had settled over a home. In Shane Free's documentary, Hex Hollow,

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one practitioner explains the tradition this way.

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Powwow is Pennsylvania German folk healing. In itself, it is

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a very simple thing. It's what one of my teachers

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called act of prayer. Some people will call it magic,

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folk magic, and to a certain extent it does fall

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into that realm, but there are many practitioners who shun

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the word entirely.

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The English word powwow creates some confusion. It was borrowed

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from an Algonquin language used dismissively by English colonists for

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ritual practices they didn't understand and later attached to Pennsylvania

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German healing. Brauchairi itself is not an indigenous ceremonial powwow.

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The shared English label does not make the traditions the same.

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Pennsylvania Dutch is also broader than Amish. It refers to

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a diverse Pennsylvania German cultural population that has included Lutheran, Reformed, Moravian, Mennonite, Brethren, Amish,

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and Catholic communities. Treating all Pennsylvania Dutch people as one

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secluded religious group repeats the simplification that helped distort this

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case in 1929. Within the tradition, Braukeirai, often referred to

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beneficial or protective work. Hexairai usually carried the darker meaning

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of harmful magic or the accusation that someone had caused

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illness or misfortune. The vocabulary was never perfectly uniform. A

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healer could be asked to counteract a supposed hex without

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claiming to practice any harmful magic. That distinction is central

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in this topic. Rehmeyer's association with healing did not make

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him a person who placed curses. There's no reliable evidence

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that he hexed John Blymeyer, the Hess family, or anyone else.

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The accusation came from people trying to give their own

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suffering a human source. Printed books could accompany an oral practice,

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and none became more famous in Pennsylvania than Johann Georg

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Hohmann's The Long Lost Friend. First published in the United

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States in 1820 and issued in English by the mid-19th century,

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it gathered remedies, prayers, protections, and folk procedures for people

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and animals. It was sold commercially and circulated widely It

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was not a unique handwritten manuscript belonging only to Riemeyer,

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and it was not a satanic field manual. One famous

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protection promised that whoever carried the book would be, quote,

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safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible. Other entries

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addressed bleeding, burns, illness, livestock, and daily hazards in language

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saturated with Christian belief. A modern historian may call The

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Long Lost Friend a grimoire, a handbook of procedures intended

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to influence events through supernatural means. That useful scholarly category

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does not erase the book's local function as a practical

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collection of blessings and remedies, nor does it mean every

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owner believed every promise within. For Riemeyer, the book appears

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to have belonged to his practice. For John Blymeyer, it

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became something else. An object that seemed to concentrate both

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Riemeyer's supposed power and the possibility of escape from it.

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John Blymeyer's surname appears as B-L-Y-M-Y-E-R instead of B-L-Y-M-I-R-E through

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much of the court era record. On the witness stand,

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he gave his age as 33, although some newspapers called

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him 32. He had grown up close to powwow practice.

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His father, Immanuel Blymeyer, was remembered as a healer. and

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John had attempted some practice himself. He therefore did not

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approach Riemeyer's world as a complete outsider. He knew the

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language of cures, hexes, and countermeasures well enough to make

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it the framework through which he interpreted his own life.

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That life contained genuine hardship. Blymeyer had recurring physical complaints-

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difficulty settling in to work, and periods of acute psychological distress.

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His family endured the deaths of two children, and his

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marriage to Lily Bell Alloway deteriorated. In 1923, his father-in-law

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arranged for him to be evaluated through the York County Almshouse,

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and Blymeier was later committed to the Harrisburg State Hospital.

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A period description used the diagnosis, quote, hypochondriacal melancholia. That

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is historical language, not a diagnosis we would be able

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to safely translate into a modern condition. It came from

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an era with different institutions, categories, and standards of care.

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Blymeier later escaped during a baseball game and returned to York.

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His marriage ended in divorce. Mental distress did not make

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murder inevitable, and it does not remove the choices that followed.

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Many people endure illness, grief, and psychiatric crisis without harming anyone.

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What shaped this case was Blymeier's developing explanation for his suffering. Restlessness,

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failed work, family loss, and physical discomfort ceased to be

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separate events, he increasingly treated them as evidence of a

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single hostile act. During his trial, he reduced that belief

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to three words, quote, I was bewitched. Blymeier consulted practitioners,

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including Andrew Lenhart and Sam Schmuck. According to the trial-era account,

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They reinforced his conviction that a hex existed, but did

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not name the person responsible. Blymeier kept searching for a

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face to place behind the idea. Riemeyer was not a

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stranger to him. Blymeier testified that Riemeyer had treated him

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about a year earlier, and that he had once slept

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at Riemeyer's home. Later retellings moved that treatment into Blymeier's

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The trial-era version is a safer one. A prior healer-patient

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relationship had become, in Blymeier's mind, a relationship between persecutor

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and victim. The final identification was attributed to a woman

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near Marietta, Pennsylvania, whose name is one of the case's

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persistent problems. Contemporary newspapers called her Emma Knopp. Modern scholars

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often call her Emma Knapp. A near-contemporary trial reconstruction calls

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her Mrs. Knoll. The familiar name Nellie Knoll belongs securely

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to later retellings, not to a single consistent court-era identity.

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Rather than pretending the sources agree, it's more accurate to

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call her the Marietta Practitioner, Blymeier consulted. Blymeier testified that

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she used a dollar bill in a simple visual procedure.

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He stared at the portrait. The bill was removed from

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his palm, and he interpreted the lingering afterimage as the

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face of Nelson Riemeier. That testimony tells us what Blymeier experienced.

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It doesn't independently establish what the woman intended for him

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to see. and it certainly does not establish that Riemeyer

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had done anything to him. It supplied the name Blymeyer

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had been seeking desperately. Her supposed prescription changes depending on

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the source. In some trial-era testimony, Blymeyer needed a lock

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of Riemeyer's hair or Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend.

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Clayton Hess remembered an instruction to bury the hair six

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or eight feet underground. Other reports say eight feet. Later

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versions combine every element into a ritual checklist. Steal both

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hair and book, burn one, bury both, or destroy the book,

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bury the hair, and be sure to get it at

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the exact depth. The record does not justify that precision.

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What remains consistent is that Blymeyer believed physical objects connected

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to Remyer could break the curse. He did not pursue

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those objects alone. John Curry was 14 years old and

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frequently in Blymeyer's company. Later historians have described him as

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Blymeyer's young sidekick or protege. Wilbert Granville Hess was 18.

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the son of a York County family suffering its own

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run of illness, crop trouble, livestock losses, and stolen chickens.

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The Hesses believed their farm had been hexed and turned

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to Blymeyer for help. Wilbert, therefore, entered the plan through

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a family fear that Blymeyer was already validating. Curry and

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Hess were young and susceptible to an older man's certainty,

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but neither was an object without agency. Each took part

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in decisions that became progressively more deliberate and On Sunday,

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November 25th, Blymeyer met with members of the Hess family

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and outlined the effort to obtain something from Riemeyer. The

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following day, Monday, November 26th, Blymeyer and Curry bought approximately

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25 feet of cotton clothesline in York. They cut it

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into useful lengths. Clayton Hess then drove them toward Riemeyer

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Hollow and let them out near the woods. The rope

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was already with them. Whatever language they used for curse-breaking,

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they were preparing to restrain a man. At about 7.45

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that evening, Blymeier and Curry visited Alice Riemeier for roughly

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half an hour, then crossed the fields to Nelson's house.

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Nelson knew them and admitted them. They said they were visiting,

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and the encounter lasted late enough that he allowed them

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to remain overnight. The two slept in the kitchen. In

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the morning, Riemeyer prepared breakfast. They left without attacking him,

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00:21:26.809 --> 00:21:32.519
without cutting his hair, and without taking the book. Bleimeyer

226
00:21:32.579 --> 00:21:37.039
later explained that they considered Riemeyer too strong for the

227
00:21:37.099 --> 00:21:41.759
two of them. Hospitality had given them access. Their own

228
00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:48.299
calculation postponed the assault. That first visit is sometimes presented

229
00:21:48.539 --> 00:21:54.420
as harmless reconnaissance that only later became violent. The rope

230
00:21:54.579 --> 00:22:00.359
makes the truth less comfortable. The possibility of binding Riemeyer

231
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:05.460
was already present, yet the men still had another chance

232
00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:11.680
to stop. after leaving his breakfast table. Instead, Blymeier sought

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00:22:11.859 --> 00:22:18.200
additional strength. He brought 18-year-old Wilbert Hess into the return trip.

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00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:24.099
On Tuesday, November 27th, Clayton Hess again drove them toward

235
00:22:24.140 --> 00:22:28.819
the hollow. The three completed the journey on foot. The

236
00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:33.400
reliable record establishes the rope, but it does not establish

237
00:22:33.460 --> 00:22:38.279
that they arrived carrying the collection of clubs, axes, or

238
00:22:38.779 --> 00:22:45.660
occult equipment, added by later storytellers. Riemeyer admitted them again.

239
00:22:46.509 --> 00:22:50.930
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's later account says the evening was

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00:22:51.049 --> 00:22:54.630
cold and that after letting the three into his kitchen,

241
00:22:55.269 --> 00:23:00.569
he turned to tend the fire. Blymeyer's own testimony said

242
00:23:00.650 --> 00:23:05.779
he asked for the long-lost friend. Other evidence led the

243
00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:09.349
appellate court to conclude that no effort was made to

244
00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:14.170
obtain Hare, and no particular search for the book occurred

245
00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:21.549
before violence began. Those versions are not identical. They agree

246
00:23:21.789 --> 00:23:27.349
on the decisive point. The visitors had planned to overpower him,

247
00:23:27.529 --> 00:23:41.519
and within moments, the visit became an assault. The exact

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00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:48.680
choreography cannot be recovered cleanly because the defendants shifted responsibility

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00:23:49.259 --> 00:23:55.400
among themselves. Blymeier admitted using his fists and swinging a chair,

250
00:23:56.180 --> 00:24:01.009
although he said the chair missed Riemeier and broke. He

251
00:24:01.069 --> 00:24:06.569
attributed blows with wood and kicking to Curry. Curry's alleged

252
00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:11.829
written confession described striking Riemeier with a block of wood,

253
00:24:12.410 --> 00:24:17.089
but the trial judge excluded that confession after questions about

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00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:22.029
how it had been obtained. Hess later argued that he

255
00:24:22.130 --> 00:24:27.119
played the lesser role and acted under the domination of

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00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:34.660
the others. Physical evidence established a violent struggle, broken furniture, binding,

257
00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:39.680
and a fractured skull. It did not assign every injury

258
00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:45.410
to a particular hand. Riemeyer was beaten down and bound.

259
00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:50.059
Rope was placed around his ankles, and evidence described a

260
00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:55.660
rope halter or ligature around his neck. The men went

261
00:24:55.740 --> 00:25:00.640
upstairs and searched. They did not obtain a lock of hair.

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00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:07.170
They did not produce Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend afterwards.

263
00:25:08.029 --> 00:25:12.799
Blymeier later suggested that an object passed to Curry might

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00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:16.940
have been the book, but no book was recovered, and

265
00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:22.480
the appellate account said the search was limited. The object

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00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.440
around which so much of the plan had formed remained

267
00:25:26.539 --> 00:25:33.380
beyond their control. They did find money, about three dollars,

268
00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:37.920
and divided it. They poured water around the scene in

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00:25:37.940 --> 00:25:43.990
an apparent effort to remove fingerprints. Blymeier and Curry had

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00:25:44.049 --> 00:25:51.329
worn gloves. Bedding or ticking was placed near or over Riemeier.

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00:25:52.170 --> 00:25:55.910
Oil from a lamp was poured and the material was ignited.

272
00:25:56.690 --> 00:25:59.880
The Supreme Court later treated the purpose of the fire

273
00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:04.619
as the destruction of the house and the evidence inside it.

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00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:10.720
Some later accounts fold the burning into the curse-breaking ritual itself.

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00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:17.720
The surviving legal evidence more firmly supports concealment, although ritual

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00:26:17.819 --> 00:26:23.329
motive and practical cover-up may have overlapped in the defendant's thinking.

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00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:28.849
The assault occurred on the night of Tuesday, November 27th.

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00:26:29.569 --> 00:26:33.509
It may have continued after midnight into Wednesday, November 28th.

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00:26:34.910 --> 00:26:40.089
The accessible record does not fix a trustworthy minute. The

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00:26:40.150 --> 00:26:44.950
clock stopped at 12.01. The full moon overhead and the

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00:26:45.029 --> 00:26:51.619
claim that this happened on Thanksgiving night belonged to later storytelling.

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00:26:52.619 --> 00:26:57.740
Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 29th, more than a day after

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00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:02.589
the men had entered the farmhouse. Preserving that chronology, does

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00:27:02.670 --> 00:27:06.769
not weaken the atmosphere of the case. It restores the

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00:27:06.849 --> 00:27:11.980
sequence the evidence actually supports. When the three men left,

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00:27:12.339 --> 00:27:17.839
they believed the room would disappear in fire. Instead, the

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00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:24.220
flames consumed material around Riemeyer and damaged the floor before

288
00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:29.130
going out. The men had neither the hair nor a

289
00:27:29.170 --> 00:27:34.019
confirmed copy of the book. What they carried away was

290
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.500
a small amount of money and the knowledge of what

291
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.740
they had done. What they left behind was enough to

292
00:27:42.809 --> 00:27:48.069
turn a missing routine on a farm into a homicide investigation.

293
00:27:49.089 --> 00:27:54.789
Alice Riemeyer gave authorities a direct starting point. Bleimeyer and

294
00:27:54.869 --> 00:27:59.400
Curry had visited her before crossing to Nelson's house, and

295
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:03.579
she could identify them. The rope at the scene corresponded

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00:28:03.630 --> 00:28:08.660
with clothesline purchased in York. The separate statements of the

297
00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:13.960
suspects supplied overlapping facts even as they contradicted one another

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00:28:14.089 --> 00:28:19.710
about the violence. Within a short period, Blymeier, Curry, and

299
00:28:19.789 --> 00:28:26.569
Hess were in custody. Newspapers announced confessions almost immediately. although

300
00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:30.130
the courtroom later excluded at least one of the most

301
00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:37.230
important statements. That distinction became especially important for Curry. The

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00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:42.680
prosecution possessed a written statement in which the 14-year-old reportedly

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00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:47.900
admitting striking Remyer with wood. Judge Ray Sherwood excluded it

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00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:52.849
after testimony that Curry had been promised help. On the

305
00:28:52.900 --> 00:28:58.079
witness stand, Curry denied robbery as his purpose, but admitted

306
00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:00.839
that he had gone to obtain the lock of hair

307
00:29:01.660 --> 00:29:07.410
and to witness what he described as witchcraft. The jury

308
00:29:07.490 --> 00:29:12.730
therefore heard his participation in the plan without receiving every

309
00:29:13.029 --> 00:29:19.839
dramatic sentence printed outside the courtroom. The defendants demanded separate trials.

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00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:24.299
That legal choice is the reason there was no single

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00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:30.380
hex murder trial, despite the phrase appearing in documentaries and

312
00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:38.529
later summaries. York County tried three people in three successive proceedings. Together,

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00:29:38.609 --> 00:29:44.740
the trials occupied six consecutive court days in January of 1929.

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00:29:44.740 --> 00:29:51.140
The legal question was not whether curses existed. It was

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00:29:51.309 --> 00:29:55.710
what each defendant intended, what each had done, and what

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00:29:55.809 --> 00:30:03.480
degree of murder the evidence proved. John Blymeyer's trial began Monday,

317
00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:09.849
January 7th. The Commonwealth had evidence of planning, the rope purchase,

318
00:30:10.130 --> 00:30:14.849
the first visit, the decision to recruit Hess, the return,

319
00:30:15.269 --> 00:30:19.470
the gloves, the search, the stolen money, and the attempted

320
00:30:19.549 --> 00:30:26.440
destruction of the scene. Prosecutors could argue premeditation and robbery,

321
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.849
even while the defense insisted that Blymeier's fixation on a

322
00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:36.900
hex was the true route into the crime. His lawyers

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00:30:37.019 --> 00:30:43.440
raised insanity and presented his institutional history, long distress and

324
00:30:43.579 --> 00:30:49.750
consuming belief that Riemeier had bewitched him. The defense did

325
00:30:49.789 --> 00:30:54.930
not simply need to prove that Blymeier held an irrational belief.

326
00:30:55.670 --> 00:31:00.029
It had to persuade jurors that his mental condition met

327
00:31:00.069 --> 00:31:07.089
the legal standard for avoiding full criminal responsibility. The prosecution

328
00:31:07.269 --> 00:31:13.119
answered with his organized conduct. He had consulted people, selected

329
00:31:13.180 --> 00:31:18.680
a target, bought rope, tested access to the farmhouse, recruited help,

330
00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:23.789
returned with gloves, helped search the property, and participated in

331
00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:29.700
efforts to remove fingerprints and burn the evidence. A jury

332
00:31:29.819 --> 00:31:34.329
could regard these steps as proof that he understood both

333
00:31:34.420 --> 00:31:38.250
his goal and the criminal nature of the axe used

334
00:31:38.829 --> 00:31:43.609
to pursue it. The testimony about his condition may explain

335
00:31:43.730 --> 00:31:48.109
why the idea of a curse dominated him. It did

336
00:31:48.190 --> 00:31:53.619
not compel the jury to excuse murder. At 7.30 on

337
00:31:53.640 --> 00:32:00.190
Wednesday evening, January 9th, the jury found Blymeier guilty of

338
00:32:00.309 --> 00:32:04.759
murder in the first degree and fixed the penalty at

339
00:32:04.890 --> 00:32:10.819
life imprisonment rather than death. The verdict rejected the insanity

340
00:32:10.859 --> 00:32:15.180
defense as a complete answer. It did not establish that

341
00:32:15.339 --> 00:32:20.920
every prosecution theory was correct or that every confession detail

342
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:27.690
was reliable. It established that 12 jurors considered Blymeier legally

343
00:32:27.809 --> 00:32:34.049
responsible for a deliberate killing. John Curry's trial began at 9.30

344
00:32:34.049 --> 00:32:40.769
the next morning. His age was impossible to ignore. He

345
00:32:40.809 --> 00:32:45.710
was 14, yet he faced an adult murder prosecution and

346
00:32:45.789 --> 00:32:52.839
the possibility of death or life imprisonment. His defense emphasized

347
00:32:52.900 --> 00:32:59.480
his youth, background, and impaired responsibility, while the Commonwealth placed

348
00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:04.759
him inside the planning before the second visit. Curry had

349
00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:09.069
gone with Blymeier to buy the rope. He had spent

350
00:33:09.089 --> 00:33:14.130
the night in Remyer's kitchen, left, returned with Hess, and

351
00:33:14.210 --> 00:33:20.829
remained through the assault, search, theft, and fire. The excluded

352
00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:25.309
confession prevented the prosecution from relying on one of its

353
00:33:25.750 --> 00:33:31.069
clearest claimed admissions, but it did not remove Curry's own

354
00:33:31.170 --> 00:33:37.450
testimony or the surrounding evidence. He acknowledged the supernatural purpose

355
00:33:37.509 --> 00:33:41.490
of the visit. The prosecution argued that a belief in

356
00:33:41.559 --> 00:33:48.859
witchcraft did not cancel the preparation or participation. After deliberating

357
00:33:48.940 --> 00:33:55.490
for two hours and fifty minutes, the jury returned. at 1.42

358
00:33:55.490 --> 00:34:02.319
on Friday afternoon, January 11th. Curry was convicted of murder

359
00:34:02.990 --> 00:34:08.619
in the first degree. Like Blymeier, he received life imprisonment

360
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.300
rather than execution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed his conviction

361
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:21.250
in January of 1930, holding that the admissible evidence supported

362
00:34:21.750 --> 00:34:26.900
the verdict. Wilbert Hess went on trial immediately after Curry.

363
00:34:27.659 --> 00:34:32.739
His defense separated his responsibility from that of the other two.

364
00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:38.610
He denied delivering the fatal violence and portrayed himself as

365
00:34:38.750 --> 00:34:44.829
a younger participant pulled under the influence of Blymeier and Curry.

366
00:34:45.869 --> 00:34:50.469
Yet Hess had joined a planned return with Rope after

367
00:34:50.550 --> 00:34:56.219
Blymeier concluded another man was needed in order to subdue Riemeyer.

368
00:34:57.449 --> 00:35:01.269
The jury had to decide whether that made him equally

369
00:35:01.389 --> 00:35:07.449
responsible for a premeditated murder or guilty of a lesser degree.

370
00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:14.480
At 7.25 on Saturday evening, January 12th, Hess was found

371
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:18.900
guilty of murder in the second degree. He received a

372
00:35:18.980 --> 00:35:22.960
term of 10 to 20 years in The difference did

373
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.699
not declare him innocent of the killing. It showed that

374
00:35:27.820 --> 00:35:33.170
his jury distinguished his intent or role from the first-degree

375
00:35:33.250 --> 00:35:39.489
culpability assigned to Blymeier and Curry. Six days had produced

376
00:35:39.849 --> 00:35:45.719
three trials, two first-degree verdicts with life sentences, and one

377
00:35:45.860 --> 00:35:58.829
second-degree verdict with a lesser term. At least 100 Metropolitan

378
00:35:58.869 --> 00:36:04.349
reporters arrived for the proceedings. Judge Sherwood refused to turn

379
00:36:04.389 --> 00:36:09.809
the courtroom into a stage. No telegraph instruments allowed inside.

380
00:36:10.289 --> 00:36:16.679
No courtroom photography. No special performance for the press. Many

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00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:21.320
reporters left before the week was over. Yet the restraint

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00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:26.239
inside the courtroom could not control the story. outside of it.

383
00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:33.360
Newspapers across the country had already discovered that witchcraft sold

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00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:38.199
more papers than a careful account of motive, evidence, and

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00:36:38.739 --> 00:36:45.809
Pennsylvania German folk religion. Headlines announced, quote, York's voodoo cult

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00:36:46.289 --> 00:36:50.869
and declared, quote, York County held in grip of black

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00:36:51.090 --> 00:36:56.449
art practices. Reports used witch doctors as though it were

388
00:36:56.530 --> 00:37:02.579
a neutral job description. One presentation placed the defendants beside

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00:37:02.940 --> 00:37:07.420
occult symbols from the sixth and seventh books of Moses,

390
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:13.780
whether or not those images explained anything about Riemeyer's healing work.

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00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.599
A murder committed by three particular people became evidence against

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00:37:21.059 --> 00:37:27.170
a region. The vocabulary invited readers to imagine a culturally

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00:37:27.309 --> 00:37:34.730
primitive enclave surviving untouched inside modern America. The comparison to

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00:37:35.190 --> 00:37:41.260
voodoo was not merely inaccurate. It drew upon racialized language

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00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:47.940
long used to portray African and African diasporic religions as sinister.

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00:37:49.179 --> 00:37:54.750

Terrifying & True | Hex Hollow Murder: Killing to Break a Curse

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