Harry Powers & the Inspiration for "The Night of the Hunter"
What a Creep
Margo Donohue
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Harry Powers: The Inspiration for “The Night of the Hunter”
Season 27, Episode 3
Harry Powers, often called the "Lonely Hearts Killer," was a notorious American serial killer active in the early 1930s. Born Herman Drenth in the Netherlands in 1892, he emigrated to the United States and eventually settled in West Virginia. Powers used personal ads in newspapers to target his victims, posing as a lonely, wealthy bachelor seeking companionship. He lured women, often widows or divorcées, with promises of marriage and financial security. In 1931, Powers was arrested and charged with the murders of Asta Eicher, a widow from Illinois, her three children, and another woman named Dorothy Lemke from Massachusetts.
His murders were shockingly brutal; he confined his victims in a hidden room in his garage before killing them. After murdering his victims, Powers took their money and belongings. Powers' trial received extensive media coverage due to the horrific details and his manipulative use of "lonely hearts" ads. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death, being hanged on March 18, 1932, in Moundsville, West Virginia. His crimes have inspired books and films, solidifying his infamy as a symbol of betrayal in love and trust. Harry Powers was also a significant inspiration for the novel and subsequent film The Night of the Hunter. The novel was written by Davis Grubb in 1953 and adapted into a film in 1955. (We covered this on one of my other shows, Book Vs. Movie!) Content Warning: Murder
Sources for this episode:· West Virginia Archives & History:· The Hur Herald· Wikipedia· West Virginia University Libraries:· Murderpedia:· Serial Killer: The Quiet Dell Killer· West Virginia’s Lonely Hearts Killer by Angela Fielder· Newspapers.com: The History of Lonely-Hearts Ads· YouTube “Well, I Never”· YouTube “Appalachian Monsters…”· YouTube “Scary Facts”
Be sure to follow us on social media. But don’t follow us too closely … don’t be a creep about it!
- Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CreepPod @CreepPod
- Facebook: Join the private group!
- Instagram @WhatACreepPodcast
- Visit our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/whatacreep
- Email: [email protected]
- We’ve got merch here! https://whatacreeppodcast.threadless.com/#
- Our website is www.whatacreeppodcast.com
- Our logo was created by Claudia Gomez-Rodriguez. Follow her on Instagram @ClaudInCloud
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Whether you're starting or scaling your company's security program, demonstrating top-notch security |
| 0:06.0 | practices and establishing trust is more important than ever. Vanta automates compliance for SOC2, |
| 0:13.4 | ISO-2-2701 and more, saving you time and money while helping you build customer trust. |
| 0:21.1 | Plus, you can streamline security reviews by automating questionnaires and demonstrating your |
| 0:26.5 | security posture with a customer-facing trust center, all powered by Vanta AI. |
| 0:33.0 | Over 7,000 global companies like Atlassian, Flow Health and Quora, use Vanta to manage risk and prove |
| 0:40.5 | security in real time. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com slash go. That's vanta.com |
| 0:49.8 | slash GO for $1,000 off. |
| 0:57.1 | AI might be the most important innovation ever. |
| 1:00.5 | It's storming every industry with literally billions being invested. |
| 1:01.7 | So buckle up. |
| 1:06.3 | The problem is that AI needs the right data and a lot of speed and processing power. |
| 1:09.3 | So how do you compete without cost spiraling out of control? |
| 1:15.0 | Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure or OCI. |
| 1:20.6 | OCI is a single platform for your infrastructure, database and application development with AI embedded across it all. |
| 1:22.2 | And Oracle's offering cloud helps you address your requirements for location, access and data |
| 1:26.4 | residency. |
| 1:27.6 | OCI provides blazing fast speeds for AI's demanding workloads, |
| 1:31.5 | and in the cloud when you pay by the minute, speed matters, |
| 1:34.7 | and of course, nobody does data better than Oracle. |
| 1:38.1 | If you want OCI to help you do more and spend less, |
| 1:40.9 | like Uber, the Premier League and Oracle Red Bull Racing, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Margo Donohue, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Margo Donohue and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.