Female Hannibal Lecter

[0] Today's podcast features three separate, unique stories that share a theme.

[1] They all involve cannibals.

[2] The audio from all of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[3] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[4] The first story you'll hear is called Big Fire, and it's about a couple who discovers a deserted island.

[5] The second story you'll hear is called Monster Among Us, and it is literally about a person who can only be described as a monster who is still among us.

[6] And the third and final story you'll hear is called female Hannibal Lecter.

[7] And it's about a crime so horrible that the judge handed down one of the harshest sentences in Australian history.

[8] But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do.

[9] And we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[10] So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to spray the five -star review button's face with sunscreen, but instead, use bear spray.

[11] Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.

[12] Okay, let's get into our first story called Big Fire.

[13] I'm Dan Tversky.

[14] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, a mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[15] What's the answer?

[16] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[17] Hysterical.

[18] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[19] Binge all episodes of Histerical early and ad -free on Wonderry Plus.

[20] In 2011, Hika Dorsch and her boyfriend, Stefan Raman, were living their best life sailing southwest from the Galapagos Islands.

[21] For the last three years, they had abandoned their lives in the city and had moved on to Stefan's catamaran and were just sailing the globe.

[22] On August 30th, 2011, after a particular stretch where they had been in the city, at sea for 17 days consecutively without seeing land anywhere.

[23] Haika was laying down on the catamaran catching some sun when she heard Stefan yell out, land.

[24] And she looked up and she saw these mountainous islands kind of coming into view just over the horizon.

[25] These were the 15 islands that make up the Marquesas island range within French Polynesia.

[26] Haika remembers not being able to control her grin.

[27] It was like she couldn't stop smiling because it really looked like paradise and she was so excited to land there.

[28] The Marquesas Island Range were not big tourist attractions because of how mountainous and rocky they were and the water was not that beautiful Kool -Aid blue that people expect out of French Polynesia.

[29] But for Haika and Stefan, this was perfect.

[30] They were not looking for mass market tourism.

[31] They were looking for authentic cultural contact.

[32] And it would turn out that the Marquesas Island Range was perfect for this because the locals just weren't used to seeing tourists.

[33] And so before long, the locals were embracing Haika and Stefan and bringing them down to the beach for their cookouts and going spearfishing with them and even one night they were invited into a local's home where they got to be a part of a big family dinner.

[34] After six weeks, Haika and Stefan had explored the majority of the Marquesas Island range, but there was still one of the 15 islands that they had not yet explored called Nuku Haiba.

[35] And so on the day before they planned to leave the island range, they decided to go check it out.

[36] When they dropped anchor in the bay that sat just outside of this island, there were no boat There were no fishermen, there were no people, there was nothing.

[37] It was like a deserted island.

[38] And so they make their way on the beach, and they see there's this trail that goes inland.

[39] Being explorers, they couldn't help themselves but walk down the trail to see what's down there.

[40] After 15 minutes of walking down this jungle path, they come to a clearing, and in this clearing is this very strange -looking village that's made up of all these shacks.

[41] They can't tell if people live there or have lived there recently, because to them, it just looks totally abandoned.

[42] And as they're kind of looking around, they notice way down the path beyond these shacks is one man standing in the middle of the road.

[43] He's this really big guy with his shirt off standing next to a horse.

[44] And he's just looking directly at them.

[45] He's not waving to them.

[46] He's not signaling to them.

[47] He's just watching them.

[48] And it kind of creeped them out at first, but they decided that the polite thing to do would be to go over and talk to him because this is probably his village and they were the trespassers.

[49] So they go over to this guy and they introduce themselves and he says that his name is Arijano and that he lives in this village.

[50] Through broken French, they're able to have a semi -normal conversation, which seemed like pleasantries.

[51] And at some point, Stefan just off the cuff, asked this guy if he'd be willing to be his guide on a hunt.

[52] He wanted to go hunting for goats, which is something that everybody did on the Marquesas Island, and Stefan really wanted to be a part of that.

[53] And Ariano says, sure, I'll be your guide.

[54] Haika was a little bit caught off guard, but wasn't surprised because Stefan had been talking endlessly about how he wanted to go on a goat hunt before they left the Marquesas Island ring.

[55] but she didn't feel like doing this, so she said, you two go, I'll meet you over at the boat.

[56] So Haika turns around and starts walking down the jungle path back towards their boat, and she turns around one more time and she sees Stefan and Arihano walking into the jungle down another path and they disappear.

[57] Haika spent the next several hours just laying out on the beach waiting for Stefan to return, but after quite a while and she hadn't heard anything, she started to get a little bit worried.

[58] And as she's starting to get worried, she hears someone yelling out on the water, And from around the corner, Ariano comes around on his boat, and he's waving to her, and he's yelling for her in French that there's been an accident, that Stefan's been hurt and she needs to come with him.

[59] Without another thought, Haika runs into the water, jumps into Ariano's dinghy, and the two of them drive back around the corner to wherever Ariano and Stefan had been.

[60] They land at this little tiny beach that's right up against a jungle, and immediately Haika jumps out, runs right into the jungle.

[61] And she's yelling for Stefan, and there's no sign of him.

[62] He's not yelling back.

[63] she has no idea where to look, and she kept turning around and asking Ariano, where is he?

[64] What happened to him?

[65] And Ariano just wasn't really giving her a good answer.

[66] He was just being quiet.

[67] Frustrated, Haika walks even farther into the jungle.

[68] She's yelling even louder.

[69] And still, there's nothing.

[70] And so she turns around to confront Ariano and be like, where is Stefan?

[71] What's going on?

[72] And as soon as she does, she's met with a gun right in her face.

[73] Haika immediately grabbed the barrel and tried to fight it away from him.

[74] And she could tell that he tried to fire.

[75] the gun but the safety was on and so nothing fired they kind of struggled with the gun and at some point he got on top of her and just restrained her and tied her up to a tree and then he just walked away into the jungle without saying anything and so hika is expecting at any moment for him to return and kill her and she even said that she wished he had just shot her then and there because the anxiety of waiting for whatever was going to happen was way worse while arihana was gone hika struggled to try to get the ropes off of her and the rope around her neck off of her, but she couldn't do it.

[76] And as she's sitting there struggling, Ariana would return and he would beat her up a little bit before ultimately turning around and leaving once again.

[77] Ariano would come back a couple hours later after it had gotten dark, and she's still there struggling to get these ropes off of her, and he would hit her a couple times before leaving again.

[78] But when he hit her, he actually managed to loosen some of her restraints, and as soon as he did walk off into the jungle that second time, she was able to get the restraints off of her wrist and her neck.

[79] Now, she had no idea where Ariano was, but as soon as she took one step, she saw a flashlight, maybe a couple hundred meters away, flipped towards her, and she knew it was Ariano.

[80] He had heard her move.

[81] And so Haika just starts running, full speed.

[82] She's stepped in on Thor and she's getting slashed by all the undergrowth.

[83] She doesn't care.

[84] She is running for her life.

[85] And because it was a full moon, she could actually see the water because the beach was right next to where she was being held.

[86] And so she just ran for the water.

[87] And when she got onto the beach, she could see there was another boat out in the water.

[88] the water near where theirs had been anchored and when she looks at the beach she can see that Ariano must have turned around because she can see a flashlight kind of bobbing its way farther and farther deeper into the jungle.

[89] Using the couple's satellite phone, Haika was able to alert authorities who launched a search for Stefan and initially they couldn't find him and they couldn't find Ariano.

[90] But three days into the search they made a grisly discovery.

[91] The Marquesan islands are actually known for the Marquesan warriors that used to inhabit these islands up until the 12th.

[92] century.

[93] And they were known for being the most aggressive cannibals in the South Pacific.

[94] In particular, the island of Nuku Haiba, which is where Stefan had just gone missing, and where Haika had just been attacked by Arihano.

[95] But historians believe nobody on Marquesas has practiced cannibalism since the 12th century.

[96] That practice has gone away.

[97] Well, until 2011, when Arihano, who was in fact a Marquesas warrior, met Stefan, and decided that now is a good time to bring that practice back.

[98] Right after Heihano, who was in fact a marquessess warrior, met Stefan, and decided that now is a good time to bring Haika had turned around and walked back to the beach and Stefan and Arihano had gone on their hunt.

[99] Ariano had attacked Stefan, tied him up, and described seeing his neck pulsing with fear as Ariano built this massive campfire that authorities said was three times bigger than any campfire they'd ever come across.

[100] And then Ariano shot him and put him in the fire.

[101] Although Ariano would be captured and convicted of killing Stefan, Ariano would never actually come out and say that he had in fact eaten portion.

[102] of Stefan, and it was impossible to tell from his remains how much had been consumed versus burned off in the fire.

[103] But virtually anybody who was involved in this case has their suspicions that Ariano had ritualistically cannibalized Stefan.

[104] Our next story is called Monster Among Us.

[105] One night in the early 1950s, a little boy named Isay Sagawa was having this dream where he and his brother were being boiled alive to be eaten.

[106] Sagawa says when he woke up, he immediately began fantasizing about what it would be like to be on the other side of that, to be on the outside with a human inside of the pot that you're boiling, that you're going to eat, and he became totally obsessed with the idea of eating another person.

[107] By the time he was in first grade, he would find himself staring at his different classmates' legs, and his mouth would be watering because he wanted to take a bite out of their leg.

[108] For three decades, he was able to suppress that urge, but in 1981, those cannibalistic urges would get the better of him.

[109] One summer day while he was in Tokyo, he saw this woman that he wanted to eat and he couldn't help himself.

[110] And so he began following her down the road and he saw her go into her apartment.

[111] He waited for a minute, went around back and climbed in the window.

[112] And when he got inside, she was asleep.

[113] And he hadn't thought of a plan for what he was going to do once he was inside.

[114] And so he's just standing there thinking, well, now what do I do?

[115] How am I going to eat her?

[116] What am I going to do next?

[117] And as he's sitting there wondering what to do next, she wakes up and she screams and he runs away.

[118] after this breaking and entering incident sagawa would actually seek help so he goes to a psychiatrist and he says this is what i did i snuck into her house because i wanted to eat her and the psychiatrist would end up telling sagawa's family that i have to label him a high risk to society because he's not just thinking about doing these things he's already acting out these fantasies now sagawa's father was extremely wealthy and powerful and when he heard this from the psychiatrist he was like no we're not going to do that And so using his power and influence, he was able to kind of cover up what the psychiatrist had found, and he shipped his son to Paris.

[119] Once Sagawa landed in Paris, he enrolled at the Sorbonne University and began studying literature.

[120] Despite having sought help for his cannibalistic urges, when he was in Paris, he started having that urge again and he couldn't control it, and instead of going to another therapist or psychiatrist, he begins to look for another victim.

[121] Sagawa considered himself short, weak, and ugly, and so he was actually looking for a tall, beautiful Western woman so he could absorb their energy and somehow become a bigger, better version of himself.

[122] And so he began looking around Paris for tall, beautiful women that he could potentially eat, but no one seemed like a good fit until he met René Hartbelt.

[123] Renee was a tall, beautiful, 25 -year -old Dutch student who was going to school with Sagawa at Sorbonne.

[124] In order to get close to her, Sagawa would ask his father if he would give him some money so he could hire René to be his personal tutor.

[125] His father gives him the money.

[126] Sagawa hires Renee and they strike up this working relationship together.

[127] And over time, Sagawa would build trust with Renee.

[128] They would become friends.

[129] And at some point he asked Renee if she'll actually come over to his apartment, something they had not done yet.

[130] And she's sitting in his apartment with her back turned to him.

[131] He leaves the room and comes back with a rifle and he tries to fire it, but it jams.

[132] And she hasn't heard him do this.

[133] And so he's standing there and his weapons now jammed.

[134] He hasn't fired it.

[135] And he just puts the weapon away and comes back out and acts like nothing's happened.

[136] And he's sitting there wondering, is this a sign that I'm not supposed to do this?

[137] But at the end of the night, when she finally left, he decides, you know what, I got to go through with this.

[138] I have to eat her.

[139] And so the next night he gets to come over again.

[140] He gets the rifle out when she's sitting with her back to him once again, except this time the rifle fires.

[141] Only for an instant, he felt really bad and thought, maybe I should call an ambulance.

[142] But then he stopped himself when he said, you've waited so long for this.

[143] You gotta just go through with it.

[144] He immediately tried to take a bite out of her, but it was too difficult and unpalatable.

[145] So he calmly leaves his apartment, he goes to the store, he gets a blade, he comes back and he's able to begin removing pieces of Renee so he can eat them.

[146] Over the next two days, Sagawa would eat most of Renee, and he would take pictures of himself throughout the entire experience.

[147] When he finally felt full, he left a couple pieces still in his freezer, but put the rest of her in a suitcase and went to dump her in a lake.

[148] But as he was wheeling these heavy suitcases around town, people saw them, and it just drew a lot of suspicion, and at some point, someone must have called the police, they show up, they ask him what's inside the suitcase, they open it up, and there's Renee.

[149] When questioned about it, he just said, I killed her to eat her flesh.

[150] Sagawa awaited trial for two years in a French prison, and when he finally went in front of a French judge, when the judge read the details of this crime, it seemed so crazy and outrageous that the judge decided, there's no way SIGawa can be sane, and so he was deemed insane and unfit to stand trial.

[151] He was ordered to go to a mental institution where he would be held indefinitely.

[152] Shortly after that, the French deported Sigawa back to Japan, where they expected him to remain in a mental institution for the rest of his life.

[153] But that didn't happen because the French dropped his case and his documents were sealed.

[154] And when he arrived in Japan, the Japanese could not get access to his court documents, and so they did not have a case against Sigawa, and so they had to let him walk free.

[155] And so in 1986, Sigawa checked himself out of the Japanese mental institution that he had been sent to, and he's been free ever since.

[156] He's written books and he's been featured on TV shows.

[157] He's even been called in to be a food critic.

[158] But what's even more horrifying is that Sagawa openly says that before he dies, he's going to do this again.

[159] He can't live with himself unless he eats at least one, more person.

[160] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good, you are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[161] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[162] We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[163] And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome.

[164] In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

[165] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[166] Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[167] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[168] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[169] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend.

[170] Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[171] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[172] What happens next?

[173] Depends on who you ask.

[174] Was it a crime of passion?

[175] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[176] This was clearly an intentional act.

[177] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[178] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[179] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[180] Everyone had an opinion.

[181] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[182] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[183] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[184] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[185] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[186] The next and final story of today's episode is called Female Hannibal Lecter.

[187] In 1955, Catherine Knight had the misfortune of being born into a highly dysfunctional and abusive household.

[188] Not only was she badly mistreated by her alcoholic parents and cruel older siblings, she was also scorned by the people who lived in the town with her simply because they didn't like her family.

[189] Catherine lived in a very small town in New South Wales, Australia, where basically everybody knew each other's business.

[190] But despite the abuse, Catherine always tried to focus on the future.

[191] She would tell herself that as much as my life is miserable right now, in the future I will have a family of my own and I will take care of them the way I wish my family had taken care of me. But when Catherine became a young woman and began dating men, all of her relationships would always crash and burn because inevitably, she and her partner would become toxic and abusive and it would end the relationship.

[192] It was like Catherine both didn't know how to be a quality partner and didn't know how to identify a quality partner, likely because she didn't know what that looked like.

[193] She had been raised in this horrible household.

[194] But in 1995, when Catherine was 40 and really starting to feel desperate for someone to actually love and to love her back, she would meet a man named John Price, who was also 40, and he just seemed fundamentally different than every other man she had ever dated.

[195] He was empathetic to her troubled past and he seemed to really care for her and really wanted to kind of take her under his wing and love her.

[196] And so immediately Catherine just fell head over heels in love with John and in return it seemed very much like John had fallen head over heels in love with Catherine.

[197] That year, Catherine moved in to John's house where he lived with his three young daughters who right away took a liking to her.

[198] And so for the first time, Catherine felt like her life was really going the way she wanted it to go.

[199] But unfortunately, this would not last.

[200] Despite the seemingly perfect start to Catherine and John's relationship, it eventually began to sour when Catherine began to ask John if they were ever going to get married.

[201] Catherine really wanted to get married.

[202] She wanted to kind of officially have a family of her own that she could take care of, but John was weary of marriage because he had just left a failed marriage.

[203] marriage, and he told Catherine that realistically, he might never want to get married again.

[204] And so over time, this issue really drove the two apart, and it all came to a head in early February of 2000, when John and Catherine were at his house, they were in the kitchen, and they got into a heated fight over marriage, and then before long, they were both getting physical with each other, and during this altercation, Catherine kind of scrambled and grabbed a knife on the counter and actually slashed John across the chest.

[205] And as soon as she did this, the fight came to an end, John screamed at her to leave the apartment and never come back, but Catherine was already storming out of the apartment.

[206] They both understood that a line had been crossed, and almost certainly their relationship was now over.

[207] But over the following days and weeks, Catherine, who had moved into a different apartment at this time, kind of near where John was living, she felt very lonely, and even though she knew her relationship with John was not a healthy one, she longed to patch things up with him.

[208] She didn't like being alone.

[209] She wanted to have that family.

[210] And so she decided she would do what she had previously done in other relationships to kind of patch up the relationship after a fight.

[211] And so the way she would do this is she would kind of make sure they had the house to themselves.

[212] And then she would show up in lingerie and they would have kind of an intimate makeup moment.

[213] And then everything would go back to normal.

[214] So on February 29th, Catherine waited until she knew John had left for work and she went over to his place and she had a key to it still and she went inside and his three daughters were there and so Catherine said hello and she chatted with the kids for a minute and then she made arrangements for the three kids to go get picked up by a babysitter and spend the night outside of the house and so then when the babysitter came by the house and picked up the three girls Catherine said goodbye to them and then Catherine left John's place and she went out to get her lingerie.

[215] Later in the evening when John came back to his house, he went inside and he found his kids weren't there, but there was a note from Catherine that explained where his kids were and how she wanted to make up with him and she would be back in a little while.

[216] Now, John was not happy about this.

[217] He was angry that she had decided to just come into his house without asking him that felt very violating.

[218] And then also she made a decision about his kids without talking to him.

[219] That just felt so offensive and wrong of her to do.

[220] And so John grabs a beer out of the fridge.

[221] He sits down, in the living room and he begins to wait for Catherine to show up.

[222] The next morning at 6 a .m., John was supposed to be at work already, but he wasn't.

[223] And so his company, who knew he was very reliable, were concerned something was wrong.

[224] And so they sent a worker to his property to see what was going on.

[225] And so the worker, he pulls up in front of John's house.

[226] You know, John's car is in the driveway.

[227] And so the worker's first thought is, oh, I guess John must have overslept.

[228] And so the worker walks up onto John's front porch and he knocks on John's front door, but there's no answer.

[229] And so the worker knocks again, still no answer.

[230] And so this guy turns around to leave and go back and tell the company, look, I don't know what's going on.

[231] But as he's turning around, he notices on the very bottom of the outside of the door, kind of near the edge, the front edge of this door, there looked to be some blood on the outside of the door.

[232] It was pretty easy to tell it was blood.

[233] And so the worker was immediately very concerned, and he knocked again on the door, but no answer.

[234] And so he ran around to the side of the building.

[235] and he began banging on the windows of John's house to hopefully rouse whoever was in there to come out and to make sure things were okay but there was silence and so the worker ran back to his car he drove back to his office and after he told his boss what he had found they decided they had to call the police the police would show up at John's residence at 8 a .m and when they got there John's vehicle was still in the driveway the house was quiet and dark and so the police they walked up to the front door they knocked on the door there's no answer it's silence and so they walk around to the back of the property to try the back door.

[236] And as they're walking into the backyard, they see in the middle of the grass right behind a window that led into the house.

[237] There was this plate of food that had been clearly thrown out of the house and landed face down on the grass.

[238] And so the police see that.

[239] They're thinking, that's pretty weird.

[240] And so what they do first, before even going to the back door, is they turned to the window, which clearly the food had been thrown out of, but whoever had done it had then shut the window.

[241] And so they go over to the glass and press their faces up against it and peer inside.

[242] And there's no John, there's no people, there's nothing inside, it's dark.

[243] But right inside of this window is this big dining room table and it's covered with this amazing spread of food.

[244] It looks like a Thanksgiving Day meal had been prepared but then no one had eaten from it.

[245] And so they're thinking, okay, well, for whatever reason, one of these plates of food was thrown out the window.

[246] That's very odd.

[247] And so the police come off the window, they walk over to the back door, they knock a few more times, but after even more silence, they kick the back door down and they go inside.

[248] As soon as they step in, there's two officers.

[249] They walk straight into the house with the dining room table with all that food on their left, and there's nothing that stands out.

[250] They're calling for John, it's silent, everything is off, everything is quiet, and they keep on walking into what appears to be the living room, where the TV is and where there's a couch, and as soon as they walk in, they see there's blood everywhere.

[251] And towards the front of the living room, where the front door actually opened into the house, house, there was a very obvious pool of blood.

[252] Basically, if you stepped into the house, you'd be stepping in to this puddle of blood.

[253] And as they're looking at this pool of blood, they see there is a distinct blood trail from the pool back into the living room that they have just walked into, and the trail kind of leads behind a couch out of their view.

[254] And so they walk around the couch to see what's at the end of this trail, and they find Catherine Knight's crumpled body on the ground.

[255] And so right away, they rush over to her and they feel for a pulse, and they discover that she actually does have a pulse, but very obviously she's clinging to life barely.

[256] And so one of the officers stays with Catherine while they're calling in paramedics to come in and deal with her while the other officer draws their weapon and they begin searching the rest of the house.

[257] And so the officer walks past the front door on their left and they go into the other side of the first floor, which is basically like this lounge room, kind of like a secondary living room.

[258] And as they're looking out across this room, they see there's no one in it.

[259] But there appears to be this curtain blocking the entrance to some other side room.

[260] And this officer, as they're looking at it, they look down and they notice there's another blood trail that starts from the front of the house.

[261] It snakes all the way across this lounge room and kind of disappears into this covered up room.

[262] And so this officer yells out for John, but there's no answer.

[263] And so he ends up going all the way across, checking as he's going, looking around, but there's no one there.

[264] And he gets to this towel.

[265] And with his non -shooting hand, he kind of pushes it out of the way.

[266] And he looks inside of this space.

[267] And it turns out to just be a small closet.

[268] There was nothing of note inside.

[269] It didn't really make sense that the blood trail had led to this closet.

[270] But then as the officer was kind of wondering why the blood trail ended here, he started to feel something cold on his non -shooting arm.

[271] And so he looked down at his arm and he saw there was this huge streak of blood on his arm.

[272] And he knew he had not been wounded in some way.

[273] This was not his blood.

[274] So how did he get blood all over him?

[275] And then he stepped back in horror because he realized the curtain that he had just moved with the arm that had blood on it was not a curtain the night before john sat in his living room waiting for katherine to return very angrily waiting for her to come back but by 11 p .m she hadn't and john he works super early in the morning he's very tired he decides to just go to bed and so he climbs into bed he falls asleep and then about an hour or so later katherine would walk into the bedroom she had her black lingerie on that she had bought earlier in the day, and even though John was furious with her and very upset with what she had done that day, seeing her like this suddenly made him think, you know what, all my issues with her can wait, and before long they were getting intimate together in the bed, and then they fell asleep in each other's arms.

[276] Later in the night, Catherine would wake up, John's still fast asleep, so she's looking right at him, and she suddenly has this intense sense of disgust.

[277] She was convinced that he was taking advantage of her, that the reason he didn't want to marry her was he was just kind of using her.

[278] And this anger inside of her boiled up.

[279] And she decided right then and there that I need to teach this man a lesson he will never forget.

[280] And so Catherine very quietly slipped out of the bed, John's still sleeping.

[281] She snuck out of the bedroom.

[282] She made her way out of the house and she got into her car and she drove across town to the apartment she had been staying in for the past couple of weeks and she grabbed her work tools.

[283] Catherine, where she worked full time, was a meat processing factory.

[284] And she worked.

[285] worked on the kill floor with the animals that are being turned into meat.

[286] And so her skill set was butchering and her tools were butcher's knives.

[287] And so she grabs her kit of butcher's knives and she drives back to John's place.

[288] She goes into the house, she makes her way into the kitchen, and she unrolls this kit full of different sized butcher knives, and she picks the one she wants, she pulls it out, she makes sure it's nice and sharp, and then she made her way into John's bedroom.

[289] When she got into his bedroom, John was still asleep, he was lying on his back, covers up over him, fast asleep, and she climbed onto the bed being very careful not to wake him, and then when she was straddling him kind of on her knees right over his midsection, she raised the knife up between her two hands, and she brought it down into his chest.

[290] John immediately shot up, bucking Catherine off of him.

[291] She went flying onto the floor, and then instinctively John just begins running out of his bedroom.

[292] He has no idea what's happening.

[293] He's been stabbed, but he probably can't even feel it.

[294] It's all adrenaline.

[295] he is just running through the house, but by the time he gets to the front of the house, the blood loss had caused him to be so weak he could barely stand.

[296] And so he managed to open the front door, but then he collapsed onto the ground halfway between the inside and outside of the house.

[297] And so laying there, he reached out with his bloody hand, and he grabbed the edge of the door that was partially open and tried to pull himself out of the house.

[298] And that's how that bloody print was left on the outside of the door that the worker saw.

[299] And as he's trying to pull himself out of the house, Catherine, who had gotten up after being knocked off the bed, she ran to the front of the house and she grabbed his legs and she pulled him back into the house and then shut the door.

[300] And then once he was inside, she got on top of him and stabbed him an additional 36 times all over his body.

[301] And then she left him there to bleed to death.

[302] And so while he's dying, she goes into the kitchen and she puts on a large pot of water to boil.

[303] And then she began setting the plates all around the dining room table for a big family meal.

[304] After she was done setting the table, she went back over to John, who was now deceased at this point, and she dragged him all the way across that lounge room on the other side of the house that the officer walked through and then found that curtain.

[305] She dragged him all the way across that room to right in front of that closet, and then using her expert skills from working in the meat factory, she proceeded to skin John from his neck all the way down to his toe, and she was so good at it that she was able to skin him in one piece.

[306] And she took this skin suit and she draped it over the entrance to this closet.

[307] And then she removed John's head from the now skinned torso and she placed it in the water that she had put on to boil earlier.

[308] She was going to use his head to turn it into some sort of broth or gravy.

[309] And then she grabbed his skinned torso and dragged it into the kitchen and began butchering it and then making different dishes with his meat, different pies and casseroles.

[310] And then after she had made this enormous feast out of John's body, she set the food all around the table that she had already laid out, and then she made little placards, little name cards that had the names of each of John's children on them, and she placed them in front of each of the plates, because her intention was to feed them their father.

[311] And then Catherine sat down at a plate that she had made for herself, and she began eating John, except it made her sick, and so she opened the window behind her, and she threw her plate of food out into the backyard.

[312] And then when she turned back around and looked at what she had done, she decided that instead of facing the consequences, she would just take her own life.

[313] And so she went into the bathroom, she grabbed some sleeping pills, she made her way into the living room, she overdosed on sleeping pills, and collapsed on the ground.

[314] However, when the paramedics finally showed up the following morning, they were able to save her.

[315] And so once she stabilized in the hospital, she was promptly arrested for John's murder.

[316] She would ultimately be found guilty, however, she would never take any responsibility.

[317] And then during her sentencing phase, she was given life in prison, but the judge made a special clause just for her.

[318] He told them that her file needed to be stamped, literally stamped, never to be released.

[319] Basically, there was no hope ever of her getting out of prison.

[320] And so after she was taken away, she would become the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

[321] She's still alive today.

[322] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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[340] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[341] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[342] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[343] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[344] She's like, I can't.

[345] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[346] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[347] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[348] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[349] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[350] Yeah, yeah.

[351] Well, yeah.

[352] No, it's hysteria.

[353] It's all in your head.

[354] It's not physical.

[355] Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[356] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[357] Or is it something else entirely?

[358] Something's wrong here.

[359] Something's not right.

[360] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[361] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[362] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[363] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.