Paranormia

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became a city stripped to its bones. Power was gone. Tourists vanished. And for a brief moment, life in the French Quarter felt suspended outside of time. Zack Bowen, a former soldier, and Addie Hall, a poet and bartender, chose to stay. They scavenged food, cooked in the streets, drank beneath darkened skies, and were photographed by national media as symbols of defiance; young lovers riding out the end of the world together.A year later, Addie was dead. Dismembered in an apartment above a voodoo temple. Zack would take his own life days later, leaving behind a confession and one of the most disturbing crime scenes New Orleans has ever seen.This episode traces the arc from disaster romance to domestic horror, from Katrina’s strange, intoxicating aftermath to addiction, untreated trauma, and a relationship collapsing under the return of ordinary life. It asks why this story became framed as a “voodoo murder,” what we miss when we reach for supernatural explanations, and how catastrophe can amplify the quiet damage already living inside people.If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected] is an Audio Always production.Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester.***Support & Resources:This episode discusses suicide, domestic abuse, addiction, and trauma. If you or someone you love needs support, help is available:United Kingdom:Samaritans - Call 116 123 (24/7) or visit samaritans.org National Domestic Abuse Helpline - Call 0808 2000 247 (24/7) or visit nationaldahelpline.org.uk United States:988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline - Call or text 988 (24/7) or visit 988lifeline.org Veterans Crisis Line - Call 988, then press 1, or text 838255National Domestic Violence Hotline - Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit thehotline.org Australia:Lifeline Australia - Call 13 11 14 (24/7) or visit lifeline.org.au 1800RESPECT - Call 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au Global:International Association for Suicide PreventionFind local helplines at findahelpline.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On Christmas Eve 1945, a fire tore through a family home in the hills of West Virginia. Four children escaped. Five never came out. When the smoke cleared, there were no bodies in the ashes, no bones, and no clear explanation. In the years that followed, the Sodder family rejected the official story. They spoke of cut phone lines, a missing ladder, warnings from strangers, and a photograph mailed decades later that seemed to show one of the lost children alive. For eighty years, the case has hovered between accident and conspiracy, grief and obsession.This episode explores the disappearance of the Sodder children and the questions that refuse to fade. It asks what happens when tragedy leaves no physical proof, when mourning turns into investigation, and when a Christmas night becomes a mystery that will not let a family, or a nation, move on.If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected] is an Audio Always production.Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1972, a small group of ordinary Canadians set out to test a radical idea: that belief alone might be powerful enough to move the physical world. They invented a man named Philip, his face, his history, even his tragic death, and gathered each week around a table to see if imagination could be made to answer back. What followed was filmed under bright lights and careful observation. Knocks echoed from inside the wood. Furniture tilted and moved. The ghost they had designed seemed to respond, not as a spirit from the past, but as something shaped by the minds in the room.This episode explores the Philip Experiment and the uneasy space where psychology, ritual, and expectation collide. It asks what happens when belief becomes behaviour, when an experiment slips into performance, and when a ghost that never lived begins to feel disturbingly present.If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected] is an Audio Always production.Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In early 1994, the murder of Harry and Nicola Fuller brought twelve jurors to a Brighton hotel, locked away from the world with nothing but silence, photographs, and each other. As the pressure mounted, four of them reached for a Ouija board, half a joke, half a plea for clarity, and asked the dead for answers. The verdict that followed would crumble under the weight of its own strangeness. This episode explores how isolation bends the mind, how belief can slip through the cracks of law, and how a single night in a seaside hotel became one of the most unsettling chapters in British justice.If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected] is an Audio Always production.Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In March 1989, Spring Break in South Texas was alive with crowds and music, until 21-year-old Mark Kilroy vanished somewhere between the bars of Matamoros and the quiet roads beyond the border. What began as a missing-person search soon led investigators to Santa Elena Ranch, a remote compound tied to a group calling themselves a religious society, a place where superstition, ritual, and violence appeared to intersect. As the investigation unfolded, rumours of black magic, sacrifice and folk-religious practices spread rapidly, blurring the line between fact and folklore. This episode explores how fear, belief, and cartel mythmaking shaped one of the strangest cases of its era, and why, in the borderlands, the truth often shifts with the shadows.If you have a story where crime and the otherworldly intertwine, something strange, unexplained or just plain haunted, get in touch at [email protected] is an Audio Always production.Presented by Elizabeth McCafferty.Written and produced by Mansi Vithlani.Executive produced by Ailsa Rochester. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.