One of the reasons I started this podcast is because as much as I love a ghost story, I always want to know the true story behind the story. And I was often surprised how far the facts of the matter were from the story that got me interested in the first place. Often the tall tales are vilifying someone who did nothing to deserve it. And I don’t think that’s right, and I want to set the record straight. So tonight, I’m going to set the record straight on Bathsheba Sherman, who was depicted as a Satanic, baby-murdering witch, in the 2013 movie The Conjuring.

One of the topics that generates the most discussion any time I talk about it on social media, is Victorian funeral customs. In particular, a lot of people relate to the covering of mirrors in the house when someone dies. Many comment that this is still a thing in many communities and cultures today. The reasons Victorians did this was so the soul of the deceased didn’t get confused and trapped in the mirror. But this barely scratches the surface of beliefs about mirrors. That’s why I’ve decided to dedicate tonight’s Good Night Snack episode to mirror lore and superstitions.

What would you make of a psychic medium who used their gift to foretell the deaths of those around them? Pretty spooky, right? But, what if they used this gift to take out life insurance policies shortly before those predicted death dates? Now, it feels a little less spooky, and more suspicious. That is exactly what happened in the case we’re covering tonight. This is the story of fortune teller & murderer Louisa Lindloff.

One of the reasons I started this podcast is because I love getting to the bottom of myths or legends. Some of my favorites are local myths and legends. When I learned that one of my favorite summer thriller films was inspired by events in New Jersey - where I am from - I immediately fell down that rabbit hole. This is the story of the 1916 shark attacks that some say inspired the movie Jaws.

Tonight I want to talk about a person who comes up over and over again in the stories I cover, but I’ve never had an opportunity to delve in to their history in a regular episode. This is the story of Madame Tussaud.

By the 1830s, an obsession with Egypt had raced across most of Europe and much of the US. The trend became known as Egyptomania, and as one source put it, “A craze for things Egyptian had taken Europeans by storm. Diplomats and tourists, merchants and dukes, all vied with one another to assemble spectacular collections of mummies and other antiquities.”