Her Strange Hour

For nearly seven years, Canadian nurse Cindy James reported receiving threatening phone calls, disturbing notes, and being physically attacked by someone she couldn't identify. She moved, changed her name, installed security equipment, and even hired a private investigator. But the incidents she reported continued. Then, in May 1989, Cindy vanished. Two weeks later, her body was discovered beh...

In June 1908, a lighthouse on Michigan's Grand Island went dark. Two men were supposed to be keeping its light burning, but neither was there. Days later, a small sailboat was discovered on Lake Superior with the body of assistant lighthouse keeper Edward Morrison inside. His injuries raised suspicions, but the official explanation for his death was exposure. Meanwhile, head keeper George Genr...

What happens when the danger comes from someone already welcomed into your home? Join Ivy Monroe for four unsettling cases spanning South Africa, Japan, and Australia. This episode explores Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu, Chisako Kakehi, Caroline Grills, and Martha Needle—women whose stories involve betrayal, poisoning, and crimes against people close to them. From a police officer to a grandmother, we exa...

Two brothers lived behind the blocked windows of a Harlem brownstone. Inside, narrow passages wound through years of accumulated belongings—and traps waited for anyone who tried to enter. When police discovered Homer Collyer dead in 1947, his brother Langley was nowhere to be found. The search would last eighteen days. Join Ivy Monroe for the strange, tragic story of the Collyer brothers: their li...

Police searched the building where 18-year-old Ruth Cruger had last been seen. They found nothing—yet Ruth was hidden beneath the cellar floor. In 1917, Ruth left her New York City home to have her ice skates sharpened and never returned. As the investigation stalled, attorney and investigator Grace Humiston—later nicknamed “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes”—refused to let Ruth’s disappearance be forgotten. T...

For 46 years, the young woman found murdered near Mulholland Drive in 1969 was known only as Jane Doe #59. Her case became surrounded by theories about Charles Manson and the violence gripping Los Angeles at the time—but her real story began thousands of miles away. Reet Silvia Jurvetson was 19 years old when she left Canada for California, apparently following a mysterious young man known as John...

Linda Hazzard had no medical degree, yet Washington legally licensed her to practice medicine. Her treatment was extreme fasting — tiny amounts of broth and juice, harsh massages, hot baths, and daily enemas that could involve gallons of water. Patients became dangerously thin. Some died. And while several were growing weaker, Hazzard gained access to money, jewelry, property, and estates. In this...

Everyone remembers Marshall Applewhite. But Heaven’s Gate began with two leaders. Meet Bonnie Nettles — the nurse, mother, and spiritual teacher Applewhite believed outranked him. We’re uncovering how she helped build the group, why followers trusted her, and how her death in 1985 changed everything that came after. I really like this package because Heaven’s Gate is doing the heavy lifting for re...

Several of Tillie Klimek’s husbands became sick and died. Then one survived. When doctors found arsenic in Joseph Klimek’s body, investigators began looking into Tillie’s past. They reopened old graves, questioned her neighbors and uncovered stories about mourning clothes, a discounted coffin and a woman who seemed to know exactly when death was coming. But Tillie was convicted of only one murder....

One woman was confined after publicly accusing a clergyman of refusing to pay her. Another spent fourteen years trying to prove her real identity. A third secretly wrote appeals for freedom with a pencil barely an inch long. In this episode of Her Strange Hour , Ivy Monroe explores three bizarre asylum cases from the 1800s involving Mary Frances Heaton, Hersilie Rouy, and Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop...

On New Year’s Eve in 1812, Theodosia Burr Alston boarded a ship bound for New York. She never arrived. In this episode of Her Strange Hour , we explore the storm, the rumors, the pirate stories, and the haunting mystery of the woman who vanished at sea.

Dorothy Forstein vanished from her Philadelphia home in 1949, and the strangest detail came from her 9-year-old daughter. According to Marcy, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a stranger inside the house. Dorothy appeared unconscious, and the man reportedly told Marcy not to worry before carrying her mother away. Dorothy was never seen again. But four years earlier, Dorothy had alread...

In Part 3 of The Family cult story, one girl’s escape helps expose Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s hidden world. The raid begins, the truth comes out, and the cult Anne built finally starts to collapse.

In Part 2 of our series on lThe Family , we look at the children trapped inside Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s secretive cult world — a world of control, obedience, and stolen lives. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 , go back and start there first, as this will be a 3-part series .

Anne Hamilton-Byrne was a glamorous yoga teacher with a growing circle of loyal followers. But behind the peaceful image was something far darker: a secretive group known as The Family, children taken into her world, and a woman who believed she had a divine mission. In Part 1, we begin the disturbing story of how one teacher became the center of one of Australia’s strangest cult cases.

In 1974, a woman was found in the dunes near Provincetown, Massachusetts. For nearly 50 years, no one knew who she was. She became known only as the Lady of the Dunes. Then DNA finally gave her back her name: Ruth Marie Terry. In this Bizarre Lunchtime Tales episode, we look at the mystery that haunted Cape Cod for decades, the theories that surrounded the case, and the chilling truth investigator...

Three real mysteries where ships and planes were found, but the answers never fully made sense. In this episode, we explore the Mary Celeste, the Star Dust disappearance, and the Joyita ghost ship — three strange historical cases filled with missing people, eerie clues, and unanswered questions.

In 2013, 21-year-old Elisa Lam vanished while staying at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Her final known moments were captured in strange elevator footage that spread across the internet and turned her disappearance into one of the most discussed mysteries online. Nearly three weeks later, Elisa was found in a rooftop water tank above the hotel. In this Echoes & Oddities podcast-style episode,...

Deep in Australia’s Victorian High Country, hikers have whispered about a mysterious bushman known as The Button Man . Was he truly someone to fear, or did rumor, isolation, and wilderness folklore turn a real man into a mountain legend? This shorter episode is part of Bizarre Lunchtime Tales — bite-size strange stories from Echoes & Oddities that you can listen to on your lunch break. What do...

In 1966, two men were found dead on a hill in Brazil wearing homemade lead masks. No injuries. No clear answers. Just cryptic notes, strange instructions, and one of the most unsettling mysteries ever recorded. Was it a failed experiment… or something far stranger?

In 1987, a routine police call led to the discovery of two men traveling with six neglected children — and what followed became one of the strangest cases of the decade. The investigation led to a secretive group known as The Finders , a communal organization tied to unusual beliefs, hidden properties, and a man named Marion Pettie. As disturbing claims surfaced and authorities searched for answer...

In 1922, six people were brutally murdered on a remote farm in Germany. But what makes the Hinterkaifeck case so terrifying is not just the crime itself — it is everything that happened before and after. There were strange footprints in the snow leading to the farm but none leading away. Family members heard unexplained noises in the attic. A key went missing. Then, after the murders, it appeared...

The Roman Empire is remembered for power, glory, and grandeur… but behind Nero’s golden façade were the people he broke, used, and destroyed. This episode dives deep into the disturbing and tragic story of Sporus — a young victim whose life was twisted by the emperor’s cruelty — along with the heartbreaking fates of Poppaea, Octavia, Britannicus, and Agrippina. These are the lives history tried to...

In this episode of Echoes & Oddities, we explore seven of the darkest and most disturbing true stories buried in history — from the infamous Lizzie Borden case to the mysterious life of Kaspar Hauser, a man with no past. We revisit: 🪓 Lizzie Borden and the murder that divided a nation 🧩 Kaspar Hauser, the boy who appeared out of nowhere 🍽️ Tarrare, whose hunger defied human limits ⚰️ The Cad...

On March 24, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley vanished from a Caribbean cruise ship without a trace. No splash. No note. No goodbye. What happened aboard Rhapsody of the Seas that night? Was it an accident, an abduction, or something far darker? In this episode of Echoes & Oddities , I dive into the chilling case that’s haunted investigators and her family for over two decades. We’...