The Spy, The Witch, and the Wych Elm: An Unsolved Mystery
Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories
Darren Marlar
4.6 • 4.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources and full transcript): https://weirddarkness.com/SpyWitchWych
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Was a woman found dead in a wych elm tree in wartime England actually a WWII German spy? (Bella in the Wych Elm) *** Jonathan Reed couldn’t bear to be separated from his wife ... so he moved into her tomb. (Til Death Do Us Part) *** Dr. Milton Rokeach forced three men who all believed themselves to be the Messiah to live together for two years in an effort to bring them out of their irrationality. But what Rokeach learned had little to do with the men themselves. (The Three Christs of Ypsilanti) *** A bodiless voice torments a lone beachgoer camping out. (Spirit Voice on the Beach) *** Only months after the infamous ax murders in Villisca, Iowa - the quiet farm community of Payson, Illinois was shattered by its own terrifying murder case. (The Pfanschmidt Murders) *** In an effort to test one of his theories on social behavior, psychologist Muzafer Sherif released twenty-two 12-year-old boys into a sparsely supervised wilderness camp — and then covertly provoked them to fight each other. (The Robbers Cave Experiment) *** Witch hunts and trials. They didn’t end in Salem – they live on even today in Papua New Guinea. (Papua New Guinea Witchcraft) *** A man in Japan sees small, childlike ashen white aliens. (Childlike Aliens) *** How can a holy book such as the Christian bible bring bad luck? One paranormal museum in West Virginia has the answer with an infamous display of the 666 Bible. (The 666 Bible) *** The people of Hannibal, Missouri in the late 1800s would remain appalled that one of their most prominent residents could be murdered without retribution. Even a $10,000 reward couldn’t bring justice. (The Stillwell Murder) *** A father takes his son to the ruins of an old, burned down building – and the boy sees something his father doesn’t. (The Old Factory Visit) *** “The Devil’s Advocate” - it’s a phrase that can be traced to the Roman Catholic Church that long had an actual official office for a person who was employed to be exactly that – an advocate for the devil. And he still works for the church even today. (The Devil’s Advocate)
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:00:51.758 = Show Open
00:03:56.427 = Was Bella In The Wych Elm a WWII Spy?
00:17:52.860 = Til Death Do Us Part ***
00:20:30.246 = The Three Christs of Ypsilanti
00:28:17.112 = Spirit Voice On The Beach
00:32:35.825 = The Pfanschmidt Murders of 1912 ***
00:41:38.517 = Devil’s Advocate
00:45:43.295 = The Robbers Cave Experiment
00:53:23.042 = Papua New Guinea Witchcraft ***
00:59:43.636 = Child Aliens
00:1:03:02.762 = The 666 Bible
01:08:44.469 = The Stillwell Murder ***
01:20:23.228 = The Old Factory Visit
01:25:09.988 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
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*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Was Bella in the Wych Elm a WWII German Spy?” posted at The UnRedacted: https://tinyurl.com/wtxqr7l
“The Pfanschmidt Murders” by Troy Taylor for American Hauntings Ink: https://tinyurl.com/uolq6b8
“Spirit Voice on the Beach” by Berggraf38, posted at YourGhostStories.com: https://tinyurl.com/qngcm6l
“The Three Christs of Ypsilanti” by Taig Spearman for All That’s Interesting: https://tinyurl.com/w9delgl
“The Robbers Cave Experiment” by Taig Spearman for All That’s Interesting: https://tinyurl.com/yx66lpob
“Papua New Guinea Witchcraft” by Caleb Strom for Ancient Origins: https://tinyurl.com/rvpyyva
“The Devil’s Advocate” by Ellen Lloyd for Ancient Pages: https://tinyurl.com/vluuhdg
“Childlike Aliens” by Terry Larch for FreakLore.com: https://tinyurl.com/snrkrbm
“The 666 Bible” by Theresa at Theresa’s Haunted History of the Tri-State: https://tinyurl.com/t8dlnez
“The Stillwell Murder” by Robert Wilhelm for Murder By Gaslight: https://tinyurl.com/yd4uupot
“The Old Factory Visit” by Mike, posted at MyHauntedLifeToo.com: (link no longer available)
“Til Death Do Us Part” by Jessica Ferri at The-Line-Up.com: https://the-line-up.com/mary-reed
(Over time links 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.)
WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: November 27, 2018
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The monitor flatlines. The doctors work fast. The paddles charge. His family watches from the corner of the room. |
| 0:11.0 | And Bob Frisbee, husband, father, lifelong pilot, feels something snap. |
| 0:18.0 | He wakes in a room he doesn't recognize. |
| 0:22.1 | No windows. |
| 0:23.4 | A door with no handle. |
| 0:25.4 | Light with no source. |
| 0:27.6 | And seated across a carved antique table is a man with a file, an impossibly thick file, |
| 0:35.6 | who introduces himself only as Mr. O. You're in the waiting room, |
| 0:41.5 | he says, and we have a great deal to get through. Everything Bob has ever done is in that file. |
| 0:51.6 | Every person he wronged and never faced. Every wound he carried that quietly poisoned |
| 0:57.8 | the people around him. Every dark corner of life that looked from the outside, perfectly ordinary. |
| 1:05.5 | Above them, a golden wheel appears, and the spokes that are dark are the ones that matter most. |
| 1:12.8 | But this isn't just a life review. |
| 1:15.9 | Behind the veil of the world Bob thought he knew something has been moving, ancient, deliberate, |
| 1:22.8 | with a face that doesn't belong on anything that was ever human. |
| 1:27.5 | There are forces here that don't want Bob to finish what he has started, and the waiting |
| 1:32.1 | room has an escape tunnel, but Mr. O. won't tell him where that leads. |
| 1:38.9 | The Waiting Room, a novel by L.A. Marzuli, the researcher who has spent decades pulling |
| 1:43.9 | back the veil on the |
| 1:45.1 | supernatural world, most people pretend isn't there. Narrated by Darren Marler. You die. Then, |
| 1:53.7 | the reckoning begins. The Waiting Room by L.A. Marzuli, a new audiobook available now on the audiobooks page at |
| 2:02.6 | Weird Darkness.com. |
... |
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