The Secret Society of Strangers Podcast

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT — The Arne Johnson Possession Case (Season 2)

In the summer of 1980, an eleven-year-old boy in Brookfield, Connecticut saw something in an empty bedroom — a withered figure with black eyes and cloven hooves. Over the next seven months, what started as a child's nightmare consumed an entire family, brought Ed and Lorraine Warren to their door, and ended with a nineteen-year-old stabbing his landlord to death outside a dog kennel. Arne Johnson's defense attorney attempted something unprecedented: a plea of not guilty by reason of demonic possession. But behind the trial that inspired The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It lies a darker story — celebrity demonologists who profited from a family's pain, a mother who may have been secretly drugging her own children, and a brother who spent decades trying to tell the truth. Join Lee, Josh, and Jen as they follow this case from the bedroom on Oak Grove Road to the courtroom in Danbury — and uncover what the Conjuring franchise doesn't want you to know. Stay Curious. Stay Strange. 🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube: @SSOSPodcast | Podbean ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee 📱 Follow Us: Instagram | TikTok 📧 Got a High Strangeness Story? Email ssospodcast@gmail.com or DM us on socials — we're listening. CREDITS Lee — Writer, Researcher, Editor, Producer Josh & Jen — Co-Host, Assistant, Creative, Co-Producer A Strange Static Media Production SOURCES - The Devil on Trial (2023) — Netflix documentary, dir. Chris Holt - The Devil in Connecticut by Gerald Brittle (1983, withdrawn from print) - People Magazine — "A Connecticut Teen Claims the Devil Made Him a Killer" (1981) - The Washington Post — Johnson trial coverage (1981) - Associated Press — trial and verdict reporting (1981) - Glatzel v. Warren — Superior Court of Connecticut, complaint filed September 2007 - The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021), Warner Bros. Pictures - William Weber — 1979 interview on the creation of the Amityville story - Judge Jack Weinstein — litigation statements on the Amityville case - Diocese of Rockville Centre — official statement on the Amityville haunting - Ray Garton — statements to Benjamin Radford on the Snedeker case - National Institute of Justice — 1995 report on satanic ritual abuse claims - Medical examiner testimony — Connecticut Superior Court, Danbury (1981) - Sominex formulation history — scopolamine to diphenhydramine reformulation, late 1980s

The Winchester Mystery House (Season 2)

She inherited a fortune built on a rifle. The story goes that a medium told her every soul ever killed by that gun was coming for her — and the only way to stay alive was to keep building. Never let the hammers stop. Never let the house be finished. Sarah Winchester built. For thirty-six years, in a house in San Jose, California, the construction never stopped — until the day she died. 160 rooms. Staircases that climb into ceilings. Doors that open onto open air. The most famous haunted house in America — and the widow who, by some accounts, is still inside it. But the story they sell at the gate is not the story of who actually lived there. This week on Secret Society of Strangers, we walk the legend in full. And then we tell you who Sarah Winchester really was. Because they buried her twice — and the second burial is the one we should be angry about.   Hosts: Lee, Josh, Jen Edited by: William Bertschinger     Primary historical source Ignoffo, Mary Jo. Captive of the Labyrinth: Sarah L. Winchester, Heiress to the Rifle Fortune. University of Missouri Press, 2010 (rev. 2022). First full-length archival biography. Twenty years of research in Sarah’s personal letters, Winchester financial records, building records, contemporary news coverage. 🕯️  Stay Curious. Stay Strange.

Guest Episode | Born Awakened — Samantha Leifker (Season 2)

Some people have one strange experience in a lifetime. Samantha Leifker has spent thirty years collecting them. This week the Strangers sit down with Samantha Leifker, author of Born Awakened: An Otherworldly True Story — a memoir that refuses to stay in any single category. It starts in a childhood home where the dead didn't stay quiet, and it spans decades of UFO contact, out-of-body travel, missing time, interdimensional beings, and a pull toward East Tennessee she still can't fully explain. We get into all of it: the poltergeist house she grew up in, the cube-shaped craft, the entities she says have been guiding her since before she could understand them, and what it actually feels like to live a life where the paranormal isn't a story you tell — it's a Tuesday. This is the kind of conversation SSOS was built for. The hauntings, the UFOs, the consciousness work — Samantha doesn't treat them as separate mysteries. She treats them as one. And after this, you might too. And this is only round one — we're already setting up a second sit-down to go even deeper with Samantha, so consider this your way in. Stay Curious. Stay Strange. 📖 GUEST — SAMANTHA LEIFKER / BORN AWAKENED Book — Born Awakened: An Otherworldly True Story (Amazon): https://a.co/d/03y6m5Y0 [https://a.co/d/03y6m5Y0] Instagram: @bornawakened — https://www.instagram.com/bornawakened [https://www.instagram.com/bornawakened] Facebook: Born Awakened — https://www.facebook.com/share/18E8i8HKWC/ [https://www.facebook.com/share/18E8i8HKWC/] TikTok: @bornawakened — https://www.tiktok.com/@bornawakened [https://www.tiktok.com/@bornawakened] Free Newsletter (Substack): https://bornawakened.substack.com/ [https://bornawakened.substack.com/] 🎧 LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE Spotify · Apple Podcasts · YouTube @SSOSPodcast · Podbean ☕ SUPPORT THE SHOW Buy Me a Coffee 📱 FOLLOW US Instagram · TikTok 📧 GOT A HIGH STRANGENESS STORY? Email us or DM on socials — we're listening. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange.

Gregor MacGregor & the Poyais Scheme .(April Fools series )

He called himself a prince. He created a flag, a constitution, a currency. He published a 355-page guidebook to a capital city with an opera house and a cathedral. And none of it existed. In the finale of our April Fools series, we tell the story of Gregor MacGregor — the Scottish soldier who invented an entire nation called Poyais, convinced hundreds to invest their life savings, and sent 250 settlers to die in an empty jungle. Nearly 180 people never came home. And MacGregor? He was never convicted. He died a general, buried with full military honors in a cathedral in Caracas. The deadliest con in modern history. The man who sold a country. 🕯️ Stay Curious. Stay Strange. YouTube THE MAN WHO INVENTED A FAKE COUNTRY AND KILLED 180 PEOPLE | Gregor MacGregor & The Poyais Scheme | SSOS In this episode, we cover the incredible true story of Gregor MacGregor — the Scottish con artist who invented an entire nation called Poyais in the 1820s, printed fake currency, sold government bonds for a country that didn't exist, and convinced 250 settlers to sail across the Atlantic to a "paradise" that was actually empty jungle. Nearly 180 of them died. MacGregor was never convicted. He died a hero in Venezuela. This is the finale of our April Fools con artist series, covering: Frank Abagnale Jr., Anna Delvey, Ann Odelia Diss Debar, and now the deadliest fraud in history.   LINKS 🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube: @SSOSPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@SSOSPodcast] Podbean ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee 📱 Follow Us: Instagram TikTok 📧 Got a High Strangeness Story?   Email us 📩 ssospodcast@gmail.com [ssospodcast@gmail.com] or DM on socials — we're listening.            The Secret Society Of Strangers Podcast is a Strange Static MediaTM  production

Ann O'Delia Diss Debar -The Spook Priestess (APRIL FOOLS SERIES)

She called herself a Princess of Bavaria. The newspapers called her "The Empress of Swindle." In 1888, Ann O'Delia Diss Debar convinced one of New York's most powerful attorneys that she could summon oil paintings from thin air—works created by Raphael and Rembrandt from beyond the grave. She took his fortune, his mansion, and his sanity. But that was just the beginning. From the Gilded Age parlors of Madison Avenue to the courtrooms of London's Old Bailey, the Spook Priestess left a trail of broken lives, impossible escapes, and crimes so dark the courtroom had to be cleared. And when the final curtain fell? She simply... vanished. Stay Curious. Stay Strange.   SOURCES * "Duped By A Spook Priestess" — The New York Times, April 1888 * "The Horos Trial" — Old Bailey Proceedings, December 1901 * Occult America by Mitch Horowitz (Bantam, 2009) * The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England by Alex Owen * Women of the Golden Dawn by Mary K. Greer (Park Street Press, 1995) * The Cincinnati Enquirer archives, 1909   LINKS 🎧 Listen & Subscribe: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube: @SSOSPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@SSOSPodcast] Podbean ☕ Support the Show: Buy Me a Coffee 📱 Follow Us: Instagram TikTok 📧 Got a High Strangeness Story?   Email us 📩 ssospodcast@gmail.com [ssospodcast@gmail.com] or DM on socials — we're listening.            The Secret Society Of Strangers Podcast is a Strange Static MediaTM  production