SHE THOUGHT THEY WERE HER FRIENDS: The Murder Of Mary Collins In Charlotte
Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime StoriesShow Notes
Mary Collins was a 20-year-old Charlotte woman with a genetic disorder her family says left her with roughly the mental capacity of a 15-year-old, and on March 28th, 2020, as North Carolina went into lockdown, she went to an apartment in NoDa to hang out with people she thought were her friends. Police found her body hidden inside a mattress in that apartment a week later, and on October 12th, 2026, a Mecklenburg County jury convicted Lavi Pham and James Salerno of first-degree murder and sent both men to prison for life without parole.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/mary-collins-murder-charlotte
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/44thvtsx
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: A pale-faced figure in a cape has haunted a quiet Wisconsin town for decades — vanishing without a trace, but never from memory. We’ll look at the legend of the Mineral Point Vampire. *** Navy radar specialists witness four mysterious craft emerge from the ocean depths and vanish at impossible speeds, adding weight to a startling theory: what if intelligent beings from Venus colonized Earth’s oceans long ago without our knowledge? It’s an interesting if not far-out theory. *** They’re meant to be places of privacy, but in these haunted rooms, something unseen is always watching… and it never leaves. And that idea is even more disconcerting when you find out that you’re being watched by a ghostly entity… while you’re using the bathroom. *** An innocent young woman placed her trust in the wrong hands — what happened next would horrify even the most hardened investigators. It’s the tragic and horrifying true story of Mary Collins. CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:02:19.087 = Show Open 00:04:15.805 = She Just Wanted Friends: The Mary Collins Story 00:23:51.438 = From Mines To Monsters To Mineral Point *** 00:37:48.428 = Ancient Guardians of the Deep: The Venusian Ocean Civilization Theory *** 00:48:44.149 = Porcelain Portals of the Paranormal: Haunted Bathrooms *** 00:57:59.314 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break *No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast* SOURCES and RESOURCES: “A Voice Stolen: The Mary Collins Story” (UPDATED): https://weirddarkness.com/avoicestolen/ “ANCIENT GUARDIANS OF THE DEEP: The Venusian Ocean Civilization Theory”:https://weirddarkness.com/ancient-guardians-of-the-deep-the-venusian-ocean-civilization-theory/ “FROM MINES, TO MONSTERS, TO MINERAL POINT: One-Stop Shopping for Vampires, Ghosts, and Goblins”:https://weirddarkness.com/mineralpointvampire/ “PORCELAIN PORTALS TO THE PARANORMAL: Haunted Bathrooms”: https://www.ranker.com/list/most-haunted-bathrooms/patrick-thornton BOOK: “The W-Files” by Jay Rath: https://amzn.to/458kQVZ (Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.) WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
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