Haunted American History

Bloody FM
  • 4.8 (554)
  • History
  • Updated Daily

A daily campfire-style podcast blending American history, folklore, and true crime. What scares you? Let’s find out.

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  1. Sep 7 • Subscriber Early Access

    The House That Became Hill House Anyway: Jennings Hall (Vermont)

    For generations of students at Bennington College, Jennings Hall has been the building you don't want to be inside after midnight. Phantom piano music drifts from locked practice rooms. Footsteps pace empty corridors. Doors slam without wind. And one story claims a terrified professor once fled into the Vermont snow as violent knocking traveled through the mansion toward him. But Jennings has another claim to fame: that the imposing granite estate inspired Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It's a perfect story. It's also almost certainly wrong. Tonight, we explore the genuine hauntings of Jennings Hall, the strange musical history embedded in its walls, and the surprising collection of psychic researchers, Manhattan architecture, California mansions, and family history that actually helped Shirley Jackson build Hill House.

  2. Sep 6 ·  Bonus • Subscriber Early Access

    The Devil's Not on Trial: The Fall River Murders (Massachusetts)

    Between 1979 and 1980, three young women connected to the same troubled corner of Fall River, Massachusetts were murdered. Doreen Levesque was found beneath high-school bleachers. Barbara Raposa was discovered frozen in the woods. Karen Marsden vanished shortly after telling police she believed she was going to be killed. Then investigators began hearing about Satan worship, secret rituals, blood ceremonies, and a supposed cult operating inside the city's drug and sex trade. The resulting trial sent Carl Drew to prison for life—but the prosecution's central witness later recanted, other witnesses followed, and questions surrounding the convictions never disappeared. Tonight, we examine the Fall River murders, the alleged Satanic cult that made national headlines, and a case where deciding what was real may be harder now than it was forty-five years ago.

  3. 6h ago ·  Bonus

    The Murder Blamed on Witches: Jeannette DePalma (New Jersey)

    In September 1972, a dog emerged from the woods of Springfield, New Jersey carrying a decomposed human arm. The remains belonged to sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma, who had disappeared 43 days earlier. Almost immediately, her death became something else. Newspapers reported a coffin made from branches, wooden crosses, a pentagram, mutilated animals, and whispers that Jeannette had been sacrificed by a Satanic cult. For nearly fifty years, those stories became inseparable from her name. But when the original case photographs were finally released, the alleged ritual scene disappeared. Tonight, we examine the unsolved death of Jeannette DePalma, the predators hunting Northern New Jersey's highways in the 1970s, and how an ordinary pair of fallen branches helped transform the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl into one of America's earliest Satanic Panic legends. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  4. 1d ago

    The Boy Who Never Made the Bus: Macin Smith (Utah)

    On September 1, 2015, seventeen-year-old Macin Smith apparently left his home in St. George, Utah, to catch the school bus. He never arrived. His wallet, cash, identification, passport, backpack, phone, and laptop were all left behind. More than a decade later, his online accounts remain untouched, extensive searches of the surrounding desert have found nothing, and investigators have never established what happened after the garage door opened that morning. A hidden handwritten note pointed toward one possibility. Unconfirmed sightings hundreds of miles away suggested another. And search warrants reveal that detectives eventually examined whether Macin ever left home at all. Tonight, we examine the disappearance of Macin Smith... a case with three major theories, and evidence that refuses to fit neatly inside any of them.   St. George Police Department can be reached at 435-627-4300. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children takes tips at 1-800-THE-LOST. ( 1-800-843-5678) YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  5. 2d ago

    The Haunted House With a Ghost on Staff: Asylum 49 (Utah)

    In Tooele, Utah, there's a haunted attraction that never had to pretend it was an abandoned hospital...because it actually was one. Asylum 49 occupies the former Tooele Valley Hospital, built on land that had previously served as the county poor farm. For years, its full-contact haunted house operated on one side of a wall while elderly residents lived in an active care facility on the other. But employees soon began reporting things no actor was responsible for: slamming doors, shadow figures, children in empty hospital rooms, and a little girl in a white nightgown who supposedly frightened the people hired to frighten everyone else. Tonight, we explore the history and legends of Asylum 49—and the bizarre complications that arise when a commercial haunted house claims its most convincing performers aren't actually on the payroll. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  6. 3d ago

    The April Fools' Fire: Cottonwood Paper Mill (Utah)

    At three in the morning on April Fools’ Day, 1893, the alarm bells at Utah’s Granite Paper Mill began ringing. The people living nearby heard them, checked the date—and went back to sleep. By sunrise, the mill’s wooden interior and machinery were gone, leaving behind a roofless fortress of granite that somehow refused to disappear. Over the next 130 years, the ruin became a Jazz Age ballroom, a counterculture rock club, a Halloween attraction, a Hollywood filming location, and eventually one of Utah’s most notorious haunted landmarks. But many of its ghosts have histories almost as strange as the building itself—because they appear to have been assembled from real events, theatrical props, canyon acoustics, and decades of collective memory. Tonight, we explore the Cottonwood Paper Mill, a building that survived fire, abandonment, and folklore... and may now be facing the one thing it can't survive: demolition. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  7. 4d ago ·  Bonus • Subscribers Only

    The Murder Blamed on Witches: Jeannette DePalma (New Jersey)

    In September 1972, a dog emerged from the woods of Springfield, New Jersey carrying a decomposed human arm. The remains belonged to sixteen-year-old Jeannette DePalma, who had disappeared 43 days earlier. Almost immediately, her death became something else. Newspapers reported a coffin made from branches, wooden crosses, a pentagram, mutilated animals, and whispers that Jeannette had been sacrificed by a Satanic cult. For nearly fifty years, those stories became inseparable from her name. But when the original case photographs were finally released, the alleged ritual scene disappeared. Tonight, we examine the unsolved death of Jeannette DePalma, the predators hunting Northern New Jersey's highways in the 1970s, and how an ordinary pair of fallen branches helped transform the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl into one of America's earliest Satanic Panic legends.

  8. 4d ago

    The Ghost of the Rio Grande Depot: The Purple Lady (Utah)

    For decades, employees and visitors at Salt Lake City’s Rio Grande Depot told stories about the Purple Lady—a young woman supposedly killed by a train after a disastrous reunion with her returning fiancé. People claimed to see her reflection in the women’s restroom, hear her singing after hours, and feel her presence moving through the building’s basement corridors. But when Utah historians finally dug into the story, they found something unexpected: there was no dead woman, no train accident, no newspaper coverage, and no Purple Lady before the state moved into the building in the 1980s. Tonight, we explore one of Utah’s most famous hauntings, the century-old building noises that may explain some of its ghostly reputation, and the remarkable possibility that an entirely invented ghost story became real enough for people to start experiencing it. YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory TikTok - @hah_podcast hauntedamericanhistory.com Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Trailer

4.8
out of 5
554 Ratings

About

A daily campfire-style podcast blending American history, folklore, and true crime. What scares you? Let’s find out.

Information

  • Creator
    Bloody FM
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    479
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2020 Christopher Feinstein
  • Show Website
    Haunted American History
  • Provider
    Christopher Feinstein

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