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MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

Fan Favorite - "The Knot"

MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories

MrBallen

Storytelling, Dark, True Crime, True Story, Strange, Mysterious, Mrballen

4.930.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today's story is a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 388. On a September afternoon in 2000, an FBI forensics analyst stood in her lab in Quantico, Virginia, staring into a microscope in confusion. She was looking at two strands of hair that were evidence in a murder investigation. And something wasn’t right. She checked the label on the evidence bag the sample came from, then looked back into the microscope. She definitely wasn’t imagining it. The label was wrong, which meant that the detective who had packaged the hairs and sent them over for analysis – had not understood what he was looking at. And this wasn’t a small mistake. Because if the analyst was right about what the hairs really were – then the whole investigation she was working on was about to change.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode.

0:06.5

On a September afternoon in 2000, an FBI forensics analyst stood in her lab in Quantico, Virginia,

0:12.8

staring into a microscope in confusion. She was looking at two strands of hair that were

0:17.6

evidence in a murder investigation, and something just wasn't right.

0:25.8

She checked the label in the evidence bag the sample came from and then looked back into the microscope,

0:31.7

and she knew she was not imagining this. The label had to be wrong, which meant that the detective who had packaged the hares and sent them over here for analysis had not understood what he was

0:37.1

even looking at. And this was not

0:39.0

a small mistake, because if the analyst was right about what these hairs really were, then this

0:44.4

entire murder investigation was about to change. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of

0:50.6

the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday

0:58.4

and once on Thursday.

1:00.1

So, if that's of interest to you, make the follow button jealous by posting pictures of

1:04.4

yourself with other cooler buttons like the subscribe button.

1:08.7

Okay, let's get into today's story.

1:42.1

Okay? like the subscribe button. Okay, let's get into today's story. In the early evening of July 19, 2000,

1:45.8

22-year-old Misty Morse carried her surfboard out of the water and onto the beach in Indian Harbor Beach, Florida. She laid the board down on the sand,

1:50.9

then sat down next to it to catch her breath. Her heart was still racing from the last wave

1:55.1

she had just caught, and the adrenaline was exactly what she needed. Between her waitressing job

2:00.3

and her sales clerk job and the community college courses she was taking what she needed. Between her waitressing job and her sales clerk job and the

2:02.3

community college courses she was taking, she basically had no time to do anything for herself.

2:07.6

And so to get out here and to be out on the ocean and just be away from it all was not only a

2:12.1

great respite, but was also very calming for her. And so looking out over the horizon,

...

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