Epitaph

In May of 1916, detectives in Czinkota, Hungary, made a gruesome discovery: two dozen people, drained of blood, and preserved in metal barrels full of wood alcohol. Their murderer was Bela Kiss, a man who'd been recently killed in World War I. Except that, even after his supposed death, Bela Kiss continued to be seen and continued to remain one step ahead of capture for the next three decades. On this episode, we explore the gruesome crimes of serial killer Bela Kiss, the Vampire of Czinkota.

The mythology of the vampire dates back millenia. As early as 4,000 BC, the Sumerians and Babylonians had stories about those who'd not been buried properly returning to suck life out of the living. Ancient Mesopotamians had stories of the Lamastu, a female demon who appeared at night to steal or kill babies, an sucked the blood from adults. In 2018, archaeologists found the remains of a 10-year-old child buried in a 4th Century Roman cemetery in Umbria, Italy that had been buried with a stone the size of an egg inserted -- and then cemented -- into its mouth to prevent it  rising from the dead and harming the living. Locals call it the "Vampire of Lugnano." Nothing has survived that tells us anything about these burials. We don't know who these people were and we can only guess at why they'd died. But, in the 16th and 17th centuries, in the mountains of southeastern Europe, these sorts of legends -- stories of the dead who'd come back to harm and kill the living -- started having names attached. These stories -- and the legends and beliefs that fed them -- would become the folklore for the creatures that we know as Vampires today. In this episode, we begin our exploration of "real vampires" with the stories of three of these men -- Giure Grando, Petar Blagojevic, and Arnod Paole -- and, when possible, those that became their victims. This is no romancer’s dream. It is a succinct account of a superstition, which to this day survives in the east of Europe where little more than a century ago it was frightfully prevalent. At that period, Vampyrism spread like a pestilence through Servia and Wallachia, causing numerous deaths, and disturbing all the land with fear of the mysterious visitation, against which no one felt himself secure.Dr. Herbert Mayo, in "Letters on the truths contained in popular superstitions" (1849) Suggested Reading Valvasor on Vampires from Shroudeater.com A letter from the Gradisker District by Austrian physician Frombold, sent to the Emperor of Kisolova in 1725. Visum et repertum by Johann Flückinger, written in 1732. (A translation of the original document at VampGirl.com, and retrieved via Archive.org) Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et. al. at Wikipedia Visum et repertum by Niels K. Petersen on Magia Posthuma Archaeologists find 'vampire burial' site of a child feared capable of rising from the dead from the Washington Post Vampires: Fact, Fiction and Folklore by Benjamin Radford at LiveScience.com

Resurrection Mary is one of Chicago's most famous ghosts. For decades, people fascinated with the story have been trying to answer the question: Who was she? Over the years, a number of "candidates" have been put forth. And, in researching this episode, we found one of our own. On this episode, we present the story of Mary Kovac who, we believe, may have been the young woman whose ghost Jerry Palus met at the Liberty Grove and Hall in 1939: The original Resurrection Mary.

Resurrection Mary is one of Chicago's most famous ghosts and, over the years, a number of "candidates" have been put to answer the question: Who was she? Mary Bregovy, like the girl in the Resurrection Mary legend, had lived on Damen Avenue and had died in an automobile accident in the 1930s. But, despite people who knew her while she was alive having reported seeing her on Archer Avenue after her death, Mary Bregovy didn't look like the girl who is normally described in Resurrection Mary sightings. On this episode, we discuss how she fits into the Resurrection Mary legend.

Chicago's most famous Vanishing Hitchhiker is, without a doubt, the ghost of the young woman (or women) who has come to be called Resurrection Mary. But, we'll come back to that. On this episode, we explore the story of one of Chicago's other vanishing hitchhikers: The Waldheim Flapper.

Between the towns of Uniondale and Willowmore, witnesses have reported encounters with one of South Africa’s most famous ghosts: the Uniondale Hitchhiker.

A girl is brutalized and left for dead on Jenny Dixon Beach. The ghost story seems unbelievable, but the history that inspired it is true.

A girl walking quietly beside the road before disappearing. An old woman in a black tartan shawl carrying a bundle of sticks or heather, A girl who steps into traffic, disappearing after being struck. And a pair of Vanishing Hitchhikers. Join us on this episode as we discuss the Many Ghosts of Blue Bell Hill.

Today, on the eighth anniversary of the disaster, we remember its victims through the stories told by Japan's taxi drivers of the Phantom Fares of Ishinomaki.

Since the late 1930s, reports have surfaced of people seeing the spectral apparation of a young woman who'd drowned beneath the waves of White Rock Lake. And, she isn't content to just ask strangers to drive her home.

Clarence Stephenson wrestled to corpse to the side of the road and, then, panted and grunted as he pushed the body of a woman he’d once considered a friend into a gully and watched it disappear into a bramble of blackberry thorns. He thought she’d never be seen again. He was wrong.

Two mountains. One legend. An encounter with a vanishing hitchhiker lead to two weeks of ghost hunts in 1938 and, before it was all over, she was seen by hundreds of school children. But, who was the Ghost of the Buckhorn and the White Lady of Wopsy?

In the 1950s, a plane trying to make it through a thunderstorm to land at the Greenville airport crashed into the mountainside just a few yards off of Highway 107 near Walhalla, South Carolina. The wreckage of his small, single-engine aircraft was found but the pilot's body was never recovered. But, that doesn't mean that no one has seen him since then.

Known locally as "Lydia," on this episode of Epitaph, we investigate the history of the Jamestown underpass, the accidents that took place there and find the story of a young woman whose tragic, brutal death near the underpass may have inspired one of North Carolina's most well-known legends.

Part ghost story and part history, Epitaph aims to find the people behind familiar and not-so-familiar hauntings, explore their stories, and find out why they're coming back to us.