Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Welcome,

Tonight we come to you from an abandoned radio station for a very special Halloween two part series to broadcast some of the scariest stories, urban legends and real events live on air.

Five friends have broken in with the plan to create something spectacularly and unforgettably spooky but their night is about to take a twisted turn when something sinister that was lurking within the confines of the building begins to take the forms of the stories they tell…

They are only given one rule - Don’t stop the broadcast if you want to get out alive.

Will they finish their show?

Will they figure out what’s causing all of this?

Will they make it through the terrifying stories recorded by their friends in the Collective unscathed?

There’s only one way to find out and that is to tune in with them…

Credits:

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in the making of this episode.

This episode was a collaborative effort of the Creators Collective.

A special thanks to hosts,

Missy, Emily, Valerie, Brandon, Amanda and Niamh.

Episode artwork by Amanda.

Script by Missy.

Editing by Niamh, Missy and Emily

And a huge thank you to all our contributing podcasts,

@Do You Dare? Podcast

@Grimly Podcast

@Canadian Creepies Podcast

@Terrorific Podcast

@Down the Crooked Path Podcast

@Rowan and Pine Podcast

@Tea, Tales and Talks Podcast

@Skip or Scream Podcast

@Creepy Shit Podcast

@Something Strange Podcast

@Unknown, Unsolved, Unseen Podcast

@Death Kissed Traveller Podcast

@Moon Brews Podcast

@Macabre Mondays Podcast

@You Good Cuh Podcast

@It Came From The Maritimes Podcast

And @Best Worst Case Scenario Podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode please consider checking out our fellow creators, following them on socials, subscribing, rating and reviewing.

*Ad included at the beginning of this episode is for The Creators Collective and you can find them and all of the podcasts involved in the creation of this episode by following the link below:

https://linktr.ee/CreatorsCollectivePodcasters

Don’t forget to tune back in next week for part 2!

In the summer of 1518, a woman stepped into a Strasbourg street and started dancing. This is the story of the dancing plague, the strangest outbreak in medieval history.

She did not stop. Not that day, not the next. Within weeks the streets were full of people dancing day and night, their feet bleeding and their bodies giving out, and no one could say why. The woman history calls Frau Troffea became the face of a mystery no one has solved.

The city's physicians blamed overheated blood. The council built stages and hired musicians, prescribing more dancing as the cure. The priests called it the curse of Saint Vitus, the saint whose name gave St. Vitus's Dance to history. Later centuries blamed poisoned bread, mass hysteria, and religious frenzy.

But the city records tell a stranger story than any of the theories. And the woman who started it all may never have existed.

Join host Amanda Joy on Down the Crooked Path for the full story of the 1518 dancing plague.Connect with the show: Instagram and TikTok @downthecrookedpath. New episodes every Thursday.

This week's sponsors: Cozy Earth: 21% off luxurious bamboo sheets and pajamas with code DTCP2000:

https://promocode.to/cozy-earth/dtcp2000-zhz

Everwild Designs: 20% off lifestyle and gift jewelry with code CROOKED: https://promocode.to/everwild-designs/crooked-c4c

On February 24, 1978, five friends left a college basketball game in Chico, California and never came home. Days later their car was found abandoned on a remote mountain road in the Plumas National Forest, seventy miles in the wrong direction. Four of the men were eventually found dead. The fifth, Gary Mathias, was never found at all.

In this episode:

• The night of the game and the drive that went seventy miles off course
• The abandoned Mercury and Joseph Schons, the stranger stranded on the same road that night
• The Forest Service trailer, the tucked sheets, and Ted's months of survival
• The search for Gary Mathias and the 2020 sheriff's memo calling it a homicide case
• Every major theory: the wrong turn, foul play, the bridge, and what the evidence actually supports

Sources: Wikipedia (Yuba County Five), StrangeOutdoors.com, Den of Geek, Tony Wright's Things Aren't Right: The Disappearance of the Yuba County Five (2024), Netflix's Files of the Unexplained Season 1 Episode 3, Stuff You Should Know.

Connect with me: Instagram: @downthecrookedpath TikTok: @downthecrookedpath Listen: https://rss.com/podcasts/down-the-crooked-path/

Support the show: Cozy Earth, luxurious bamboo sheets, pajamas and more. Get 21% off with promo code DTCP2000: https://promocode.to/cozy-earth/dtcp2000-zhz Everwild Designs, meaningful lifestyle and gift jewelry. Get 20% off with promo code CROOKED: https://promocode.to/everwild-designs/crooked-c4c

Keywords: Yuba County Five, Gary Mathias, 1978 disappearance, Plumas National Forest, Chico California, unsolved mystery, missing persons, Ted Weiher, Jack Madruga, Bill Sterling, Jackie Huett

In November 1929, a young London occultist named Norah "Netta" Fornario traveled to the remote, wind-swept Scottish island of Iona. Deeply embedded in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn lineage and Alpha et Omega temple, Netta was searching for a "thin place"—a geographic portal where the earthly veil drops and nature spirits can be summoned. Days later, she was dead.

Was she the victim of a catastrophic psychic feud? Did she successfully open a gateway to interdimensional UAPs or the mythical Sidhe? Or did her extreme ritual fasting trigger a tragic, undiagnosed medical emergency known as metabolic acidosis?

Join host Amanda Joy as we peel back the layers of this classic gothic mystery, exploring the physical evidence left on the mound, the strange chemical reaction that turned her silver cross pitch black, and the final night that the island of Iona refuses to give up.

Connect With Us

Thank you for walking down this crooked path with me! Let’s keep the conversation going on social media:

• TikTok: @downthecrookedpath
• Instagram: @downthecrookedpath

✨ Creator Shoutout: Massive love to our incredible creators collective! Give them a follow for all things eerie and unexplained on Instagram: @spookypodsquad

Exclusive Listener Discounts & Sponsors

Support the brands that make this show possible! Use our links and promo codes below to grab your exclusive listener deals:

• 🛒 Cozy Earth - Indulge in the world's most luxurious, eco-friendly bamboo sheets, premium pajamas, and loungewear.
  • 💰 Get 21% OFF | Promo Code: DTCP2000
  • 🔗 Claim Your Cozy Earth Deal Here
• 🛒 Everwild Designs - Handcrafted, meaningful lifestyle and gift jewelry designed with intention. Featuring stunning natural gemstone birthstones, celestial talismans, and original collections crafted from 100% recycled silver.
  • 💰 Get 20% OFF | Promo Code: CROOKED
  • 🔗 Claim Your Everwild Designs Deal Here

Step into the overgrown, foggy paths of London's historic graveyard as we uncover one of the most bizarre chapters in modern vampire lore. In the early 1970s, a media-fueled frenzy gripped the city, transforming a local ghost hunt into a full-blown paranormal media circus. At the center of this unexplained mystery were two rival researchers, David Farrant and Sean Manchester, whose bitter obsession with tracking down the elusive Highgate vampire sparked a Fifty-Year War.

From midnight cemetery raids and shocking court evidence to a 1974 Old Bailey prison sentence and decades of digital sabotage, Amanda Joy breaks down the raw, human madness behind the myth

🕸️ Where to Find Down the Crooked Path

Don't get lost in the dark! Follow the trail and join our community of mystery junkies online:

• Instagram: @DownTheCrookedPath — Behind-the-scenes look at the graveyards, historic crime photos, and episode visual aids.
• TikTok: @DownTheCrookedPath— Bite-sized deep dives into the world's strangest urban legends.
• Facebook: Down the Crooked Path Podcast Discussion Group — Chat with Amanda and fellow listeners about tonight's case.

🎙️ Community Shout-Out

A massive shout-out to our incredible network at the Creators Collective! We wouldn't be here without the absolute best community of indie audio storytellers. If you love things that go bump in the night, go give our eerie family a follow over on Instagram at the @SpookyPodSquad for your ultimate fix of daily macabre content and indie podcast recommendations.

Want to sink your teeth into the primary documents, and deep dives used to map out tonight's journey? Explore the links below:

• Gothic History Breakdown: Read the historical timeline, cultural impact, and secondary accounts of the rivalry on the Gothic lore archives at David Castleton's The Serpent's Pen Blog.
• The 1974 Legal Case: Read the original archival reporting on David Farrant's Old Bailey trial and the media frenzy surrounding the cemetery desecration via the New York Times Archival Library.
• The Magician's Duel & Feud History: Explore how the urban legend completely consumed the lives of both men in the comprehensive investigative feature by The Observer.

This week on Down the Crooked Path, we are stepping aside from our usual chapter to bring you a special crossover episode from our Thursday segment on the Canadian Creepies Podcast!

Your host Amanda Joy teams up with her frequent partner-in-creepy, Valerie, to wander down a distinctly French-Canadian path. Quebec is legendary for its European charm, cobblestone streets, and stunning landscapes—but beneath that beautiful surface lies a deeply rooted history of dark folklore, tragic history, and terrifying paranormal encounters.

In this special release, Amanda and Valerie unpack the spirits that still refuse to rest in one of Canada's oldest provinces. From the eerie, cobblestone corridors of Old Montreal to the haunting folklore passed down through generations, we are digging into the stories that still linger out of sight. It’s creepy, it’s historic, and it is definitely going to keep you up tonight.

In the winter of 1803, a terrifying specter held a small English village in a state of total mass panic. Long before the Victorian era, witnesses were already reporting chilling encounters with a phantom lurking in the pitch-black lanes, leaping out from behind tombstones, and physically assaulting residents. The paranormal terror grew so intense that armed citizen patrols took to the streets to hunt down the entity. But on January 3, 1804, a tragic case of mistaken identity ended in a brutal, real-world shooting and a sensational courtroom showdown.

But the story doesn't end with a royal pardon. What started as terrifying neighborhood ghost stories about a haunted churchyard ultimately forced the justice system to fundamentally rewrite the rules of self-defense for generations to come.

Join us as we break down the documented facts of the haunting, the frantic race against the execution clock, and the landmark case that changed the law forever..

📱 Connect With Us

Follow us down the crooked path for episode visuals, behind-the-scenes deep dives, and community discussions:

• Instagram: @DownTheCrookedPath
• TikTok: @DownTheCrookedPath

✨ Shoutout to the Squad: A massive shoutout to our incredible creative collective, the Spooky Pod Squad on Instagram! Thank you for keeping the lights on in the dark and supporting independent true crime storytelling. Give them a follow for your daily dose of the strange and unusual!

📚 Documented Historical Sources

• The 1804 Court Proceedings: The original details of the trial, the jury's attempts to lower the charge, and the forced murder conviction are preserved in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey (Ref: t18040111-79, 11th January 1804) [Old Bailey Online].
• The Murder Act of 1752: The strict penal mandate requiring the dissection of executed murderers is cataloged under the historical statutory records of Great Britain (The Murder Act 1752, 25 Geo. II c. 37).
• The 1984 Appellate Resolution: The formal overturning of the paradox and the creation of the modern "honest belief" standard is archived under R v Williams (Gladstone), available via the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) [UK Court of Appeal].
• The Legal Conundrum: The long-term academic debate regarding ignorantia facti (mistake of fact) originating from the 1804 trial is heavily documented in British common law textbooks, including Glazebrook's Criminal Law Theory.

In Part 2 of our true crime deep dive into the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders, we look past the initial nationwide panic and focus directly on the aftermath, the primary suspects, and the intense manhunt that gripped Illinois. We break down how the newly formed Tylenol Murders Task Force scrambled to track down who was slipping lethal doses of potassium cyanide into Extra-Strength capsules. The trajectory of the investigation completely shifts when an anonymous extortion letter demanding $1 million is sent to Johnson & Johnson, triggering a coordinated FBI search for the writer.

We untangle the web of the key figures who fell into the crosshairs of law enforcement, focusing heavily on the enigmatic James W. Lewis—the man convicted of that extortion plot who spent decades playing a cat-and-mouse game with investigators. We also look into local Chicago dock worker Roger Arnold, whose suspicious behavior made him a prime suspect in the product tampering nightmare. Finally, we explore how this unprecedented act of domestic terrorism targeted vulnerable store shelves and forever altered over-the-counter medicine, forcing McNeil Consumer Products to pioneer tamper-proof triple-seal packaging and inspiring the federal Tylenol Act. Decades later, this case remains one of the most chilling unsolved mysteries in American history.

Connect With Us on Social Media

Don’t miss out on case photos, archival newspaper clippings, and mid-week updates! Follow our community on these platforms:

• 📸 Instagram: @DownTheCrookedPath
• 🎵 TikTok: @DownTheCrookedPath
• 👥 Facebook: Down The Crooked Path Podcast

Proud Member of The Creators Collective

Find us on Instagram : @spookypodsquad

"A Bitter Pill" Feature by Joy Bergmann – The definitive investigative deep-dive from the Chicago Reader exploring alternative supply chains, warehouse tracking, and suspect timelines.

• NPR Archival Obituary Report – The historical look-back breaking down the life, extortion conviction, and 2023 death of prime suspect James W. Lewis.WTTW Chicago Stories Special Feature – The comprehensive digital home for the multi-perspective documentary on the local victims, complete with reporter roundtable reflections.
• PBS Video: Inside the Tylenol Murders – Full streaming entry for the seasoned documentary investigating how the laced capsules upended consumer safety.
• CBS News Chicago 40-Year Retrospective Hub – The centralized network hub detail archive capturing the tracking efforts of the Tylenol Murders Task Force.
• CBS News Chicago: Profiles of Suspects & Persons of Interest – Detailed historical breakdowns of Roger Arnold, James Lewis, and other key figures scrutinized by the FBI.James W. Lewis Case Documentation on Wikipedia – Full historical repository outlining his financial crimes, extortion trial background, and decades of legal scrutiny.