Front Porch Mysteries with Carole Townsend

Carole Townsend
  • 5.0 (12)
  • TRUE CRIME
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

Author and veteran journalist Carole Townsend shares remarkable tales from the South, tales of mystery, terror, and wonder. Townsend has built a career on the premise that truth really is stranger than fiction.Here in the South, we love our stories. We begin in childhood huddled around campfires, whispering of things best spoken in the dark, confiding in our small trusting circles. Why is that, do you suppose? I have researched and investigated Southern history for more than 20 years and I believe it has to do with this region itself. There's a lot that hangs in the ether here and much that is buried deep in the soil. There's beauty here in the South and shame and courage and, make no mistake, there is evil. There's always been the element of the unexplained, the just out of reach that we can all feel but can never quite describe. And the best place for telling tales about such things is the comfort and safety of an old front porch. So I invite you tonight to come up here with me, settle back into a chair and get comfortable, pour yourself a drink if you like, and I'll share with you some of the tales best told in the company of friends, tales that prove that truth really is stranger than fiction, and I'll turn on the light. You're going to want that. I'm Carole Townsend. Welcome to my front porch.

  1. Pee Wee Gaskins: What Turns A Child Into A Monster

    FEB 10

    Pee Wee Gaskins: What Turns A Child Into A Monster

    Would you recognize a killer if you passed one on the street? Our latest story confronts that unsettling question through the life of Donald “Pee-Wee” Gaskins, a five-foot-three predator whose crimes spread across the Carolinas and whose methods shattered the comfort of criminal profiles. We don’t dwell on gore. Instead, we follow the soil that grew him—Depression-era poverty, a childhood of neglect and abuse, and a culture where crime often shadowed survival—and ask how a person becomes the kind of offender who can manipulate friends, terrify rivals, and even outwit a maximum-security block. We trace Gaskins’ early violence, the reform school years that rewarded cruelty, and his pursuit of “power man” status behind bars. The most shocking chapter unfolds in prison, where he posed a booby-trapped “radio” as a lifeline to a fellow inmate and detonated it remotely. That single act earned him the title “Meanest Man in America” and forced a reckoning with what criminal profiling misses: adaptable offenders who don’t fit neat molds. Along the way, we examine disputed confessions, the mystery of unidentified coastal victims, and why some offenders inflate body counts while others hide in plain sight. Beneath the darkness runs a practical thread. Profiling can guide, but it can also mislead. Real prevention starts earlier—child protection, trauma-informed care, stable schools, and communities that close the gaps predators exploit. As we sit on the figurative porch lighted against the dark, we resist sensationalism and look for lessons that make neighbors safer and justice sharper. If this story moved you or made you think differently about nature versus nurture, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a quick review. Your support helps us bring thoughtful Southern history and true-crime context to more curious minds. Send a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    27 min
  2. Chester Burge Southern Scandal And The Dead Parrot

    JAN 8

    Chester Burge Southern Scandal And The Dead Parrot

    A parrot lies dead, a socialite is strangled, and a town that worships decorum can’t look away. We pull up a chair on the front porch and unpack one of Macon’s most confounding true crime stories—a case where respectability politics, race, and money twist every clue. We trace Chester Burge from lightning-struck teenager and bootlegger to wealthy, abrasive landlord married to Mary Elizabeth Kennington Burge, a woman firmly seated in the city’s high society. When the Klan targets a property he rents to a Black family, public pressure spikes, and weeks later Mary is found dead in their Shirley Hills bedroom. No forced entry. Jewelry within reach. A dog locked in the basement. And the strangest detail of all: the silenced parrot. Police clear the staff, suspicion converges on Chester, and the courtroom becomes a stage where character stands trial alongside evidence. What follows is a razor-edged examination of motive and proof. We explore the money locked in Mary’s name, testimony about violence, and a maintenance man’s claim that puts Chester’s fingerprints in the room the night of the killing. Jurors admit they dislike him but acquit for lack of proof—only for the story to swerve into an explosive second act: a 1960 Georgia sodomy charge involving his chauffeur. Power imbalances, racial dynamics, and midcentury morality collide as an appeal frees him, a late-life marriage raises eyebrows, and a Palm Beach house explosion writes a final, contested chapter. Along the way, we ask what a community chooses to remember, what it tries to bury, and why certain mysteries refuse to stay quiet. If you’re drawn to Southern true crime, unsolved murders, and the social forces that shape a verdict, this one will stay with you. Listen, subscribe, and share your theory—who do you think the town got wrong? Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    25 min
  3. Anjette Lyles

    12/16/2025

    Anjette Lyles

    The story begins with the comfort of small-town ritual: a packed lunch counter on Mulberry Street, a hostess who knows every name, and a city that believes it knows its own. Then the pattern breaks. A husband collapses with mysterious convulsions, a second falls to a sudden fever, a mother-in-law fades under watchful care, and a child is tormented by vivid hallucinations no medicine can explain. We follow the arc from gentle hospitality to hard suspicion, from porch whispers about black candles to the cold permanence of arsenic in the lab. I guide you through Macon’s mid-century world—where rail lines, church bells, and business deals shaped daily life—and into the charged space where folklore and forensic science meet. Staff recall strange habits and shifting stories. An anonymous letter nudges a coroner to test a common ant poison. Exhumations confirm what the town couldn’t say out loud, and handwriting analysis tears the mask from a forged confession and a suspect will. Inside a crowded courtroom, the narrative widens to include gender, race, and power, as Georgia weighs the first execution of a white woman against its own history and ultimately declares the convicted murderer insane. What emerges is more than a true crime timeline; it’s a study of how communities sense danger before they can name it, how charisma can disarm logic, and how forensic toxicology reshaped the way we understand domestic murder. Along the way, we ask uneasy questions: When does intuition become evidence? How do bias and reputation bend justice? And what does accountability look like when charm is the camouflage? If this story gripped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who loves Southern history and true crime, and leave a review to help more listeners find the porch light. Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    29 min
  4. Waverly Hills: Beauty And Bloodlines

    11/20/2025

    Waverly Hills: Beauty And Bloodlines

    A picturesque hill in Louisville once held America’s fiercest struggle against the white plague—and the echoes haven’t faded. We follow the unlikely path from a one-room schoolhouse to a sprawling, five-story sanatorium where doctors chased a cure with fresh air, rest, and desperate procedures that often hurt more than they healed. When loss became routine, a 500-foot tunnel meant for supplies turned into a discreet route for the dead, shielding hope while the numbers climbed. We share the verified history: the geography that fueled contagion, the rapid expansion to hundreds of beds, and the relentless math of a disease that moved through families and neighborhoods with chilling speed. Then we step into the lore that refuses to die—Room 502 and its tragic nurses, the rooftop echoes of children’s songs, the phantom chef in the kitchen, and the body chute where whispers still seem to travel. Whether you’re drawn by Tudor Gothic architecture, the sociology of isolation, or the psychology of hauntings, Waverly Hills offers a rare crossroads of public health, design, and folklore. Streptomycin closed the sanatorium, but the building lived on as Woodhaven, a troubled nursing home that added another layer of sorrow before the state shut it down. Today, tours invite skeptics and believers alike to test what they think they know. We connect those past chapters to the present: drug-resistant tuberculosis, millions of new cases, and the hard truth that environment, policy, and memory still decide outcomes. Press play for a grounded, empathetic look at Louisville’s most haunted landmark—and stay to decide if the voices are myth, memory, or something in between. If this story moves you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show. Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    23 min
  5. Queen Of Shadows: Marie Laveau

    10/29/2025

    Queen Of Shadows: Marie Laveau

    The streets of New Orleans carry stories like river water—slow, heavy, and charged with memory. We follow those currents into the life of Marie Laveau, a free woman of color who became the city’s most enduring symbol of power, faith, and fear. Between jazz funerals and above-ground tombs, we explore how a healer and hairdresser rose to be called the Voodoo Queen, and why her shadow still stretches across the Gulf Coast. We set the stage in the early 1800s, when French, Spanish, African, and Creole traditions converged under a sky of wealth, epidemics, and floods. That pressure-cooker forged both resilience and superstition. Marie Laveau moved through it all with herbs and rosaries, gathering influence in salons, sickrooms, and prisons. Some saw her as a guardian who blended voodoo and Catholic devotion to protect families and guide the desperate. Others told darker stories—poison smuggled to the condemned, political strings pulled, and a death conjure that ended a powerful bloodline. The infamous Fatal Sisters tale becomes a lens on justice, rumor, and the ways communities police harm when courts fail. We also trace her lasting footprint: the rituals at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the rise of cemetery tourism, the vandalism that forced guided access, and the many retellings that cast her as feminist icon, folk saint, or sorceress. Along the way, we cut through sensational tropes to parse what records show versus what legend insists. The result is a portrait of a city and a woman who made belief tangible—gris-gris in the pocket, prayers at the bedside, stories passed like torches in the dark. Press play to step into the French Quarter’s twilight, weigh fact against folklore, and decide what kind of power you believe in. If this journey moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find these Southern histories and hauntings. Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    23 min
  6. The McRaven House

    10/08/2025

    The McRaven House

    Night settles on the porch, the river hums in the distance, and we follow that sound to a Vicksburg mansion that refuses to grow quiet. McRaven House isn’t just “the most haunted home in Mississippi”—it’s a three-part time machine where an outlaw’s bedroom, a grieving mother’s lullaby, and a war-torn hospital all occupy the same breath. We walk the Great River Road, trace the Natchez Trace, and pull at the threads linking moving water, old brick, and stories that won’t lie flat. We start with Andrew Glass’s two-room hideout, its buttermilk-blue walls and pulled-up ladder designed to stop ambush—until a razor did the job from inside. The story shifts to Sheriff Stephen Howard and Mary Elizabeth, who add grace and light before childbirth steals her future, leaving a soft song many still hear at night. Then the circle widens: the Devil Reverend John Murrell rides the Trace, sermons as disguise, theft as vocation, a conspiracy that boils over in Vicksburg. Names and dates stay anchored even as the uncanny slips through: lynchings, exile, and a city bracing for more violence than law can hold. McRaven’s architecture becomes evidence. Empire style bridges pioneer bone to Greek Revival polish under John H. Bob, who opens his home as a Civil War field hospital and pays with his life during Reconstruction—dragged to Stout’s Bayou after a garden confrontation, shot in the back and face. The balcony keeps his presence, cigar smoke and orders no one else hears. Union officers take over, and Captain McPherson’s absence ends with a flooded apparition describing a murder and the Mississippi swallowing the proof. Decades later, the Murray sisters choose isolation over modernization, burning furniture for heat as vines erase the house from view. Restoration brings fresh bruises and broken bones, as if the walls have opinions about change. What remains is a layered account of Southern folklore and American history sharing a single address: haunted Mississippi, Vicksburg siege, Natchez Trace outlaws, Reconstruction violence, and a river that remembers everything. If you love ghost stories anchored by documented lives and places—where the timeline aligns and the impossible refuses to leave—press play, then tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and share your take: skeptic, believer, or somewhere in between? Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    22 min
  7. The Mothman

    09/11/2025

    The Mothman

    Lurking in the shadows of Appalachia's misty mountains is a tale that defies rational explanation. When a group of gravediggers in Clendenin, West Virginia reported seeing a massive winged figure soaring overhead in November 1966, no one could have predicted how this sighting would become entwined with one of America's greatest tragedies. The creature they glimpsed—soon to be known as the Mothman—stood seven to eight feet tall with a wingspan of ten feet and hypnotic red eyes that paralyzed those who gazed into them. Within days, two young couples in Point Pleasant had their own terrifying encounter, reporting the creature chased their car at speeds reaching 100 miles per hour. As dozens more sightings flooded in, a pattern emerged: this wasn't just any monster tale. The Mothman appeared primarily around an abandoned WWII munitions facility locals called the "TNT area," a contaminated landscape dotted with underground bunkers where deadly secrets lay buried. Strange phenomena accompanied the Mothman's appearances—electrical disturbances, screeching phones, cars dying on empty roads, and visits from oddly-behaving men in ill-fitting black suits who spoke in sing-song voices. All these events culminated on December 15, 1967, when witnesses spotted the creature circling the Silver Bridge moments before its catastrophic collapse killed 46 people. Was the Mothman trying to warn the townspeople, or did it somehow cause the disaster? Or perhaps the tragedy connects to something even older—the curse a dying Shawnee chief placed on the land nearly two centuries earlier when he was murdered by white soldiers: "May the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land."  Whether you view the Mothman as a harbinger of doom, an environmental aberration, or the manifestation of an ancient Native American curse, its story continues to haunt our collective imagination. Join me on this journey through folklore, tragedy, and mystery as we examine what happened when something otherworldly cast its shadow over Point Pleasant. Listen carefully—and maybe think twice before looking too deeply into glowing red eyes in the darkness. Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    25 min
  8. The Aftermath

    08/28/2025

    The Aftermath

    After weeks of silence, we're back with a deeply personal journey through trauma, healing, and the mysterious corners of the South that continue to call to us even in our darkest moments. The devastating head-on collision that abruptly ended our previous episode left me shattered – both legs broken with compound fractures, broken ankles, shattered kneecaps, four broken ribs, and a surgically reattached left foot. July exists as little more than a foggy haze of pain medication and the natural, uncontrollable sounds of agony that came with each movement of freshly broken bones. Despite the severity of these injuries, doctors remain hopeful for a complete recovery, with physical therapy beginning in late October. Beyond the physical trauma lies another battle many Americans face: the fight with insurance companies who dictate medical care despite physician recommendations. When deemed "too broken" for rehabilitation but "stable enough" for discharge, my family faced astronomical costs – $5,500 weekly for essential at-home care and $250 per medical transport appointment, none covered by our insurance despite faithful payment of premiums. This reality forces us to examine a healthcare system that routinely places corporate interests above patient wellbeing. Yet even confined to a hospital bed, my storyteller's mind wanders to hidden southern mysteries waiting to be shared. While the promised Mothman episode must wait until pain medications no longer cloud my thoughts, I offer something equally intriguing: Atlanta's Doll's Head Trail. This 2.5-mile path through Constitution Lakes Park showcases eerie art installations created from discarded doll parts, abandoned appliances, and industrial remnants – a reclamation project transforming environmental neglect into something hauntingly beautiful. Visit at dusk, when shadows stretch long and you might hear childlike voices whispering stories of being treasured, discarded, and reborn as art. Join us again in two weeks as we return to our regular schedule of spellbinding southern legends, beginning with the dreaded Mothman. Your support during this difficult time has been the greatest medicine of all. Send us a text Support the show I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media. Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South. Thank you! Support the Show: You can connect with me by clicking the links below. Facebook: Instagram: Website: Tiktok:

    13 min
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5
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About

Author and veteran journalist Carole Townsend shares remarkable tales from the South, tales of mystery, terror, and wonder. Townsend has built a career on the premise that truth really is stranger than fiction.Here in the South, we love our stories. We begin in childhood huddled around campfires, whispering of things best spoken in the dark, confiding in our small trusting circles. Why is that, do you suppose? I have researched and investigated Southern history for more than 20 years and I believe it has to do with this region itself. There's a lot that hangs in the ether here and much that is buried deep in the soil. There's beauty here in the South and shame and courage and, make no mistake, there is evil. There's always been the element of the unexplained, the just out of reach that we can all feel but can never quite describe. And the best place for telling tales about such things is the comfort and safety of an old front porch. So I invite you tonight to come up here with me, settle back into a chair and get comfortable, pour yourself a drink if you like, and I'll share with you some of the tales best told in the company of friends, tales that prove that truth really is stranger than fiction, and I'll turn on the light. You're going to want that. I'm Carole Townsend. Welcome to my front porch.

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