Let's Talk Spooky

Shauna Taylor
  • 5.0 (1)
  • True Crime

Let's Talk Spooky is a weekly paranormal podcast exploring true ghost stories, dark folklore, urban legends, and haunted history from around the world. Hosted by Shauna, each episode blends documented history, real paranormal encounters, and eerie legends whispered for generations — from cursed lakes and haunted towns to cryptids, summer-camp monsters, and stories of reincarnation. If you love creepy stories rooted in real research — chilling, immersive, and a little too believable — this is your show. Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky.

  1. 3d ago

    64: Something Familiar

    Look closely at any Halloween witch, and you’ll find a little creature perched beside her: a black cat, a toad, an owl watching over the cauldron. But long before they were decorations, familiars were evidence. This week, we kick off our October Month of Witches with the strange and unsettling history of the witch’s familiar. Website:letstalkspooky.com Instagram:@letstalkspookypodcast TikTok:@letstalkspookypod Email:letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com New episodes every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. Got a name for the new studio cat? Send it our way. Stay Curious. Stay Spooky SOURCES: Damnable Practises of Three Lincolne-shire Witches. 1619. English Broadside Ballad Archive, EBBA 20058, ebba.english.ucsb.edu. The Examination and Confession of Certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex. 1566. Edited by Frank Luttmer, Hanover College, history.hanover.edu/dept-archive/ischelm.html. Goodier, Christine. “The Pendle Witches.” Lancaster Castle,lancastercastle.com/the-pendle-witches. Hopkins,Matthew. The Discovery of Witches. R. Royston, 1647. Cornell University Library Digital Collections, digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:24343966. Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters, editors. Witchcraftin Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History. 2nd ed., U of Pennsylvania P, 2001. Lincolnshire Folktales Project. “The Witches of Belvoir.” 21Feb. 2024, lincolnshirefolktalesproject.com. Loxley, James. “The Bottesford Tombs.” Ben Jonson’s Walk, U of Edinburgh. Marsh, Moira. Review of Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, by Emma Wilby. Journal of Folklore Research Reviews, 2006. Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. “Illustration of Martin le Franc’s ‘Le Champion des Dames’ Poem.” Object 601,museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk/object/witch-picture-27/. The National Archives (UK). “Early Modern Witch Trials.” Education resource, nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/early-modern-witch-trials/. Niehaus, Isak, et al. Witchcraft, Power andPolitics: Exploring the Occult in the South African Lowveld. Pluto Press, 2001. Potts, Thomas. The Wonderfull Discoverie ofWitches in the Countie of Lancaster. 1613. Edited by James Crossley, Chetham Society, 1845. Project Gutenberg,gutenberg.org/ebooks/18253. Roth, Martha T. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. 2nd ed., Scholars Press, 1997. Sasaki, Kokan. “Spirit Possession as an Indigenous Religion in Japan and Okinawa.” Senri Ethnological Studies, vol. 11,1984, pp. 75–84, doi.org/10.15021/00003362. Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. 1623. Sparham, Bob. “The Bottesford Witches.” Bottesford Living History, bottesfordhistory.org.uk. Webster, John. The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft. 1677. Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. Sussex Academic Press, 2005. The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower. G. Eld for J. Barnes, 1619. Wellcome Collection.

  2. Sep 26

    63: Lizzie Borden

    Everybody knows the rhyme. Almost nobody knows the truth. On a mild summer morning in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were hacked to death inside a locked house on Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts — and before the police had finished searching for a stranger, the town had already decided who did it. This week we walk through the whole story: the morning of the murders, the cold and comfortless house of a very wealthy man, the shifting testimony, the trial that quietly fell apart, and the acquittal that never really ended. Then we sit with the strangest part of all — how a children's skipping rhyme convicted a woman the court set free, and why we still believe it a hundred and thirty years later. A story about a hatchet, an inheritance, a house you can still book a room in — and the way a legend can outrun the truth and never look back. Content note: This episode discusses a real double homicide and describes the injuries involved. SOURCES & FURTHER READING Primary records: Lizzie's inquest testimony & the 1893 trial transcript — famous-trials.com/lizzieborden; witness statements & wills — lizzieandrewborden.comArchival: Fall River Historical Society (trial exhibits, crime-scene photos, the Knowlton Papers) — fallriverhistorical.orgKey books: Cara Robertson, The Trial of Lizzie Borden; Martins & Binette, Parallel Lives (FRHS); Edwin Porter, The Fall River Tragedy (1893, free at gutenberg.org)On the hauntings: Joe Nickell, Skeptical InquirerAmong Others CONNECT WITH LET'S TALK SPOOKY Website: letstalkspooky.comEmail: ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcastTikTok: @letstalkspookypodNew episodes every Friday at 8 p.m. EST If you've got a legend from your corner of the map, send it our way — we read everything. Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

  3. Sep 19

    62: La Llorona: The Weeping Woman

    On a cool November night, a boy taking the shortcut home along the river hears something underneath the current that isn't the current. She has a hundred names and haunts the water from the canals of Mexico City to the concrete washes of Los Angeles — La Llorona, the Weeping Woman, searching forever for the children she lost. Tonight we follow her: where she came from, how she crossed a border, the mothers her story was really built out of, and the real people — including a police officer on the Texas–New Mexico line — who swear they've met her. Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky. ⚠️ Content warning: This episode discusses child loss, domestic violence, and suicide. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Support resources are listed below. If you or someone you know needs support In an emergency, call 911. 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline (Canada & US) — call or text 988, 24/7Kids Help Phone (Canada, up to 29) — 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868Hope for Wellness Help Line (Indigenous peoples, Canada) — 1-855-242-3310, 24/7Assaulted Women's Helpline (Ontario) — 1-866-863-0511, or #SAFE (#7233)US Domestic Violence Hotline — 1-800-799-7233Find A Helpline (worldwide) — findahelpline.comSources & further reading The Florentine Codex — free digital edition at florentinecodex.getty.edu (Book XII for the weeping-woman omen)Library of Congress, "La Llorona: An Introduction to the Weeping Woman" (Stephen Winick)Amy Fuller, "The Evolving Legend of La Llorona"Bess Lomax Hawes, "La Llorona in Juvenile Hall" (1968)Legends of America — "La Llorona: Weeping Woman of the Southwest"Encounters with La Llorona — Greater Belize / News Five (Jenara Cano; Benigno Coch)The Anthony, TX dispatch account — KISS El Paso"The Silent Woman of Mines Road" — Laredo Morning Times (2021)The episode distinguishes documented history, recorded legend, and popular retelling throughout. Where a claim is unverified, we say so. 🌐 letstalkspooky.com 📧 ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠ 📸 Instagram @letstalkspookypodcast 🎵 TikTok @letstalkspookypod If you have a story of your own, we'd love to hear it. Stay Curious. Stay Spooky.

  4. Sep 12

    61: Moonstruck

    A twelve-year-old boy refuses to leave the house on the night of a full moon — because he's convinced he's becoming a wolf. It sounds like something out of a dusty book of legends. It was written up by doctors and published five years ago. This week, we follow that one impossible sentence — I am becoming a wolf — back through the centuries. From the oldest werewolf ever written down to the movie rulebook Hollywood invented barely eighty years ago, then out into the real history: the beast that brought a kingdom to its knees in the mountains of France, a thirteen-year-old boy who confessed to being a wolf and the court that showed him mercy, and the cursed loup-garou who came knocking on the doors of French Canada. Light a candle, get cozy, and come find out why, four hundred years on, our fear still wears the same face. ⚠️ Content warning: This episode includes descriptions of violent death and harm to children, a child confessing to violent acts, and a child experiencing mental-health distress. Please listen with care. Clinical / the boy & the moon Guessoum et al. (2021), "First Reported Case of Clinical Lycanthropy in a 12-Year-Old," Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 75(2) — the 2020 boy.Guessoum et al. (2021), "Clinical Lycanthropy, Neurobiology, Culture: A Systematic Review," Frontiers in Psychiatry 12.Rotton & Kelly (1985), "Much Ado about the Full Moon," Psychological Bulletin 97(2) — the moon debunk.Origins Ovid, Metamorphoses Bk I (Lycaon); Petronius, Satyricon §61–62; Herodotus, Histories IV.105; Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet VI.The stories Smith (2011), Monsters of the Gévaudan (Harvard UP) — Gévaudan.Machielsen (2019), "The Making of a Teen Wolf," Folklore 130(3) — Grenier.de Lancre (1612), Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et démons — primary source, Grenier."Loup-garou," The Canadian Encyclopedia.Trials & film Schulte (2009), Man as Witch; de Blécourt, ed. (2015), Werewolf Histories — the trial craze.The Wolf Man (1941, Siodmak) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) — the modern rulebook.

  5. Sep 5

    60: Mackenzie Poltergeist

    Sir George Mackenzie sent hundreds of Covenanters to suffering and death in the 1600s — then was laid to rest in a fine domed tomb only steps from the very ground where they starved. For three centuries, the two sides of that quarrel kept an uneasy quiet, a few feet of earth apart. Then, one December night in 1998, a man seeking shelter fell through the floor of Mackenzie's mausoleum into the bones below — and the attacks began. This week we walk into Greyfriars: the real history of the Killing Time and the Covenanters' Prison, the four months a thousand prisoners spent in the open air, and the wreck of the Crown of London. We sit with the man history remembers as "Bloody Mackenzie" — and the question of whether he earned the name or the legend built it for him. And we walk the ground where hundreds of visitors have reported scratches, bruises, fainting's and collapses since 1999, up to the exorcism that may have cost a medium his life. Documented history, recorded legend, and honest doubt, laid side by side — so you can decide for yourself what waits behind that locked door. Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky. Sources •  Encyclopaedia Britannica — ‘Sir George Mackenzie’ (life, career, the Advocates’ Library). •  covenanter.org.uk & Christian Heritage Edinburgh — the Covenanters, Greyfriars, and the 1679 prison. •  Orkney.com & The Orkney News — the wreck of the Crown of London and the Covenanters’ Memorial. •  National Library of Scotland — origins in Mackenzie’s Advocates’ Library. •  Jan-Andrew Henderson, The Ghost That Haunted Itself — the definitive book on the case. •  City of the Dead Tours — cityofthedeadtours.com (the operator’s own record of reported encounters). •  Icy Sedgwick — ‘Meet the Mackenzie Poltergeist of Greyfriars Kirkyard’ (sourced folklore write-up). A note on how we source: this show separates documented history from recorded legend from popular retelling, and says out loud which is which. The modern accounts are reported experiences, not established fact — shared as what people say happened, and left to you to weigh. Follow & connectWebsite: letstalkspooky.com Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast TikTok: @letstalkspookypod

  6. Aug 28

    59: The Beck House

    Welcome to Spooky Stays, where I don't just research haunted places — I spend the night in them. First up: the Beck House in Penetanguishene, Ontario, a red-brick Victorian mansion known online as Canada's most haunted house and now a haunted Airbnb. A grieving mother, a wronged daughter, and a legend that doesn't match the record. Sources: Town of Penetanguishene Heritage Registry — Carl Beck House (build date, architecture, mayoralty, civic legacy)Town of Penetanguishene — First Presbyterian Cemetery & Beck mausoleum records (family birth/death dates)Ontario Heritage Trust — C. Beck Manufacturing Company plaque paper (mills, business timeline)Find A Grave — Charles Maximilian Beck, 1838–1915 (death/drowning)Midland Free Press, "Carl Beck of Penetanguishene: A Success Story" (1977)A.C. Osborne, Penetanguishene: The Historic Town (1907)Chantal Larochelle, "Haunted Cemetery Road Trip: The Beck House"; Moon Mausoleum; TheTravelGuest overnight accounts and community haunt listings, framed as oral tradition.CONNECT Come tell me about your night — 📧 ⁠letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com⁠ 📸 Instagram @letstalkspookypodcast 🎵 TikTok @letstalkspookypod 🌐 letstalkspooky.com Also check out: Northern Haunts Paranormal -https://www.youtube.com/@NorthernHauntsParanormal CONTENT NOTE: This episode discusses the historical deaths of adults and children, family estrangement, and a drowning. Nothing graphic — but a heads-up for sensitive listeners.

    59: The Beck House

  7. Aug 21

    58: Haunted Roads

    Four haunted roads, two countries, and one long drive through the dark. From a phantom black dog that's blocked a Maryland mountain pass for two centuries, to a young man forever finishing his last ride on an Ontario back road, to a crowded, cursed stretch of Colorado asphalt, to a woman hanged in an iron cage at a Québec crossroads — these are the roads that refuse to forget. Some of it's pure legend. Some of it's better documented than you'd like. Buckle up. New episodes every Thursday, 8 p.m. EST. Content note: references to domestic abuse and a historical execution, the death of a child, and recurring themes of fatal accidents. Documented history Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren, South Mountain Magic (1882) — earliest Snarly Yow accountsJo-Anne Christensen, Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan (1995) — St. Louis ghost lightDictionary of Canadian Biography & Plains of Abraham Museum — Marie-Josephte Corriveau (court records)Adams County Historical Society & Museum — Wolpert Mansion / 1975 Riverdale firePort Perry Star (1983) — reporting confirming no fatal crash on Ghost RoadRegional journalism & research Global News, The Western Producer, SaskToday — St. Louis witnesses & the student science projectParaResearchers of Ontario (PSICAN) — Ghost Road investigation & the West Quarter Line explanationCBC — the rediscovery and return of the Corriveau cage9News Denver — Riverdale Road coverageFolklore & legend Louis-Honoré Fréchette, Une Relique — literary telling of the La Corriveau ghostToronto & Ontario Ghosts; HauntedPlaces.org — legend variantsCanada Post Haunted Canada stamp series (2014) — St. Louis ghost trainWhere a story couldn't be verified — the Snarly Yow's origins, the Ghost Road motorcyclist, the Riverdale jogger — we've flagged it as legend, not fact. The one your town warns you about. The light your uncle swears he saw. The drive you took once and never took again. Send us your haunted-road encounter — the best ones might end up on a future episode. 📧 Email: letstalkspookypodcast@gmail.com 🌐 Web: letstalkspooky.com 📸 Instagram: @letstalkspookypodcast 🎵 TikTok: @letstalkspookypod Stay Curious, Stay Spooky.

  8. Jul 31

    57: Summer Horrors: Camping

    Three campfires. Three true stories from the places we go to feel free — and the dark that waits just past the firelight. A painter who knew his lake better than anyone alive, and drowned in it under questions we're still arguing over a century later. Four teenagers who pitched a tent by a quiet Finnish lake one summer night in 1960 — and the morning only one of them came back. And a forest in Transylvania that people walk into, and don't always walk back out of the same. This is the last one before we take a short break. So keep your fire built up, and your back to the flame. Follow/get in touch: Have a camping story of your own — a snapped twig in the dark, a light you couldn't explain, a site you packed up and left at 3 a.m.? Send it to us on Instagram and TikTok @letstalkspookypod. The best ones might end up in a future episode. And if the show keeps you company in the dark, please follow and leave a rating — it's free, and it helps other spooky souls find the fire. www.letstalkspooky.com Sources & further reading: · Confirmed: Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him by Roy MacGregor (Random House Canada, 2010). Adding it to the show-notes sources with a link.   Tom Thomson — Canadian Mysteries, 'Death on a Painted Lake': https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/thomson/home/indexen.html · Tom Thomson — CBC, 'Why the 100-year-old mystery of Tom Thomson's death lives on': https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/blog/why-the-100-year-old-mystery-of-tom-thomson-s-death-lives-on-1.4193463 · Lake Bodom — Wikipedia, 'Lake Bodom murders':   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders ·  Lake Bodom — All That's Interesting, 'The Lake Bodom Murders':   https://allthatsinteresting.com/lake-bodom-murders ·  Lake Bodom — Mental Floss, 'Campsite Killer':   https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/584241/lake-bodom-murders · Hoia-Baciu — Emil Barnea's 1968 photographs (Patrick Gross archive):https://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/picamaro01.htm · Hoia-Baciu — Astronomer.pro, 'History, Legends, and Reported Phenomena':   https://astronomer.pro/hoia-baciu-forest-history-legends-and-reported-phenomena/

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About

Let's Talk Spooky is a weekly paranormal podcast exploring true ghost stories, dark folklore, urban legends, and haunted history from around the world. Hosted by Shauna, each episode blends documented history, real paranormal encounters, and eerie legends whispered for generations — from cursed lakes and haunted towns to cryptids, summer-camp monsters, and stories of reincarnation. If you love creepy stories rooted in real research — chilling, immersive, and a little too believable — this is your show. Light a candle. Get cozy. And let's talk spooky.

Information

  • Creator
    Shauna Taylor
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    70
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Shauna Taylor

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