Deadly Contraptions

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast features three unique stories that all involve deadly contraptions.

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

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

[5] The first story you'll hear is called DIY, and it's about a man who, who built a very complex home defense system to ward off a master thief.

[6] The second story you'll hear is called sublimation, and it's about a famous Russian person who received a very dangerous surprise for their birthday.

[7] And the third and final story you'll hear is called woodworking project, and it's about a sinister device that was found inside of a hidden room in Northern England.

[8] Note, this third story deals with suicide.

[9] But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[10] So, if that's of interest to you, at the Amazon Music Follow buttons next birthday party, please gift them a three -year supply of Radithor.

[11] Okay, let's get into our first story called DIY.

[12] I'm Dan Tibersky.

[13] In 2011, something strange began to happen.

[14] at a high school in upstate New York.

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

[16] What's the answer?

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

[18] Hysterical.

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

[20] Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[21] Located on the far northern tip of Maine, right on the border of Canada, lies a small rural town called Van Buren.

[22] Van Buren is home to about 2 ,000 people who, for the most part, have lived in Maine for their entire lives, and they tend to be very rugged and very competent people.

[23] But unless you live in Van Buren or know someone in Van Buren or have family out there, there's no reason you would have heard of this particular town.

[24] Nothing really happens in this town, at least nothing that makes headlines.

[25] However, that would change.

[26] In 2019, Van Buren made international headlines because of one man, Ronald Seer.

[27] As a young man in the 1950s, Ronald Sear joined the Air Force and fought in the Korean War, and then after he got out of the military, he moved back to his hometown of Van Buren, Maine, and he moved into a very modest two -story home right near town, and for a little while he just kind of floated about, didn't really have a direction in life, but eventually, because of his love for working with his hands and his general skill at working with his hands and building things, he started a small but successful tool -selling company that he ran right out of his shed on his property.

[28] Fast forward to 2019, Ronald Sear at that time was 65 years old, and he still lived in the same property right near town in Van Buren, however, he now lived alone, and he still ran this tool -selling business right out of his work shed.

[29] And for Ronald, this was enough.

[30] He was very content with his life.

[31] He was very happy.

[32] But that year, he would face a crisis.

[33] One bright, sunny morning in the summer of that year, Ronald left his house and he walked, walked over to his shed, he went inside, and right away he noticed something.

[34] Ronald kept all these bins inside of his shed that were full of all of the different tools that he would sell, and because he was in there all the time, either literally selling tools or tinkering with whatever it was he was building himself, he was very aware of how full each of these bins were, and any time they got low, he would order more, so he had enough supply to sell.

[35] And so he went into his shed this morning, and he noticed right away that a couple of the bins appeared to be, a little bit lower than he remembered.

[36] And right away, Ronald is thinking, you know, did I forget to order supplies to fill these bins up?

[37] Did I just forget to do that?

[38] But he's thinking to himself, you know, I am meticulous in making sure my inventory is full at all times.

[39] I've been doing this for decades.

[40] And so it can't be me. You know, maybe I took the tools and I brought them into my house and I've left them in there or maybe they're in my truck.

[41] And so Ronald, believing there's a totally logical explanation for this, would leave his shed and he would search his property, but he can't find these tools anywhere.

[42] And so he began calling his family and his friends to see if, you know, maybe they had come by and borrowed some of these tools or maybe they knew what had happened to them.

[43] But everyone he spoke to said, no, I have no idea.

[44] And so by that afternoon, Ronald had found himself back inside of his workshed looking around, thinking to himself, have I been robbed?

[45] It was the only logical thing he could think of that would explain this loss.

[46] And so Ronald drove to the police station and he spoke to police and he explained what happened, but unfortunately, the police's reaction to what he was telling them was not exactly what he wanted.

[47] They basically assumed that he just had miscounted, that in reality the tools were either still in the shed, then he just forgot how many were supposed to be in there, or he had just kind of lost them on his property somewhere, that they were found to turn up.

[48] And so the police told him, look, Ronald, go back and search your property, I'm sure they're there.

[49] And if you get some proof that someone actually stole from you, then come back to us.

[50] And so Ronald was really annoyed by this.

[51] He wanted them to take this seriously, but he could tell they just were not going to.

[52] And so Ronald drove back to his house, he went inside, he hopped on his computer, and he began researching what other homeowners did to protect themselves from things like theft.

[53] And one of the things he came across was setting up trip wires all around the perimeter of your property.

[54] Basically, you take these thin wires and you stretch them out very tight, very low to the ground, and you anchor them on each side, and then on the wire itself, you hang little bells.

[55] And so, in theory, if an intruder were to walk onto your property, they would most likely not see the tripwires on the ground, and they would kick them, and that would cause the bells to ring, thereby alerting the homeowner of their presence.

[56] Ronald loved this idea, so he went out and he set up trip wires all around his property.

[57] But over the next several days, after these wires were stood up, None of the wires made any sound, and still more tools continued to go missing.

[58] This was also in spite of the fact that his shed was locked at night.

[59] And so Ronald's thinking to himself, whoever's doing this is clearly watching me and kind of monitoring what I'm doing.

[60] They must be aware of the trip wires, and they must be sneaking into the shed at some time that I have the doors unlocked.

[61] I mean, this is a professional thief.

[62] And so as Ronald is thinking about this master thief that is targeting him, he has the sudden fear that if he can't stop this person from breaking into his shed and taking his tools, how can he possibly protect himself against this person breaking into his home and stealing things from in there, which included all of his cash and many other valuables?

[63] And so Ronald became very fearful and decided the only thing he could do was really beef up his home security system.

[64] And so he hopped back online and he began Googling other ways to protect your property.

[65] and after discovering a number of really effective techniques, he got to work.

[66] He began building all these home defense systems and placing them all around his property.

[67] And after all of these kind of DIY security measures were put up, the theft of his tools stopped.

[68] And in Ronald's mind, that validated that his defense system had worked.

[69] He was effectively preventing theft.

[70] But this would not be the end of his troubles.

[71] Fast forward to Thanksgiving that year, so November 28th, and the VIII, and the VIII, Van Buren police got a very frantic phone call from Ronald.

[72] He was totally hysterical.

[73] He wasn't really making sense.

[74] And the police, they tried to understand what was going on, but all they could get from Ronald was that he was requesting police to come to his residence immediately.

[75] And so the police, they hang up and they're thinking, okay, you know, we know Ronald was dealing with a potential thief.

[76] Maybe he literally caught the thief red -handed, and he wants us to come and arrest this person.

[77] And who knows, maybe they're fighting at his residence right now.

[78] And so the police speed over to Ronald's house.

[79] they pull into his driveway, and at first glance, nothing looks out of the ordinary.

[80] Ronald's truck is in the driveway, and there's no obvious signs of a disturbance, but they notice the front door to Ronald's house is wide open.

[81] And so the police parked their cars in Ronald's driveway.

[82] They get out, and they run up onto the front porch, and they're standing in front of this open door, and they look down, and they can see there's a very obvious blood trail, starting from the front of Ronald's house, going straight back down a hallway that looped around to the left and out of sight.

[83] And so right away, the police are yelling into the house, Ronald, Ronald, are you okay?

[84] What's going on?

[85] And somewhere deep inside of the house, they hear what sounds like Ronald make a kind of guttural sound.

[86] And so immediately this tips the police that more than likely Ronald has been hurt and he likely is the one who made this blood trail.

[87] And so the police draw their guns and they go inside of Ronald's house, not really sure what they're going to find.

[88] They don't know if there's some intruder or attacker or someone in here that's harmed Ronald, But they make their way down this hall following the blood trail.

[89] They turn the corner and then sitting at the end of the blood trail is Ronald.

[90] He's sitting down with his back to some cabinets in the kitchen and he's clutching his midsection.

[91] He is covered in blood.

[92] He's completely pale.

[93] And so right away, the officers call in backup.

[94] But then as a security measure, they searched the rest of the first floor to make sure there is no other person here.

[95] There was no one on the first floor.

[96] They went to the second floor.

[97] They peaked around up there.

[98] They didn't see anyone.

[99] So they rushed back down to Ronald, who's still just sitting there, and they begin administering first aid, and they're trying to get him to explain what happened, how did you get hurt, but Ronald is clearly in shock.

[100] He's kind of in a daze, he's not making sense.

[101] And then by the time the paramedics showed up just a couple of minutes later, Ronald had slipped into unconsciousness.

[102] When Ronald was wheeled out of the house, the responding officers and the backup officers, who by now had arrived, decided to search the rest of Ronald's house, to see if there was some clue as to what had happened.

[103] And so they began searching in the kitchen, looking around, but there wasn't anything that stood out to them.

[104] And then they began walking around towards the living room.

[105] And when they got into the living room, one of the officers suddenly screamed to everyone inside to stop where they were, stop moving.

[106] It would turn out, Ronald, as part of his very beefed -up home security system, had installed various booby traps all around his property, including inside of his house.

[107] and some of these traps were gun booby traps.

[108] The officer that had yelled for everyone to stop had spotted one of these traps.

[109] He saw a handgun anchored to the ceiling aimed at the front door and there was a string attached to the trigger that was also then attached to the doorknob of the front door.

[110] And so if this trap were live and some person opened the front door, it would activate this trap causing the gun to shoot them.

[111] And so clearly, Ronald had accidentally left this particular booby trap on and he had accidentally activated it shooting himself and so after the officer sees this gun anchored to the ceiling he tells everyone and they begin looking up and just looking around to see if there are other traps and amazingly there are in other doorways just from where they're standing they can see the barrels of guns pointing down that are obvious booby traps in their haste to get in there and figure out what was going on they hadn't noticed all of these guns in the ceiling, and so it was just kind of a miracle that none of the other traps had been set off.

[112] Ronald would be rushed to the hospital that night, but he would pass away from his wound.

[113] His death would be ruled an accident, and to this day, we don't know if he really was dealing with a professional thief that was stealing his tools, or if it was just a figment of his imagination.

[114] Hey, all you fans of The Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[115] It's me, Mr. Ballin, and today I have some big news.

[116] It's something I'm holding in my hands right now, and so obviously you can't see it, but this is something you're really going to want to see.

[117] It's the first ever official Mr. Ballin publication.

[118] It's a graphic novel, and it's called Mr. Ballin Presents, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, The Graphic Stories.

[119] It's an anthology of both classic and brand new, terrifying stories that we've never covered on any of my other platforms, because we created them specifically for this first book.

[120] Each of these stories in the book are feature -length Mr. Ballin's story, stories that really needed to be told visually.

[121] And the artwork in this book is, I mean, I'm looking at it, and it's just absolutely stunning.

[122] So the book is not actually coming out until my birthday this year, October 1st, but you can pre -order it right now at book .bollen studios .com.

[123] Again, that's book .dbollendtstudios .com.

[124] I'm Dan Tiberski.

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

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

[127] I'm like, How fucking around.

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

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

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

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

[132] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[133] Well, you were holding something back.

[134] Intentionally.

[135] Yeah, yeah.

[136] Well, yeah.

[137] No, it's hysteria.

[138] It's all in your head.

[139] It's not physical.

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

[141] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[142] Or is it something else entirely?

[143] Something's wrong here.

[144] Something's not right.

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

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

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

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

[149] Our next story is called Sublimation.

[150] In early 2020, a very popular Russian Instagram influencer named Ectorina Dedenko was getting ready to celebrate her 29th birthday.

[151] She, along with her husband and some of her influencer friends, were planning to enjoy the occasion at a popular spa in Moscow, Russia.

[152] The group rented out a private section of the spa that included a steam room and a small indoor pool.

[153] And then once the reservations were made, Dedenko and all of our influencer friends began eagerly talking about how excited they were about this party on their various social media accounts.

[154] When the day finally came, February 28th, which was Dedenko's birthday, Dedenko, her husband, and the eight other people they invited, they all descended on this spa.

[155] So they go inside, they go back to their private area, and it's great.

[156] There's food, there's alcohol, there's music.

[157] They're jumping into the pool and getting in the hot tub, and everyone's just having a great time.

[158] Everyone's taking pictures and filming and live streaming.

[159] I mean, it's really going as well as it possibly could be.

[160] And then at some point, Dedenko's husband signals the rest of the group minus Dedenko, and they all begin to pull out these white hazardous materials.

[161] suits.

[162] Imagine what you would see in a movie if there was some huge chemical leak, a full -body white suit with a mask.

[163] And so they're all putting on these hazmat suits, and they give one to Dedenko, who puts it on as well, and they tell her this is part of her big surprise.

[164] Now, it's unclear if Dedenko actually didn't know what was going to happen next, or if she's just pretending to be surprised because it would do better on social media, because this is all being filmed, and she's an influencer.

[165] But either way, she puts on her hazmat suit, and once everyone has their suits on, Dedenko's husband wheeled in this huge cooler like he would bring to a picnic, and he placed it right on the edge of the pool.

[166] When he opened the lid, the crowd all gasped and laughed and smiled and filmed as these huge clouds of smoke or steam came pouring out of it.

[167] What it was was roughly 55 pounds of dry ice.

[168] Dry ice is just frozen carbon dioxide.

[169] It's commonly used for things like refrigerating perishable goods for long periods of time because dry ice stays cold for a really long time.

[170] Also, because of the huge white gas clouds that come off of dry ice, it's also very commonly used as a sort of spooky decoration because you have these very cool white clouds going everywhere.

[171] And in fact, that's what Tedenko's husband planned to use this dry ice for.

[172] He was going to dump it into the pool and create those big white gas clouds all over the pool.

[173] The reason they call it dry ice is because as it starts to heat up, It doesn't melt into a liquid state the way frozen water does.

[174] Instead, it goes directly from a solid state to a gas state.

[175] Dry ice is considered to be quite hazardous if it's handled inappropriately, and while these partygoers all had their hazmat suits on, it's unlikely they were actually wearing them for safety.

[176] It's far more likely they were wearing them because it would look good on social media and would kind of hype up the stunt they were about to do.

[177] And so after the dry ice was revealed inside of this cooler, Tedenko's husband and another of the partygoers grabbed the sides of the cooler and they dumped its contents directly into the water.

[178] And as soon as the dry ice hit the water, it rapidly began to warm up, which caused a massive almost explosion of carbon dioxide gas to completely fill the lower half of the room.

[179] Now, none of the partygoers are even a little bit phased by what's happening.

[180] They don't realize how dangerous this actually is.

[181] And so they're just filming and laughing and kind of thinking this is so funny, and then Dedenko's husband actually leaps through the cloud into the water and kind of disappears below, and then shortly after that, two other partygoers would also leap into the pool.

[182] One of the main reasons dry ice is considered to be so hazardous if handled inappropriately is because dry ice emits that carbon dioxide gas, which at high concentrations will displace oxygen.

[183] So imagine if you're in a very small room that has very poor ventilation, if you had lots of carbon dioxide in there, you would suffocate.

[184] And so this indoor pool was a small confined space with poor ventilation.

[185] And so the seven people on the pool deck, shortly after this dry ice has been tossed into the pool, they started to realize it was really hard to breathe because the oxygen was basically being sucked out of the room.

[186] And so they were able to turn and actually run out of the pool deck before it was too late.

[187] Meanwhile, Dedenko's husband and the other two people who leapt into the pool, when they came back to the surface, they breathed in thinking they would be breathing in oxygen, but instead they breathed in an entire lungful of carbon dioxide, which in addition to displacing oxygen at higher concentrations inside of confined spaces with poor ventilation, it is also poisonous at higher concentrations inside of confined spaces with poor ventilation.

[188] And so when the three of them surfaced, they breathed in this poisonous gas, which caused two of them to immediately pass out and then just die.

[189] While the third, Dedenko's husband, he managed to stay conscious enough that he was able to climb barely out of the pool and he tried to get to the door but he couldn't get out in time.

[190] Eventually, he was pulled out and rushed to the hospital, but he would later die, not only from carbon dioxide poisoning, but also from having gone without oxygen for as long as he had.

[191] The next and final story of today's episode is called Woodworking Project.

[192] At the end of 2002, 36 -year -old Boyd Taylor was single, he had no children, and he lived with his divorced father, Robert, in a small bungalow in the Northern England countryside.

[193] In addition to living with his father, Boyd also worked for his father.

[194] His father, Robert, owned a small construction business, and so the father -son duo built houses in the area.

[195] While Boyd might have envisioned his life turning out in a different, more exciting way, he didn't seem outwardly unhappy about his circumstances.

[196] In fact, he seemed very cheerful, both at work and when he was at home.

[197] But despite his cheerfulness, his father, Robert, was still pretty concerned about him, because every time Boyd had some time off from work and was just at loose ends, he wouldn't go out with his friends, in fact, he really didn't have any friends and wasn't even trying to make any friends.

[198] Instead, he would just sit in his room all day and be totally by himself.

[199] Now, Robert knew his son was naturally a bit of a loner and always had been, but a part of him hoped that his son would just start going out and meeting new people, or at the very least developed some sort of hobby that could occupy his mind.

[200] In late September of 2002, Robert was walking down the hallway of their bungalow when he passed by his son's bedroom door and it was shut.

[201] And as he walked past, he heard inside of his son's room the sound of his son's sawing some wood.

[202] And so he stopped for a second and he just listened.

[203] And when the sawing stopped for a second, Robert just knocked on the door.

[204] He was curious.

[205] He wanted to know what his son was doing.

[206] Boyd, instead of coming over to the door and opening it up and talking to his his dad instead just paused for a second and then said you know what is it dad what do you need and robert would say well i heard sawing and i just wanted to know what you were building and so boyd pauses again and then just says well i'm working on a woodworking project and so robert's like well can i poke my head in and actually see what you're building and boyd again without opening the door just tells us dad very politely that he wants to be left alone and so robert decides not to push the issue whatever he was doing it was his business and so he just told his son that you know hey if you need any help with anything, let me know, I'd be glad to help, and then Robert walked away.

[207] Over the next two months, every time Boyd was not working, so in the evenings and on the weekend, he would be locked inside of his bedroom, hammering and sawing away at this woodworking project.

[208] And over those two months, Robert would periodically walk down the hall and stand in front of his son's bedroom and knock on the door and try to get his son to let him in to just see what he was up to, not only because he just wanted to see what his son was doing, but because he was Because Robert was a carpenter by trade, and so was just genuinely interested.

[209] But every time he asked to be let in, Boyd would very politely tell his father that he really just wants to be left alone, and Robert respected his wishes.

[210] In early December, Boyd approached his father and said, hey, you know, would it be possible for me to take the next month off from work so I can focus on this woodworking project?

[211] Now, for Robert, this was a massive inconvenience.

[212] This construction business that he owned was really just he and his son building the houses.

[213] And so if his son was not going to be working, then Robert would be solo on all of his projects for that month.

[214] But Robert's thinking to himself, you know, my son has finally found a hobby that he's really into.

[215] I don't really know what it is, but clearly he's invested in it.

[216] And so he tells his son, you know what?

[217] That's fine.

[218] You take the whole month.

[219] And if you want more time in January, that's fine.

[220] You just let me know.

[221] So starting that first week in December, every time Robert would leave the house to go to work in the the morning, he would leave to the sound of Boyd in his bedroom hammering and sawing and tinkering away at his woodworking project.

[222] And then several hours later, when Robert finally came back home, he'd walk into the house and the first thing he would hear is his son still in his bedroom, still hammering and sawing away.

[223] When December finally ended and Robert expected his son to be done with his project and to finally show him what he's been working on, Boyd approached him and said, well, dad, I'm not quite done with the project, I need about two more weeks.

[224] And so Robert said, no problem, we'll talk in two weeks.

[225] So December rolled into January and Boyd just continued to work all day long inside of his bedroom.

[226] Then on the evening of January 7th, Robert was home.

[227] He was watching TV in the living room and Boyd was hard at work in his bedroom right down the hall when Robert decided he was tired and he was going to go to bed.

[228] So he stands up, turns the TV off, he leaves the living room, he goes down the hallway with his son's room on the right.

[229] And as he passed, he can hear his son at work and he kind of yells to his son that he's going to bed, and then Robert goes into his bedroom, crawls into his bed, and falls asleep.

[230] At 3 .30 a .m., the following morning, Robert is suddenly awoken by this incredibly loud crashing sound somewhere in his house.

[231] Robert's first thought was the chimney must have collapsed.

[232] That was how loud the sound was.

[233] And so he leaps out of his bed, he runs out of his door, he goes down the hallway, past his son's room, into the living room, and he looks at the fireplace, which is in the TV room, and clearly the chimney has not collapsed.

[234] onto itself and so he's standing there thinking you know what else could that sound have banned and then he's thinking to himself well did i really hear that sound or was that sound in my dream and i kind of thought it was real but it really wasn't and so just to be sure he walked all around the house kind of seeing if there were any signs of something big falling and crashing on the ground but the house seemed totally in order and so he walked back down the hallway towards his bedroom and he stopped right outside of his son's room and he considered knocking and waking his son up to see if maybe he had heard this loud sound too, but when he listened to the door, it was quiet inside, so he figured, you know what, my son's asleep, I'm not going to wake him up for this.

[235] And so Robert just went into his bedroom and he went back to sleep.

[236] A few hours later, Robert got up and he left his bedroom, he went into the kitchen and he made himself some food.

[237] And as he's preparing his food, he's realizing that he doesn't hear the sound of Boyd working in his bedroom, because normally Boyd would be working that early in the morning, but he wasn't.

[238] And so right before Robert left to go to work that day, he actually walked down the hall and listened to his son's bedroom to hear if maybe he was at work in there but he just hadn't heard him but it was totally silent in the room and so he reached down to the doorknob thinking maybe he could just poke his head in and see if his son was on his bed but when he tried the doorknob it was locked so robert just thought to himself okay i guess boyd is sleeping in this morning and so i'm not going to bother him and so robert leaves the house he gets into his truck and he drives off to work and then several hours later he comes back to the house at night and he walks inside and the first thing he hears is nothing.

[239] It's silent.

[240] And this house in the evenings for the past several months was never quiet.

[241] Boyd was always hammering, sawing, and tinkering away at this woodworking project.

[242] And so right away, Robert's thinking to himself, maybe he's done with the project and I can finally see this thing he's been working on.

[243] And so Robert drops his stuff at the door and he walks down the hallway, he goes to his son's bedroom door and he knocks and he says, Hey, Boyd, are you done with your project?

[244] But he's met with silence.

[245] And so Robert reaches down again and tries the doorknob, but it's locked.

[246] And so Robert's standing there thinking, you know, it's too early for him to be asleep.

[247] And so he yells out for Boyd, you know, hey, what's going on?

[248] Where are you?

[249] I haven't seen you today.

[250] Come out here.

[251] Come talk to me. But again, it's silent.

[252] And so Robert's thinking, okay, well, when I pulled in, was his car in the driveway?

[253] And he can't remember.

[254] And so he leaves the house.

[255] He goes out to the driveway.

[256] And sure enough, there's Boyd's car.

[257] It's in the driveway, so he has to be here.

[258] And so suddenly, Robert's starting to feel a little bit panicked about his son.

[259] He runs back into the house and he just starts screaming his son's name as he goes room to room into the bathrooms and the other bedrooms to see if he's in there, but he's nowhere to be found.

[260] And so operating on a gut instinct, Robert just runs right out to his car, he gets a sledgehammer, comes back in the house, goes down the hallway, and he's standing in front of his son's bedroom door.

[261] And one more time, he yells for his son and bangs on the door, tries to get his son's attention but after once again there being total silence he picks up his sledgehammer and begins breaking the door down and after a couple of swings he manages to pop off the locking mechanism the actual doorknob that gets blown off and he can push the door open and he sees inside the bedroom is empty there's just a bed and a dresser and there's no void but in the back right corner of the room where normally there was like this alcove basically a segment of his room kind of jutted away from the rest of the space, almost like it was a closet but with no door on it, Boyd had clearly built a wall and door over that alcove, kind of creating a sort of sub -room within his bedroom.

[262] And this door was shut.

[263] And so Robert immediately runs over to this new second door.

[264] He tries the doorknob, it's locked.

[265] He yells for his son, but again, after silence, he picks the sledge up and begins trying to break this door down.

[266] And after a few good swings, like the first door, he was able to knock the doorknob off of the door, and then he reached down and he pulled the door open, and what he saw on the other side of this door, inside of this little subroom, was so far from anything he ever expected that he just stood there and stunned silence.

[267] And then eventually reality kind of kicked back in, and he ran out of his son's room and he called the police.

[268] Three months earlier, Boyd had decided he wanted to build this very specific device that was invented in 1789.

[269] Now, he didn't want his father to know about this device, and so he built that door and wall frame in front of that alcove, specifically so he could build this device inside of this new subroom in privacy.

[270] He also always made sure to lock his main bedroom door.

[271] So for three months, Boyd began constructing this eight -foot -tall, three -foot -wide structure inside of the subroom.

[272] And once the shell of this device was constructed, he began installing all of its inner workings.

[273] These included things like various lengths of wire and clock timers and a jigsaw, which is like an electric saw.

[274] And then finally, on January 7th, it was complete.

[275] So that night, Boyd blew up an air mattress, and he slid it inside of the subroom right underneath this ancient machine he had built.

[276] And then after that, he went and locked the main bedroom door.

[277] He went into the subroom himself and shut the subroom door and locked that, and then he pulled 12 sleeping pills out of his pocket, swallowed those, and then laid down on this air mattress on his back, looking up at the inner workings of this machine.

[278] And then once he was positioned the way he wanted to, he reached over up inside of this machine and he felt around for a button that he had placed.

[279] He pressed that button, and then he put his hands over his chest, and he laid there looking straight up until these sleeping pills kicked in and he fell asleep.

[280] That button he pressed right before he passed out from the sleeping pills started a timer, and when that timer went off, it would actually activate this whole device.

[281] And so several hours after pressing that button, the timer finally went off at 3 .30 a .m. The first thing that happened when this device was activated is the jigsaw.

[282] The electric saw began sawing this wire.

[283] Now, the wire had been very intentionally placed against the teeth of this jigsaw, and so it's cutting this wire, and this wire is supporting this weighted down, heavy, angular blade that's pointing straight down.

[284] And so as soon as this wire is cut, it releases the blade, and the blade that almost looks like this oversized axe head begins falling straight down this chute, and the shoot aims the blade directly onto the front of Boyd's throat.

[285] Boyd's woodworking project was a guillotine, and that loud crashing sound that woke Robert up at 3 .30 in the morning on January 8th, that was the sound of the blade of this guillotine crashing down and decapitating his son.

[286] Even though Boyd did not leave behind a note explaining his actions, it was determined Boyd's death was in fact a suicide, a very complicated and deliberate suicide.

[287] Boyd's father and other people involved in this case have come to the conclusion that Boyd was clearly showing signs of depression before he chose to take his own life.

[288] And so maybe if Boyd had reached out for help or if there had been some sort of intervention, his death could have been prevented.

[289] And if you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, remember you are not alone.

[290] No matter how bad it feels, there are resources out there that can help you.

[291] And so I've listed a number of them in the description below.

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

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[309] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

[311] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[312] 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.

[313] What happens next?

[314] Depends on who you ask.

[315] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[317] This was clearly an intentional act.

[318] In his cause of death, was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[319] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[321] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

[325] in Karen.

[326] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondry Plus.

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