Kayla Moore
Appearances
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
welcome back to heart starts pounding i'm your host kayla moore and today i have a very special episode for you all so last november i spent one of if not the most terrifying nights of my life inside of the most haunted airbnb in salem massachusetts with corinne and sabrina from the two girls one ghost podcast
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Well, their houses are two blocks away and their bodies are across the street in the Broad Street Cemetery. And back in the day, like I said, it was more common to be buried on your property. So, the cemetery across the street actually, like, butts up right onto Corwin land. So, when they died, it made sense that they were just buried, like, basically on the edge of their property.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And it also makes sense that two rich people would kind of shake hands and be like, yeah, sure, you can purchase some of my property off of me.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Oh, my God. The vision. Is that something that you are in tune with?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
The pendulum isn't Daniel.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Wow. Yeah. That's really interesting. Okay. So, and you're getting a read on Corwin.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
That's kind of weird you say that because I felt that a little bit earlier today and I was actually wondering if I was having a migraine because it was like this weird, not out of body, but do you ever get like, like I get weird migraines where I kind of feel like I'm outside my body, but like my limbs get heavy. So I was like worried that I was having a migraine.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
We're sitting here in the Henry Derby house. I will say this is the first time I've ever recorded in a haunted house. In Salem, Massachusetts, no less. It's the perfect place for my first time.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So it's actually kind of strange to hear you like bring up that exact sensation.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And I made you go to the grave. Did you feel anything when I brought you over to the grave?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah. You're like, I have to get good photos or good images. And not falling into it.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah. That's, okay, well, that's really interesting. Well, so it's interesting to note, if you need me to stop talking about them too, I will absolutely shut up.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
You're like astral projecting outside your body because I brought it up so much. That'd be kind of cool to catch on camera. Okay, I'll keep talking about it. So, one of the Corwins, George, when he died... So, he died when he was 30, and this was a few years after the trials. He was, like, 25 during the witch trials. He was the most hated man in Salem, because it seems like the...
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
the public opinion on the witch trials really soured after they happened, and people here were, like, pretty upset that that occurred in Salem. Which is so interesting, too, because the witch trials kind of, like, trickled many decades after with certain people's beliefs and different hangings happening outside of Salem. But I'm glad that most people Didn't agree with that.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Maybe it was just like a counter movement that was upset, but there was enough people that were so mad at George Corwin that when he died when he was 30, they thought that a mob was going to come steal his body and like rip it apart. So they hid him in the Joshua Ward house, which is right around the corner in the basement for years.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And then like under the cover of night, on a night just like this, they brought him across the street and they buried him with his uncle in that grave. I did not know that. That's wild. So that's also very spooky. And so I say all of that to say that the area that this house was built on has a very dark past.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And that's why so many of the ghost stories we hear about this area and this house tend to be related to the witch trials. I'm guessing that that's why so many people have experiences in this house. It's potentially on a cursed ley line. It's surrounded on all sides by the bad guys from the witch trials. but that's on the outside, right?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
We don't have any evidence that anything from the witch trials happened in the house. The house itself was built 150 years after the witch trials, so it shouldn't really have any ties to it, you would think. But you would think wrong. Because even though this house was built in 1838, by 1842, it had exchanged hands and was sold to Ebenezer Putnam. And does the name Putnam ring any bells?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, wait, you're right.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Like Sarah Putnam? Ann Putnam.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah. Ann Putnam was one of the accused witches, right? Accusers. Accusers. Oh, she was the accuser. Yeah. So, outside of the Corwins, probably the most evil family involved in the witch trials were the Putnams. And they were a big family with a huge legacy in Salem.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And they, I mean, were so prevalent that even in the 1830s and 1840s, like, Ebenezer was buying this mansion in town because he had a lot of money. So people may recognize the name Ann Putnam because she was the 12-year-old girl that was one of the primary accusers in the Salem witch trials.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
The Driscoll. Okay, let's go over what we're going to be doing here so everyone knows. So we're in this haunted Airbnb because we're going to stay here tonight and we're going to try to contact stuff.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
She pointed her finger at 62 people and claimed that they were witches, and she accused 18 of the 20 people who were executed. She is the biggest reason that people... She's a sociopath. A sociopath. And it's funny because I actually have a note from my friend Megan who helped me research this episode.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And Megan goes, okay, okay, before we vilify this girl, keep in mind that she was 12 when she pointed fingers and sent a bunch of people to their deaths. She was rich and she was very privileged, but research also suggests that she was maybe being abused by her parents.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
That makes a lot of sense, actually. Because a lot of what they were experiencing was kind of, like, imagination. They were seeing... Like, Anne kept accusing women of being... Like, she would see people on their brooms at night flying across the sky. Like, really classic witch stuff. Or she would see apparitions.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And that was, for whatever reason, during the witch trials, like, that was admissible in court, was like... Which is wild. ...visions that you had of these people. And it led to, I cannot believe it, 18 of the 20 people. And Anne's father, Thomas Putnam, was one of the primary instigators of complaints against the alleged witches in Salem.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
For this reason, he's been identified by several key historians, including Paul Boyer and Steven Nisenbaum, of being a chief agitator and manipulator of the testimonies of both his daughter and his wife and Putnam Sr. Evidence indicates that many of those who were afflicted or gave testimony against the accused witches were connected to the Putnam family, either by ties of kinship or faction.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
ghosts yeah stuff stuff i mean whatever goes whatever's here it could be demonic i don't know like so we'll get into it but i know there's like stuff here that's maybe not ghosts um i've never done a full-blown ghost hunt with all the equipment and everything so i'm so glad you guys brought stuff i'm scared that by talking about it we're gonna start conjuring things that's what happens in the room which is like usually how it goes right yeah yeah
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So, everyone that was accusing people, even if it wasn't his own daughter, like, had ties to this family, which really makes them the most evil people at the time.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, it makes me wonder what the motivator was. You know, like, what did his daughter get as a reward or some sort of security, maybe, that she kept on accusing? And, like, what did other people... Or just to hear that your dad's proud of you. Like, I imagine if it was an abusive household, like, I could imagine she would do, like, anything for his praise, you know?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And then you start to wonder, like, did I make that up or is this actually happening? Right. Right. And you'd start to get lost in your own thoughts. You're not gonna say, like, oh, I made it up and that's why all these people died, so you kind of, like, double down on it. Yeah, yeah. You try to convince yourself of what you said. Yeah, exactly.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
But that kind of got me thinking that if there were spirits around Salem that wanted to make sure nothing like the witch trials ever happened again, they would be keeping a close eye on both the Putnams and the Corwins, both of which have ties to this house. That's cool. I like that as an idea. Yeah. Everyone's just kind of keeping an eye to make sure nothing's going to happen again.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
No funny business. No funny business. No mass murders. No more mass murders, guys.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
For the love of God. You silly little humans. It's interesting to note, Ebenezer also died in this house, so there's a chance that he's still here. Right in this spot. Yeah. On this couch. He felt the pressure on his shoulders, his head got a little light, and he... Drifted off this world. Never to wake again. He was, like, feeling something on his head first.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Unfortunately, a few of the people who lived in this house did die in this house we found. Which was very normal for the time, you know? Very normal. There weren't hospitals to go to.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
You didn't go to the hospital, you just died at home. People were born in their home and died in their home.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Birthing rooms exist all over the houses in this area. a birthing like a whole room just for birthing yes yeah they were like usually these kind of small nooks off of the main living space or like off of one of the bedrooms and different women and basically like doulas would come over and help deliver children into their
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I read that between five and ten percent of women died in childbirth before, like, modern medicine.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
It was a lot. I know at one point they, if you were pregnant, they made you write a will. Like, that's how common it was to die. So you had to get your affairs in order at, like, 21 years old. Yeah. Before you had a kid. Wow. Crazy. What affairs do you even have at 21? I guess back then, probably a lot.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, you're like, I guess I leave my husband everything because he just gets that anyways. Yeah, it doesn't even matter. Right. Yeah, none of this is mine. Okay, so I'll just run through a few other people who lived in this house. In case anything comes up tonight, we have some names, top of mind, in case we hear of anyone. So in 1899, the house was sold to the Pickering family, Sarah and Thomas.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And they had three kids, Edith, Gertrude, and Arthur. And then John Williams Downing lived in the residence with his wife, Sarah, and two children, Anna and Alice. Anna died in the house nine months later in September of 1845 of dysentery, and she was young when she died, unfortunately. And then that kind of leads us up to where we are today, where Phil Marchand lived in this house growing up.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
He owns it now. He's the guy on the Airbnb that we all talk to.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So after we do our ghost hunt, I am staying the night in this Airbnb with my mother. And Corinne and I are like, bye. We're driving home to our own beds. My house is haunted, though, too. So is mine. You're going to your own ghosts. Yeah, we all have ghosts at home. Yeah, these ones are. These ones are new. So we don't know what we're getting into. But basically, we're going to do this ghost hunt.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And it sounds like he's had a lot of... I mean, this is a very natural transition into the ghosty stuff going on in the house. But it sounds like Phil, ever since his family moved in, it's had weird stuff going on.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah. So originally, it was his great aunt and uncle owned the home. And then his parents had purchased the home from his great aunt and uncle. And then when his parents divorced, he and his mom lived here. And his sister lived here in this house.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And then eventually, they started, like, boarding people and then turned it into a bed and breakfast as, like, a means to be a single mom and raise a family. And so he grew up here for some time. And then he himself and his wife had their very first child in this house while living here. Oh, wow. Like in the house?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Well, I don't think they were delivered in the house, but like... You got me thinking about birthing rooms. I'm like, is there a nook and cranny we missed? Oh, my God. But yeah, they lived here. I think it's been in their family since the 1970s. So he's had, you know, 50 years of stories to share in here.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Okay. I have my white noise machine, which is just an app on my phone. Exactly. I'll have that going. Yeah. Yeah. So, Phil's done a lot of interviews. So, I found plenty of interviews where he discussed some of the paranormal, and then we kind of dove into some of the reviews of the Airbnb. Oh, my gosh. To find some more hauntings.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
See what other people have experienced. Yes. Okay. Well, Phil, obviously, growing up here, has had a lot of experiences. Like he said, he had a lot of crazy dreams. But he would also hear footsteps and creaking in the middle of the night, which some people could argue like this is an old house, right? Like this is a natural thing for these old floorboards to creak and shake and beams pop.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
But other people have seen stuff, ghostly stuff. So Phil has a lot of people backing him up. Wow. One of the experiences that he had was in high school when a friend of his, it was his best friend, was over. The house was empty. And they heard someone walking upstairs. And so Phil's friend gets up and walks up to the second floor, which is where you're sleeping. Yeah.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And comes back down and says, oh, I think I just saw your sister. And Phil's like, my sister is not home. And that is basically the beginning of people starting to report, or not the beginning, but like, in this story. It's our first introduction to this woman, or really a younger, like, teenaged girl with dark hair. Do we know what she looks like? She looks like you. Did you just hear singing?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
The whole ghost hunt is going to be available on your YouTube channel or in your podcast as well. Two Girls, One Ghost. I mean, do you want to give a little overview? I know a lot of my listeners listen to your show, but do you want to give a little bit of an overview of the show for people who don't know? Sure.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna play that part for you again. It was really clear in the room when it happened, but the three of us heard a woman's voice sing something, like a hum coming from deep inside the house. I ended up sending that clip to my sound designer and I asked if he knew what the sound was, but even he couldn't figure it out.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
He said the frequencies weren't consistent with a car driving by or with a human voice. It was this kind of other third thing that he hadn't seen before. I'm going to play it three times. The first time will be what our mics picked up. The second will be what my phone that was recording picked up. And the third will be what my sound designer isolated. Check it out.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
A younger, like, teenaged girl with dark hair. Do we know what she looks like? She looks like you. Did you just hear singing? Or really a younger, teenaged girl with dark hair. She looks like you. Hello?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Most likely a teenager, but yeah.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Young.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
It's called Two Girls, One Ghost because we do cover a lot of ghost stories, but we really cover anything in the macabre and weird. So we love Bigfoot, alien abductions, all of that kind of weird and fun and spooky sort of vibe. And that's how we became friends in college. We met, I shared a fun fact about myself in intro to theater, which I shouldn't have shared.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I'm sharing part one of our two-part series today, where we go over the dark history of the Henry Derby house where we stayed, its connections to the infamous witch trials and executions. And in this episode, we also chat about the entities people have encountered inside. That will set the stage for part two, where we do an overnight ghost hunt inside of the house. And you guys, it gets wild.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
We're trying to contemplate. the dead here tonight. Like, we are instigating and contributing to the energy of this home. We found a Ouija board. I thought of that, yeah, when you said, I wonder if they closed the Ouija board correctly. It's like, yeah, who's coming in here and conjuring stuff up or summoning things and then just leaving because they don't know what to do with it.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Like, we're confident in our approach in terms of being really respectful because we learned how to investigate from two of the best investigators in the world. Yeah. So... But what are other people doing?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I don't know. Or just like think it's a joke and then like to your point, they get scared once things start happening and then they just, yeah. Yes, yeah. They don't properly say goodbye.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Not only with the dead, but this is practice.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
There is. Oh, wow. So I have no idea where because it did not specify. But as we have noted, there are many bathrooms here. And there's also many mirrors in many of the bedrooms. Apparently, multiple people have seen someone appear behind them when they're looking in the mirror. That's my biggest fear. Yeah. Do they describe who the person is at all?
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
No, but some people had said it was the teenage girl. Okay. But there were some that just said someone appeared. Oh, my gosh. And I don't know who and how many people could be showing up in this mirror. Wow. There's a mirror right there. I know. They're everywhere. Be careful looking in the mirror. And there's windows everywhere, too. There's so many reflective surfaces.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
But one thing that's not super freaky here is there is a little boy, and he seems to be pretty playful.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Someone who had some mediumship powers who stayed here, she believes that this little boy is the one who was causing all of the footsteps that Phil heard when he was young living here, and I guess as an adult as well, because he would constantly hear someone running up and down and running around.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And this woman who stayed here made contact with the little boy, and the little boy, I guess, displayed... kind of what he would do to show his own presence. And that's exactly what a lot of people who stay here experience. So if you tonight hear some footsteps and walking and running around on the floor above you, don't be scared. It's just a little bit of playing. That's who it is.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Like it's not a way to make friends, but apparently it worked. But it worked. My fun fact was I grew up in a haunted house. That's so fun. Yeah. Sabrina was like, oh, my God. She attracted the right type or wrong type. I don't know. It's worked out. I mean, I felt like I grew up in a haunted house also. So I think I would have also. Yeah.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Okay, that makes me feel a little bit better.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yes. Because I've heard whispers of this, and that's the one I'm really not looking forward to.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Okay.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Oh, so we have some good hauntings.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
There's some positive.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
of stone yep that what he said yeah oh he said that yeah so he was the i think he was the only one who was pressed by stone everyone else was hanged yeah yeah um and he they kept giving him an opportunity while placing another stone on top of him to basically declare himself guilty and he just kept saying one more stone like he would not give up his innocence days It took days for him to die.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, he was in agony and very slowly died. Slowly was pressed to death. Whoa. Horrible. So if you go in downtown Salem, you can walk through the Witch Memorial, which is just like this really short loop in there. There's almost like this stone or like granite bench that says every person's name on it and how they head there. Yeah. And so, when you get to his, it says, -"Pressed to death." -"Wow."
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, that's horrible. So, they think it's Giles Corey that's upstairs. That's interesting, because I had heard that someone who went on the third floor felt pressure in their chest, and they were thinking about Giles Corey. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it was actually, it was the ghost tour guide that I heard about the witch's line from.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
He's been to this house, and when he went to the third floor, he felt, like, pressure on his chest. And that's why he felt like it was Giles Corey upstairs.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Hmm. That's making me nervous because I get sleep paralysis. And when I get sleep paralysis, it feels like I'm being crushed on my chest. I think tonight as I stay here, I'm going to look out for sleep paralysis. Like I'm very curious to see if I have sleep paralysis here because I think that'll be saying something, especially if I see my sleep paralysis demon I called Gary. But if I see Gary.
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We would have been a trio then. Yeah. So. On your show, you cover lots of ghosts, and the whole ghost hunt is going to live on your feed. And today on Hearts, Hearts, Pounding, what we're going to do is I want to talk about the history of this house.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Gordy and Gary. Gordy and Gary. That's not a good sign if Gary shows up.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
What's interesting about the hauntings here is we have kind of... From what people have shared online, we have kind of like a general idea of what is here, but no one has gone into extreme detail with what they have felt or like truly experienced. So I'm curious to hear... And see, I guess, like what comes tonight. Because people have heard voices as well. So like seeing people bodied up.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I mean, we potentially heard singing. Someone singing. Yeah. Apparently some people are being hushed by spirits. So maybe if we get a little too annoying or overbearing, we might be.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Huh. Huh. Whoa. Do you feel like it's because we stopped talking about the Corwins or because she's like a good... We're going to find out. To be determined. Whoa. Okay. So the full extent of what we're going to do tonight is going to be on your feed. I'm really excited. This made me a little bit more spooked though to do it, but I'm really excited.
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Because I think it's going to scare us even more being here. You guys are going to talk a little bit about, like, the ghost sightings that people have had in the house, and then for the full experience, they can go over to your feed. So... I'm excited. We'll put together a good sizzle reel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And just to also clarify for your listeners.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
It's all connecting. So, yeah, we try to get, like, just, like, the bare bones usually. Yeah. And it is really interesting because every time we've done an investigation... there are very specific spirits who have appeared that align with the history. But then also, the homes themselves seem to have a bit of an energy and, like, become its own entity as well.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I mean, they're probably curious. They're like, what are you doing tonight? Let's go. Some new entertainment.
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Yeah. Stop by.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Thank you guys for listening. And remember, if you want to listen to or watch us contact some ghosts in part two, make sure you check out Two Girls, One Ghost wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube starting February 25th. Part two will only be available on their feed. So please go say hi and let me know what you think.
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And that voice we heard humming coming from inside the house, yeah, that's not the last time we heard from her that night. She had something really important that she was trying to tell us. Okay, I will see you later this week for our regular programming where I'm going to tell you the very dark story of a recent cult. But until then, stay curious.
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Start your test today for one euro per month on shopify.de slash radio.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So our typical episodes, we have two episodes that come out every single week. One is filled with stories that listeners submit of their own haunting tales. And the other one is researched. So we research a place like this and talk about the history, the mystery of the hauntings. And then we have more recently started dabbling and actually like doing in-person ghost hunts. That's great.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Is there one that people should go to first if they want to get, like, a good vibe of the show?
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, listening to the episode, a lot of people started to experience something of their own. Which happens a lot. We won't know what episode will start to trigger things, but there'll be a specific episode we'll put out and within that week we'll just get flooded with emails being like, I listened to this episode and all of this happened.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And the smurl possession. That's another one that really got people haunted. The what possession? The smurl possession. Oh, you should look into that. Oh my God. Is that one going to haunt me if I listen to it? I don't know.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And it was early days of podcasting, so... give us a break. Be patient.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Whoa. Okay. Wow. Some of my listeners can't listen to my show while they drive because I included like sirens and car crashes as sound effects in a lot of the earlier episodes. And people were like, hey, can you stop doing that? And I was like, I did not even think about that. That one Rihanna song that has the sirens in the background. I think all the time.
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It's on the radio and you're like, oh my God, what's happening? Am I getting pulled over? Yeah. OK, so let's get into the history a little bit of this place before we dive into the haunts. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
That's going to be shared on the Two Girls, One Ghost feed tomorrow, February 25th, and I'll include links to listen in the description as soon as that's live. And I will just add here that not only did we contact something in the house, but I think we may have completed some unfinished business for a ghost. And I'm not even kidding. I'm so excited for you to see it.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
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Quince is my go-to for luxury essentials at affordable prices. So I have a lot of clothing from Quince. My favorite things right now are my 100% cotton oversized cable cardigan. And I actually got that for my mom for her birthday because she wore mine the whole time she was at my place for Christmas.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash HSP for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E So we're in the Henry Derby House, which is situated in Salem, directly across the street from the Broad Street Cemetery. And this house was built in 1838, which was 150 years after the Salem Witch Trials that Salem is known for.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And though it was built so long afterwards, the history of the house is still incredibly intertwined in the witch trials. Like, there's a lot of overlap, which I'm gonna get into.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So that's like a big part of Broad Street cemeteries. It's the most dangerous cemetery in Salem right now. because there's so many underground tombs and there's not really walking paths. So, they're actually afraid that people are gonna start falling through the ground into the tombs. So, it'll probably be closed within the next, what'd they say, like 10, 15 years. Isn't that terrifying?
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Truly something I didn't think would be a problem, walking through something I never thought. You know, like, you go over super greats and you wonder if it's just gonna be a little too loose and you're gonna drop. If you're just gonna fall down, yeah. Never thought about falling into some old geezer's casket.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Yeah, there definitely are. I might talk about it a little more in the research, but back in the day, it was very common to be buried on your property. And so a lot of like the witches, why they don't know where the witches were or the women who were accused of witchcraft, exactly where they're buried is a lot of their bodies were most likely taken back to their homes.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And so that's basically made all of Salem a big graveyard because everyone has bones on their land of the people that lived there. I want to bring that back. Me too, kind of. I love the idea of like a, like on the land family cemetery. Yeah, me too.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
It was one of the craziest experiences of my life, and I'm actually still getting goosebumps as I tell you about it. So here's what I want from you guys. If you catch anything in these episodes, maybe you heard something or saw something if you're watching on YouTube that we didn't notice. Or maybe there's something about the history of the house that helps make the ghost hunt make more sense.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I actually love what they do in New Orleans where they just put the whole family in one big tomb and then it's so hot it kind of like cooks everyone down. You get melded together. You make like a big family stew. A family stew. Melded together. Your bones get like mixed up.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
There's something romantic about like that good soup. Yeah. So who was Henry who lived in this house? Henry was maybe you've seen like around that everything's named Derby. There's Derby Square, Derby Street. There's like a Derby. The Derby. The Derby is a restaurant. Well, that's actually Henry's uncle.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
Henry's uncle was Elias Derby, who was a ship merchant and like the first millionaire in America, which I how cool. Had no idea. Also back then, which is like a billionaire now.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
I mean, I don't know math, but. We should have gotten into shippery. And we should have lived back then. Oh, my gosh. If you got into shippery back then, you would be rich for generations, as is evidenced by this house, because they were rich for generations. Fun fact, but his biggest ship, Elias Derby's biggest ship, is actually the ship that's on the Old Spice. It's the logo. No way.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So that's a Salem trip, so you can tell everyone. Every time we walk through CVS. Fun fact. Everyone's going to love that you bring that up all the time. As I've been doing since I've been here. So Henry had this house built because he was a little bit of a nepo baby. He came from a really rich family. Um, but he himself was a tailor, so he, like, made his own money, too.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
But I will say, when he had this house built, he probably didn't know exactly, like, the cursed nature of this area that he was building the house on. And that's because this house is built on something called the judge's line. Have you heard of this before? No, no. This is really interesting. I found this from a tour guide in Salem who talked about it.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And then I looked it up and there were like a few other people online that were talking about it. But the judge's line is one of the scariest things I've ever heard of. And it's basically you can draw a line on a map through Salem and hit most of the points that were involved in the Salem witch trials. How very astro cartography. Yes.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And it gets, like, really bizarre, because if you draw a straight line, you start at the home of Alice Parker, who was accused of witchcraft, and she was hanged in the trials. And then it continues through where Thomas Beadle's tavern was, which is where some of the witch trial inquests happened.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And then it hits the witch house, the, like, famous witch house of Salem, which is where Judge Corwin lived, who was the man who sentenced the accused witches to death. And then it goes through his nephew's home, which was George Corwin, who was another nepo baby. He was the nephew of the judge. But he was the one who signed all the arrests. I mean, you guys have come to Salem so much.
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I'm sorry I'm mansplaining this to you, but my audience is going to want to know. It's a good refresher.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
So this is great. Yeah. Okay, so you know the Joshua Ward house, which is where George Corwin lived. So the line goes through there, and then it comes down through Essex Street, which is where all the witches, all the women accused of witchcraft, were carted down towards the gallows. And then it hits Proctor's Ledge, which is where the executions happened. Whoa. Yeah.
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I hate this because it feels like it was predetermined, all of these people's fates or involvement. That idea that it was kind of like written out, like written in the stars. What is fate? Yeah. Yeah, that you can like one of the first people accused in the witch trials and it ends at the gallows is really... Ugh, that's so unsettling. Really eerie.
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please let me know. And if you are a regular Two Girls, One Ghost listener visiting us today, welcome. Our community for the darkly curious gathers here in the study of the Rogue Detecting Society every Wednesday. And we love guests as much as we love ghosts. So please make yourself at home. Just watch out for our cursed monkey, Gordy. But for now, please enjoy part one.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And so some people who are more inclined to believe in, like, the spooky supernatural think it's a ley line. Like, there's some sort of energy that runs through this area that is very bad and negative and dark. And we are right on, like, the cusp of that line that runs through the town. So this land that we're on is part of that procession.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
The third floor is creepy, but yeah. When you first came out here, Sabrina, and you were spending time in Marblehead and getting to know the area, the second you crossed over the line into Salem, you felt... Night and day. And that was closer to where Proctor Sledge is.
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There's a lot of pockets of energy buzzing throughout this town. Yeah. I mean, there must have been a reason that it happened in Salem instead of, like, happening all over the country, like, all these witch trials. Like, there is something specific to Salem, which is why it all happened here, which is really spooky.
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106. Staying In The Most Haunted Airbnb in Salem (Feat. Two Girls One Ghost)
And so I have here that maybe our guy Henry didn't know that that's what was going on with the land when he built the house. But what he probably did know, may have known, was that during the witch trials, this land that we're on now was Corwin Land, belonging to the two most evil people involved in the witch trials that I just brought up. And so, how do we know this is Corwin Land?
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Victor Kaudo walks through the thick, isolated Shakahola forest in Kenya with a group of men. Soft brown dirt absorbs the sound of their footsteps. They're trying to keep a low profile as they duck behind the low trees. Each one of them holds their breath in anticipation and fear. Victor is the head of the Human Rights Center in Malindi, Kenya.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
He put his hands on her head and shouted for God to be merciful. And the convulsions suddenly stopped. The girl came to and looked out at the crowd, confused as to what happened, but not suffering anymore. And Yaa was watching this in total disbelief. She felt like she had just witnessed a miracle. She didn't really know who Mackenzie was yet, but she was sure that he could help her granddaughter.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And after that moment, she was a devout follower of his. Most of Mackenzie's followers actually had stories like Yaa's. Maybe they weren't sold on Mackenzie's preaching style at first, but when they watched him heal the sick, when he held an old woman's hand and the pain in her joints stopped, they were all in. A few people, however, were drawn to Mackenzie for a different reason.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Like a man named Lucky Chanzera, who joined Good News International around the same time that Yaa did. The church paid him for odd jobs, and he got a kickback for recruiting new members. but he saw through McKenzie's so-called miracles.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
One day, he caught McKenzie pulling a follower aside and they discussed what the healing would look like, how hard the person should shake while they faked a seizure. The whole thing was completely staged. But that didn't really bother Lucky. The church was a business.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
After all, healings were what drove in more members, which meant more tithes, which meant more money for Mackenzie, and as a result, more money for Lucky. If people felt inspired and comforted, then there was no harm in a little theater, he thought, right? Well, my dear listeners, this is where things can get really dangerous.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Because his followers thought that he had a gift directly from God, they were more likely to believe whatever he told them. And Mackenzie really seized this opportunity to gain more control. And this is when his preaching starts to get really dark. So Mackenzie claimed to receive orders directly from God about how his followers should live.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And God, he said, wanted them to disconnect from modern institutions. Mackenzie forbade his followers from engaging with entertainment like television, sports, and music. He warned them not to engage with modern medicine, including vaccines. He said that doctors served a different God than they did and could not be trusted.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
He also said that governments, both in Kenya and abroad, were conspiring against the common man and must never be trusted. He insisted that schools only existed to brainwash children and pull money from hardworking people into the government. He was making everyone effectively cut themselves off from society, especially any form of authority.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And just then, he hears something. Someone's struggling. The group makes their way towards the sound when they see someone very small. It's a boy, around 10, tied to a tree with a thick rope. He's using his frail arms to try and free himself, but it's not working. The first thing that shocks the men is the state that the boy is in. He's only wearing a dirty pair of pants.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
There would be no teachers, no government, no doctors that could tell his followers what to do, just him. And McKenzie said that all of these external forces were, quote, wicked influences and that their presence indicated that the apocalypse was coming.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And it's never good when the person who is telling you to isolate yourself from the real world is also telling you that the world is going to end soon. Throughout history, that has never worked out great. But according to him, it was only a matter of time before all of humanity's sins caught up with them and they would suffer through the end of days. There was a way to avoid this, of course.
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All his followers had to do was trust in his path of righteousness and never, ever question it. As long as they stopped watching television, avoided registering with the government, stayed away from doctors and kept their children out of school, they would be saved. The miracles would continue. They would be healed of all pain and suffering, and the Lord would speak through Mackenzie.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And so, his followers agreed to do just that. By 2018, membership at Good News International was in the hundreds, and the church's popularity was growing in Malindi. Members included everyone from working class folks to higher end professionals like flight attendants and even government employees like from the government McKenzie was telling them not to trust.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
But at the end of 2019, McKenzie abruptly closed his church in Malindi. And it's not exactly clear why he did this. According to some sources, they thought it had to do with Mackenzie's clashes with local law enforcement. Mackenzie had gotten in trouble over an unlicensed TV station broadcasting his sermons and for running an unsanctioned school out of the church.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Followers were shocked to learn that the church was closing though. Mackenzie seemed to be at the height of his success. But he knew that he wanted to take the church to the next level. And he had an idea of how to do just that. See, Mackenzie began spending time in Shakahola, that isolated forest outside of Malindi where we opened the episode.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
There, he bought 800 acres of farmland and invited his followers to join him on the property, offering to sell them parcels of land at heavily discounted rates. He compared Shakahola to their own holy land, saying that the isolated community was the best way to insulate themselves from the toxic forces of the outside world and survive the upcoming apocalypse.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And it's hard to convey just how strongly the church members believed that the apocalypse was coming and that McKenzie was the only one who could save them. But hundreds of his followers left their careers and homes, sold everything they owned and donated the proceeds to the church just so they could move to Shackahola with him. For Yaa, it was about helping her family.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
When Mackenzie sold the church, she was devastated. Her granddaughter was still pretty sick and she didn't know what they were going to do now. Yaa had been brainwashed to think doctors were evil bringers of the apocalypse. So being in close proximity to Mackenzie and his miraculous healing powers felt like the only way her granddaughter could get any better.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
So, Yaa sold her family's goat for about 50 American dollars, a significant sum for her family, and moved with her granddaughter to a plot of land out in the isolated forest. Yaa had really high hopes. This was supposed to be the promised land after all. But when she got to the compound, it did not look like the Promised Land at all.
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His bare torso is so emaciated that his entire rib cage is visible and collarbones poke out by his neck. Two of the men actually break down crying when they see the boy, not because they've saved him, but because they recognize him. He's their cousin, one that disappeared recently after his mother had them join a new church. So they all rush to free him.
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Mackenzie had divided the land into these different villages, all which had biblical names. There was Judea, Bethlehem, Jericho, and Nazareth, but they all kind of looked the same. They were just rough mud huts with thatched or tarp roofs, usually grouped together. Yaa was under the impression that she was buying her own land for her family to live on.
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She didn't think it was going to be this kind of communal living with zero privacy and barely a roof over her head. But they just had to wait and see the whole vision come together, Mackenzie said. This would one day be heavenly, and they would build it together. He would heal them. God would guide them and tell them what to do. They just needed to pray, he said.
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And so the followers did just that. Alone in the hot forest with not much else to do, they all prayed. A ton. For a sign. For their community. For humanity. For the coming apocalypse. And then, one day, Mackenzie came to them and told them that God had given him a direct order for everyone to follow. Something, he said, that will bring them all closer to God.
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His followers gathered around to hear what he had to say, eagerly awaiting the message that they had all been praying for. All we have to do, he said, is limit our food intake. Yaa was standing towards the back of the group, so maybe Mackenzie didn't see the look of disbelief on her face, but this seemed wrong. Yaa didn't remember anything in the Bible about Jesus requiring followers to fast.
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It was always optional. But Mackenzie was really strong in his conviction, so she tried her best to follow the rules. And it was really hard. She had her young granddaughter to worry about. And remember, Yap brought her granddaughter to Shakahola to fix her digestion. Fasting seemed a little counterintuitive. But what if this was the solution and Mackenzie was right?
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What if God was telling him the right thing for her to do? Yaa found herself in this weird limbo where she vacillated between wanting to follow Mackenzie's directives and her instinct to keep her granddaughter fed. But she did it anyways. And when the fasting became too much, Yaa would sneak into the nearby village to purchase food. But
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Of course, she didn't want anyone to see her disobeying Mackenzie, so she would have to rush through building a fire, cooking the food, and then trying to eat it all and dispose of everything out of sight. And in spite of everything, the combination of intense prayer and sporadic fasting actually seemed to be helping Yaa's granddaughter.
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She was finally able to eat without vomiting, and she actually started gaining weight back. Of course, this was probably because of a combination of factors. But for Yaa, she really saw this as a miracle. She was filled with this gratitude and this renowned faith in God. And as a result, in Mackenzie, he was right. The fasting was working.
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It was bringing them closer to God and it was healing them. Some followers, though, were still having trouble seeing the purpose in all of this. But any doubts Yaa had about what they were doing out in the forest were now gone.
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And then Yaa actually took her granddaughter out of Shakahola so that Yaa could return to her business in Malindi, but the two of them would commute back into the forest all the time for mass. And then, in early 2020, the pandemic hit. And this is a really important moment in the history of this cult.
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The boy whispers hysterically, hurry, today is my wedding day. Wedding day, they ask. You're going to be married? But the boy shakes his head frantically. Around here, wedding doesn't mean marriage. It means something far worse. Where are your siblings, one of the men asks. The boy just points to a pile of dirt nearby, and dread washes over Victor as he realizes what it is.
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Because after years of preaching about the end of the world, sometimes even saying it would be brought on by a virus, McKenzie's prophecy appeared to be fulfilling itself. If any followers had questions about their leader's connection to God, his ability to heal, his predictions for the apocalypse, those were now gone.
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The coinciding of these events strengthened his grip on his followers, and it even brought new followers to the compound, people who wanted to isolate themselves to stay protected from the virus. Shakahola seemed like a great place to do just that, with a godly leader who would lead them all to salvation.
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Because Yaa no longer had her hut in Shakahola, she and her granddaughter had to spend most of lockdown outside of the compound, but she eagerly awaited the time when she could go back. And so in 2022, Yaa returned to Shakahola with two friends. They had all been experiencing some health troubles, and Yaa was really excited to show them Mackenzie's healing sessions.
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But when she arrived, she could not believe what she saw. When she originally left Shakahola at the end of 2019, it was a small community of people who fasted and prayed all day, who would sometimes listen to Mackenzie preach and who could commute in and out for mass like she did when she moved back to Malindi. But this was not that. No.
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Guards armed with heavy knives, machetes, and hammers prowled along the perimeter of the property. These were mostly men with leadership roles in the church, including Lucky Chanzera, the man who noticed McKenzie was staging all of the healings.
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Lucky and his family got to live on the property while Mackenzie paid him a good wage and provided food for them, even while the other followers couldn't eat. Yaa noticed how different the entire vibe of the place was. Even though there were many more people living on the property now, it was even more quiet. Yaa also thought everyone looked really unhealthy at this point, even emaciated.
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This was beyond fasting. This was full-on starvation. The first few days that Yaa was there, she and her friends received one small ration per day, but then they stopped getting food altogether. And when Yaa listened to Mackenzie's preaching, it had a new, more urgent and frenzied tenor to it. Instead of making her feel inspired and calm, it was terrifying.
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He would carry on for hours, ranting and raving about the end of the world, but he also had this terrible ultimatum. He claimed that the end of the world was only a few short months away. And he also said that he received a new edict from God about the path the Good News International followers had to follow to meet Jesus. There was only one way there. They had to starve to death.
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McKenzie went on to lay out a horrifying death flow chart of sorts. Children would be the first to quote, go to sleep. Parents were encouraged to actively participate in denying their children food, and some parents protested, but Mackenzie brushed off their concerns by saying, quote, let them die. Is there any problem? It's Jesus who gave you those children.
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After the children, Mackenzie wanted single adults to starve to death next, then mothers, then the elderly, then any other married adults, and then the church leadership before finally Mackenzie himself. Yaa and her friends were petrified at this point. This was the final straw. They knew that they needed to leave.
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But when they went to the exit of the compound, the guards stuck out their machetes in front of them. No one was leaving this place unless it was in a body bag. Over the next few days and weeks, they watched as the people commuting into the compound for mass were met with the same fate. When mass was over and they tried to leave, the guards would threaten them.
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Everyone on the compound was now trapped. Yaa didn't really know what to do. She wanted to leave and go see her granddaughter. So she started watching the guards and she actually noticed that there was a time when they would take breaks. And whenever they would break, she would sneak into the forest and forage for wild fruit and slurp water from puddles on the ground.
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a fresh grave he gazes out into the thick stretch of trees all around whatever is out there he's in way over his head Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kayla Moore. Today's episode is about one of the most shocking modern cults of our time.
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Anything she could do for sustenance. She knew if she made a run for it, though, she could die in the forest. So she tried to keep as low of a profile as possible. Getting caught eating or trying to escape meant really severe punishment, like being tied up outside the huts, beaten, or even killed. And life in Shakahola became a nonstop horror show.
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The suffering from days upon days of hunger was unbearable for followers. Yaa and her friends listened to the other followers cry out in pain and despair day and night. But even still, Mackenzie didn't think that death was coming fast enough for everyone.
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Maybe he didn't realize that starving takes weeks and his followers were stealing berries from the forest when they could, which was making it so they didn't die. Mackenzie decided he would help speed up the process. Sure, he could enforce starvation more strictly, but that was still gonna take a while. No. he decided he needed to take matters into his own hands.
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And that's when he came up with a ritual that the cult could use. So, He would single out certain believers for what he called their wedding day. Calling it a wedding day makes it seem like a joyous celebration. And honestly, for Mackenzie, it probably was. But on a follower's wedding day, a guard would strangle them to death.
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Sometimes beforehand, they were tied to a tree as part of the ritual, like the boy was at the beginning of the story, but the follower was ultimately killed. But after the follower was killed, Mackenzie expected the other followers to rejoice. See, according to him, that believer had gone to meet Jesus so everyone should be happy.
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And so, Yaa, who bore witness to a lot of these events, had to stand there and throw her hands in the air in fake praise of what was happening. But in reality, she and many of the other followers were repulsed and terrified by this violence. But Yaa kept reminding herself, keep a low profile, we'll figure something out. But that all changed one day when her friend approached her.
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See, she had been violently attacked by one of the guards. She hadn't done anything wrong. The guards were just on a power trip, brutalizing people, especially women, whenever they wanted to. And this was Yaa's breaking point. She knew that she had to get herself and her friends to safety or else they were all going to die there. So... the three women began making concrete plans to escape.
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They were already tracking the guards' movements in order to sneak into the forest for food, and now they were watching for the right time to just make a break for it. It didn't matter that there were jaguars in the forest, that they were so weak they wondered how far they could run before collapsing. This was going to be their only chance.
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So one day, they watched as one of the young male guards walked the perimeter of the compound. It was almost time for his break, and Ja was watching him like a hawk. She started bawling her fists and planting her feet, readying her stance, when all of a sudden, he looked directly at her. The two made eye contact, and Ja stayed still, like a rabbit hoping to not be seen.
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Apparently, he decided that she wasn't a threat because he turned around and he walked down a path towards Mackenzie's house. When he was finally out of sight, Yaa and her friends slipped into the forest like they often did, but this time, once they were out of earshot from the settlement, they broke into a run.
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They moved through the thickest part of the forest where they thought it would be easiest to hide. It was only a matter of time before someone realized they were gone and came looking for them. What if the guard had told others it looked like Yaa was getting ready to make a break for it? For four days, they wandered through the forest, staying out of sight during the day and walking at night.
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It was a really tense journey. Yaa was constantly looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see the young guard charging towards her, And if he didn't get her, a big cat surely would. Yaa hugged her arms to her chest and she could feel every bone in her wrist and ribs. She knew that she was really easy prey for a lion or a leopard.
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I seriously think this one is going to be in the history books, you guys, up there with Heaven's Gate and Jonestown. And I'm glad that we get to tell you this story coming straight from the testimonies of the people who survived and the one man who helped shut it all down.
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So he's seen his fair share of suffering, but what he's looking for in the Shakahola forest is worse than anything he's ever encountered. See, several people had visited Victor recently with shocking rumors about a church gone very sideways out here in the wilderness. They said it's become a cult.
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The journey was long and they survived on berries that they could forage and water and puddles. But one day, Yaw saw a road, and they flagged down a Good Samaritan who drove them to the next village over. The women wept when they were offered food and clean water for the first time in weeks.
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And one of the first places that Yaw went when she was back in Malindi was the office of Victor Caudo, the head of the Human Rights Center. And she told him everything that was going on. The starvation, the murders, how her friend had been brutally assaulted.
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There was a little voice in the back of her head still that told her maybe Mackenzie would find out she snitched and he could send his men after her to kill her. But she pushed through and continued to relay her experience. Now, Victor had already heard rumors of this place, so he decided to go visit it himself. And that's when he and his men found the boy tied to the tree.
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And actually, after the police searched the compound and found Paul's hut full of food, they arrested both him and the boy's parents for neglecting him. And for a brief moment, it seemed like everything was going to be okay. Mackenzie was in custody. This should all be over, right? Well, the police claimed that they didn't have enough evidence to hold Mackenzie.
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They released him back into the forest and things were about to get a whole lot worse. See, when Mackenzie returned, he accelerated his vision for mass death. He told his followers that the end of the world was actually now coming sooner than expected, in just a few weeks. That meant they all needed to die before then.
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Paul said that there was only one way for them to ensure their place with Jesus during the apocalypse. If they waited, their soul could face eternal damnation. So McKenzie told the guards that they needed to up the amount of weddings that were being done. But he also told the guards that they too now needed to plan for their own deaths and the deaths of their families.
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But before we dive in, I wanted to shout out our listener, Eric, who reached out to me and said that he's a therapist who specializes in people leaving high control groups. That is a very darkly curious job, but a very important one at that. Seriously, I love this community. I am so glad that I have everyone here with me in the Rogue Detecting Society every week.
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McKenzie still pledged to go last, though, in order to, quote, close the door. And this new declaration brought about two very different reactions from everyone. For the believers, hastening their death was kind of a relief. They believed that they would see Jesus even sooner than expected. But for anyone hoping to hang on to their mortal life, this was now the end of the line.
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If they wanted to survive, they were going to have to do something. And that was the case for Lucky Chanzera, Paul's longtime guard. So far, he and his family hadn't been at risk at all. They were well fed at the compounds, they had a place to live. But things were different now. One of Mackenzie's deputies instructed Lucky to select one of his own children for sacrifice.
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And then the guards went around and told the followers that it was now forbidden that they even talk to each other. For the followers that were still living in the mud huts on the settlement, the situation was even more desperate. Nima, who was a mother of three, had been kept on the property against her will for weeks at that point.
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She was actually pregnant with her fourth child, but she knew that there was no way a newborn would survive here with no doctors around and no access to food. She didn't even know if she would be able to make enough breast milk to feed her baby because she had gone so long without food. But she was determined to protect her unborn child and get back to the kids that she left behind.
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And like Yaa, Nima made escape plans with other women that she trusted. It was really tricky. The women had to plan in whispers. They were always checking for guards or believers who might rat them out for speaking to each other. And eventually, they dug a hole through a back wall of their mud hut, slid through it, and fled, filthy and emaciated, into the forest.
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Neiman described the trek back to civilization as harrowing. All of the women were so weakened by hunger and they ran on pure adrenaline until they reached the same road that Yaa had come to. Back in Malindi, Victor and others actually pressured the police to raid Good News International again,
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If they didn't have enough evidence to hold Mackenzie like last time, they needed to enter the property and find something really fast. But months went by before they could get through to anyone. The police just didn't seem interested enough in what was going on.
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Even though more and more family members of the followers were coming forward, begging the police to do something to save their loved ones, Finally, law enforcement caved, and they decided to go back to Shakahola, and Victor once again went with them. And as officers overran the settlement once more, they saw a scene that was even worse than what they came upon months prior.
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There were way more freshly dug graves, rows and rows of them spreading out into the forest. Followers were sprawled out around them, waiting for their time to be buried. The followers that were still alive could hardly move or talk. They were so malnourished and children cried out in hunger, but mothers had nothing to give them. And there at the center of it all was Mackenzie.
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looking as well fed as ever. He didn't even put up a fight. He and a few of his closest allies surrendered themselves into custody immediately. They knew that this was the end of the line for them. Officers started taking survivors out of the forest and back to Malindi, where a mob had actually begun vandalizing the old location of Good News International.
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And remember, if you want even more Heart Starts Pounding, you can join on Patreon or subscribe on Apple Podcasts for just $5 a month. And both platforms currently have free trials so you can get a taste of all the amazing bonus episodes chosen by the community. This month's bonus episode, selected by our Patreon High Council tier, is about abandoned places, ghost towns, and more.
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Word was beginning to spread that most of the missing loved ones had died. Relatives desperate for information about their missing family members overwhelmed the coroner's office in Malindi. As news of the tragedy went national, all of Kenya experienced waves of shock and grief. One Kenyan government official compared the tragedy in Shakahola to 9-11.
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Autopsies on the remains of recovered found various causes of death, including malnutrition, blunt force trauma, strangulation, and suffocation. And also, in a shocking revelation, one insider estimated that about half of the bodies in custody were missing organs, and they speculated that they may have been harvested for sale.
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No officials were willing to discuss that detail on the record, however. As of August 2024, authorities have exhumed 450 bodies from the site, and more remain in the ground. According to the Kenyan Red Cross, at least 600 people have been reported missing with ties to Good News International.
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The authorities eventually rounded up Paul McKenzie and his accomplices, 94 of them, and they all maintained that they're not responsible for any of the deaths that happened. McKenzie denied withholding food or keeping anyone in Shakahola against their will. He also rejected any claims that he or his guards committed murder. If anyone died at Shakahola, he said, quote, Jesus did it himself.
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Nobody killed anybody. I did nothing. Paul McKenzie and his accomplices remain in custody on charges of murder, acts of terror, child cruelty, and torture related to the deaths of the people whose remains were discovered. During trial, prosecutors plan to show that McKenzie was not running a fringe religion, but an organized criminal operation.
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McKenzie and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty, and the trial appears to be ongoing. The public outcry for justice following this tragedy has been loud and sustained. Devastated relatives blamed the government and local authorities for taking so long to act, especially when McKenzie had a history of illegal activity.
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As best we can tell, law enforcement received reports about Shakahola in late 2022, and McKenzie was not arrested until April 2023. Reports by the Kenyan Senate and human rights groups confirmed that if local authorities had responded to the earlier reports, they could have prevented many of the deaths.
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It seemed like most of the deaths did occur after the police investigated the compound the first time. As of September 2024, six detectives have been suspended for ignoring multiple warnings about Mackenzie's illegal activities. Halua Yaa has returned home to Malindi. The two women who escaped Shakahola with her live on her property.
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At Yaa's insistence, she feels responsible for these women after leading them to danger in the forest. And they all still have nightmares about their time there. Occasionally, they'll sleep in the same bed for comfort. Lucky and his family were actually able to escape as well. He told his superiors that his family needed to leave temporarily to attend a wedding.
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And instead, they all packed their bags and fled. Yaa says that her relationship with God remains an important part of her life, but she no longer seeks out any religious authorities to pray over her. She says, quote, I know my God. And I find myself really inspired by Victor and Yaa in this story. Yaa knew something was wrong and she trusted her gut.
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And I must say, it's honestly one of my favorites. All right. Let's get to it. As always, listener discretion is advised. Victor quickly realized he was going to need more than just a few men, so they grabbed the boy and took him back to Malindi.
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She left even though it was scary and she didn't know what would happen. And Victor kept pushing. He wouldn't take no for an answer. And because of that, there were at least some survivors in this story. And who knows what would have happened if the police never went back. So remember, be like Victor and Yaa and trust your instincts always.
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And I will meet you here next week, where we're going to take another trip around the world. This time to Australia to check out some of the most haunted prisons on the planet. It's going to get very spooky and you're not going to want to miss it. And until next time, stay curious. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kayla Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown.
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Amanda Olson is our associate producer. Additional research and writing by Hannah McIntosh. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Denlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com.
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Victor went straight to the police and told them exactly what the boy had told him, that he was denied food by his parents because the leader of this group said he would meet Jesus that way. The boy also told Victor what wedding day meant. It was when their leader selected someone to be murdered.
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After some back and forth, the police finally decided Victor brought them enough evidence for them to go inspect Shakahola, and Victor came with them and acted as their guide. But this time, the armed group didn't sneak in through the brush. They walked right in through the main road, down that stretch of dirt, right past the machete-wielding guards, onto the compound where the church was living.
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They didn't necessarily know what to expect, but at first they saw a bunch of terribly built mud huts, and what they found inside would be etched into Victor's brain forever. Dozens of people crowded together in varying states of starvation. Some people tried to run when they saw the police, but they were too weak to move. Others were too tired from malnutrition to even form complete sentences.
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And worse yet, they protested when Victor and the officers tried to help them up. They swatted their hands away, saying that they were on a journey to meet Jesus and they didn't want to be interrupted.
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their leader had told them that if they stayed strong if they didn't eat until they wasted away they would meet the lord they wanted to be left alone and allowed to die but victor and the officers didn't listen he knew that these people had been brainwashed and he worked to evacuate all 34 survivors he found to a hospital but four people were so far gone that they didn't even survive the trip
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And as investigators continued exploring the property, they realized that there were these piles of disturbed earth everywhere, some small, some big. They began to poke around and it wasn't long before they started seeing body parts.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Victor actually noticed that some of the bodies inside these disturbed piles of dirt looked like they had been opened and stitched back up as if someone had stolen their organs. See, the property was covered in shallow graves. Something truly heinous must have happened here. The authorities put out requests for more personnel and supplies to begin exhumation and forensic testing.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Victor took these concerns to the local police, but they claimed they couldn't do anything without hard evidence. So now, Victor is here in the forest himself with a few other men, not knowing what they would find, but fearing the worst. Some of the men actually had relatives disappear in recent months, and now they're filled with a mix of hope and dread that they'll find them here.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
But one of the officers pointed out in the distance, "'What's that?' he asked. "'There, amongst the decaying huts "'filled with emaciated followers, "'amongst the shallow graves, "'was a house, a nice house, "'one with a grass-thatched roof and a solar panel.' Compared to the other primitive mud huts nearby, this looked like the height of luxury.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
The officers made their way over and knocked on the door, but no one answered, so they just let themselves inside. And inside was even more of a stark contrast to the horrors on the compound. See, the solar panel ran a refrigerator filled to the brim with fresh bread, milk, other forms of sustenance. Clearly, not everyone on the property was suffering.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Eventually, investigators learned that this was the home of the leader, the leader that was telling everyone it was noble to starve, the man who was responsible for the over 400 bodies that were buried outside, Paul McKenzie. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
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Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash HSP for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash H-S-P to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince dot com slash H-S-P. Paul McKenzie was always in touch with his spirituality. He grew up in an evangelical Christian Kenyan household and he loved attending church as a child.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
This forest, by the way, is huge. Over 800 acres of low, sparse trees, and it's really isolated. The closest city, Malindi, is a two and a half hour drive down a dirt road. No one is stumbling upon this place accidentally. Everyone in Victor's group is moving cautiously, when all of a sudden he sees something in the distance.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Church provided him an opportunity to be the center of attention and get up on stage and flex his charisma in front of a big crowd. It started with him singing in the choir and eventually he started delivering guest sermons. But Paul was no angel. See, Paul McKenzie's brothers remember his short temper and how it could result in unpredictable violence.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
He would get up on stage and preach about undying love from the creator. But when McKenzie got angry, he would lash out and use violence on whoever was closest. When he grew up, Mackenzie sold goods on the street and drove a taxi, but his dream was to be an evangelical preacher. And I will note here that evangelicalism in Kenya functions differently than in some other countries.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
In Kenya, evangelical is just a term that refers to a church that's centered around the, quote, personal enterprise of the pastor. And that's according to Wandia Njoya, who's a scholar based out of Nairobi. She's written a lot about religion in Kenya, and she goes on to say that there, evangelical pastors tend to have unchecked power and alpha male values.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
Evangelical Christianity in Kenya is somewhat modeled after American televangelists. So think preaching styles that lean into showmanship with animated physical sermonizing and an emphasis on dramatic spiritual demonstrations like exorcisms. And it was this blend of unlimited power and flamboyant showmanship that really interested Mackenzie. That's why he wanted to become a pastor.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And in his late 20s, when he started preaching on the side at a local church, he started to gain his own little following. In 2003, at the age of 30, Mackenzie founded his own church, the Good News International Ministry. The church started in the home of one of his supporters, but it wasn't long before that supporter accused him of pocketing donations from the church for his own use.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And Mackenzie's response? Well, he wouldn't tolerate anything but complete submission, so he told his other followers that the supporter who accused him of stealing was a witch, and he moved out of the house to build himself a larger church. Now, he was the sole authority. With Good News International in its new home, everything got bigger.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
The size of Mackenzie's following, the grandiosity of his preaching. Mackenzie was really proving himself as a preacher. And as a result, people started flocking to his church. But it wasn't just his charisma that won him over. He also proved himself by performing miracles. So if you were to attend one of his sermons at this time, you would find him exercising demons out of afflicted followers.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
You'd see him lay his hands on men who couldn't walk, only to watch as they rose up on their two legs. You would see him stop a seizure in its tracks. And it was these healing miracles that really catapulted him into stardom. Halua Yaa was a 50-year-old local entrepreneur in Malindi, and she heard about Mackenzie's ability to heal the sick.
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107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
It's a guard walking back and forth like he's patrolling a perimeter, and there's a long, sharp machete in one hand, caked in dark red stains. To his left is another guard, and then another, all holding machetes, ready to fight whoever was trying to get in. or maybe out. They must be close to the compound, Victor thinks, and he keeps slowly picking his way through the brush.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
She had an eight-year-old granddaughter who had this mysterious illness that prevented her from properly digesting food. And Yaa had taken her to all sorts of doctors and hospitals over the course of two years, but nothing seemed to help. The poor girl could hardly eat and she was rapidly losing weight. So Yaa was desperate for a cure, anything that could help her granddaughter.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
So she decided to attend a healing crusade that Good News International was hosting. And a crusade is a religious festival that can go on for several days. Yaa walked in to see a big stage where Mackenzie was preaching to a massive crowd through a microphone. There was so much electricity in the room as people watched.
Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
107. Starvation Cult Uncovered in Backwoods of Kenya
And Yaa could tell that others brought their sick loved ones to be healed as well. Up on stage, a young girl joined the preacher and then she began shaking violently. Her eyes rolled back into her head. She was clearly having a seizure and the crowd got really quiet as Mackenzie walked over and leaned over the girl looked up to the ceiling and pleaded for God's mercy.