On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1895, parishioners at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco were shocked when a closet was opened that contained the mutilated body of a young woman. Police detectives who were summoned to the church expected the corpse to belong to a 20-year-old woman named Blanche Lamont, a member of the church’s congregation who had gone missing 10 days earlier.

But it wasn’t her. Instead, the dead woman was 21-year-old Minnie Williams, who was also a member of the church.

And that wasn’t all the two young women had in common. Both had last been seen with the church’s handsome and well-liked Sunday School Superintendent, a man named Theo Durrant – who soon earned a nickname from the press. They called him “The Demon in the Belfry,” because it was almost impossible for anyone to believe that the brutal murders could be the work of an ordinary man.

He had to be one of the Devil’s minions, escaped from the fiery pits of Hell.

How well do you really know your neighbor?

In Decatur, Illinois, 1964, evil didn’t break in—it lived inside the house. On a cold February night, a family argument ended with a hatchet, a triple killing, and a manhunt that stretched from Illinois to Florida.

This is The Hatchet House—a story of blood, silence, and a terrifying truth: sometimes the monster isn’t out there…

…it’s already home.

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James “Big Jim” Colosimo ruled the Chicago underworld longer than any man in the city's history. The money he raked in from the many enterprises that he controlled was conservatively estimated at $50,000 a month for about eight years. Colosimo was a strange character and a man who helped usher in Chicago's organized crime era – although he’d never actually live to see it.

Check out our new American Hauntings Podcast Network for even more spooky shows.

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

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This episode was written by Troy Taylor

Produced and edited by Cody Beck