Episode 94

This week I’m joined by Alexandra Hunt, a public health researcher, a girls’ soccer coach, an advocate for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice, and an organizer. She’s also running for Philadelphia City Controller.

The City Controller is the chief auditor of the city of Philadelphia’s budget; they’re a watch dog, making sure the funds being spent by the city, for the city, are being spent where they’re meant to be spent. City Controller is the chief auditor of Philadelphia’s school district and so much more.

Alexandra Hunt captivates with her authenticity, her influence and vision through a belief that – and this is a quote – we must focus on creating a healthy, functional and prosperous Philadelphia in which we all benefit.  Alexandra is looking for creative solutions to Philadelphia’s issues using an evidence based approach.

When the opportunity presented itself to interview Alexandra Hunt, to get to know her better, get to know where she stands on issues in our city, wich means an opportunity for all of you to get to know her better, I was so excited.  She’s a strong, intelligent, creative woman and I am thrilled to have her join me today.

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

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Episode 93

In 1892, architect Willis G. Hale began construction on a lavish apartment building on Broad Street in north Philadelphia. What began as a turn of the century residential multi family structure evolved over the last 120 years into something so much more – the Divine Lorraine.

This is the story of that evolution, lead by a man named Reverend Major Jealous Divine, better known as Father Divine. Father Divine purchased the Lorraine in the 1940s and turned it into Philadelphia’s first integrated hotel. He ran the Peace Mission Movement from this ornate behemoth of a building, and after his death his wife and followers fought off efforts by Jim Jones to take over the movement.

Research sources for this episode includer:

• The Radical Restaurants of Father Divine, Founder of Peace Mission (eater.com) by Vince Dixon
• Global Non-Violent Action Data Base
• Philly History Blog – The Divine Lorraine Hotel
• The Divine Inspiration of Jim Jones by Adam Morris
• The Guardian: An Apocalyptic Cult, 900 Dead: Remembering the Jonestown Massacre 40 Years On by J Oliver Conroy
• Philadelphiabuildings.org
• Divinelorrainehotel.com
• OFCRealty.com – Naked Philly; History Buff Willis G. Hale
• Pastor Jones meets Reverend M J Divine, better known as Father Divine by Jim Jones

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Episode 92

Ona Maria Judge – better known as Oney – was born into slavery in 1774 at a familiar location in Virginia: Mount Vernon. Oney’s mother Betty was brought to Mount Vernon after George Washington married Martha in 1759. Betty, and her descendants, were considered the “property” of Martha Washington’s first husband, Daniel Custis, who’d died just a few years before Martha married George.

At the age of 10, Oney Judge was Martha’s attendant, caring for Martha’s wardrobe and her personal needs. Then, George became the President. He and Martha chose a number of enslaved members of their household to relocate with them to New York, and soon thereafter Philadelphia.

While in Philadelphia, Oney saw free Black men and women – building a community outside the bondage of slavery. After more than six years as an enslaved woman in the President’s house in Philadelphia, and a lifetime of slavery before that, Oney Judge made the courageous decision to flee the Washington’s household. She was considered a fugitive, one that George Washington refused let go.

Research sources for this episode include:

• Never Caught: The Washington’s’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
• They Were Her Property – White women as Slave Owners in the American South, by  Stephane Jones-Rogers
• Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography The president’s house in Philadelphia – rediscovery of a lost landmark by Edward Lawler
• Lives Bound Together: Slavery at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, an exhibition on view in the Donald W. Reynolds Museum & Education Center from 2016–2020
• ushistory.org – The President’s House in Pennsylvania; For Whom Will the Liberty Bell Toll? From Controversy to Collaboration by Gary B. Nash
• EncyclopediaVirginia.org
• NationalParkService.org: Excavating the President’s House
• MarthaWashington.us – Archive

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Episode 91 – Originally released February 2020

Women in white, midnight Mary, lonely roads all over the US and other parts of the world have their own legends of a young woman in a pale dress, wandering in the middle of the night searching for someone to give them a ride. Sometimes they’re searching for their true love. They hitch a ride with an unsuspecting motorist, or they mysteriously appear in someone’s car. These forlorn ladies are doomed to roam the roadways for all eternity, until their beloveds return.

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, a holiday usually considered a celebration of romantic love, lets throw a little horror into the mix. In this episode you’ll hear stories of romance that ended with at least one partner tethered to this mortal coil in the form of a woman in white, and the history behind these lovelorn hauntings.

Research sources for this episode include:

• Big Book of Pennsylvania Ghost Stories by Mark Nesbitt and Patty Wilson
• Ghosts of Southwestern Pennsylvania by Thomas White
• yourbeavercounty.com
• Pittsburgh Post Gazette Archives 1910 – 1980
• Altoona Tribune Archives 1920 – 1940
• Bristol Daily Courier Archives 1935
• Baltimore Evening Sun Archives 1935

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

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Episode 90 – Originally released January 2020

Content warning: this episode contains discussions about sexual assault and murder. Listener discretion is advised.

Between the summer of 1997 and August 1999, six women in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood in Center City, Philadelphia, were raped by a man known only as the Center City Rapist. One woman, Shannon Schieber, was murdered in May 1998. All of these attacks occurred within about five blocks of one another. The first two attacks were little more than one block apart, yet it took years before these assaults were linked by the Philadelphia Police Department.

In the spring of 2001, a series of assaults in Fort Collins, CO, almost mirrored the attacks in Philadelphia. The trail of the Center City Rapist went cold until police from different states worked together to identify the man who terrorized two cities thousands of miles apart over a span of five years. This is part two of a two-part episode about the victims and survivors of the Center City Rapist.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.  

Research sources for this episode include:

• The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN)
• The National Sexual Violence Resource Center
• The Philadelphia Inquirer Archives 1997 – 2004
• The Philadelphia Daily News Archives 1997 – 2004
• Inquirer Magazine Archives: A Baffling Case,  by Barbara Boyer, July 21, 2002,
• The Guardian: Investigating Rape in Philadelphia: How One City’s Crisis Stands to Help Others by Joanna Walters
• The Daily Pennsylvanian: The Story of Shannon Schieber by 34th Street, January 22, 2004
• The Marshall Project: Rape isn’t rape, is it? by Christian Miller and Bob Meagher
• The Washington Post: Maryland Politics by John Wagner, February 13, 2013
• People Magazine Investigates: Terror in Philadelphia (available for purchase on YouTube)
• The Fort Collins Coloradoan Archives 2000 – 2004
• Catholic Mobilizing Network
• The Catholic Review

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

The post The Center City Rapist: Part 2 appeared first on TwistedPhilly.

 Episode 89 – Originally released January 2020

Content warning: this episode contains discussions about sexual assault and murder. Listener discretion is advised.

Between the summer of 1997 and August 1999, six women in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood in Center City, Philadelphia, were raped by a man known only as the Center City Rapist. One woman, Shannon Schieber, was murdered in May 1998. All of these attacks occurred within about five blocks of one another. The first two attacks were little more than one block apart, yet it took years before these assaults were linked by the Philadelphia Police Department.

An investigation by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1999 uncovered a period of more than a decade from the mid ’80s to the late ’90s when 30% of reported crimes were classified as non criminal emergencies. At least two of the assaults committed by the center city rapist fell into this classification. DNA went untested, and a 911 call made the morning Shannon Schieber was murdered was “unfounded.”

 Today the Philadelphia Police Department is an example of how to effectively support sexual abuse survivors, how to respectfully care for them and bring their attackers to justice. Sadly, it wasn’t always this way and that culture of hiding violent crimes, in many cases sexually violent crimes against women, may have contributed to the rape of a dozen women across two states. This is part one of a two-part episode about the victims and survivors of the Center City Rapist.

Research sources for this episode include:

• The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN)
• The National Sexual Violence Resource Center
• Serial Murder and the Psychology of Violent Crimes: Serial Killers and Serial Rapists Preliminary Comparison of Violence Typologies by Stacey Shipley & Bruce Arrigo
• The American Criminal Law Review: Georgetown University Law Center – Tolling Time: How John Doe Law Indictments are Skirting Statutes of Limitations and Crippling the Criminal Justice System by Emily Clark
• The Philadelphia Inquirer Archives 1997 – 2004
• The Philadelphia Daily News Archives 1997 – 2004
• The Guardian: Investigating Rape in Philadelphia: How One City’s Crisis Stands to Help Others by Joanna Walters
• The Daily Pennsylvanian: The Story of Shannon Schieber by 34th Street, January 22, 2004

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

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Episode 88 – Originally released December 2019

Last weekend I took the family to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a town about 90 minutes north of Philadelphia and known all over the country as Christmas Town (or Christmas City depending on with whom you speak!) Even Travel and Leisure magazine called Bethlehem the “most festive city in the entire country.”

In this episode, I’ll take you for a walk down Main St. in Bethlehem. While we walk, we’ll learn about the founders of this town, the history of the Moravian Church and Moravian star, a college that dates back to the mid-1700s, haunted hotels and haunted dormitories, because in Bethlehem, even the Christmas stories have ghosts!

Research sources include:

• The Lehigh Valley Press/Bethlehem Press
• Patch.com – Bethlehem, PA
• Historic Hotel Bethlehem
• The Central Moravian Church of Bethlehem
• The Moravian Church
• My Brilliant Star
• Historic Bethlehem Museum & Sites
• Moravian College Blogs
• Monroe Historical – Moravian Star

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

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Episode 86 – Originally released November 2019

Content warning: this episode contains discussions about serial murder, family annihilators, and death of children.  Listener discretion is advised.

Can we apply today’s true crime labels to centuries old murders?  Can a woman be considered a family annihilator?  Does murdering your family make you a serial killer?  How could what we know today about mental health disorders change the outcomes of jury verdicts and sentencing 100 years ago or more?

In 1889 the city of Philadelphia hanged its first woman.  Sarah Jane Whiteling was found guilty of murder; she killed her husband and two young children.  People struggled to find a motive but there were none to be found other than greed.  Multiple medical examinations resulted in the same diagnosis: Sarah Whiteling was of sound mind when she made the decision to poison her family and calculating enough to spread out their deaths hoping to hide her crimes.

Was Sara a monster?  Was she suffering a mental health disorder and therefore not accountable for her actions?  Did she just tire of her life in Victorian Philadelphia and long for something easier, something richer? Would this story be any different today, 130 years later?

Research for this episode includes

• Death Penalty Information Center
• The Cambridge Journals of Medical History: Diagnosing Homicidal Mania; Forensic Psychiatry and the Purposeless Murder
• The Old Bailey Papers (oldbaileyonline.org)
• Serial Killers and Sadistic Murderers: Up Close and Personal by Jack Levin
• Philadelphia Inquirer 1888/89
• Philadelphia Times 1888
• Lancaster Semi Weekly New Era 1889
•  Pittsburgh Dispatch 1888/89
• Cincinnati Enquirer 1889
• New York Herald 1888

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

The post Sarah Whiteling – the “Unnatural Mother” appeared first on TwistedPhilly.

Episode 85 – Originally released November 2019

In West Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park sit several historic homes, some dating back to the late 1700s. Long ago this section of the city was nothing but farmland and forests, an area where Philadelphians built country homes far from the noise and congestion of the city.

These properties are rich with history, some are filled with hauntings, and all of them stand in what is known as the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood in Philadelphia, a community with it’s own history very different from the grand Fairmount charms that stand within the park.

In this episode we’ll tour two of these historic homes and wander their stately rooms,. We’ll hear from a medium who believes the ghost of the original owner still resides in one of these properties and we’ll talk about how the residents of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood are supporting their community, one with struggling schools and the second highest crime rate in Philadelphia.

Research sources for this episode include:

• Historic Strawberry Mansion.org
• The Schuylkill Villas – the 2006 Loan Exhibit
• The Charms of Fairmount Park – Park Charms.com
• US History.org – Signers of the Declaration of Independence
• Biography of Robert Morris (http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/robert-morris/ )
• The Philadelphia Times: 1790-1870
• Haunted Philadelphia: Famous Phantoms, Sinister Sites and Lingering Legends by Darcy Oordt
• CBS 3 Philadelphia

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

The post Fairmount Charms: Strawberry Mansion and Lemon Hill appeared first on TwistedPhilly.

Episode 84 – Originally Released October 2019

Pennsylvania is filled with folklore and ghost stories from all over the state: ghost stories, cryptids, haunted houses, and abandoned towns with misty forms wandering the forest.  These legends aren’t enough for me.  I always want to know the history behind the hauntings, what’s the real story that inspired the folk tales, and are these folk tales even based on truth?

As we inch closer to Halloween, it’s time to gather ’round the fire for some scary tales from Philadelphia and other parts of the keystone state filled not only with strange sightings but the history behind these stories.  Were these ghosts real people, what was their story,  where and when did they live and why do we think they haunt the land of the living?

Research for this episode includes:

• The Big Book of Pennsylvania Ghost Stories by Mark Nesbitt and Patty Wilson, available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and eBook on Google Play
• Tadeusz Walendowski, Polish American Historical Association, Polish American Studies Vol. LVII, No2 (Autumn 2011)
• Ghost Stories of Berks County by Charles Adams, Available on Amazon
• An Autobiography of a Quack by Dr. Silas Wier Mitchell, published 1905
• Reading Eagle News, January, 2019
• The Lewisburg Chronicle 1905 – 1911
• The Belfonte Republican 1910-1911
• The Altoona Tribune 1910-1911
• The Altoona Mirror 1905-1906
• New York Academy of Medicine, Beyond the “Yellow Wallpaper” by Joanna Goldberg
• The National Museum of Civil War Medicine

TwistedPhilly is researched, hosted, and produced by me, Deana Marie, and available biweekly wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow me on Tiktok and Instagram at twistedphilly to see many of the locations and histories I discuss in the show. 

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Episode 83 – Originally Released August 2019 Incorporated in 1855, Mount Moriah Cemetery sat high up on a hill next to Cobbs Creek at the edge of Southwest Philadelphia. Like Laurel Hill Cemetery in the 1830s, the location of Mount Moriah was chosen for it’s distance from the busy city, the pastoral setting and beautiful …

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