110: The Winchester "Mystery" House | 31 Nights of Frights of True Crime Sleep Stories

Pull up a blanket, friends. Tonight on True Crime Sleep Stories, I'm sitting by the fire and looking back at my favorite true crime and unexplained mysteries from our 31 Nights of Frights. We'll revisit your listener stories (including the Captain from True Crime Garage), the legend of the Mothman in Point Pleasant, and the 1955 Pascagoula UFO Incident. I'll share the eeriest details that stayed with me, tell you a short Halloween bedtime story, and give you a peek at what's still coming, including our extra long Halloween episode on 10/31 (I'm so excited!!). Whether you listen to fall asleep or love a cozy, creepy story, thank you for being here and for supporting the show. You're the reason these 31 nights happened. 🖤 True crime for sleep, unsolved mysteries, paranormal stories, Halloween podcast, calm storytelling. Patreon Exclusive: Ad-free version & bonus content available now for supporters. Your support keeps the stories coming... thank you! 💤 Listen & Connect • Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@SleepyTimeCreepyTime • Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Stay in Touch Facebook Instagram: @truecrimesleepstories | @kellibrink TikTok: @truecrimesleepstories Buy the True Crime Sleep Stories Books by Kelli Brink Vol. 1: amzn.to/3Z8jx5L Vol. 2: amzn.to/4kAthhj Vol. 3: amzn.to/3H9xfPQ

In this True Crime Sleep Stories episode, we cover the Campden Wonder, the nearly 400-year-old unsolved disappearance of William Harrison in Chipping Campden, Cotswolds, in 1660. After the estate steward vanished while collecting rent, his servant John Perry and the Perry family (Joan and Richard) were convicted and hanged for his murder despite no body being found. Harrison later returned alive, claiming he had been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Turkey, making the Campden Wonder one of England’s most famous historical true crime mysteries and a lasting cautionary tale about convicting without a body. Patreon Exclusive: Ad-free version & bonus content available now for supporters. Your support keeps the stories coming... thank you! 💤 Listen & Connect • Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@SleepyTimeCreepyTime • Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Stay in Touch Facebook Instagram: @truecrimesleepstories | @kellibrink TikTok: @truecrimesleepstories Buy the True Crime Sleep Stories Books by Kelli Brink Vol. 1: amzn.to/3Z8jx5L Vol. 2: amzn.to/4kAthhj Vol. 3: amzn.to/3H9xfPQ

2 couples drive past the old TNT plant outside Point Pleasant, West Virginia, when headlights catch the Mothman... tall, gray, with glowing red eyes. It follows their car at nearly a hundred miles an hour. They go straight to the courthouse. The deputy says they weren’t lying. Tonight’s episode is a step further into the dark for 31 Nights of Frights. Ordinary people reported Mothman sightings around Point Pleasant, strange visitors, and silent phone calls. 13 months later, the Silver Bridge collapsed into the Ohio River with Christmas traffic on it. 46 people died. The crack in the steel had been growing for years, experts said. This episode stays with the people who never stopped saying the Mothman wasn’t a bird, the reporter who wrote it all down, the town of Point Pleasant that still remembers the names and put up a statue with red eyes. Patreon Exclusive: Ad-free version & bonus content available now for supporters. Your support keeps the stories coming... thank you! 💤 Listen & Connect • Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@SleepyTimeCreepyTime • Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Stay in Touch Facebook Instagram: @truecrimesleepstories | @kellibrink TikTok: @truecrimesleepstories Buy the True Crime Sleep Stories Books by Kelli Brink Vol. 1: amzn.to/3Z8jx5L Vol. 2: amzn.to/4kAthhj Vol. 3: amzn.to/3H9xfPQ

A lot of people might not think the Bell Witch story is “true crime.” It sounds like folklore or a classic ghost tale. But it is true crime for one simple reason: John Bell was murdered. Welcome to another 31 Nights of Frights on True Crime Sleep Stories. In 1820, on the Bell family farm along the Red River in what is now Adams, Tennessee (Robertson County), John Bell died in his bed. If you believe it was the Bell Witch (the voice the neighbors called Kate), then a supernatural being killed him. If you don’t believe in witches or ghosts, then a person put poison in his medicine cabinet and gave him a fatal dose while he slept. Either way, a man died and someone, or something, did it. That’s the definition of true crime. This is the rare case where the supernatural and the murder aren’t competing explanations. They’re the same story. Whether it was a ghostly witch or a human hand that put the poison in that vial, John Bell was murdered in his own bed. Most of what we know about the Bell Witch haunting comes from his son Richard Williams Bell’s 1846 manuscript, later published in 1894. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Sleep well. Patreon Exclusive: Ad-free version & bonus content available now for supporters. Your support keeps the stories coming... thank you! 💤 Listen & Connect • Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@SleepyTimeCreepyTime • Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Stay in Touch Facebook Instagram: @truecrimesleepstories | @kellibrink TikTok: @truecrimesleepstories Buy the True Crime Sleep Stories Books by Kelli Brink Vol. 1: amzn.to/3Z8jx5L Vol. 2: amzn.to/4kAthhj Vol. 3: amzn.to/3H9xfPQ

In this True Crime Sleep Stories episode, hear five quiet near-miss stories of ordinary people who came close to dangerous men, including Rodney Alcala, Ted Bundy, and Israel Keyes... and went home safe. None of them knew the full picture at the time. Most only learned years later. These gentle true crime accounts focus on the moments when something felt off and the people who trusted that feeling. There’s a canceled date after The Dating Game, a Tinder match that shifted, a fireplace that filled with smoke, a couple parked at an Anchorage overlook, and a red truck on a dark highway. These stories touch on real cases, but we stay with the people who walked away and keep the details soft and low-stakes, perfect for falling asleep. The stories: The Dating Game, September 1978: Cheryl Bradshaw picked Bachelor Number One on the popular TV show. After meeting him, she called the casting director and canceled the date because something felt wrong. She was right. The man was Rodney Alcala, a serial killer already responsible for multiple murders. Salt Lake City, April 2019: Missy Lewis matched with a charming man on Tinder. When he pushed to meet in a parking lot and his tone changed, she unmatched him. Less than two months later his face was on the news. Seattle, early 1970s: Elizabeth Kloepfer (also known as Elizabeth Kendall) fell asleep in front of the fireplace with her longtime boyfriend Ted Bundy. She woke up to a room full of smoke after he closed the damper and blocked the door. Years later he told her what he had done. Point Woronzof, Anchorage, spring 2011: A young couple sat in their car at the overlook. Serial killer Israel Keyes was watching from the trees with a silenced rifle, ready to shoot. Two officers doing a routine closing-time check changed the night, and their fate. The couple’s names are still unknown. A lonely highway, ~2000: A woman in the Army was driving from Colorado to Arizona when a red truck flashed its lights and honked. She started to pull over, then changed her mind halfway to the back of her car. She later saw a similar story on a crime show. They all noticed something felt off and acted on it. I believe we’re given intuition for a reason. Animals trust it without argument. We often talk ourselves out of it. This episode is a calm reminder to listen the first time your gut tells you something isn’t right, especially in true crime near-miss situations like these. Patreon Exclusive: Ad-free version & bonus content available now for supporters. Your support keeps the stories coming... thank you! 💤 Listen & Connect • Watch on YouTube: youtube.com/@SleepyTimeCreepyTime • Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify Stay in Touch Facebook Instagram: @truecrimesleepstories | @kellibrink TikTok: @truecrimesleepstories Buy the True Crime Sleep Stories Books by Kelli Brink Vol. 1: amzn.to/3Z8jx5L Vol. 2: amzn.to/4kAthhj Vol. 3: amzn.to/3H9xfPQ