CHILLS 8. “Bad News”: When the Bretzuis family moved
to Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, they couldn’t have been more excited. This was the house of their dreams, the place
where they were ready to spend the rest of the lives. Still, the eager homeowners had played it
safe and taken their time before moving in. They took all the right steps, including having
it officially inspected first before buying. Once it had been deemed safe to live in, the
family moved in straight away . . . and started to get sick soon after. After they all came down with flulike symptoms
that would not go away no matter what they tried, the family was told by contractors
that they had a mold problem. When the contractors took a closer look inside
of the walls to see exactly what they were dealing with, they found one of the strangest
discoveries of their entire careers. Inside of the wall, delicately wrapped inside
of old newspapers, were the carcasses of dozens of dead animals. Chickens and other unidentifiable animals
were being pulled out from the wall right in front of the Bretzius family. It wasn’t just in one wall, either. Dead animal carcasses were being removed from
the walls in almost every room, and even in the ceiling. The yellowish newspapers were all dated from
the early 1930s and 40s, meaning that the decaying bodies had been around for more than
60 years. Still, even though they had found the source
of the mold, they had absolutely no explanation as to why someone would stick dead animals
all around the house. Only after they contacted a local historian
would the family be able to find any answers. Apparently, whoever had lived in the home
long ago had been a practitioner of what’s known as “pow-wow’ing” [“pow-wow-ing”],
or “Dutch Magic”. As the historian explained to the family,
back in the last century, it was not uncommon for the owners of a house to slaughter animals
and wrap them up in newspaper. Keeping them inside of the walls was actually
supposed to cure them of health problems. Instead, it was creating them for the Bretzius
family. As fascinating as this history lesson was,
it still did the family absolutely no good as far as their situation was concerned. Since their insurance policy only covers recent
incidents, and since the animals were placed in the walls during the 1900s, the family
was forced to pay for the removal out of their own pocket. So far, the family has spent 20 thousand dollars
hiring people to rip up the walls and take out the dead animals for them. Worse still, the family continues to suffer
from health problems, but they have run out of money. They now have to live inside the house knowing
that dead carcasses continue to silently rot behind
the walls. 7. “Not On A Plane”: Jan [as in “January”]
Perillo [“Per-rill-low”] is 73 years old and should be living out her golden years
free from worry. Instead, she sits wide awake in a chair that’s
in the middle of her apartment in Casselberry [“Castle-berry”], Florida, waiting for
the next scaly [“scale-lee”] intruder to come poking through the wall. It all started one day after Jan noticed two
strange holes in the walls of her apartment. Even though the holes were on opposite sides
of the room, they were both down low, right by the carpet. Jan lived by herself and wasn’t sure what
she should do about the situation, if anything. Finally, she gets the courage to lift up the
carpet, and that’s when she sees them – droves [“drove” with an “s”] of snakes coming
out of her wall and dropping underneath the carpet below. All Jan could think to do was use her grabbing
device to pick up the snakes and take them outside. Soon hordes of snakes started to come out
of her walls on a regular basis, day and night. It got so bad that she became afraid to touch
anything and couldn’t even sit down on her sofa because she once found some snakes there
before, too. She spent days beating the snakes with a cane
and putting them into bags to show to her apartment manager. More than a dozen snakes have been removed
so far, some 2 feet long. She now stays in a hotel which, thankfully,
has absolutely nothing strange inside of the walls. 6. “Snakes on a Flame”: A homeowner in Queensland
[“Queens-land”], Australia was alarmed to see smoke coming from an electrical outlet
in his wall one day. When he removed the plastic electric socket
cover and looked inside, he was further surprised and terrified to find a large carpet python
[“pie-thon”] snake frying against live wires. He could smell it being cooked alive. Thinking fast, he turned off the electricity
and saved the snake – along with his home. When a famous Australian snake catcher called
Richie Gilbert arrived at the scene, he was able to pull the bottom half of the snake
out of the wall for a closer look. Still, he didn’t want to pull too hard and
hurt the snake, so he cut the hole wider and managed to bring the rest of the injured reptile
out. As the videotape shows, the python had a large
burn mark on its body, but its tongue continues to dart in and out of its mouth as Richie
speaks a little about its species to the camera. The snake is eventually taken to a local zoo
where veterinarians [“vet-ter-nare-ree-ans”] treat it for severe burns. It’s unknown if the snake made it through
the ordeal [“or-deal”] or if it perished [“pear-ished”]. Either way, as Richie points out, the house
could have easily of burnt down had the owner not have been home to take immediate action. 5. “Only in New Jersey”: A contractor working
in New Jersey was ripping down a wall when he came across the shock of a lifetime. Neatly embedded between the sheetrock was
an actual grenade. Only the top was sticking out, and he could
see that the pin was still inside. Basically, the contractor was face-to-face
with a potentially live explosive device. He backed out of the room and called the police,
who in turn called the Essex County Bomb Squad. In the meantime, police officers evacuated
seven people from the home and checked the surrounding houses to make sure no one was
there. In the end, the bomb squad was able to remove
the grenade without any harm. They were relieved to find that the bottom
had been drilled out long ago and it was not active. However, it was impossible to determine any
of this from the weird angle that the grenade was originally sticking out at. Since stranger things than a grenade in the
wall happen in New Jersey all of the time, the police decided to call it a day and not
try to figure out who the explosive device had once belonged to. 4. “Evidence in the Wall”: When Donald Graham
had one of the wealthiest women in England fall for him, he couldn’t believe his luck. Janet Brown had a ton of money and completely
trusted him with all of it. So Donald did what any other cold-blooded
con artist would do: he plotted her death and planned for a big payout. Janet and Donald were planning to go to France
in 2005 when Donald cancelled their flight at the last second. His wife had cancer, he told them. When Janet decided she was going to go without
him, he killed her and disposed of the body. Just days before, he had somehow convinced
her to transfer 300 thousand pounds from her bank account to his. With her murder complete, Donald next had
postcards sent from France to Janet’s parents. He wanted to make it seem like she had abandoned
him and decided to never return. Next, he got in close with Janet’s parents
and started milking them of money. Overall, it seemed like he had gotten away
with everything, until one day someone finally noticed. When Janet’s parents died, they still trusted
their daughter’s murderer completely. Only after an accountant saw that the deceased
family was somehow still depositing huge sums of money into Donald’s bank account did
anything happen. Police initially launched a fraud investigation,
which soon turned into a murder case as they uncovered more. The evidence against Donald was overwhelming
and his story quickly fell apart. He was convicted and sentenced to a life sentence
without parole. Authorities had caught the man, but they were
still annoyed that they were not able to determine how he had killed her. Then, one day, a builder was renovating their
old property when he found something of interest. After knocking down a wall he was surprised
to find an old airsoft rifle. Police believe that this was the murder weapon
used to dispatch of Janet Brown. Her body was never found. 3. “28 Years Later”: One day, as a cleaning
crew was working on an abandoned New York home, they found a false wall in the basement. Behind the wall they found a large plastic
bin, and inside of that they found a plastic bag. Inside of that, they found a skeleton wrapped
in an old sheet. It was easy to see that whoever this person
was, they had died a tragic and painful death. Their skeletal [“skel-lit-tul”] hands
were tied with rope, and a large portion of their skull had been beaten in. The remains had been walled off for 28 years,
and authorities say that the plastic bin is what kept her corpse from stinking up entire
the house. Using dental records, authorities were able
to identify the body as JoAnn Nichols [“Nick-coals”], an elderly woman who had lived in the house
with her husband until she went missing in 1985. There were absolutely no clues as to her disappearance
at the time, but now it was apparent that she had been murdered. Her husband, James Nichols, had died in the
house much later, which is what prompted the cleaning crew to enter the home to begin with. James was apparently a very creepy person
to be around. For example, one time a neighborhood child
had asked him to help her with a squirrel that she had found injured. Instead of helping, he immediately killed
it with a hatchet without even bothering to take off his nice suit jacket first. She and the other children screamed in her
frontyard. Another time, she caught him taking pictures
of her while she was wearing short shorts. Neighbors describe James as living a normal
life after his wife’s death. One neighbor says that he went to all of the
church dinners and often went out to the local IHOP as if nothing were wrong. Looking back now, they realize that James
was more than just strange – he was most likely a murderer. 2. “Raven in the Wall”: In 2008 a 37-year-old
woman named Raven Joy Campbell moved into an apartment at the Harbor Hill Housing Project
in Los Angeles County. She was living with her high school friend
and her friend’s boyfriend, too. Things were going well until sometime within
a half-a-year of moving in there, a fourth person joined them. His named was Randolph Garbutt, he was 43,
and he was a psychopath. Raven went to the mall one day and then went
missing shortly thereafter. Years later, in 2015, authorities receive
a tip that Raven could be buried within the walls of her old residence. For quite some time, the tenants had been
complaining of a horrible smell that they think could have been a body. Police search the apartment and canine units
find her remains buried in the wall. She had been violently beaten with a hammer. Details of the case are scarce since it is
still pending, but Randolph Garbutt has since been charged with her murder. 1. “Herman Monster”: Herman Webster Mudgett
[“Mud-get”] moved to Chicago in 1886. There, he adopted a new name – Dr. Henry
H. Holmes [“Homes”] – and took over a local pharmacy. Exactly how he acquired the business is still
unknown – one day its former owner just seemed to disappear. Anyway, Herman Mudgett didn’t continue use
the property as a pharmacy. Instead, he added more and more renovations
to the estate until it was a full three stories taller. Then he opened it up as a hotel. There was a yearly convention taking place
in the city and he knew that people from all over would need a place to stay. He thought that he could make good money off
of them. Behind the walls of the hotel, however, was
a much darker secret that no one in Chicago knew about. Although Herman Mudgett appeared to be a kindly
and well-educated man on the outside, deep within he was actually twisted and deranged
[“de-ranged”]. When police eventually investigated his hotel,
they were appalled [“a-pauled”] to discover what he had actually been up to. When a person checked into the hotel and caught
Herman Mudgett’s eye, he would give them a very special room with a very special purpose. This room was built especially for him to
kill someone in. When he was sure that his guest was alone
and vulnerable, he would slip into their room and either kill them with chloroform, strangle
them, or sometimes just beat them to death. Certain rooms were even equipped with special
equipment that he could pump poisonous gas through. Most of his victims – if not all of them
– were women. Once he had satisfied his urge to kill, he
would open up a trapdoor that had been built directly into the wall of the windowless room. The dead body would then fall down a complex
series of special chutes [“shoots”] which lead directly into the basement, where he
could dissolve them in vats of acid without anyone being the wiser. There were 60 rooms in his hotel, and there
were also many dead-end stairways that lead to nowhere as well. This confusing floorplan was to keep people
away from the hotel’s true design, which was to serve as a murderer’s playground. In fact, it would one day be dubbed as the
“Murder Castle”. When the place was first being built, however,
Herman Mudgett would use multiple contractors and fire them before they could catch on to
the real purpose. No one could have ever possibly known. By the time the murderer was caught, Herman
admitted to killing as many as 200 victims. Police weren’t sure if he was exaggerating
[“ex-adge-ger-rate-ting”], but then again, they didn’t really doubt him either. So many people were flooding Chicago for the
convention that they felt it really was possible for him to have killed that high of a number,
at least in theory. Since most of them were dissolved, it was
hard to say for sure. Back then, by the time the victim’s family
realized that something was wrong, they hadn’t heard from their loved ones in so long that
they had absolutely no idea where to even begin. Likewise, no one staying in the hotel could
have realized that, if even for a brief moment, there was a dead body falling past them behind the walls.
