Carnival Corpses & Swiss Ogres

The Box of Oddities

John Elliott and Kat Walls

True Crime, Society & Culture, Comedy

4.9 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Box of Oddities, JG resurrects one of America’s strangest carnival legends: the so-called “Mummy of John Wilkes Booth.” What begins with a mysterious deathbed confession unravels into a 60-year sideshow tour involving embalmed drifters, Civil War conspiracy theories, broken limbs, arsenic preservation, and a carnival circuit that cashed in on America’s morbid curiosity. Was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln secretly living under an alias in Texas? Or was his mummified “corpse” just another brilliant piece of ballyhoo? JG digs into eyewitness accounts, bizarre examinations by 1930s physicians, and the odd legacy of Memphis lawyer Finis L. Bates—whose obsession might have created the blueprint for modern macabre tourism. Then, Kat travels to Bern, Switzerland, to explore one of Europe’s most unsettling—and surprisingly misunderstood—public monuments: the 16th-century Kindlifresserbrunnen, the “Child-Eater of Bern.” Is this towering baby-devouring ogre a warning rooted in antisemitism? A Renaissance reinterpretation of the Greek titan Cronus? Or simply a nightmare-inducing way to keep children from misbehaving? Kat dives into competing theories, Renaissance symbolism, and the long, strange history of fear-based folklore carved into stone. Stick around for weird Google search stats, existential cat-judgment queries, and why Icelandair may be your gateway to ogre-themed tourism. It’s history, horror, hilarity, and human oddness—exactly what you come here for. This Box contains the following ingredients: John Wilkes Booth mummy, Finis L. Bates, David E. George, carnival sideshow history, American oddities, Kindlifresserbrunnen, Child-Eater of Bern, Swiss folklore, Cronus statue, Renaissance sculpture, weird history podcast, bizarre monuments, true oddities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How's the business going?
0:01.2	We're busier than ever, but struggling to get the staff we need. Oh, recruiting can be such a distraction. We gave Job Centre Plus a try, and they've really helped us out. Really? Yeah. It was dead easy. We got our own employer advisor, Julie, who helped advertise our jobs, shortlisted candidates for us and letters interview at the Job Centre. We've hired some great people, and Job Centre Plus really took the hassle out of it, And there was no fee.
0:23.1	Brilliant. That's straight on my to-do list. view at the job center. We've hired some great people and Job Center Plus really took the hassle
0:21.2	out of it and there was no fee. Brilliant. That's straight on my to-do list. Find out more at
0:25.9	business.gov.com.uk slash recruit. Eligibility criteria apply. What's something you learned in
0:31.5	history class that you feel like wasn't the whole truth? Better yet, what's something you didn't learn
0:37.3	at all that was omitted
0:38.6	completely? That's what I like to call redacted history. My name is Andre White, the host of the
0:45.0	Redacted History Podcast, the place where histories forgotten events, heroes, and villains get their
0:50.9	story told, one episode at a time. The Redacted History Podcast.
0:56.2	Real history never dies.
0:58.8	Stream the Redacted History Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
1:05.6	What follows may not be suitable for all audiences.
1:08.3	Listener discretion is advised.
1:10.9	The world is full of stories.
1:15.4	Stories of mysteries.
1:18.1	Of curiosities.
1:21.3	Of oddities.
1:24.0	Join Cat and Jethro Gilligan Toth for the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected, as they lift the lid and cautiously peer inside the box of oddities.
1:39.3	Well, I'm excited about the story I have for you, but I'm a little concerned about my performance, my upcoming performance, because I'm not really feeling that great today. I'm so sorry. I don't know if it's just kind of lagging from getting back from the tour or just, you know, sleeping in different beds every night or eating a lot of road food. I'm not really sure what it is. Sure. There's a lot
2:01.8	that's been going on. Let me ask you this. What did you have for dinner last night?
2:07.7	I had some, well, I had a bag of those Buckey's Beaver Nuggets and iced tea. I had that.
	...

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