0:11

You're listening to Unexplained Season

0:13

four, episode twenty one, The

0:15

Underweight, Part two. The

0:25

rain pelted the windows as thunder

0:27

cracked and rattled ferociously about

0:30

the sky. Tossing in their

0:32

bed, Judith and Sam Haney tried

0:34

their best to ignore it. Another

0:38

heavy storm had hit Section eight of the

0:40

Newport's subdivision, but it wasn't

0:42

just the storm that was keeping them awake.

0:45

Ever since they'd uncovered the bones in their

0:47

garden, the pair had been racked

0:50

with guilt for having desecrated the

0:52

grave, but also with shame

0:54

for having, albeit unwittingly, moved

0:56

into a house that had quite possibly been

0:59

built on top of a graveyard. Having

1:02

finally dozed off, who wasn't long

1:04

until Sam was snapping awake

1:06

again. In the dark, he

1:09

lay for a moment, just listening to

1:11

the sound of the wind and the rain

1:14

lashing down against the house, when

1:16

slowly he became aware of something

1:19

else, voices.

1:23

Thinking that he might still be dreaming, a

1:25

sudden flash of lightning brought him to

1:27

his senses. Hearing

1:30

the voices again, Sam realized

1:32

they were coming from the TV in the living

1:34

room. Stepping quietly

1:37

from the bed, he made his way into

1:39

the hall at the bottom of which a

1:41

gentle light was flickering against the walls.

1:45

Turning into the living room, Sam

1:47

stood for a moment, mesmerized

1:49

by the silent images playing out on the

1:51

TV screen, confused

1:54

as to how on earth it had somehow

1:56

turned itself on in the middle of the night,

2:00

who switched it off at the wall and

2:02

made his way back to bed. The

2:05

following morning, Judith searched

2:07

everywhere for her work shoes, but couldn't

2:10

find them anywhere. Asking

2:12

Sam in the kitchen if he'd seen them, she

2:14

was suddenly drawn to something out in

2:16

the garden. The

2:19

couple had had the grave filled in again as

2:21

soon as the bones had been collected by the coroner,

2:24

and had planted some flowers on top as

2:26

a sign of respect, But now

2:29

there was something else placed there too, Judith's

2:32

missing shoes, and

2:34

that was only the beginning. Over

2:43

the next few days, the couple were

2:45

beset by a series of strange occurrences,

2:48

from lights flashing on and off, to

2:50

unaccountable noises, and that

2:52

sinister sensation that, unbeknownst

2:55

to them, had also been plaguing their neighbors,

2:57

Jean and Ben Williams. The

3:00

feeling that they weren't quite alone

3:02

in their house. When

3:05

the bone analysis came back from the coroner's

3:07

office, it was discovered that there were, in

3:09

fact two skeletons buried

3:11

side by side. Wedding

3:13

rings found on their fingers suggested

3:16

that they'd been a married couple. Both

3:19

were determined to have died of natural

3:21

causes sometime in the nineteen

3:23

thirties. The bones

3:25

were eventually delivered back to the Hanes

3:27

at their request. The

3:30

request had been made primarily because

3:32

the couple believed it important that the bones

3:34

be returned to where they had come from out

3:36

of respect. However,

3:39

it also hadn't been lost on them that

3:41

those peculiar disturbances had

3:43

only begun after the grave

3:45

had been disturbed. The

3:48

couple placed the bones inside a specially

3:51

made pine wood box alongside

3:53

a single rose, and buried

3:55

them back in the spot where they'd originally

3:57

been found. A

3:59

few weeks later, after a period

4:01

of calm, Judith was woken

4:04

by flashes of electric blue light coming

4:06

from the alarm clock at the back of the bedroom.

4:10

She looked aghast at the digital clock

4:12

as electric sparks shot out at

4:14

the top of it, hurrying

4:17

to switch it off. She was confused

4:19

to find that it wasn't even plugged in.

4:23

Moments later, the clock shut

4:25

itself off. It

4:33

wasn't long before news of the hans gruesome

4:35

discovery, not just the grave,

4:38

but the possibility that it might be only

4:40

one of many in the neighborhood reached

4:42

the other residents of Poppits Way,

4:45

having been one of the first to hear about it.

4:48

The next day, Jean and Ben Williams

4:50

wandered out into their garden and stared

4:53

long and hard at the numerous

4:55

six foot long depressions in the soil

4:58

that were dotted all around, and

5:00

at those strange markings carved

5:02

into the bark of the great oak at

5:04

the corner of their home that Jean

5:07

had grown so fond of. It

5:09

was as if they were seeing them, only then for

5:11

the first time, an

5:13

arrow pointing down and two

5:15

small lines scratched in underneath.

5:20

Since the death of Jean's brother the previous

5:22

year, there had been little let up in the

5:24

misery that seemed to have engulfed the family

5:27

since Jean and Ben had moved to Newport

5:29

barely two years ago. Not

5:32

long after Glen died, Jean's father

5:35

was diagnosed with cancer, too, becoming

5:37

the fifth family member to be diagnosed

5:39

with a life threatening illness since

5:42

they moved into their new home. One

5:45

night, Carly's cat, Smoky,

5:47

disappeared into the woods at the back of the garden,

5:50

only to reappear out of the blue

5:53

a week later, seeming somehow

5:55

changed. After

5:57

he tore apart a bedspread and then

6:00

tat Carlie unexpectedly, one night,

6:02

the family took him to the vet. It

6:05

wasn't clear exactly what ailment had

6:07

worked its way inside him, but whatever

6:10

it was, it was killing him,

6:12

causing him great pain and distress in

6:14

the process. Faced

6:16

with an impossible choice, the family

6:18

elected to have Smokey put down

6:22

or the while the family continued to

6:25

hear what they took to be footsteps

6:27

moving about at night, and

6:29

labored under the continual sense that

6:31

they were being watched by things unseen.

6:36

Some relief had arrived toward the end of

6:38

nineteen eighty two, when Tina

6:40

was given the all clear from Hodgkins lymphoma,

6:43

but before long, the now familiar

6:46

dark clouds of misery had drifted

6:48

back into view. In

6:51

March nineteen eighty three, on the

6:53

exact same day as her brother the

6:56

year before, Jean's father

6:58

Robert died. It

7:01

was an unusual coincidence, to say the least,

7:03

and one that only exacerbated the impact

7:06

of an already traumatic event, with

7:09

the hanes gruesome discovery and

7:11

all that that might entail coming

7:14

only a few months later. At

7:16

first, it merely compounded everything

7:18

else. Soon, however,

7:21

for Jean, at least, finally,

7:23

it seemed there might be an answer to it. All.

7:27

The grave's discovery, the strange

7:29

activity, the illnesses,

7:31

deaths, and even their daughters

7:34

Marcia, Anne's broken marriage and

7:36

Judith having to give up custody of Carly.

7:39

Might all of it be connected?

7:49

With Jean, now convinced more than ever that

7:51

something about the location was bringing

7:53

so much tragedy to the family, her

7:56

and Ben's thoughts once again turned

7:58

to escape. However,

8:01

not long after finding the bones, the

8:03

Hanes began a lawsuit against the developers

8:06

of the Newport subdivision, accusing

8:08

them of knowingly building on top of graves

8:11

and failing to disclose that information

8:13

to their clients. And when

8:15

the case hit the news, the Williamses

8:18

struggled to find anyone willing to pay a suitable

8:20

price for their home. The

8:23

next eighty months, however, proved relatively

8:25

calm for the family, who, although

8:28

they couldn't yet move, had found

8:30

the perfect place in Montana to at

8:32

least give them something positive to focus

8:34

on. Tina

8:36

had also continued to thrive since

8:38

getting the all clear from Hodgkins's disease,

8:41

and by the end of nineteen eighty four she

8:44

was married and pregnant. In

8:47

February the following year, Jean

8:49

noticed the Hanes escorting an

8:51

elderly man around the neighborhood, but

8:54

soon realized it was he that

8:56

was escorting them, stopping every

8:58

so often to point something out to them.

9:01

The man, as she later found out,

9:04

was Jasper Norton, an

9:06

eighty year old resident of Bared Station,

9:09

a small township located at the

9:11

other side of the woods that backed onto

9:13

Jean and Ben's property. The

9:16

area had once been part of the McKinney

9:18

plantation. Some time

9:21

after the abolition of slavery in eighteen

9:23

sixty five, a three acre section

9:25

of it had supposedly been deeded by the McKinneys

9:28

to their former slaves. Many

9:31

of those who still lived there were descendants

9:33

of those people, Jasper with

9:36

one of them. As Jasper

9:38

went on to explain to the Haynes, the

9:40

land had once been home to a church,

9:43

a school, and a graveyard

9:47

known locally as Black Hope

9:49

Cemetery, a final

9:52

resting place for the community that had

9:54

grown up around it. According

9:57

to Jasper, who'd been helping to bury

9:59

people there since the age of fourteen, much

10:02

of Section eight had been built on top

10:04

of the graveyard, and Jean

10:06

and Ben Williams's home was

10:08

right in the middle of it. Are

10:13

you always taking care of your family?

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Do you often take care of others and not yourself?

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10:36

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to get started. That's t e

11:13

ladoc dot com

11:15

slash Unexplained podcast. The

11:22

neighbors were understandably shocked by

11:24

Jasper's story. It would

11:26

be one thing to have unknowingly built a housing

11:29

development over a grave site, quite

11:31

another to have built it over an entire

11:33

graveyard. But that was

11:35

the thing. Just how much had the

11:38

development company known about it.

11:41

As the Haneys legal suit rattled on,

11:43

Gene and Ben drove out to bed Station

11:46

to speak with some of the local residents to

11:48

learn more about the cemetery for themselves.

11:51

Their meetings were documented, along

11:54

with the rest of the Williams's experiences

11:56

living in Newport, in their nineteen

11:58

ninety one book Black Hope

12:00

Horror, written in collaboration

12:03

with John Bruce shoemaker. Ninety

12:06

year old Elbert Pritchard came to the

12:09

area from Louisiana with his mother

12:11

and stepfather in nineteen hundred and

12:13

recalled that even then they were burying

12:16

bodies in the local area.

12:18

His own stepfather was buried there too.

12:22

He also confirmed that the Williams's

12:24

home was placed directly in the

12:26

middle of the site. Will

12:29

Freeman, his name a stark

12:32

testament to his family's past, was

12:35

blind, and in his nineties when the Williams

12:37

has met with him, Freeman

12:39

explained that bodies would often be buried

12:41

haphazardly because the land that

12:44

had been granted to the freed people was

12:46

either too boggy to do anything with, otherwise

12:49

it was too rocky or wooded. Most

12:52

of his neighbors, having been so institutionally

12:55

crippled by slavery, who were unable

12:57

to afford formal burials or even

13:00

headstones for their loved ones. Will

13:04

Freeman also remembered the difficulty

13:06

of trying to find a suitable place to bury

13:08

his two sisters, eventually

13:10

settling on a spot right next

13:13

to an old oak tree. And

13:16

if he wasn't mistaken, as he

13:18

went on to explain to Jean and Ben, you

13:21

might still be able to find it due

13:23

to the markings he'd made in the bark

13:25

of the tree, a large

13:28

arrow pointing downwards and two

13:30

straight lines underneath. Jean

13:34

felt a sudden lurch in her stomach when

13:36

he said it recognizing

13:38

those symbols immediately as

13:40

the ones on the tree at the corner

13:42

of her home. There

13:50

was no question now that Jean and Ben

13:53

had to find a way out for their family's

13:55

sake as well as theirs. Though

13:58

Jean didn't know who or what it

14:01

was exactly, she was convinced

14:03

that something had been ruptured by the act

14:05

of desecrating so many graves, and

14:08

whatever had materialized as a consequence

14:11

had focused its attention on them.

14:14

With property values declining as much

14:16

as seventy percent. Now that the cemetery's

14:19

existence had become more widely known, their

14:22

only hope was to seek legal compensation.

14:26

But despite testimony from bed Station

14:28

Residence that the McKinneys had

14:30

once needed the land where the cemetery was

14:32

located to their former slaves

14:35

and their descendants, this arrangement

14:37

had never been officially recognized

14:40

as such when the housing

14:42

development company later bought it from

14:45

the McKinney family. Legally,

14:47

they hadn't done anything wrong. Had

14:51

they known about the cemetery before building

14:53

on top of it and not disclosed this information

14:55

to future buyers, the might

14:58

have been reasonable grounds to sue. However,

15:01

since the state hadn't formally recognized

15:04

the symmetry either, there was no

15:06

way to prove that the company had any

15:08

prior knowledge of its existence. After

15:11

seeking advice from their lawyer, it

15:13

was decided that the next best option for the

15:15

Williamses was to seek compensation

15:18

from the title company for the loss of value.

15:21

Only there was one big catch.

15:25

Even if they succeeded in convincing a jury

15:27

that compensation was justified, they

15:30

would ultimately need physical evidence

15:32

of the semmetry for a judge to award

15:34

it to them. In order

15:36

to do this, however, would mean deliberately

15:39

digging up a grave, which,

15:41

even if the grave is not formally recognized,

15:44

could in itself be deemed an illegal

15:47

act, effectively avoiding

15:49

their claim.

15:56

After a period of relative calm

15:59

in the fall of nineteen eighty six, Jean

16:01

and Ben were woken one night by

16:03

what sounded like heavy footsteps padding

16:06

up the corridor toward their bedroom.

16:09

Remembering all that had come before, the

16:11

couple lay paralyzed in fear as

16:13

the steps drew closer and closer,

16:17

with their eyes fixed on the open doorway.

16:20

For a moment, a shadow seemed to

16:22

fall across it, only to slip

16:24

away again as the sound of footsteps

16:26

continued on, now heading toward

16:28

Carly's room. The

16:31

couple leapt from their bed and darted

16:33

into the hall. Jean

16:36

gasped at the sight of Carly's closed

16:38

bedroom door at the end of the corridor and

16:41

the sliver of light peeking out from underneath

16:43

it. She always left it

16:45

open at night. The

16:48

couple later claimed to have found Carly

16:51

sat bolt upright in bed but

16:53

fast asleep, with what appeared

16:55

to be a number of transparent shapes

16:58

crowded around the bed. Clutching

17:01

the crucifix around her neck, Jeanne

17:03

had then proceeded to pray loudly until

17:05

the figures had apparently slowly dissolved

17:08

away. The following

17:10

morning, jean knew exactly what

17:13

to do. It

17:15

would be wrong to say it felt good ramming

17:17

the spade into the dirt at the base of

17:20

the large oak tree, but there was little

17:22

denying the sense of relief that jean felt

17:24

now she'd finally taken matters into her

17:26

own hands. After

17:29

almost an hour, however, with the ground

17:31

full of stones and roots, Jeanne

17:33

had barely got more than a foot down when

17:35

she was forced to call it a day. The

17:39

next day was more of the same as

17:41

Jean continued to work away at the pit, but

17:44

no matter how hard she tried, she

17:46

seemed barely to make a dent in it. By

17:49

lunch time, with some help from Ben, she

17:52

was about three feet down when

17:54

Tina arrived with her new baby to

17:56

look after Jeanne's mother for the afternoon.

18:00

Angered to find Jean attempting to

18:02

dig up the grave, Tina suggested

18:04

that they just forget the whole thing and move

18:07

on, as surely, if

18:09

disturbing the graves had been the cause of all

18:11

their misery, what good could possibly

18:14

come out of disturbing another one. That

18:17

evening, with Ben and Jean returned,

18:20

Tina's husband joined the rest of the family

18:23

for dinner. Later,

18:25

with the family gathered together in the living

18:27

room, Tina suddenly doubled

18:30

over in pain. Ben

18:32

yelled for some one to call an ambulance as

18:35

he tried his best to comfort his daughter,

18:37

who knew instantly that something

18:40

was deeply wrong. Tina,

18:43

who was judged to have suffered a massive heart attack,

18:46

lost consciousness on the way to hospital

18:48

and would never regain it. After

18:51

spending three days on life's support, the

18:54

family agreed to turn it off, with

19:03

Tina's untimely death. A final

19:05

line had been crossed. After

19:08

seven years of cumulative grief

19:10

and terror, Jean and Ben simply

19:13

packed their bags and left, canceling

19:16

all future payments on their mortgage until

19:18

finally the lender had no choice

19:20

but to foreclose on the house, taking

19:23

their eighteen thousand dollars deposit with

19:25

it. Like their neighbors,

19:27

the Marshals and Andersons, who had

19:30

also been driven out at the neighborhood under

19:32

similar circumstances, the

19:34

Williamses, who resettled in Bitter Root,

19:37

Montana, lost their whole investment.

19:41

In total, seven of the area's

19:43

eight original homes would eventually

19:45

be abandoned by their owners. In

19:48

May nineteen eighty seven, the

19:51

Haines lawsuit against the housing development

19:53

company finally came to an end.

19:57

Although at first having convinced

19:59

a jury to find in their favor, with

20:01

the couple being awarded one hundred and forty

20:03

two thousand dollars in compensation, this

20:06

was ultimately overruled on appeal. The

20:09

judge presiding over the case concluded

20:12

that there was no evidence to confirm the

20:14

company had been intentionally negligent.

20:18

The remains of the married couple found

20:20

in the Hanes garden were eventually

20:23

removed and reburied in the

20:25

nearest Perpetual Care cemetery.

20:28

The couple were later identified as

20:30

most likely being Betty and Charlie

20:32

Thomas, who'd both been

20:34

born in the mid nineteenth century.

20:38

For many years, the Hanes visited

20:40

the Thomas's new grave to leave

20:42

flowers and pay their respects. Other

20:46

individuals thought to have been buried in

20:48

Black Hope Cemetery and unmarked graves

20:51

are Becky Thornton, Tom

20:54

Fawced, Billy Cash, Rosy

20:57

Booth, Joseph Freeman,

21:00

D. J. Bradley, Ella

21:02

Freeman, Maude Holmes, John

21:05

Frejoy, Louise Childress,

21:08

Roy Childress, Mary Francis,

21:12

Terence Brossard, Charlie

21:14

Bates, Ben Hubley,

21:17

Many Booths, Bob Hunter,

21:20

Joe Turner, Nancy

21:22

Turner, and Billy Parrish.

21:32

Unexplained. The book and audio book, featuring

21:35

ten stories that have never before been covered

21:37

on the show, is now available to buy

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Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you

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