Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South

Liam Ashe
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Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, mystery author Liam Ashe uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

Episodes

  1. No Such Thing as Coincidence | Ep 7 | The Bizarre Connections Between Different True Crime Cold Cases in the Gothic South

    May 26

    No Such Thing as Coincidence | Ep 7 | The Bizarre Connections Between Different True Crime Cold Cases in the Gothic South

    What are the odds? In the world of true crime, that question can mean everything. Or perhaps nothing at all. Two women named Mary Morris are murdered four days apart on the same stretch of road. A son gives a stranger a ride home, only to find that stranger may have killed his mother. A machete murder in Saint Augustine leads to a second suspicious death, and a book that someone desperately didn’t want written. A Florida swamp legend and a vanished judge share a web of names that seem too tangled to be accidental. And two young Atlanta women, same bank, same desk, same anonymous bouquet of roses, disappear two years apart under eerily similar circumstances. Coincidence is everywhere if you look hard enough. But so is conspiracy. In this episode of Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South, we untangle some of the South’s most baffling cold cases, the ones where the clues don’t just point to a killer, they point to each other. The question isn’t whodunit, it’s whether these chilling parallels mean anything at all. Sometimes the most unsettling answer is “Maybe.” Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    28 min
  2. Blood Fell Like Rain | Ep 6 | The Bizarre, Unexplained History of Blood Falls in the Gothic South

    May 12

    Blood Fell Like Rain | Ep 6 | The Bizarre, Unexplained History of Blood Falls in the Gothic South

    What falls from the sky in the American South? Sometimes it’s rain or snakes or eels. And sometimes it’s blood. From a Kansas slaughterhouse hurled by a tornado across a hundred miles of open sky to a Tennessee tobacco field soaked in gore that drew five hundred horrified spectators, the Gothic South has a long, strange relationship with blood that falls from above. But these aren’t just folklore and tall tales. Ancient Greeks wrote about it, and medieval chroniclers tracked it. Scientists, preachers, and self-proclaimed experts have argued about it for centuries. One team even blamed the butterflies. And then there’s the Atlanta house that simply started bleeding from the walls and floorboards one quiet September night. There was no known crime and no explanation, just plenty of blood In this episode of Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South, mystery author Liam Ashe traces the long, unsettling history of blood falls, from Homer’s Iliad to your own backyard, and asks the question nobody really wants answered: What’s falling out of that red cloud moving toward you right now? Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    18 min
  3. Deadly Dames, Part 2 | Ep 5 | Six More Lethal Southern Ladies with a Mind for Murder

    Apr 28

    Deadly Dames, Part 2 | Ep 5 | Six More Lethal Southern Ladies with a Mind for Murder

    What if the most dangerous person in the room wasn’t the one you’d ever suspect? History has a way of overlooking women, and for decades, even the FBI refused to acknowledge they could be serial killers at all. This episode of Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South aims to set the record straight. In this second installment of our Deadly Dames series, we round out our list of twelve lethal women with six more cases that are equal parts fascinating and disturbing. Along the way, we unpack why female killers are so much harder to catch (Need a hint? They tend to know their victims, favor undetectable methods like poison, and often operate in plain sight as trusted caregivers). The first trio killed not for money, but out of psychological compulsion: a veterans’ hospital nursing assistant who fatally injected elderly patients, a mentally ill nurse who kept a handwritten list of her victims, and a troubled babysitter who suffocated multiple children in her care. The second trio were coldly profit-driven: Charleston’s legendary 18th-century innkeeper who allegedly poisoned travelers, a churchgoing grandmother who arsenic-poisoned five family members for insurance payouts, and the infamous “Giggling Granny,” Nannie Doss, who killed eleven people across three decades, including four husbands, before anyone thought to look her way. Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    32 min
  4. Deadly Dames, Part 1 | Ep 4 | Six Lethal Southern Ladies with a Mind for Murder

    Apr 14

    Deadly Dames, Part 1 | Ep 4 | Six Lethal Southern Ladies with a Mind for Murder

    They baked the pies. They nursed the sick. They wept at the funerals. And, in a handful of cases, they quietly arranged for those funerals to happen in the first place.  In this episode of Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South, we’re pulling back the black lace veil on six women history has branded Brutal Brides and Wicked Widows. From a teenage axe murderer in 1831 Burke County to a Florida poisoner who ran out of luck on death row, these women weaponized the very roles society handed them, whether grieving wife, devoted mother, or doting caregiver, to devastating effect. Were they cold-blooded predators? Victims of impossible circumstances? Products of a world that gave them no other option? The answers, as always in the South, are complicated. What isn’t complicated is the body count. Six women. Multiple states. Arsenic, revolvers, a fireplace, and one very suspicious canoe trip. Some were executed. Some walked free to applause. And at least one vanished into the backwoods and was never quite the same again. Grab something warm. You're going to need it. Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    27 min
  5. The Deadliest Town in Georgia | Ep 3 | One Southern Town That Draws Death Like Flies to Honey

    Mar 31

    The Deadliest Town in Georgia | Ep 3 | One Southern Town That Draws Death Like Flies to Honey

    Some towns get hit by disaster once and disappear. Others take a hit and keep coming back for more. From a preacher’s curse that erased an entire county seat to a 30-foot wall of water that swallowed a sleeping Bible college campus, Georgia's past is littered with tiny communities that fate and Mother Nature simply wiped from the map. No place, however, has paid a higher price than Gainesville, Georgia. It’s a city that has survived a devastating downtown fire, two catastrophic tornadoes decades apart, and a deadly industrial accident that killed workers before they even knew what hit them. In this episode of Haunts & Hollows, mystery author Liam Ashe peels back the folk tales to reveal the true stories behind Georgia’s most lethal towns. These stories have now been told for generations, including a mad preacher calling for the wrath of God, more than 100 child workers trapped beneath a burning cotton mill, and entire families who were buried as they died, side by side in unimaginable conditions. Because sometimes the scariest stories aren’t the ones we make up around a campfire. They’re the ones carved into headstones. Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    22 min
  6. Rest in Pieces | Ep 2 | The True Crime Stories of Bodies Buried with Limbs or Heads

    Mar 17

    Rest in Pieces | Ep 2 | The True Crime Stories of Bodies Buried with Limbs or Heads

    What happens when a body is buried without its head? In the South, you get a ghost. . . and a whole lot of history. From the fog-drenched lowlands of South Carolina to the blood-soaked battlefields of the Civil War, the Gothic South has always had a complicated relationship with the dead, especially the incomplete dead. In this episode, mystery author Liam Ashe traces the folklore of headless and dismembered spirits back to their real-world origins, starting with Washington Irving’s legendary Headless Horseman and the ancient folk tale tradition that inspired it. Along the way, you'll meet Joe Baldwin, a doomed railroad brakeman still swinging his phantom lantern in the Carolina darkness; a Confederate soldier haunting a Greensboro cemetery with half a skull and an empty canteen; and the genuinely bizarre true story of Lewis Powell. A Lincoln assassination conspirator and failed murderer, Powell was a man whose head spent over a century lost in a Smithsonian skull collection before finally coming home to Florida. Part ghost story, part American history, this episode will make you think twice about what (and who) might be buried beneath your feet. Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    23 min
  7. Lovers Slain on Lover's Lane | Ep 1 | True Crime Southern Cases That Turned into Urban Legends

    Mar 2

    Lovers Slain on Lover's Lane | Ep 1 | True Crime Southern Cases That Turned into Urban Legends

    That scratching sound on the roof of the car? It might not be a tree branch. From backseat whispers to bloodstained windows, Lover’s Lane has always been a place where the night can turn on you fast. In this episode, mystery author Liam Ashe digs into the dark folklore surrounding America’s most notorious parking spots and the very real killers who made those legends feel uncomfortably close to home. You’ll hear the classic tales: the Dead Boyfriend, the Hook-Handed Killer, and the unforgettable Skinned Tom, a jealous butcher’s revenge story so gruesome it left whole towns afraid of the dark. But the true stories might unsettle you even more. From the never-identified Phantom of Texarkana to the Atlanta Lover’s Lane Murders and the chilling Colonial Parkway killings that claimed at least ten victims over a decade (with a prime suspect who walked free for decades), the line between urban legend and true crime gets razor thin. Never forget, in the Gothic South, the monsters lurking outside the car window aren’t always the ones your parents invented to keep you home at night. Sometimes, they are very, very real. Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, Liam uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

    23 min
  • 7 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

About

Haunts & Hollows: True Tales of the Gothic South is the podcast for anyone who yearns for stories of haunted plantations, of deals made at midnight crossroads, of creatures lurking in moss-draped cemeteries. But where did these tales actually start? Turns out, the real history behind Southern folklore is wilder, stranger, and a whole lot darker than the stories themselves. With each episode, mystery author Liam Ashe uncovers the true tales hiding underneath the myths of the Gothic South. Subscribe now and never miss a tale. And whatever you do tonight, be sure to lower the lights, lock the doors, and pull up a rocking chair. . . things are about to get interesting.

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