Small Town Whispers

We'd love to hear from you! The Watseka Wonder has always lived in a strange space between documented history, Illinois folklore, and the kind of paranormal story you swear you only hear in one town. For our season one finale, I read the epilogue from David St. Clair’s book and finally step past the “what happened” into “what happened next” for Lurancy Vennum, the Roff family, and the wider co...

We'd love to hear from you! Water is not supposed to burn, and yet that’s exactly where this story goes. We pick up the final excerpt from Watseka, America’s Most Extraordinary Case of Possession and Exorcism, and it turns into one of the most intense seance scenes I’ve ever read. Then the narrative cuts to Hickory Street, where Lavinia Durst hears someone inside her home.  After that, I switc...

We'd love to hear from you! A seance isn’t supposed to turn physical, but this one does. We’re back inside the Roff Home circle for the second part of the seance being held by Mary/Lurancy.  Then the porch light clicks on in Wilmington, North Carolina, and my guest Sarah, a true Wilmington native, walks us through the haunted locations she’s convinced still hold energy. We talk about the USO b...

We'd love to hear from you! A wound that vanishes by sundown. A dining room cleared like a stage. Twelve chairs set in a circle with one seat left empty and untouchable. I’m taking you back to Watseka, Illinois and the Roff House, where the final seance begins to form around Lurancy Vennum with a level of planning that feels equal parts family gathering and ritual. Before the lamps are turned...

We'd love to hear from you! A brother shows up at the door with his hat in his hands and a request that sounds simple: “Can Rancy come see Ma?” That one question pulls the Roff household back into the most volatile part of the Watseka-inspired possession story, where every choice feels like it could tip the case toward healing or disaster. Bethany and the Small Town Whispers team walk you thro...

We'd love to hear from you! A child’s body goes still. A household runs out of options. Then an ordinary white envelope drifts down from the ceiling with instructions detailed enough to save a life. We’re back in Watseka, Illinois, digging deeper into the infamous Lurancy Vennum possession and exorcism case, and the moment Dr. Stevens realizes something unseen might be answering him. We track...

We'd love to hear from you! Spring has a way of making people bold, and in Watseka it also makes the haunting louder. We pick back up with the Watseka Wonder story at the moment it turns deeply personal: a March 20th, 1878 letter from “Mary” to Dr. E. W. Stevens. It reads like ordinary life, prayer by candlelight, family updates, flowers and buds in the woods, then slips into something chillin...

We'd love to hear from you! A girl runs barefoot into the March snow because she doesn’t recognize the people calling her “family,” and the whole town decides that panic is proof. We’re back in Watseka, Illinois for a pivotal chapter of the Lurancy Vennum possession story, where spiritualism, small-town politics, and fear of the “abnormal” collide inside the walls of the Roff Home. Then the pr...

We'd love to hear from you! A single bark hidden in an audio edit shouldn’t rattle anyone, but it did. While revisiting our interview with paranormal investigator and podcaster Tom Stewart, we hear what sounds like a dog barking right in the middle of a word. Tom hears it too and tells us he has a “ghost dog” that hangs around the basement where he records. It’s a small moment that hits hard,...

We'd love to hear from you! A girl walks out of her house in 1878 and into someone else’s life, and a grieving family chooses to believe their daughter just came home. We pick up the Watseka Wonder at the moment it turns from rumor to reunion: Lurancy Vennum arrives at the Roff home, and “Mary Roff” starts talking like she never died, recognizing objects, remembering childhood moments, and cra...

We'd love to hear from you! A girl insists she isn’t who her parents think she is and the room spirals from arguments into terror. We start with a chilling stretch of the Watseka possession narrative, where Lurancy Vennum’s family, Ann Roff, and Dr Stevens clash over belief, control, and consequences. The questions are painfully human even when the claims are supernatural: what counts as truth...

We'd love to hear from you! A mother opens her front door and watches a “stranger” sprint through the snow with her arms wide, calling someone else “Ma” and “Nervie” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. That’s where we pick up the Watseka Wonder, the infamous Watseka, Illinois possession case that still messes with our sense of identity, grief, and what we think is possible. We walk...

We'd love to hear from you! A father hears his daughter’s voice twelve years after her death. A basement lamp clicks itself on. We open the door to Watseka’s haunted past and present, weaving the famed Mary Roff and Lurancy Vennum possession with fresh, first-hand accounts from Watseka native Matt Lillig. The result is part living-room confessional, part town archive, and part field guide to t...

We'd love to hear from you! A number can spook a culture, but it can also signal a doorway. On a Friday the 13th packed with lore and pop nostalgia, we follow a thread that leads to Watseka, Illinois—and a moment that flips possession from horror to human. Bethany walks us back into the parlor where Dr. E. W. Stevens tries to help a fragile teenager, Lurancy Venom, whose body has become an ins...

We'd love to hear from you! A winter storm closed the world outside, so we opened a door most people keep shut: the Watseka Wonder. Bethany revisits a case tangled with possession, small-town politics, and a healer who worked without touch, guiding us through a sequence that feels equal parts courtroom, confessional, and séance.  3 men in Watseka take things into their own hands and approach t...

We'd love to hear from you! The room goes quiet when a child is called “possessed,” but the real noise lives in the spaces between fear, faith, and the need to explain what we can’t understand. We open on Watseka’s social stage, where Lavinia Durst’s parlor hums with status and suspicion, and a town’s story takes shape through whispers. As tales of a frightened horse, a threatened minister, an...

We'd love to hear from you! Content Note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and historical mental health struggles. Listener discretion is advised. A seventh grader bends over a blank page and starts to write about a crow. Minutes later, the handwriting shifts, the words turn sharp, and a quiet classroom erupts into chaos. We follow Lorancy Vennum through a chilling school-day spiral...

We'd love to hear from you! We revisit Watseka and are introduced to Lurancy Vennum, a frail teen who hears voices and sees the dead during frightening fits. Between a mother’s terror and a town’s rumors, we explore whether grief, illness, or something unseen is calling Rancy’s name. • Personal connection to Watseka and show updates • Mary Roff’s sudden death and the mercy question • Introduct...

We'd love to hear from you! A quiet Illinois morning shatters with a single scream, and an old question returns with new force: what do we do with the stories we can’t explain? We follow Mary Roff’s final turn as her father, Asa, rides a desperate circuit between Peoria’s closed doors and Springfield’s looming walls, navigating a 19th-century system that sorted people into categories and calle...

We'd love to hear from you! The bells of Palm Sunday ring, the town pours into the street, and then the story slips sideways. Watseka, Illinois is celebrating the end of war, but behind the music and speeches, neighbors trade signatures under lamplight, a cruel nickname sticks, and the Roff family learns how quickly a community can turn polite faces into sharpened edges. When Mary vanishes in...

We'd love to hear from you! A quiet room, a held breath—and then a voice that isn’t quite Mary’s. What begins as a message for a granddaughter turns into a reckoning about shame, stolen money, and the cost of keeping family history locked away. The word protection lands like a warning shot, and moments later, the chaos stops not with shouting, but with an unexpected hero. After the dust settle...

We'd love to hear from you! The room goes still, the metronome ticks, and Mary begins a slow descent down an imagined staircase that somehow leads straight into the private histories of everyone at the table. What follows isn’t vagueness or guesswork; it’s a sequence of precise hits that force even hardened skeptics to rethink their positions.  We talk openly about fear, faith, and what eviden...

We'd love to hear from you! A girl wakes after five silent days with no memory and no weakness. A minister sits in her parlor and suggests a possibility more human than demonic: a spirit not gone far enough. When he conducts an experiment successfully right there in the home, the room shifts from fear to curiosity. That small win for Mary becomes a doorway to bigger questions about belief, evi...

We'd love to hear from you! Content Warning: This episode contains descriptions of self-harm, blood, graphic injury, violence, and strong language. Check the Chapters for details. Listener discretion is advised.  The porchlight flickers, the storm gathers, and a small town decides what it believes. We return to Watseka, Illinois, where Mary’s brief calm gives way to a terrifying rupture: a bla...

We'd love to hear from you! We trace Mary’s missing days at the Peoria Water Cure and the split between diagnosis and belief, then widen the lens to Wilmington’s haunted landmarks and why certain places feel charged. The thread is care: how families endure the unexplainable and how cities hold memory. • personal connection to Watseka and stakes • recap of Mary’s case and early possession claim...