She's been inside the most haunted places on Earth alongside Sam & Colby - and she didn't just survive them. She READ them.

Ashley Ryan is an officially ordained Hermetic Priestess, a practitioner of ancient esoteric tradition, and one of the most highly sought after, as well as fascinating figures in the paranormal world.

in this episode, she sits down with us to talk about what it actually means to hold that title, what Hermetic practice looks like in real life, and what she's witnessed on location that cameras cant always capture.

This isn'ta ghost story. It's the framework behind one.

Okay, so imagine getting your wedding photos back and finding THREE GHOSTLY FIGURES standing behind a kid at your reception. Now imagine those figures are probably the gangsters who got murdered there in the 1930s. Welcome to the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul, Minnesota – where John Dillinger used to dance, Ma Barker planned heists, and apparently some mobsters never got the memo that the party’s over.

This week I’m diving into one of the most well-documented haunted locations in the Midwest. We’re talking bullet holes still visible in the walls, an actual unsolved gangland murder, newspaper archives, historical photos, and HUNDREDS of witnesses reporting the same phenomena for decades. Plus there’s this wedding photo that tour guides still show people that’ll make your skin crawl.

But here’s the twist – you can literally book your wedding there RIGHT NOW. It’s a functioning event venue with swing dancing on Thursday nights. How fucking cool is that?

I’m breaking down the full history: the French mushroom farmers, the Prohibition-era speakeasy, the “safe city” deal between gangsters and corrupt cops, the night someone asked the band to leave early (spoiler: not good), and why these particular ghosts seem obsessed with being nice to kids.

Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, this story is *wild*. And it’s all documented, all accessible, all verifiable. Come for the gangster history, stay for the phantom jazz music and the guy in the Panama hat who keeps disappearing through walls.

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

Primary Sources:
- Wabasha Street Caves official tours and historical archives (wabashastreetcaves.com)

- Minnesota Historical Society - Castle Royal photographs (1933)

- St. Paul newspapers - 1930s gangland murder reports

- Star Tribune - “Most Haunted Place in Minnesota” feature

Historical Context:
- “The O’Connor System” - St. Paul’s safe city arrangement for criminals (1920s-1930s)

- FBI records on John Dillinger, Ma Barker, and the Barker-Karpis Gang

Paranormal Documentation:
- Twin Cities Paranormal Society investigation reports

- Ghost Adventures & Mysteries at the Museum TV episodes

- Multiple tour guide firsthand accounts (Brett Williams, Donna Bremer)

- Wedding photo - shown during ghost tours (not publicly available online)

Visit:
- Wabasha Street Caves: 215 Wabasha St S, St. Paul, MN 55107

- Tours: Historic Cave Tour, Gangster Bus Tour, Lost Souls Ghost Tour

- Swing Dancing: Thursday nights with live big band music

- Phone: (651) 224-1191

Further Reading:
- “Minnesota Hauntings” by Ryan Jacobson

- Atlas Obscura - Wabasha Street Caves entry

- Explore Minnesota Tourism - Gangster history resources

*All research conducted Dec-Feb 2025-2026. Historical facts verified through multiple independent sources.*

In 1897, Adolph Luetgert — Chicago’s self-made “Sausage King” — became the center of one of the most disturbing and sensational murder cases in American history. When his wife Louisa vanished on the night of May 1st, police followed the evidence straight to the basement of his northwest side sausage factory. What they found there changed criminal justice forever — and allegedly left something behind that never quite left.

This week on Creepy Shit Podcast, we break down the fully documented, court-record-verified story of the Luetgert murder case: the lye vat, the bone fragments, the engraved ring, the forensic anthropologist who took the stand in one of America’s earliest uses of forensic science in a murder trial, and the two trials that captivated an entire city. We also get into the ghost sightings that started almost immediately after the crime — the white figure at the fireplace, the watchmen who ran, the twice-relocated house, and the basement that still makes people uneasy today.

No embellishment. No invented details. Just the real, documented, deeply unsettling truth — which, as always, is scarier than anything we could make up.

References & Resources:

∙ Alchemy of Bones: Chicago’s Luetgert Murder Case of 1897 — Robert Loerzel

∙ WTTW Chicago: Chicago Mysteries with Geoffrey Baer

∙ Mysterious Chicago — Adam Selzer

∙ Cook County Court Records, 1897–1898 (Illinois State Archives)

∙ CBS Chicago: Chicago Hauntings series​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​