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Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Merry Christmas From The Bell Witch: Four Years It Tormented Them; Christmas Day It Celebrated

Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Darren Marlar

True Crime, History, Society & Culture, Documentary, Science, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For four years, an unseen entity tormented the Bell family of Tennessee — pulling hair, slapping faces, filling the house with phantom voices — until Christmas 1820, when it finally got what it wanted: John Bell dead and his daughter's life in ruins. #12NightmaresOfXmas 

Episode 3 of 12 in the “Twelve Nightmares of Christmas” series!

IN THIS EPISODE: “Merry Christmas From The Bell Witch”, “The Murder of Thelma Todd”

SOURCES AND ESSENTIAL WEB LINKS…
All stories in this episode are from the book, “The Spirits of Christmas: The Dark Side of the Holidays” by Sylvia Shults: https://amzn.to/3uT2vMA
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music provided by Alibi Music Library, EpidemicSound and/or StoryBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ) Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and Nicolas Gasparini (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission of the artists.
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(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)

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"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46

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WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2024, Weird Darkness.

https://weirddarkness.com/BellWitchChristmas

#WeirdDarkness #BellWitch #TennesseeGhostStory #TrueScaryStories #AmericanHaunting #Poltergeist #ChristmasHorror #ParanormalActivity #FamousHaunting #HauntedHistory

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome, Weirdoes. I'm Darren Marler, and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find

0:07.9

stories of the paranormal, supernatural, mysterious, macabre, unsolved, and unexplained. If you

0:15.7

are new here, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Android so you don't miss future episodes.

0:21.9

This is a special 12 Nightmares of Christmas episode. Each day from December 13th through

0:29.0

December 24th, I'm posting a new episode of Weird Darkness, featuring material from the

0:34.3

new book The Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays by Sylvia

0:39.0

Schultz. Be sure to come back every day between December 13th and December 24th for more holiday

0:46.2

horrors. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, put another log

0:54.1

onto the fire, and pour yourself an eggnog.

0:57.1

And come with me into the weird darkness.

1:08.9

It's been 200 years since the Bell family of Tennessee was tormented by a mysterious entity

1:16.7

known only as the Bell Witch.

1:19.8

But the events that unfolded between the years of 1817 and 1821 have remained evergreen

1:27.3

in American ghost lore, and they are some of the most

1:31.0

amazing tales in Tennessee history.

1:34.7

John Bell, a prosperous cotton farmer, was born in North Carolina in 1750.

1:41.4

He, his wife Lucy, and their nine children, moved to Robertson County, Tennessee in

1:46.5

1804. Bell purchased many acres of land along the Red River and set about improving it even more.

1:55.0

He cleared fields, planted orchards, and built a home for his large family. He even built a one-room schoolhouse, where his children and his neighbor's children

2:04.5

could get an education.

2:06.7

This being Tennessee, in the early 19th century, John Bell's cotton plantation was worked

2:12.3

by slaves.

...

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