Speaker 1: Hello, it's Richard maclin Smith here, not the impostor you've
Speaker 1: been listening to on the podcasts, the real one. Join
Speaker 1: me for Unexplained TV beginning Tuesday, December third at YouTube
Speaker 1: dot com Forward Slash Unexplained pod. For almost as long
Speaker 1: as the written word has been around, at least, humanity's
Speaker 1: predilection for inflicting curses on others has been well documented,
Speaker 1: from ancient Egyptian inscriptions written on the entrances to tombs
Speaker 1: with the intention of protecting sacred property, to the well
Speaker 1: known mark of Cain placed upon the eponymous biblical figure
Speaker 1: from the Book of Genesis. Curses have played a vital
Speaker 1: role in setting moral boundaries for millennia. It should come
Speaker 1: as no surprise that, given our inherently superstitious nature, curses,
Speaker 1: as well as blessings, have become a fundamental aspect of
Speaker 1: our most cherished belief systems. Curses have filtered into every
Speaker 1: day speech in the form of taboo words and phrases.
Speaker 1: They are still invoked as powerful psychological tropes to be
Speaker 1: deployed in movies and popular stories associated with the horror genre.
Speaker 1: Despite the archaic nature of curses. In other words, the
Speaker 1: idea of another person wishing us ill still has the
Speaker 1: power to generate fear. We see omens in magpies and
Speaker 1: void breaking mirrors. We cross the street to avoid walking
Speaker 1: under ladders. We change our path when we encounter black cats,
Speaker 1: and carry religious medals, crucifixes, and sage to ward off evil.
Speaker 1: Perhaps because of our need to give narrative to our existence,
Speaker 1: we are predisposed to find connections between seemingly unrelated events.
Speaker 1: In his nineteen fifty eight publication The Onset of Schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: An Attempt to form an Analysis of Delusion, German psychiatrist
Speaker 1: Klaus Conrad coined the term apophenia to describe this exact phenomena.
Speaker 1: He described it as being an unmotivated seeing of connections
Speaker 1: accompanied by a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness. Comrade's formulation
Speaker 1: has been used to pathologize magical thinking in everything from
Speaker 1: gambling to the promotion of conspiracy theories. But what about
Speaker 1: in cases where the connection between cause and effect isn't
Speaker 1: quite so random? What do we do when we learn
Speaker 1: that someone wishes us ill and we are suddenly stricken
Speaker 1: with an inconvenience or tragedy. It's fair to say that
Speaker 1: even the most rational among us would probably be spooked
Speaker 1: even if we were eventually able to put those thoughts
Speaker 1: to bed. Perhaps you've heard of the Curse of the Kennedys,
Speaker 1: so called because of the strange number of premature deaths
Speaker 1: and tragic events associated with the United States' most famous
Speaker 1: political dynasty. Since rising to prominence under the stewardship of
Speaker 1: the family's patriarch, Joe Kennedy, two of his sons, President
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy in nineteen sixty three and presidential candidate
Speaker 1: Senator Robert Kennedy in nineteen sixty eight were assassinated. His
Speaker 1: eldest son Joseph, was killed on active duty during the
Speaker 1: Second World War, while his eldest daughter Rosemary, received a
Speaker 1: life changing lobotomy in nineteen forty one, leaving her incapacitated
Speaker 1: and catatonic for much of the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: Joe's youngest son, Teddy, had his future presidential aspirations dashed
Speaker 1: when it was revealed that on the night of July eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, he'd been drink driving on chap Equidick Island, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: with a young woman named Mary Joe Kopecne riding alongside him.
Speaker 1: Not only was Mary Joe eight years Teddy's junior, but
Speaker 1: at the time in question, was rumored to be involved
Speaker 1: in an extramarital affair with Teddy. She drowned in Teddy's
Speaker 1: car after he accidentally flipped it off a bridge. Perhaps
Speaker 1: not so much in keeping with the curse, he received
Speaker 1: only a two month suspended jail sentence for his part
Speaker 1: in the accident, mainly just for leaving the scene. He
Speaker 1: never fully recovered his former clean cut rie reputation. This
Speaker 1: is just one example of a supposed curse which has
Speaker 1: entered public consciousness, and despite having no identifiable cause behind it,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see why so many otherwise rational people
Speaker 1: might think twice about its origin. Perhaps even more alarming
Speaker 1: is when cause and effect seem more closely aligned. When
Speaker 1: a radio DJ from Raleigh, North Carolina, say, moves to
Speaker 1: Seattle to take up work as a music executive for
Speaker 1: an organization called the Musak Holdings Company. Perhaps through his
Speaker 1: work he has afforded the time to travel, and because
Speaker 1: of a niche he's developed in tracking down recordings of
Speaker 1: ancient melodies, he meets a fellow enthusiast who shares its passion.
Speaker 1: Maybe something goes wrong, and the young music executive puts
Speaker 1: its foot in it, and the person he initially thought
Speaker 1: of as a kindred spirit wishes harm and evil on
Speaker 1: his soul. The executive spirals and undergoes a series of
Speaker 1: trials during the next few days, and when the situation concludes,
Speaker 1: friends and relatives are left utterly bewildered by it all.
Speaker 1: This is the story of Christopher Case. You're listening to Unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. It was a crisp spring
Speaker 1: day in northern California, and despite feeling tired from his
Speaker 1: flight that morning, thirty five year old Christopher Case was
Speaker 1: in high spirits. He'd been to San Francisco before and
Speaker 1: always enjoyed his stay, though his visits were invariably short,
Speaker 1: and he'd never quite managed to take in the full
Speaker 1: view of the Golden gate Bridge in all its glory,
Speaker 1: nor experienced the famous fonc that rolls thick across the
Speaker 1: wharf at San Francisco Bay. As he stood by the
Speaker 1: shoreline and sipped at his coffee, he allowed himself a
Speaker 1: smile at the thought that he was experiencing both that morning.
Speaker 1: It was Thursday, April eleventh, nineteen ninety one, and Chris
Speaker 1: still had work to do in preparation for a meeting
Speaker 1: later that afternoon. He'd come to the city on behalf
Speaker 1: of the Musac Holdings Company based in Seattle, regarding the
Speaker 1: procurement of rights to some melodies sourced from the Middle East.
Speaker 1: He was particularly interested in music that dated back to
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt, and thought that the addition of ood music
Speaker 1: to his roster would allow him to ascend even further
Speaker 1: in the company. Thankfully, the meeting went well, and he
Speaker 1: was treated to lunch by some local executives at a
Speaker 1: well known sushi restaurant. As the group assembled and sat
Speaker 1: down with their chopsticks, they were joined by a woman
Speaker 1: whom Chris had never met before. She made her apologies
Speaker 1: for not being present at the meeting. When Chris was
Speaker 1: introduced to her, he was given to understand that she
Speaker 1: was some kind of consultant with expertise in exactly the
Speaker 1: kind of music he was looking for. The woman was
Speaker 1: in her fifties and had long, dark hair, and seemed
Speaker 1: possessed of a strange magnetism that drew the group around her.
Speaker 1: Chris also couldn't help but be attracted to her. And
Speaker 1: the longer the meal continued, he found himself getting deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper in conversation with her, specifically about the inherent
Speaker 1: sophistication of ancient Egyptian burial rites and the influence the
Speaker 1: culture had had on parts of the Mediterranean, as well
Speaker 1: as the development of the dulcimer and the lyre in
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman barred traditions. As the night went on
Speaker 1: and more wine and beer was drunk, the woman with
Speaker 1: whom he was speaking made a startling proposition. She wanted
Speaker 1: to go dancing at a club she knew, and after
Speaker 1: that she wanted Chris to escort her back to his
Speaker 1: or her hotel room. Startled by her frankness and a
Speaker 1: little self conscious about the age gap, Chris politely turned
Speaker 1: her down. There was no denying the woman's appeal, but
Speaker 1: something about the intensity of her manner, coupled with what
Speaker 1: he took to be a strange dark flash in her
Speaker 1: eyes when she spoke, unnerved him. At first, Chris attempted
Speaker 1: to be polite. He insisted that he hadn't early flight
Speaker 1: the following morning, but the woman just laughed him off,
Speaker 1: then became a little more tactile. The two were now
Speaker 1: drinking in a bar beside the restaurant, and with most
Speaker 1: of the party gone, the woman seemed more emboldened than ever,
Speaker 1: But Chris finally had enough. He told the woman that
Speaker 1: he didn't feel comfortable going home with her. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the sort of person he was, he said. Eventually, the
Speaker 1: woman seemed to accept the situation, but then her demeanor
Speaker 1: shifted and a scowl came over her face. You're going
Speaker 1: to regret this, the woman apparently told Chris. Never reject
Speaker 1: a woman who practices witchcraft, for she might just put
Speaker 1: a curse on you. Chris laughed this off orbit somewhat tactlessly,
Speaker 1: but when he looked in her eyes again, he found
Speaker 1: that the stair she fixed him with made him feel sick.
Speaker 1: You will be dead within one week, she said, According
Speaker 1: to Chris's friend and spiritual adviser, Sammy Suda, when Chris
Speaker 1: returned to Seattle, he seemed unfazed by the exchange. He'd
Speaker 1: met a host of eccentric people in his role as
Speaker 1: a music executive, and chalked his encounter with the self
Speaker 1: proclaimed witch in San Francisco down as just another quirk
Speaker 1: of the jomb He otherwise loved It was three days later,
Speaker 1: on Sunday, April fourteenth, when Sammy noticed a change in Chris.
Speaker 1: She'd known him since his early years back in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: When he moved out west, the two friends kept in
Speaker 1: regular phone contact, both sharing their deepest thoughts on everything
Speaker 1: from struggles with mental health issues to their respective successes
Speaker 1: and failures when it came to romantic issues. On that
Speaker 1: Sunday night in April, Sammy received another call from Chris,
Speaker 1: but this wasn't the Chris she knew. Clearly rattled, he
Speaker 1: told her that he'd been up all night, kept awake
Speaker 1: by strange, disembodied voices whispering in his apartment with no
Speaker 1: identifiable source. He was seeing shadows too, moving out of
Speaker 1: the corner of his eye, and no matter where he
Speaker 1: went in the limited space of his flat, he couldn't
Speaker 1: shake the feeling that somebody or something was watching him.
Speaker 1: The following day, the phone rang once more in Sammy's
Speaker 1: home in Lafayette, North Carolina. It was Chris again, in
Speaker 1: an even more agitated state than before, as he explained
Speaker 1: to Sammy not long after he got off the call
Speaker 1: from her the day before, Though shadows seen previously out
Speaker 1: of the corner of his eye had now taken on
Speaker 1: tangible shape, and the whispering voices had gotten considerably louder. Somehow,
Speaker 1: he'd managed to get himself to sleep, only to wake
Speaker 1: up in a state of paralysis. It was then he
Speaker 1: felt his neck being throttled by an unseen presence. As
Speaker 1: Chris went on to explain, the attack was apparently so
Speaker 1: violent that at several points he felt himself being lifted
Speaker 1: off its mattress and thrown back down again. He had
Speaker 1: cuts all over his hands and arms. To prove it.
Speaker 1: His bed sheets were streaked brown with his own blood.
Speaker 1: Whatever this thing was, he said, it was quite clearly
Speaker 1: malevolent in nature. For Sammy, it was heart wrenching to
Speaker 1: hear the fear in Chris's voice, and being powerless to
Speaker 1: help from so far away in North Carolina, the only
Speaker 1: advice she could offer was to find spiritual help immediately.
Speaker 1: About two minutes walk from Chris's apartment on North one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty second Street was a store called Evangel Incorporated,
Speaker 1: a religious bookshop specializing mainly in books to help guide
Speaker 1: people in their faith. It had been a quiet morning
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, April sixteenth, when store manager Rodney Haguci noticed
Speaker 1: a man enter the shop looking a little worse for wear.
Speaker 1: Rodney watched as the man, who was deathly pale and
Speaker 1: seemed a little wired, browsed the shells for a moment
Speaker 1: before heading to a small section of books they kept
Speaker 1: about demonology. A short time later, the man approached Rodney
Speaker 1: at the till, carrying a handful of crucifixes. It was Chris,
Speaker 1: of course, Is there anything I can and help you with?
Speaker 1: Rodney asked, with a matter of factness that Rodney found disturbing.
Speaker 1: Chris looked him straight in the eye and said, please,
Speaker 1: I need something to help protect me from malevolent forces.
Speaker 1: My apartment is being disturbed by something violent and supernatural,
Speaker 1: and I'm worried that if I don't fight it, I'll
Speaker 1: just continue being harmed. Rodney had never seen such genuine
Speaker 1: fear from someone in his shop before. As it happened, however,
Speaker 1: he was something of an amateur authority on the subject
Speaker 1: of demonology. He was well aware that such things often
Speaker 1: had rational explanations, and that the mind could be as
Speaker 1: destructive as the supposed supernatural forces assailing it. He did
Speaker 1: what he could to allay Chris's fears, recommending some books
Speaker 1: on psychology and the occult. He gave Chris a potted
Speaker 1: lecture on how the problem of supposed demonic infestation was
Speaker 1: handled by different cultures, and sent him away with a
Speaker 1: sense of reassurance that if he needed anything else, to
Speaker 1: call back at any time. Chris thanked him for his help,
Speaker 1: purchased the crucifixes, then left Back in Lafayette, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: Sammy couldn't stop worrying about her friend. She couldn't believe
Speaker 1: just how much he'd changed in the week since meeting
Speaker 1: the mysterious woman in San Francisco. Chris had always been
Speaker 1: a skeptic when it came to the paranormal, and had
Speaker 1: valued his solitude as a necessary component for living a
Speaker 1: peaceful and happy life. Now it was as though he'd
Speaker 1: become obsessive to the point of mania. He'd lost all
Speaker 1: his usual self confidence and seemed to need constant reassurance.
Speaker 1: But what she couldn't shake was just how terrified he
Speaker 1: sounded when he spoke to her. It was clear that
Speaker 1: at the very least, he believed wholeheartedly in the deadly
Speaker 1: power of whatever it was that was affecting him. It
Speaker 1: wasn't only Sammy who was worried either. For the past
Speaker 1: few days, Chris had failed to show up for work.
Speaker 1: Chris was a workaholic above all else, and in all
Speaker 1: the time he'd been working for the Musac Holdings Company,
Speaker 1: he'd never missed a meeting, let alone called in sick,
Speaker 1: unable to contain her concern for Chris. Later that evening
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, Sammy tried to get hold of him at
Speaker 1: his apartment, but her cause just rang out. The following morning,
Speaker 1: feeling that something was terribly wrong, she contacted the police
Speaker 1: and asked them to do a welfare check at Chris's property.
Speaker 1: It was some time later when the police called back
Speaker 1: to let her know that although they hadn't been able
Speaker 1: to gain access to the property, there was no reason
Speaker 1: for her to worry. There were no signs to suggest
Speaker 1: that any one had tried to force their way into
Speaker 1: the apartment, and no signs of a struggle. Having peered
Speaker 1: through the windows, they were also able to see that
Speaker 1: none of Chris's furniture or possessions had been disturbed. But
Speaker 1: Sammy wasn't convinced. After a long and fretful day wondering
Speaker 1: about Chris's whereabouts. She returned home from work and poured
Speaker 1: herself a large glass of wine. She had just taken
Speaker 1: off her coat and was about to sit down when
Speaker 1: she noticed the light on her ant'swer machine was pulsing.
Speaker 1: Sammy hit play. It was a message from Chris. She
Speaker 1: listened with concern as his voice played out in the
Speaker 1: silence of her apartment. He seemed eerily calm and resigned,
Speaker 1: she thought, as he detailed a series of strange events
Speaker 1: from the night before. It was a garbled story about
Speaker 1: how an unspecified they had almost got to him, forcing
Speaker 1: him to flee his home in terror, Although he was
Speaker 1: feeling better now he'd been forced to spend the night
Speaker 1: in a hotel. Then he ended his message with a
Speaker 1: line that chilled Sammy to her core. This is my
Speaker 1: last evening on earth, he said, before hanging up. Sammy
Speaker 1: grabbed the receiver and immediately tried to call Chris back,
Speaker 1: but once again he failed to answer. When Chris failed
Speaker 1: to pick up again the following morning, Sammy called the
Speaker 1: police once more, and so it was on the morning
Speaker 1: of Thursday, April eighteenth, that two officers were despatched back
Speaker 1: to Chris's apartarpment in the thirteen hundred block of North
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty second Avenue. When they arrived, everything
Speaker 1: looked just as it did before. There were no signs
Speaker 1: of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, and all
Speaker 1: his furniture remained unmoved. But then one of the officers
Speaker 1: spotted something. A single door lying ajar with light flooding
Speaker 1: out of it. Nothing especially strange in and of itself,
Speaker 1: but when the officers failed to get a response after
Speaker 1: repeatedly knocking at the front door, it was enough to
Speaker 1: alert their suspicions. Together they forced the door open and
Speaker 1: made their way into the apartment. Once inside chris Is Flat,
Speaker 1: the officers discovered a strange and unnerving scene. The dark
Speaker 1: apartment was adorned throughout with crucifixes, bibles, and fotive candles,
Speaker 1: some still flickering in the darkness. Feeling something underfoot, they
Speaker 1: looked down to see that a line of salt ran
Speaker 1: across the floor, clearly poured out deliberately, as if attempting
Speaker 1: to seal off the doorway in some a colt way.
Speaker 1: Looking about, they noticed the same lines of salt had
Speaker 1: been placed at the threshold of every door in the apartment.
Speaker 1: There was music playing too, coming from another room, a
Speaker 1: plaintive religious piece. They followed it into Chris's bedroom, where
Speaker 1: they found it playing from a stereo, but no sign
Speaker 1: of Chris. One of the officers switched off the music,
Speaker 1: plunging them into a stark, eerie silence. Back in the
Speaker 1: main room, a quick search revealed a host of strange
Speaker 1: books on the occult, as well as a series of
Speaker 1: bizarre notes Chris had written to himself about fighting off demons.
Speaker 1: The last room to check was the bathroom, where the
Speaker 1: light was emanating from Sir, They called out as they
Speaker 1: tiptoed quietly through the space. Sensing something was off, both
Speaker 1: officers unholstered their guns as they crept a little closer
Speaker 1: to the door, until finally they were close enough to
Speaker 1: push it open. There inside, fully clothed, his face turned
Speaker 1: away from them, kneeling in the bath with his head
Speaker 1: resting against the wall was Chris, Sir, the officers said again.
Speaker 1: As they approached him, one of them nudged him in
Speaker 1: the back, but Chris didn't move. Reaching round to feel
Speaker 1: for a pulse, they found his neck icily cold and
Speaker 1: there was no sign of life, with his body stiff
Speaker 1: from rigor mortis. It'd clearly been dead for some time.
Speaker 1: He was thirty five years old. Chris, it was determined
Speaker 1: by the coroner, had died of acute heart failure or
Speaker 1: what is more commonly known within the medical community as myocarditis.
Speaker 1: It's a disease thought to effect roughly one in every
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people, and though it is not genetic,
Speaker 1: there is little consensus either as to what the causes are.
Speaker 1: The h profile of those affected by myocarditis is generally
Speaker 1: thought to be between twenty and forty, and experts have
Speaker 1: noted a link between the disease's prevalence among athas, fleets,
Speaker 1: and health enthusiasts, in particular, perhaps owing to the strain
Speaker 1: that intensive exercising can place on the heart. It's been
Speaker 1: noted by his friend Sammy that Christopher Case was a
Speaker 1: gym fanatic. He liked to keep healthy and was serious
Speaker 1: about his diet and exercise seemed to give him a
Speaker 1: sense of purpose away from his otherwise solitary life. It
Speaker 1: is possible, therefore, that Chris's myocarditis was triggered by a
Speaker 1: combination of the physical strain he placed on his body
Speaker 1: over the years, coupled with the severe psychological stress he'd
Speaker 1: evidently been under in the last few days of his life,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't explain what was behind the psychological distress
Speaker 1: in the first place. In nineteen forty two, then chairman
Speaker 1: of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School, Professor
Speaker 1: Walter Cannon diagnosed what he called voodoo death to explain
Speaker 1: the phenomenon of sudden death brought about by emotional shock
Speaker 1: or fear. The anomaly, he said, was often caused by
Speaker 1: suggestion in the subject, which, if it provoked a strong
Speaker 1: enough reaction to an outside force or trauma, could lead
Speaker 1: to psychosomatic death without the build up of symptoms. Cannon
Speaker 1: had observed this in evidence obtained from concentration and prisoner
Speaker 1: of war camps, but also observed that, depending on the culture,
Speaker 1: superstitious conditioning could also play a part. The most famous
Speaker 1: example of this phenomenon is perhaps the wave of sudden
Speaker 1: deaths which affected the Laotian humue community who emigrated to
Speaker 1: the United States between nineteen seventy seven and nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1: According to reports, Laotian males aged between twenty and forty
Speaker 1: who fled from the fallout of the Cambodian genocide were
Speaker 1: found to be ten times more likely than their white
Speaker 1: American counterparts to pass away in their sleep as a
Speaker 1: result of sudden death. As previously mentioned on the show,
Speaker 1: director Wehres Craven used this strange trend as the basis
Speaker 1: for his nineteen eighty four horror masterpiece A Nightmare on
Speaker 1: Elm Street, recounting a story he'd heard about a refugee
Speaker 1: child who was afraid to fall asleep, he told Vulture Magazine.
Speaker 1: When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis
Speaker 1: was over. Then they heard him screaming in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. By the time they got to him,
Speaker 1: he was dead. It was as though he died in
Speaker 1: the middle of a nightmare. Perhaps Chris too, succumbed to
Speaker 1: something similar. Could it be that simply by believing it
Speaker 1: enough himself, Chris had brought the curse to fruition. And
Speaker 1: if that being possible, wouldn't that power be a kind
Speaker 1: of curse in itself, perhaps the greatest curse that haunts humankind.
Speaker 1: Whatever you believe, it seems, the full tragic truth of
Speaker 1: what exactly caused the death of Christopher Case will forever
Speaker 1: remain Unexplained. This episode was written by James Connor Patterson
Speaker 1: and produced by me Richard McLean Smith. James is a
Speaker 1: brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection of poems, titled
Speaker 1: Bandit Country, Exploring the Hinterland between the North of Ireland
Speaker 1: and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty two T S.
Speaker 1: Eliot Prize and is out now to buy. Do check
Speaker 1: it out. Thank you, Thank you as ever for listening
Speaker 1: to the show. Please subscribe and rate it if you
Speaker 1: haven't already done so. Unexplained will be coming to YouTube
Speaker 1: very shortly in video form, so please watch out for
Speaker 1: future developments there. You can subscribe to the channel at
Speaker 1: YouTube dot com. Forward slash at Unexplained Pod. You can
Speaker 1: also now find us on TikTok at TikTok dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash at Unexplained Podcast. Unexplained is an AV Club
Speaker 1: Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements
Speaker 1: of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by
Speaker 1: me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is
Speaker 1: now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com
Speaker 1: and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast, Hombo