{"podcast":{"title":"Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories","slug":"weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827","podcast_index_feed_id":475827,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/3655291/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://weirddarkness.com","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/a1570d70b941e8f0e16b68380622d72f.jpg","author":"Darren Marlar","episode_count":1000,"summary":"Award-winning podcast of true stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, true crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained -- seven days a week! Hosted by professional voice actor Darren Marlar, named one of the “Best Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-28T14:17:16.106491+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827"},"episode":{"title":"The Villisca Ax Murders: The Reverend and the Rival","slug":"the-villisca-ax-murders-the-reverend-and-the-rival","published_at":"2026-07-16T00:00:03+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827/the-villisca-ax-murders-the-reverend-and-the-rival","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827","url":"https://weirddarkness.com/VilliscaReverendRival","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73000984/wd20260715_villiscareverendrival.mp3","summary":"In 1912, an axe killed all eight people sleeping in a Villisca, Iowa farmhouse, and the two men suspected of it — a traveling preacher and a business rival — both walked free. EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/VilliscaReverendRival READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p84usw4 FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Conspiracy theories, while often dark, can also be kind of humorous due to being so outlandishly unbelievable. For example… is the Earth’s moon artificial, and actually an extraterrestrial spaceship? We’ll look at the strange theory. (Could Our Moon Be An Alien Spaceship?) *** In 1912 one of the most brutal slayings in America took place in the small town of Villisca, Iowa… a murder so brutal that numerous documentaries have been made about it, books have been written, and amateur detectives have poured over the facts and suspects still trying to find out who the murderer was that swung the bloody axe. (The Unsolved Villisca Ax Murders) *** The President of the United States, no matter who is in the position at the time, is always in danger from those who would like to see someone else in office. We’ll hear on the news of the assassination attempts that came close, but we more often than not are completely unaware of the attempts and plans that have been thwarted – and some of those attempts to kill a sitting U.S. President have been extremely bizarre. (Bizarre Assassination Attempts on U.S. Presidents) *** Some Biblical accounts seem unbelievable and we tend to dismiss them as fantasies, or dreams of the person writing the events down. But what if some of the strange creatures described in the bible are actually real – but come from another dimension, or even outer space? (Are Extraterr…","meta_description":"In 1912, an axe killed all eight people sleeping in a Villisca, Iowa farmhouse, and the two men suspected of it — a traveling preacher and a business riva…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2971,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827/episodes/the-villisca-ax-murders-the-reverend-and-the-rival/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/weird-darkness-paranormal-true-crime-stories-475827/the-villisca-ax-murders-the-reverend-and-the-rival.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}