A Good Night For a Murder

This episode covers more late 19th and early 20th century cases like that of Bridget Cleary where modern psychiatry has offered an explanation for these seemingly bizarre cases.

Was it a cure, or was it murder?

In late 19th century Ireland, fairy lore ran so deep that one man believed his sick wife had been swapped with a fairy changeling and went to extreme lengths to get her back.

This is the case of Bridget Cleary.

On February 24, 1911 the Barnabet family of Lafayette, Louisiana awoke to the news that their neighbors, the Andrus family, had been murdered in the night. The family had been struck down in their sleep with an axe that was found on the floor of the home. A month before in nearby Crowley, Louisiana, the Byers family had been killed in the same fashion. The murders were eerily similar to another, back in 1909 out in Rayne, Louisiana. Now, the murders had come to the Barnabet’s doorstep.

Some though, thought the murders had done more than just arrive in Lafayette. They thought the Barnabets were, in fact, responsible.

To accompany episode 51 about Clementine Barnebet, Cult of the Axe Murderer, I am going to tell about the period between 1909 and 1912, and some say clear through 1919, when a spree of axe murders rifled across the United States.

This the debut of a new type of episode on the public feed called A Good Night Snack!

The first Good Night Snack I have for you, is about weird Victorian graves. Some of the legends are real, some are probably not real, but one thing is for certain, is that they are all really weird… Be sure to stick around and listen to all 4 stories because they get wilder as we go.

Two teenagers, the Fox sisters, are credited with igniting the Spiritualist movement. At its height, by the late 1800s, upwards of 8 million people across the US and Europe were said to subscribe to spiritualist beliefs. But, in 1888, the Fox Sisters admitted that it was all fake. They were not mediums - none of that was real Every message, knock, or rapping from the other side was all manufactured by them. What audiences thought were messages from their deceased loved ones, were actually just them cracking their toes and ankles really loudly.

This is the story of the Fox sisters.

To accompany episode 49 about Starvation Doctor Linda Hazzard, I am going to tell more Victorian scandals, that had society clutching their pearls, including that of Dr. Hazard’s bigamist husband.

Linda Hazzard developed her own fasting protocol that she said was a “panacea for all manner of illnesses, ridding the body of toxins that caused imbalances in the body." She said all disease was caused by “impure blood” brought on by “impaired digestion,” and that her method could cure anything from toothache to tuberculosis. In 1898 Linda decided her husband the the two children they’d had together were holding her back, and she left them to go pursue her career.

As you know, each regular episode of A Good Night For a Murder covers a Victorian era true crime case, and that includes scam artists. Since the Victorian era was the golden age of spiritualism, there was no shortage of psychics and mediums floating about. And if you’re a fan of the pod, you know many of them were fraudsters. When fraudulent mediums come up, there is often one person in particular who is mentioned who specialized in debunking mediums and their abilities. That person, is famous magician, Harry Houdini.