{"podcast":{"title":"MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories","slug":"mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842","podcast_index_feed_id":4894842,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/dloY8UYJ","website_url":"https://ballenstudios.com/","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/3c9c3c2a-a53f-40bd-9d24-bdb387b03fb1/eae76d2b-6d10-4d80-b309-a724ac0340f0/3000x3000/large-sxm-cover-mr-ballen-3000x3000-final.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"MrBallen","episode_count":515,"summary":"MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is a true crime and mystery podcast that presents strange, dark and mysterious content delivered in story format. The program is hosted by John Allen a.k.a. MrBallen. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes 7-days early and ad-free. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-23T16:17:17.056076+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842"},"episode":{"title":"Fan Favorite - \"The Knot\"","slug":"fan-favorite-the-knot","published_at":"2026-04-17T07:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842/fan-favorite-the-knot","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842","url":"https://ballenstudios.com/","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/stitcher.simplecastaudio.com/814143cd-09c6-426f-920a-7be9b3dc1506/episodes/19611c8e-8cf0-47a9-8a48-7daf5593a1b9/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=814143cd-09c6-426f-920a-7be9b3dc1506&awEpisodeId=19611c8e-8cf0-47a9-8a48-7daf5593a1b9&feed=dloY8UYJ","summary":"Today's story is a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 388. On a September afternoon in 2000, an FBI forensics analyst stood in her lab in Quantico, Virginia, staring into a microscope in confusion. She was looking at two strands of hair that were evidence in a murder investigation. And something wasn’t right. She checked the label on the evidence bag the sample came from, then looked back into the microscope. She definitely wasn’t imagining it. The label was wrong, which meant that the detective who had packaged the hairs and sent them over for analysis – had not understood what he was looking at. And this wasn’t a small mistake. Because if the analyst was right about what the hairs really were – then the whole investigation she was working on was about to change.","meta_description":"Today's story is a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 388. On a September afternoon in 2000, an FBI forensics analyst stood in her lab…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2319,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842/episodes/fan-favorite-the-knot/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/mrballen-podcast-strange-dark-mysterious-stories-4894842/fan-favorite-the-knot.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}