In June 1912, someone entered the Moore home in Villisca, Iowa, took the family’s own axe, and killed Josiah and Sarah, their four children, and two visiting Stillinger sisters as they slept. The doors were locked from the inside, faces and mirrors were covered, a lamp was turned low—and before investigators could secure the house, the town had already trampled through the scene.

In this Time and Tales episode walks through the Moores’ last Sunday, the chaotic investigation, and the main suspects before widening the frame to The Man from the Train, where Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James argue Villisca was part of a rail-linked series of family axe murders—and name a likely offender: a German immigrant named Paul Mueller, who may have killed dozens across North America.

**This one was a quick one! Look forward to a return to our usual format next week.

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Links

• Intro Music by Randy Lee Riviere
• Time and Tales Pod IG
• Patreon

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Sources

• “Villisca Axe Murders,” Iowa legislative brief; Villisca Axe Murder House historical overview.
• Mike Dash, “The Ax Murderer Who Got Away,” Smithsonian Magazine (2012).
• The Man from the Train (2017), Bill James & Rachel McCarthy James; “The Man from the Train” and “Billy the Axeman” entries (overview of the pattern, Paul Mueller theory, estimated victim count).

A king who helped write the script for Salem. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we go back to 1590s Scotland, where James VI—later James I of England—personally questioned accused “witch” Agnes Sampson, convinced that storms against his marriage voyage were assassination attempts raised by the Devil. From the North Berwick witch trials to his demonological handbook Daemonologie and the 1604 Witchcraft Act, we trace how one monarch’s fear turned into statute, culture, and a theological blueprint that framed witch-hunting as godly duty.

*This episode may supply a few controversial opinions-- to clarify, James' historically agreed-upon sexuality is not a crime. His treatment of individuals of similar sexuality, however, we find to be egregiously unjust. Additionally, we are not aiming to offend anyone's religion. Our views are not reflective of any group, merely a reflection on the actions of a few during this time period. Sources are listed for your further reading and ultimate judgment.

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Sources & Further Reading

Primary & Contemporary Texts

• James VI/I — Daemonologie (1597)
• Newes from Scotland (1591) — pamphlet on the North Berwick trials
• Thomas Potts — The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613)
• Matthew Hopkins — The Discovery of Witches (1647)
• Cotton Mather — Wonders of the Invisible World (1693)
• Increase Mather — Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (1693)

Statutes & Legal Context

• Witchcraft Act of 1604 (1 Jac. I c.12)
• Records of Scottish witchcraft prosecutions (North Berwick and beyond)
• Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641) — witchcraft / “familiar spirit” clause
• Library of Congress — Salem legal framework and the end of spectral evidence

James’s Court & Sexuality (Context)

• G. P. V. Akrigg (ed.) — Letters of King James VI & I
• David M. Bergeron — King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire
• Michael B. Young — “James VI and I: Time for a Reconsideration?” Journal of British Studies

Secondary & Synthesis

• National Archives (UK) — Hopkins and Pendle trial materials
• National Library of Scotland — facsimiles of Newes from Scotland
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — entries on Daemonologie, Matthew Hopkins, and the King James Bible
• Stuart Clark — Thinking with Demons
• Lyndal Roper — Witch Craze
• Malcolm Gaskill — Witchfinders
• Marion Gibson — Witchcraft: The Evidence

A “shortcut” that turned into a death sentence. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we follow the Donner Party into the Sierra Nevada winter of 1846–47: from hopeful departure on the California Trail to the fatal choice to take Lansford Hastings’ cutoff, ignoring Shoshone and Paiute warnings about the Wasatch and the Great Salt Lake Desert—lost weeks that became lost lives once early snows sealed the pass and families at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek turned from boiled hides to cannibalism to survive.

Joined by author K.M. West, we strip away the textbook version and look at what the record actually shows about hunger, choice, and how this story was told.

* KM West Socials

*KM West Book Link

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Sources & Further Reading

• William O. Fallon — April 1847 diary (Fourth Relief; Keseberg encounter). Donner Party Diary
• Forlorn Hope survivor accounts — diaries, statements, and early interviews compiled in Donner Party document collections. Wikipedia
• Daniel James Brown — The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride. Amazon
• Michael Wallis — The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny. National Geographic
• An Archaeology of Desperation: Exploring the Donner Party’s Alder Creek Camp; Truckee / Donner Summit historical & archaeological reports Truckee-Donner Historical Society

Edgar Allan Poe— the writer who invented the detective story— also left behind one of America’s strangest unsolved deaths. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we follow Edgar Allan Poe’s final week in 1849: from his disappearance in Richmond to his sudden reappearance in Baltimore outside Gunner’s Hall on election day, delirious and dressed in another man’s clothes.

We walk through the scant hospital records and all the main theories, to discover what the evidence really supports—and why no single explanation can close the case.

If you’re drawn to Edgar Allan Poe, 19th-century true crime, and historical mysteries, this episode is for you.

**We had a few sound issues with this episode. Our apologies! We had to use our backup mics and their gain is factory set to broadcast to Mars.

Sources & Further Reading

• Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore — “The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe”; site materials on Gunner’s Hall, Washington College Hospital, and Poe’s grave. Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore
• National Park Service — “The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death”; “Edgar Allan Poe” biography. National Park Service
• Smithsonian Magazine — “The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe.” Smithsonian Magazine
• Maryland Center for History & Culture — “Here at Last He is Happy: The Death and Burial of Edgar Allan Poe.” Maryland History
• R. Michael Benitez, “A Diagnosis of Rabies in Edgar Allan Poe,” Maryland Medical Journal (1996) + contemporary coverage. The Washington Post
• “Death of Edgar Allan Poe” – Wikipedia (overview of events, theories, and burial/reburial). Wikipedia

Further Reading (Books) Kevin J. Hayes, Edgar Allan Poe; John Evangelist Walsh, Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe; Jeffrey A. Savoye, Poe Society papers; Mary Newton Stanard, Edgar Allan Poe: A Biography.

A missing climber’s boot has reopened one of mountaineering’s oldest cold cases. In this Time & Tales dark history episode, we journey to Mount Everest through the story of George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, the 1924 British climbers who vanished high on the north side and may—or may not—have reached the summit decades before Hillary and Norgay. We trace the original expedition, Noel Odell’s last sighting in the storm, Conrad Anker’s 1999 discovery of Mallory’s body, and the recent boot find linked to Irvine that has revived the question: did they stand on the top of the world first, and what exactly happened up there?

If you’re drawn to Everest history, unsolved mountaineering mysteries, and the thin line between evidence and legend, this episode lives right on that ridge.

Social Links

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Become a Time and Tales Patron

LaNae's Website

LaNa'e Socials

**CJ is a mysterious content lurker who doesn't share his socials;)

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Sources & Further Reading

• Wade Davis, Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
• Walt Unsworth, Everest: The Mountaineering History
• Conrad Anker & David Roberts, The Lost Explorer: Finding Mallory on Mount Everest
• Jake Norton, reports and analyses on the 1924 Mallory & Irvine searches and recent Irvine-boot discovery
• Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster (for later Everest context)
• “George Mallory” and “1924 British Mount Everest expedition” – Wikipedia
• “Mount Everest” – Encyclopaedia Britannica

A Celtic ruler nearly broke the Roman Empire in Britain. In 60–61 C.E., Boudicca of the Iceni went from Roman citizen to avenger after Roman officials seized her lands and assaulted her daughters—triggering a massive uprising that burned Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium to the ground.

In this Time & Tales episode, we dive into Boudicca’s life, the politics of Roman Britain, the assault that lit the fuse, Rome’s brutal response, and the archaeological burn layer that still carries the scars of her revolt beneath modern London and Colchester.

Sources & Further Reading

• Tacitus, Annals 14.29–39; Agricola Wikipedia
• Cassius Dio, Roman History 62 Wikipedia
• Richard Hingley & Christina Unwin, Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen Bloomsbury
• Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Boudica Britannia: Rebel, War-leader and Queen Routledge+1
• Martin Millett, Roman Britain (English Heritage) Amazon+1
• C. M. Bulst, “The Revolt of Queen Boudicca in A.D. 60,” Archaeological Journal JSTOR
• E. M. Vannan, “The Queen of Propaganda: Boudica’s Representation in Roman and Later Sources,” Arbutus UVic Journals
• [Article] “To Rule a Ferocious Province: Roman Policy and the Aftermath of the Boudican Revolt” ResearchGate

Between 1764 and 1767, the remote French province of Gévaudan was terrorized by a mysterious predator that parish records called La Bête—“The Beast.” More than 100 people were killed in daylight attacks that witnesses insisted were “like a wolf, yet not a wolf.” Royal hunters claimed victory, yet the killings continued until a local farmer brought down a creature whose proportions defied easy explanation.

This episode explores the attacks, the hunt, and the leading theories—from wolves to hybrids to possible human involvement—and why the legend endures as one of Europe’s strangest historical mysteries.

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Links to socials and sites:

*LaNae's Linktree

*LaNae's TikTok

*IG

**Time and Tales Youtube

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Sources:

• Smithsonian Magazine — Lorraine Boissoneault, When the Beast of Gévaudan Terrorized France (June 26, 2017). Overview; attack range; “nearly 100 dead”; context of royal intervention and Chastel. Smithsonian Magazine
• Wikipedia (EN) — Beast of Gévaudan (last updated recently). Consolidated chronology with citations; Boulet entry; Chastel/Marin details; Bishop’s mandement; competing identity theories. Wikipedia
• Wikipedia (FR) — Bête du Gévaudan and Marie-Jeanne Vallet. Vallet’s 11 Aug 1765 counter-attack with bayonet on a staff; Antoine’s follow-up and blood on the blade (≈3 pouces); dated timeline; Chazes and Chastel entries. Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Commons (French National Archives image) — Procès-verbal d’examen du corps de la “bête du Gévaudan”, AE/II/2927, 20 June 1767 (notary Roch-Étienne Marin; post-mortem by Dr. Boulanger). Wikimedia Commons
• Wikipedia (FR) — François Antoine. Royal gun-bearer; the Chazes kill (21 Sept 1765); Versailles presentation; contested finality as attacks resumed. Wikipedia
• Margeride en Gévaudan (official tourism/history) — concise parish-based geography of early attacks (Les Hubacs, Mercoire, Langogne). Margeride en Gevaudan

In 2015, LiDAR scans of the Honduran Mosquitia revealed plazas, earthworks, and ruins long linked to the “White City” or Ciudad Blanca. A joint team of scientists, archaeologists, and filmmakers went in—and came back with a parasitic disease that tabloids called a curse. This episode traces Indigenous origins of the legend, the expeditions and tech that finally pierced the canopy, and how archaeology, ecology, and sensational headlines now collide in one fragile corner of the Honduran jungle.

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Sources:

• Fisher, C. T., et al. “Identifying ancient settlement patterns through LIDAR in the Mosquitia region of Honduras.” PLOS ONE (2016). (peer-reviewed LIDAR + settlement analysis)
• National Geographic Adventure coverage of the 2015/2016 field confirmations and finds. (ground verification; object cache; valley scale)
• National Geographic: “Pernicious Parasite Strikes Explorers…” (2015). (post-expedition leishmaniasis cases)
• CDC Clinical Care of Leishmaniasis (updated 2024). (current U.S. clinical guidance)
• DNDi/PAHO 2022 recommendations. (Americas—liposomal amphotericin B adoption; access improvements)
• The New Yorker (Douglas Preston), “An Ancient City Emerges in a Remote Rain Forest” (2017). (popular overview; expedition narrative)
• The Guardian (2015), “Archaeologists condemn National Geographic over claims…” (open letter; “lost city” critique and clarifications)
• Archaeology Southwest (2015), “Reporting Archaeology: Lost and Found” (round-up of scholarly objections; citation of Rosemary Joyce’s critiques on sensational framing and Indigenous erasure).