Warnings (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Today I'm going to tell you four stories about people who thought they had a handle on the situation they were in, but they would find out way too late that they'd completely misjudge things. 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've come to the right place, because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please tell the follow button that you have a really, really important secret to share with them, and then lean in really close to their ear, and at the last second just turn and sneeze directly on their face. Okay, let's get into our first story, called The Porch Problem. The Porch Problem One afternoon in August of 2012, a woman named Carlotta Robinson sat behind her desk at her condo complex's main office in Dallas, Texas. And as she was sitting there, she was listening to an elderly tenant who was seated across from her rant about his upstairs neighbors. Carlotta was the property manager and president of the homeowners association for this complex, which was called Sable Ridge, and she actually also lived in this complex herself. So basically every hour of her day, Carlotta was sitting in her condo's main office in Dallas, Texas, and she was like, "Hey, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on?" was spent wrapped up in the various issues and projects that came up here. And today, that involved resolving a dispute between two neighbors. The man in front of her was a 75-year-old condo owner named Chung Kim. He lived in a ground floor unit, and he felt like the couple that lived right above him were ruining his life. They had five kids and a dog, so it was incredibly noisy all the time. But the worst part was the dog upstairs would go to the bathroom on their porch, and then the couple would hose it off so all the waste would run down onto Chung's porch. Now, Chung said he'd already told them repeatedly to stop, but since they hadn't, he was now here asking the HOA to do something about it. So Carlotta knew that Chung had a habit of fighting with basically all of his neighbors, so she took what he was saying with a grain of salt. But Chung and his wife had owned their condo at Sable Ridge for more than six years, while this upstairs couple that they were so upset about, they had just moved in last year, and they were also renting. And so in terms of the hierarchy of sort of importance to Sable Ridge and tenure, Chung was higher on that list. And, you know, if what Chung was saying was true, then what the couple was doing was totally unhygienic and did need to stop. So Carlotta told Chung she would speak to the couple and inform the HOA, and she was sure they could all figure this out. However, the issue did not get resolved at all, even though Carlotta and the HOA both tried to mediate it. Over the next few months, the disagreement between Chung and his neighbors only escalated, with both sides constantly lobbing complaints with the HOA about one another. It was like this ongoing drama that just had no end in sight. According to Chung, his neighbors upstairs had continued to be noisy and continued to wash their dog's waste onto his porch, and he'd even contacted the police and the health department about it, and still nothing had been done. But, the couple upstairs, they had no idea what they were doing, and they had no idea what they were doing. They said Chung was harassing them, and he kept cutting some of their condo's cable wires to mess with them, or at least they were pretty sure it was him doing that. And Carlotta, I mean, she kept trying to help. She talked to both sides, and she emailed Sable Ridge's board of directors and its management company repeatedly, not just once, but all the time, you know, trying to figure out what to do here, asking for help on how to resolve this thing. And there was a lot of back and forth, but no one could actually figure out any real solution. And the neighbors, Chung and the upstairs neighbors, they just kept going at it. Until finally, when Carlotta was just at her wit's end with this whole thing, she actually reached out to the owner of the upstairs unit that the couple was renting from. So, Sable Ridge managed the property. This is the actual owner of that unit that the couple was renting from. She asked the owner, would you please just evict this couple because it's just causing all these issues here? And the owner said, sure, I will. Fast forward to February 4th, 2013. This is now about six months after the initial complaints began between Chung and the upstairs neighbors. And at about 8 a.m. on this day, Carlotta, she's bedraggled. She walks back inside of her apartment. She shuts the door behind her and just collapses on the couch. She's already just so wiped, already so annoyed about how the day is going. Because today, that morning, she was already dealing with more complaints from the upstairs neighbor about Chung. So, the upstairs neighbors, that couple, they had been told they were being evicted, but they had not actually been evicted yet. It had been six months now and they're still just here and the drama is still unfolding between Chung and the neighbors. It was just still going the same way it had been. But Carlotta knew that today, finally, like within the hour, hopefully, this couple was finally actually going to leave and this whole thing was just going to finally be done. And so, she's sitting on the couch and she's just over it when she hears somebody suddenly start pounding on her door. It startles her. She jumps up. She runs to the door. She opens it up. It's not Chung. It's not the upstairs couple. It's this other resident of the Sable Ridge apartment complex. And he's ashen-faced. He looks completely terrified. And he begins to tell Carlotta this, this, this story of what's just happened. Something he just saw. Something he just witnessed. And he can't even believe it. And after Carlotta hears this, like her heart's racing. She's just as scared. And she runs, grabs the phone, and calls the police. It would turn out, basically, everybody knew this couple was about to be evicted. From the time they were notified six months earlier, all the way to now, it was like all the people in the know were well aware this was happening. You know, Sable Ridge, Carlotta, the couple, lots of people, inside of the actual complex. This was sort of a known thing. It was just working its way towards the day they finally actually left. Everybody knew. Except for one person. Chung. Chung somehow had no idea that this couple was leaving today. He had no idea. His family had no idea. They felt like still nobody's doing anything. And so on the day that that couple was literally going to leave and be out of Chung's life forever. Chung, again, not knowing that, got so fed up when he saw the dog waste being sprayed down onto his porch that he marched right upstairs, barged into their apartment, and murdered the couple. And so ultimately, Chung was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for capital murder. Murders that very likely never would have occurred if somebody had just thought to tell Chung, hey, by the way, your mortal enemies upstairs are leaving today. But nobody did that. And so we have this tragedy. Our next story is called Rise, Stephen, Rise. Around noon on December 8th, 1976, a 59-year-old man named Ork Bovar stepped into the elevator of a apartment building in New York City. He was carrying a bag of groceries. And once he was in the car, he turned and pressed the button for the 17th floor. So Ork was here visiting his friend, Stephen, who lived in this building. Stephen had been living with terminal cancer since the summer. And recently, his doctors had told him that there was nothing left to do. And they had discharged him from the hospital. But Stephen was from Greece, and he didn't have any family around to take care of him. And so Ork had ultimately stepped up. Ork was the leader of this non-denominational prayer group, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And so Ork was the leader of this that Stephen also belonged to, which was how they had met in the first place. And when Ork had heard Stephen was sick, he'd organized a group of their members to come by every day and help Stephen out. They spent time with Stephen, and they prayed for him, and even pulled money to pay his bills since he couldn't work anymore. And they made sure the apartment was always stocked with food, which was why Ork had brought this bag of groceries today. Ork was really proud of all the people that had volunteered to help with him. He was just sort of amazed to see what his community was capable of. And so now, the elevator door opened up, and Ork got out, and he walked down the hallway to Stephen's studio apartment. As soon as Ork opened the door, he immediately was hit with this wave of incense, and then he saw five of his friends from the prayer group that were gathered at Stephen's bedside in the corner of the apartment saying a prayer. Ork set the bag of groceries down on the counter, and then walked over to join them. Now, because Ork and these others that had, you know, believed in the power of prayer, they thought, you know, their prayers would literally cure Stephen. They were not here just to comfort him. They were here to make him get better. However, when Ork walked over to the group and looked over at one of his friends, a guy named James, he saw that James just looked totally demoralized. And then a second later, James broke down and began saying that this whole thing just felt pointless. Stephen seemed to just be getting worse, and it just seemed sort of obvious that their prayers were not working. And Ork, I suddenly felt this knot in his stomach because honestly, he sometimes had doubts about the ability of their prayers to do anything. But he was the group leader, and everybody looked to him for guidance, so he had to put on a brave face and keep on going. So his response was to kneel down and clasp his hands together and pray even louder. And one by one, James and the rest of the group all joined in, and they chanted a prayer in unison as loudly and forcefully as they could. An hour later, Ork and his friends were all still praying really loudly when there was a knock on the door. Ork told the others to keep praying, and he got up to go answer it. When he opened the door, it was a police officer, and the officer said they'd gotten multiple calls about a disturbance in this apartment. And Ork, he quickly apologized and explained that they were praying for a sick friend, and he didn't realize the noise had been bothering the neighbors. He said they were being loud, but, you know, they'd stop. The officer nodded and said, well, can I just come in and have a look around? And Ork said, yeah, of course, and then moved aside till it let him in. And so the officer steps inside the apartment, and he sniffed the air and then looked over at Stephen's bed, and he froze. And Ork is watching the officer. He's seeing the reaction to his friends and Stephen in the bed. And Ork was about to say something, but before Ork could explain the situation, the officer grabbed his radio and called for backup. It would turn out the non-denominational prayer group that Stephen and Ork were in was a group of people who were praying for a sick friend. And Ork said, yeah, of course, and then moved aside until it let him in. And so the officer steps inside the apartment, and he sniffed the air, and then looked over at Stephen's bed, and he froze. And Ork is watching the officer, said, yeah, of course, and then moved aside until it let him in. And Ork was watching the officer, that Stephen and Ork and their friends all belonged to, was not just a casual get-together. It was a small but very devoted circle of members who literally worshipped Ork as their supreme leader. Ork and his followers believed that Ork had supernatural healing powers. And so when Stephen had first been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he'd come to Ork for help. And so Ork and his followers had prayed over Stephen every day as he laid there in his apartment, and they continued to do this even after Stephen died. And then for the next two months, Stephen's corpse slowly rotted, but Ork continued to insist that he could still heal him if they just prayed harder and louder. And so when the officer walked into Stephen's apartment, he found Ork's followers frantically chanting at Stephen's rotting, decomposing body. And they kept saying, rise, Stephen, rise. And so Ork and the other five people involved in this cult, if you will, that were praying over this dead body, were all cited for failing to report a death. After this happened, many of Ork's followers abandoned him, and this prayer group, this cult, if you will, sort of dissipated. And Ork presumably didn't take it very well because just a few months later, Ork leapt out the window of his 10th floor apartment and died. Our next story is called 18 Feet Away. Around 5 p.m. on February 9th, 1920, a 46-year-old gold miner named Albert Anton walked down a muddy road in the small village of Edgewood, Illinois. It was pouring rain outside, so the rest of his mining crew had all taken the day off. But Albert, he had a shovel in his hand, and he was ready to work, even if he had to do it alone. So Albert was part of a small mining crew from a nearby town, and they'd been in Edgewood for weeks, digging for gold in the caves outside the village. The leader of their group had heard there was gold in one of these caves, which they hadn't found yet. But he'd been doing this job a whole lot longer than Albert, who was actually kind of new to mining, so he didn't know what to do. Albert was the first to find gold in one of these caves, which they hadn't found yet. But he'd been doing this job a whole lot longer than Albert, who was actually kind of new to mining, so Albert, like the others, had believed him. But again, so far, they had not found anything. And the men were all starting to worry that maybe they were working on bad information, and there was no gold here after all. And if that were true, Albert was really in trouble. If his crew didn't find gold, he didn't get paid, and he'd have to go home to his wife and six kids empty-handed. And since Albert was his family's only source of income, I mean, if he didn't come home with anything, I mean, there was a chance that his family would literally starve. So this is like borderline life-or-death situation here. So instead of just sitting around waiting for the rain to pass like the rest of the mining crew, Albert had spent all day in town asking around for any information that might help him figure out if there really was gold here or not. And after a while, he'd started to worry that this was in fact a lost cause. It seemed like no one knew anything about gold. But finally, at a certain point, he'd gotten a credible tip from an unlikely source that there actually was gold here. And it was buried in a spot where Albert's crew hadn't looked yet. It was just 18 feet away from where they had been digging this whole time. And so Albert had told his crew about this tip, but they hadn't believed him, and they had even told him not to go out and look for it, especially in this terrible weather. But Albert had ignored them. He'd laced up his boots, and he'd grabbed his equipment, and he'd gone to his house, and he'd gone to his house, and he'd gone to his house, and he had set out into the rain to go look for this gold. And in some ways, it was actually better for him if nobody else wanted to come along, because if he did find this gold and he was alone, he could take it all for himself. And so half an hour later, Albert stepped into the cave where the crew had been digging the last few days, and he turned on his headlamp, and he followed the footprints in the dirt deep into the cave like he had done so many times before, until he came to a hole that his crew had recently dug. This was sort of their main. digging area. And then from there, again, because of this tip, he slowly began walking away from the hole deeper into the cave. And as he did, he was counting his steps very carefully to get 18 feet away, because that's where the tip had told him to go. And so he walked, and when he got to the right spot, he stopped. And he's like, okay, this is it. This is the right spot here. And if the information was correct, the gold had to be around here somewhere. At that point, he raised up his shovel, and he struck it into the ground. And he began, digging into the dirt again and again and again, until he heard this loud crack, because his shovel, clearly it hit something hard. And Albert's heart immediately began to race. He knew that sound could be a rock, but it also could be the gold that apparently was right here. And so Albert continued to dig and dig, and he's hearing crack after crack after crack. Then at some point, he realized those cracking noises were not really coming from where he was digging. They were coming from right above him. And so he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig, and he began to dig. So the reason why nobody else in Albert's mining crew was excited about this tip was because the unlikely source he'd gotten it from was a Ouija board. So Ouija boards are board games that can supposedly contact the dead. And even though they were originally marketed as just novelty items that were really just for fun, there were a lot of people at the time, like Albert, who believed they could actually communicate with dead spirits through the Ouija board. So Albert, in his desperate state, had asked the board, where could he find gold? And he believed the board had spit out an answer. Go 18 feet away from where you've been digging. I don't know how he came up with that on the Ouija board, but that's what he got out of his interaction with this board. And so Albert, he thinks he's got this amazing tip. He tells the crew, they're like, no, we're not doing that, especially in this weather. This is a bad idea. But Albert said, I'm going alone. Now we have no idea if where Albert is going is going to be a good idea. So Albert ultimately went to go look for gold, you know, 18 feet away from the original dig site. We don't know if there actually was gold there or not. But what we do know is that because of this tip he got, which sent him 18 feet deeper into the cave, that put him in an area that was really hazardous, except Albert didn't know. It would turn out that that particular section of the cave, the ceiling was not stable. It was very soft. And because of all the rain outside, it was getting even softer by the time he got to the cave. And so Albert said, I'm going alone. Now we have no idea where he's going. So Albert said, I'm going alone. And as Albert's digging into the ground right beneath it, this is a tight space, right? He's shaking the earth and he's maybe bumping into the ceiling and wouldn't you know it, eventually those cracking noises, that was the sound of the ceiling collapsing. And eventually it just completely collapsed, buried Albert, and he died. So if Albert had just listened to his experienced colleagues instead of listening to a Ouija board, he very likely would have ultimately found gold eventually because apparently his crew of miners did go on to find gold there. And then he could have gone home, provided for his family, and lived. Our next and final story of today's episode is called Mass Horror. Just after 8 a.m. on May 14th, 1900, a 36-year-old house painter named Thomas McDermott sat in a seat at the St. Patrick's Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. And as he sat there, he was listening to the choir sing this slow, somber hymn. A funeral mass was underway, but Thomas didn't actually know who had died. It was because he was there for something very personal, like a deeply spiritual, personal reason. So Thomas was a house painter who for years had traveled around the country chasing work, and he'd basically lived a pretty transient life. He'd never made much money, but he was a house painter. And he was a house painter. And he was or had many belongings. In fact, the only things he had in his pocket right now were two dimes and a job reference and a box of matches. But recently, he'd read an article about how to become a successful and important person by overcoming fear and finding your inner strength. So he'd come to St. Patrick's, which was this quiet, just very beautiful place where he was hoping he would be inspired. The church was truly just completely stunning with these huge arch ceilings and stained glass windows and this towering steeple that was actually currently under repair, but it was gorgeous. But the whole place was just magnificent. And so he was here, again, to be inspired. It was just a total coincidence that there was a funeral mass in session. But hearing prayers about how fleeting life was and listening to the somber, beautiful music had actually inspired him. And so as Thomas sat there really listening intently to the choir sing their hymn, he was filled with this sudden sense of intense determination. It was so powerful that he found himself physically leaning forward, like he almost couldn't even control his body. He was so ready to do something. But as soon as he did that, Thomas also felt this intense, overwhelming jolt of pure terror. At the same time that Thomas is having this sudden, really intense sensation, near the church altar, the choir director, Laura Finn, was leading her singers through the hymn. And the song had just reached its crescendo when over the choir's voices and the organ's accompaniment, Laura heard several, loud, thudding sounds coming from outside, followed by this thwack sound. Then there were a series of shouts from the congregation, and people all started to get up and run to the windows to see what was happening out there. And Laura, she did too. She ran to the window, and when she actually saw what had made those thudding sounds and that one last thwack noise, she just felt really confused. There was like this pile of clothes strung up on the picket fence that divided the church and the property that was right next to it. And this weird pile of clothing on the top of this fence was on fire. And as Laura watched, an onlooker who had been outside walked over to this flaming pile of clothes on the fence, and they began nudging it, moving it, trying to make sense of what it even was. And at some point, it clicked for Laura and all the onlookers what this was, and it was like in unison, everyone began to scream. So the house painter, Thomas McDermott, had not just randomly gone to St. Patrick's Church to find inspiration. So that article that he had read about overcoming fear was literally about the bravery of the elite professional painters who were currently working on St. Patrick's new steeple, which was being repaired. These painters were renowned in the region for doing intricate methodical work while simultaneously being suspended in chairs attached to the stairs. And Thomas, he was not an elite painter like them, but he was also a painter. And he wanted to prove that he was brave enough to do stuff like that too. So after getting to St. Patrick's Church while this funeral mass was going on, Thomas snuck up to the steeple's interior and crawled out a window and into one of those chairs that the elite painters would use for their work. That was the seat that Thomas had been sitting in when he was listening to the hymn. Thomas then grabbed a paintbrush and got ready to show that he was just as capable as those famous elite painters. But this was a huge mistake because Thomas was not capable. The pulley system that the painters used was very complicated and Thomas had no idea how to use it. And so when he felt that rush of inspiration and found himself leaning forward in the seat, basically in an attempt to get the seat, go back into the steeple and go, you know, chase down success, you know, he was done. He'd gotten his inspiration. He's getting out of the chair. When he did that, he lost control of the chair's rope and he fell out of the seat. And from there, Thomas, he began like tumbling down the roof of the church, this like really tall building. He's falling down the roof, smashing into things as he goes. And then he finally goes careening off the edge. He's free falling from the land right on that wooden fence. He was impaled basically across his whole body in the wooden fence. His fall was actually so violent and so jarring that the box of matches in his pocket literally ignited when he smashed into that fence. And so from everybody inside looking out, what they saw on the fence looked like this jumble of clothes that had, you know, inexplicably caught on fire. Everyone's like, what is this? But no, that was Thomas. He was mangled and impaled on the fence and those matches had lit him on fire. And so ultimately Thomas went into that church to find some inspiration so that maybe he could, you know, make something bigger out of his life. He could find more success and make a name for himself. And in a way, he did do that just for the wrong reasons. In fact, his death was so gruesome and so shocking that after it happened, it made news. Practically all across the country. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacascio. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch and Kate Gallagher. Story editing by Erin Lan, Kate Murdoch, and by Luke Baratz. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Hsu, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Faciano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacascio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner. Theme song, Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to Sirius XM Podcasts. On Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya.