In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 116: A Cape Cod Man Murders His Child For God; the Iconic Unsolved Mysteries TV Show; Top 5 1970s Horror Movies; the Trunk Murders; Bucksport/Prospect ME(10-18-2023)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 116

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Episode 116 is loaded with creepy, terrifying, sad, and unbelievable stories for the Halloween season.
The show kicks off with a truly heartbreaking tale. Insane or not insane that is the question. Charles Freeman of the small Cape Cod village of Pocasset committed the ultimate crime when he murdered his 4-year-old daughter. However, his claims that it was done as a sacrifice in the name of God turn this into something different.
Mid-Coast Maine is beautiful and this time of year is perfect to visit. This week's Road Trip is a double dip. The neighboring small towns of Prospect and Bucksport go hand in hand. They are a great combination of waterfront views, foliage photography, and even the spooky. Plan your trip after this segment.
Children of the 80s and 90s reminisce about one of the most iconic shows of the time, one of the purveyors of nightmare fuel for many such kids. We go way Back in the Day to look at the Unsolved Mysteries tv show, specifically the Robert Stack version.
After running out of New England states to share weird laws from this week there is a completely different Top 5. In keeping with the season we are going to look at the Top 5 best/my favorite 1970s horror movies. I can assure you the movie named after this month's big holiday will be on it.
There will also be a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule that shares the truly bizarre and disgusting Trunk Murders.

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Speaker 00:

Hello world, and welcome to the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 116. It's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of spooky fun this week on the show. True Crime is the main course. We're going to kick off the show with the sad and tragic case of the Cape Cod father who murdered his daughter in the name of God. We're going to do a double-dip road trip as we look at a pair of small Maine towns, the towns of Prospect and Bucksport, both right on the Penobscot River. We're going to go way, way back in the day and look at an iconic show That probably gave a lot of people my age nightmares, that being the legendary Unsolved Mysteries TV show. There's going to be a brand new top five that are going to feature the best slash my favorite 1970s horror movies. This list is tough to narrow down. And of course, there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time Capsule featuring more spooky true crime, all coming up right now on episode 116 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Welcome in, everybody. Do you have your Halloween costumes picked out? Is your yard decorated? Do you have candy ready for the kids? When this podcast goes live, we're less than two weeks away from Halloween. So there's still plenty of time, but you don't want to end up stuck with the candy that all the kids hate. Thank you as always to everybody who's been listening to the podcast, sharing it, and checking out all my other podcast-related content, YouTube, etc., all over social media. If you're listening to this podcast when it goes live or within a few days of that, I'll be appearing online. On Tuesday, October 24th, at the Falmouth Public Library at 7pm, doing an event for my Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book. So come on out if you're in the area, check it out. Visit theladyofthedunes.com, the website that I built for the book, if you're interested in the case or the documentary or the book, or if you're not familiar with it. I tried to do a good job summing up what it's all about. Speaking of books... If you want to read a funny, somewhat self-deprecating, yet also very sincere story about success through perseverance and hard work, I can't recommend enough the book Failure Is Not Not An Option, written by Patrick Hines. Some of you out there probably know him from the True Crime Obsessed podcast. It's one of the biggest in the country. I know him as someone that I went to school with from middle school through high school. So it's fun to read some of the stories in his book and be familiar with the places and people he's talking about down on Cape Cod. But it's also a very inspiring and motivating story because Patrick didn't dive into success. He had to fight and scratch and claw his way to get to where he is now over a long period of time, which you heard me reference in episode 103, my return episode from my hiatus, that words he spoke to me motivated me to bring the podcast back and is continuing to motivate me as I continue to chase my writing and content creating dreams. You can get his book anywhere, but I'd recommend going to PatrickFails.com. That's his website. And you'll not only be getting a great book. But you'll be supporting a good, true, honest human being. Just a good person with a great family, his husband and their daughter. Just great people. So check the book out. Failure is not, not an option. So it's going to be a bit of an awkward segue now as we go from talking about a great book and a great person to a less than reputable person. This story we're going to kick off the show with is is one that when I researched it and wrote about it, it was one that actually got to me, that really made me sad. But it's a story that needs to be told less for the perpetrator of the murder and more for the little girl that has been basically erased from history. So let's dive into the true crime on episode 116 with the story of Charles Freeman, the Cape Cod man who murdered his daughter for God. Insane or not insane? That is the question. In the case of one of Cape Cod's most horrific and heartbreaking crimes, this question was at the forefront. A small village of Pocasset in the town of Bourne was the backdrop for the sacrifice murder of a four-year-old little girl by her father while her mother watched. Her father said that God had told him to do it. Despite never shying away from the deed years later, he was living life a free man. This is the confusing and somber story of how a man's religious fanaticism led him to murdering his own child. This is the story of Charles Freeman. Charles F. Freeman was born in Highgate, Vermont on February 17, 1846. He lived a quiet life as a cord wainer, which is a shoemaker, until enlisting in the Union Army at the age of 16 in 1862. After the Civil War ended, Freeman moved to Natick, Massachusetts, and then Lynn, Massachusetts, meeting Hattie Ellis. The couple married in 1869, with Hattie giving birth to their first child, a daughter named Lillian, born in September 1870. Lillian died before her first birthday. Charles and Hattie had two more daughters, Bessie in 1872 and Edith in 1874. Shortly after Edith's birth, the entire family moved from Lynn to the small village of Pocasset on Cape Cod. The family settled in a small farmhouse in an area of the village known as Putts Hollow. It was after moving to the quiet village after spending years near the bustling city of Boston that Freeman found himself restless. He found his way back to religion. Freeman dabbled in religion after returning from war, but quickly fell out of it. When he moved to Pecasset, Freeman began teaching the Methodist Sunday School. It was during this time that he became enthralled with an offshoot of the Methodist religion, a group called the Second Adventists. Freeman rapidly became an outspoken member of the group, so much so that he eventually became the self-appointed leader. During the winter of 1877 into 78, somewhere between 25 and 30 members of the Methodist church left to form the Second Adventist group. They had been banned from speaking at Methodist events due to how frantically they would speak about the Second Coming. Charles Freeman's enthusiasm became fanaticism as he wrapped himself in the second Adventist beliefs. In April 1879, Freeman's religious fervor continued to grow. He began to feel as if he should become an evangelist of the group and go forth spreading the word of the Lord. When it came to these desires, it was said that Freeman's wife Hattie was completely subservient and under the thumb of her husband. Thus, the religious fanaticism continued to spiral unchecked. At one point during April 1879... Freeman converted Hattie's sister to the Second Adventist group while her husband was at sea. This angered his brother-in-law so much that he wished to shoot Freeman, and this greatly shook him. It all came to a head at the end of April. Charles Freeman had not been eating for several days. He began speaking of hearing voices and seeing visions. It was during this time that Freeman would later claim that God came to him. He told Freeman he would need to sacrifice a member of his family to rudely awaken the world from its present condition. Freeman waited for the word on who the target had to be. On the evening of April 30th, 1879, Charles Freeman got his answer. He said that God revealed that it was his youngest daughter, Edith, who would be the victim. After putting Bessie and Edith to bed, he told his wife Hattie of what he had to do. She tried to dissuade him from doing the deed. However, she was a subservient wife above all else and eventually relented. In the early morning hours of May 1st, Charles and Hattie prayed in their bedroom. Charles grabbed a large knife out of his shed while Hattie grabbed an oil lamp. She held the lamp high above their sleeping daughter, Edith. Charles quickly plunged the knife into Edith's side right below her heart. The child was purported to have cried, Oh, Papa. Hattie took Bessie into their bedroom while Charles wept and held on to Edith until she died. The next day, Freeman called a meeting of the Second Adventists at his farmhouse. It was there that he told the entire story of what had happened. They initially refused to believe what they had heard. Freeman concluded his half-hour speech by showing the contingent the body of Edith as proof of the sacrifice he had made. They, in turn, agreed to not alert the police. That remained the case until the 16-year-old daughter of a second Adventist told the story to a young constable she was interested in named Seth Redding. The next morning, Redding visited the Freeman homestead. Charles told the same story. He doubled down, though, by stating that God said Edith would rise again after three days. Charles and Hattie Freeman were both arrested and brought to the Barnstable County Jail. Freeman had said his deed would awaken the world, and he was half right. The story went nationwide of a father murdering his four-year-old daughter by decree of God. People were horrified and denounced the Freemans as wicked. Dr. George Munsell from Harwich examined both Charles and Hattie, declaring both to be in a morbid mental state. Charles Freeman, while in jail, was joyous and carefree, holding onto his belief that he had done right by God. Hattie Freeman, on the other hand, was grief-stricken and prone to bouts of uncontrollable weeping. Little Edith Freeman was buried May 4, 1879. Despite being asked to not speak at the funeral, Second Day Adventist Alden Davis did anyway, causing a near riot between the church members and village folk. This included Davis carrying Edith's casket outside of the church after his speech was stopped. Only after Edith had been covered in earth did the battle end. Charles and Hattie Freeman would have to wait three years to know their fate. On May 5th, 1880, Charles was sent to the Danvers State Hospital, where he remained until his murder trial began in Barnstable District Court on December 5th, 1883. In the time since the death of little Edith, Charles's religious rantings had abated. Hattie Freeman took the stand during the trial now, saying that she had seen through the delusions that had previously blinded her. Dr. Munsell believed that Charles was not of sound mind when he committed the heinous murder due to several reasons. He chalked it up to Freeman's long service in the military, being overworked for years, a rough bout of diphtheria, and finally the small-town life of Bacchus leading him in need of guidance, which he found in the Second Adventists. Five other physicians corroborated Munsell's theory. Charles Freeman was found not guilty by reason of insanity on December 6, 1883, after the jury deliberated for a mere ten minutes. Charles Freeman was returned to Danvers State Hospital. He remained there, appearing to be of sound mind the longer he got away from his time as a Second Adventist. On March 17, 1887, Charles Freeman was discharged from the hospital, being classified as not insane. He did not return to Cape Cod after leaving Danvers, opting to move his family to Chicago. Charles F. Freeman died on November 4th, 1928 at the age of 82 in Lawrence, Michigan. His wife Hattie died two years earlier in 1926 at the age of 79. Bessie Freeman, who was six years old when her father murdered her sister, lived until the age of 82, dying in 1954. The saddest part of this entire story is that of four-year-old Edith. Not only was she murdered by her father as a sacrifice to God, but today she is buried in Pocasset Cemetery on County Road in an unmarked grave. Little Edith Freeman is all but lost to history. This week's road trip is going to be a lot of fun. We're double dipping. I did this one other time, way back in episode 67, where I had two smaller towns combined into one road trip. That was for the towns of Jamaica and Townsend, Vermont. This week, we are visiting the towns of Prospect and neighboring Bucksport, Maine. Like I've said, there's hundreds and hundreds of amazing cities and towns in New England. But when it comes down to it, some of those towns are very, very small. And I'm not going to lie, it will be hard to make a full road trip segment for a town like Prospect, Maine, which as of 2020 had a population of 698. So that's why I decided to add in neighboring Bucksport, which as of 2020 had a population of 4,944. If you have ever been up there to the Penobscot area of Maine, Midcoast Maine, you know that Prospect and Bucksport kind of go hand in hand. They're literally connected by a bridge. For those of you that have not been to either of these two towns, they sit about a three and a half hour drive north of Boston. Because this is the Halloween season, I did choose these two towns because it's a great place to visit during Halloween. And that's because of the fright at the fort that takes place at the Fort Knox historic site in Prospect. This is the original Fort Knox, not the place where they store all of the gold and such in the U.S. Fort Knox is located right on the Penobscot River, the Penobscot Narrows area of Maine. Interestingly, Fort Knox was first created in 1844 to actually protect the colony of Maine from invasions from the north from the British in Canada, as there had been a lot of border disputes in the earlier part of the 19th century. And the fort was active during the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. Now it's a relic of the past, and I love myself some old forts. So it's a great place to visit anyway. But this time of year, it's a haunted house as well. If you go to FortKnoxMaine.com, you will see a better description of the Fright at the Fort. They have a couple of different haunted houses. There's an earlier one, 530 to 630, that they call the Chicken Hour, where it's similar, but there are no jump scares. So it's a little safer for little kids. And you must pre-purchase tickets because it's so popular. As of the time this podcast goes live on the 18th of October, there are four days left in the Fright at the Fort. Friday, October 20th, Saturday, October 21st, and then Friday, October 27th, and Saturday, October 28th. So it's a perfect time of year to go visit Fort Knox. But for me, any time of year is good to go there. And when you get towards the area, when you get towards the Penobscot Narrows and the river, you'll be blown away by the Penobscot Narrows Bridge. It's an excellent photo opportunity of this bridge spanning these two valleys over the river because you're in a very rural, kind of in the middle of nowhere area of Maine. And then here's this bridge that looks like something that should be in a big city. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge is 2,120 feet across from It first opened in 2006 and replaced the Waldo Hancock Bridge, which had originally opened in 1931. Interestingly, the first time I ever went up to this area in 2010, the Waldo Hancock Bridge was still there. So there were these two bridges going side by side across the Penobscot Narrows, and you could see the Penobscot Narrows Bridge just so modern and beautiful and sleek. And the Waldo Hancock Bridge was green and rusting and falling apart. It's gone now, but it was just an interesting contrast. And to make it even better, the Penobscot Narrows Bridge has an observatory. As of the time this podcast goes live, the observatory's only open through the end of the month, through Halloween. But it's open yearly, May 1st through the end of October. So if you're hearing this later on, you should probably go check it out, especially in summer. The observatory is 420 feet above sea level, so the views are just incredible. So I highly recommend if you get the chance to go there. To get to Bucksport, Maine from Prospect, you have to go over Verona Island. You just follow Route 1. That's the way to go. And Bucksport is another small town, less than 5,000 people, but it's beautiful right on the river. To soak in the scenery of this mid-coast Maine area... You definitely need to take a walk on the Bucksport Waterfront Walkway. It's a multi-purpose trail that's paved. It's about a mile in each direction. The trail starts at the Bucksport Veterans Park right on Main Street. There's plenty of parking and plenty of opportunities for photos and beautiful scenery. And it keeps going to Steamboat Wharf Lane. And that's what a lot of this road trip is centered around is the beautiful scenery of Maine. Fright at the Fort is great for this time of year, but the scenery is incredible. The foliage. Fort Knox was the first place I ever saw a bald eagle and actually got a photo of it. It's a bit of a hike to get to this area. I know for me, from where I'm at, it's about five hours, so you might want to make this into a multi-day trip. And if so, you can spend the night at the Fort Knox Inn. That's at 64 Main Street in Bucksport. It's right on the river. It's got beautiful views. It's actually right on the waterfront walkway. So you can just leave your car at the hotel and walk that. Check out FortKnoxParkIn.com to get all the info you need about staying there. This is a great home base for doing some traveling in the area, the surrounding towns. You are not that far from Bangor. You are not that far from Acadia National Park. So make Bucksport your home base and then kind of venture out from there. But you've gone up there. You've visited Fort Knox. Maybe you got scared, fried at the fort. Maybe you went up into the observatory of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge or walked the Bucksport Waterfront Walkway. All that stuff is building up an appetite, and there's a couple of great places to eat in Bucksport. If you like the simple pleasures, check out bucksporthouseofpizza.com. That's at 132 Main Street. It's all the stuff that you could want with pizzas and subs. And it's right at the end of the waterfront walkway, so you could get your food to go and sit by the Penobscot River. That might not be ideal in wintertime in Maine, but if you're up there in the spring and summer, it's perfect. But if pizza and subs and such are not your thing, you can check out McLeod's Restaurant. They're located at 63 Main Street and also mcleodsrestaurant.com. That's spelled M-A-C-L-E-O-D-S. They've been around since 1980. They have some of that same simple stuff with subs and pizza, but they've also got the comfort food that you probably will be looking for as the cooler weather sets in. Meatloaf, barbecue, ribs, burritos, steaks, chicken, all that great stuff. The website has their menu, so you can check out anything you want before you go there. I know I usually mention the town's Chamber of Commerce when I do these road trip segments. Due to the pandemic in 2020, it's listed that the Bucksport Bay Area Chamber of Commerce was closed down. I was trying to find out if they had reopened recently, but it doesn't look like it. So I would go to visitmaine.com, the travel and tourism site, to find anything you might need to know about Bucksport or Neighboring Prospect or Verona Island. One good thing about these towns being pretty small is that the visiting area is relatively small. So if you go with your car and just drive around, you're going to find a lot of what you need to see. But there's a beautiful main street in Bucksport, but then there's a lot of wide open space. Places that in the warmer months will be beautiful for hiking and walking around, just enjoying the scenery. Fort Knox is great at any time of year if you enjoy history, old forts like I do. But for the next couple of weeks after this podcast goes live, they've got the Fright at the Fort, so go there and check it out. And while you're taking that beautiful drive along Route 1 in Maine, make sure to stop in the towns of Prospect and Bucksport. It's another slice of quintessential Maine. And I'll be back next time to share another one of the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful cities and towns that New England has to offer. This week in history, we are going back 92 years to October the 16th, 1931. and to the story of Winnie Ruth Judd and the infamous Trunk Murders. The quick summing up of this incredible case is that this woman, she was 26 at the time, Winnie Ruth Judd, born Winnie Ruth McKinnell, and also known as Marion Lane, was a medical secretary in Phoenix, Arizona, and she was accused of murdering her friends Agnes Ann Leroy and Hedvig Samuelson in October 1931. These murders were discovered when Judd was transporting the victims' bodies, one of which had been dismembered, transporting them from Phoenix to LA by train in trunks and other luggage. This led to the case being known as the Trunk Murders, with Judd allegedly committing these murders to try to win over the affection of prominent Phoenix businessman Jack Halloran. According to police, on the night of October 16th, 1931, Leroy and Samuelson were murdered by Judd after an alleged fight among the women over Halloran's affections. At Judd's trial... It was suggested that fights over men and the relationship between Leroy and Samuelson broke up the friendship of the three women and that jealousy was the motivation for the killings. Leroy and Samuelson were killed by a .25 caliber handgun. And then Judd and an accomplice dismembered Samuelson's body and put the head, torso, and lower legs into a black shipping trunk, placing the upper legs in a beige suitcase and a hat box, with Leroy's body stuffed intact into a second black shipping trunk. Two days later, on October 18th, 1931, Judd was on board a train from Phoenix to LA, and her luggage immediately came under suspicion due to the foul odor coming from it, as well as fluids escaping from them. The authorities at first actually thought that it might have been smuggled deer meat, as that was actually something that was common in those days. Little did they know when they opened up the luggage that it was body parts smuggled Judd was arrested and tried for Leroy's murder and she was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, after she was later found mentally incompetent, the sentence was repealed and she was committed to the Arizona State Asylum for the Insane. Over the next 30 years, Judd escaped from the asylum six times with her last try being in the 1960s. At that point, she remained at large for over six years and worked under an assumed name. Incredibly, despite the two murders and the one conviction and being sent to jail, she was paroled in 1971 and discharged from parole in 1983. Winnie Ruth Judd actually lived to be 93 years old, dying October 23, 1998. But her horrific contribution to true crime history, the trunk murders, were perpetrated 92 years ago this week in history. And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're going back 38 years ago this week to October 16th, 1985. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Take On Me by A-Ha. This was their one hit, and it's really known for that incredible music video that was all over MTV. where it's part live action and then part animated like a comic book. This was from their album Hunting High and Low. Interestingly, the video on MTV helped this song get to number one as it had failed to chart in its release in the UK because A-ha is a Norwegian band. The video won six MTV Video Music Awards. But like I said, this was their only big hit they ever had. The number one movie was Commando, and you could get into the theater with a ticket costing $3.55. This movie is about a retired Special Forces colonel played by Arnold Schwarzenegger who tries to save his daughter, played by Alyssa Milano, who was abducted by his former subordinate. It's a classic Schwarzenegger action thriller film from the 80s that he was known for. It made more than $57 million at the box office on a budget of $9 million and is currently 67% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. A lot of reviews for the film call it the ultimate 80s Schwarzenegger movie. So I guess if you've never seen any of his 80s movies, you should check this one out. The number one TV show was The Cosby Show. This show has come up several times in previous time capsules. If I'm going back to almost any point in the mid to late 1980s, this show was probably number one. It starred Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable and the Huxtable family. The show ran for eight seasons and a total of 201 episodes from 1984 to 1992. And out of its eight seasons, it was number one for five of those eight seasons. So this was a cultural phenomenon. And if you were around back then, October 16th, 1985, especially if you were on Cape Cod or New England, the weather's starting to get chilly. Maybe you're starting to catch a cold. Well, if you head to Brooks Pharmacy... You could get some very 80s medicine like Anacin 3, 60 count for $2.89, or Dristan, a 24 count for $2.39. But even more important, you could enter the Anacin slash Dristan $1 million healthcare sweepstakes at Brooks. I couldn't find any information more about this contest, who won, anything about what you had to do. But you could enter at one of the four Cape Cod Brooks locations in Dennisport, Yarmouthport, Orleans, and Hyannis. Brooks at one point had more than 330 locations in New England and New York before being acquired by Rite Aid in 2007. So longtime Cape Codders and New Englanders probably remember that name fondly. And that'll wrap up another Time Capsule, another This Week in History. I ran out of New England states to do Weird Law segments about for the top five, so we'll go from those fun lists to one very fitting of the Halloween season as we look at the top five best slash my favorite 1970s horror movies coming up right now. This week's top five is a whole lot different from the series of weird New England laws, but it was nonetheless difficult to narrow down. As we look at my picks for the top five 1970s horror movies, and boy, you talk about a broad category to try to nail down to a few entries. Any of the entries on this list, if you haven't seen them, I highly recommend you go and check them out, especially if you like horror movies, obviously. If you don't, some of these I would recommend not checking out. But this top five, it's a blend of the best 70s horror movies, but also my favorites, which is a way to kind of soften the blow if my top five is different from yours, which I'm sure it is. A lot of these movies scarred me as a kid. Let's see how many of them scarred you as a kid if you're of my age or younger. As always with the top five, there are some honorable mentions to kind of get you ready for the actual top five. Like I said, this list was hard to narrow down, so I've got several honorable mentions. They include Black Christmas, Carrie, Jaws, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Amityville Horror. Any of those would make a perfect entry on the top five. And those are some heavy hitters, some legends of horror from the 70s. But I'll try my best to give you my reasoning for the top five as we get into it. So let's just do that. Top five slash my favorite 1970s horror movies in no particular order, starting with number one, Halloween. I say no particular order, but the original Halloween is my favorite horror movie ever and one of my favorite movies period ever. It is the quintessential suspense horror slasher. The story of Michael Myers, the escaped mental patient from Smith's Grove, Illinois, who heads to his hometown of Haddonfield. He had been in the institution for murdering his sister when he was six years old. It's Jamie Lee Curtis's first movie that introduces her as one of the scream queens of horror. And there are so many classic scenes, these suspenseful scenes with that breathing coming from inside the mask, that William Shatner mask that Michael Myers wore. And this was an independent film directed by John Carpenter that made $70 million in 1978 on a budget of $325,000. So you tell me that wasn't a success. Number two is The Exorcist. This is another movie that could be your number one pick for best horror movie ever, and it would get hardly any arguments. It's from 1973. It's about demonic possession. It stars Linda Blair as little Reagan McNeil, who is possessed and has to get rescued by two Catholic priests. Again, some of these scenes in this movie are iconic. That weird crab walk going down the stairs when little Regan is throwing up the pea soup all over the priests and the makeup as she gets more and more possessed. The movie was a massive hit, making more than $428 million worldwide back in 1973 into 74, on a budget of only $12 million. And much like Halloween I mentioned before, The Exorcist spawned loads of sequels, some good, some not so good. Much like the next film on this list, number three, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. When I mentioned about, did any of these films scar you as a child? Here we go with Exhibit A for me. I saw this movie when I was probably 11 years old. And this was after I had been told during one of my Sunday school classes that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on a true story. And I can't remember if it was one of the teachers or if it was just another student. It was probably a student. Because I couldn't see a religious education teacher telling the children about Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But this movie's from 1974. It's about the Sawyer family, this backwoods, maniac, cannibalistic family in rural Texas. And the group of teens, they go to visit their family's old house way out there in the middle of nowhere, which just happens to be right near the Sawyer family property. For the title, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's surprisingly not that gory. It's a lot of suspense and implied violence. Some of the iconic scenes, like when Leatherface first appears and whacks the guy over the head with the mallet or hangs the girl from the hook while he cuts up her boyfriend. It scarred me as a child. And again, this spawned loads of sequels. I would have to say the vast majority of them were not that good. But the original, it still holds up almost 50 years later. Number four is Phantasm. This movie's from 1979. It's a mix of sci-fi and horror, with the villain being the tall man who's just horrifying looking, even though he's a real person. So I shouldn't say too much about him, because the actor, Angus Scrimm, wasn't made up too much, so it was basically his real face. This movie centers around the tall man, an evil mortician, who is killing and reanimating people in this small town. He's got his minions, these small little creatures in robes that almost look like evil Ewoks. And there's this sphere with the blade on it. It's beautifully scary, the way that it's shot and some of the scenery. And the music to it is very haunting. One of the best horror soundtracks there is. It made about $22 million worldwide on a budget of around $300,000 and is 72% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. And this is an underrated horror film that you definitely need to check out. And last but not least on my list of top five favorite slash best horror movies of the 1970s, number five is Last House on the Left. Rinse and repeat what I said about Texas Chainsaw scarring me as a child. Last House on the Left scarred me as a child as well. The double-edged sword of being allowed to watch horror movies when I was 9, 10, 11 years old is that I was able to be scarred by them as a child as well. This movie came out in 1972 and is directed by Wes Craven, the legend of Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. And it's horrifying. These two teenage girls that are going to a concert looking to score some drugs instead find a gang of escaped convicts and they're tortured and raped and murdered. And that itself is just terrifying. But then the convicts end up seeking refuge in the home of one of the girls that they just killed. And the parents figure out who they are and then they get their revenge on these convicts. It's so gritty and realistic and horrifying. And it holds up well more than 50 years later. This is a movie that definitely should come with a trigger warning. It's really terrifying. But then again, it's on this list. So I recommend if you enjoy horror and you haven't seen Last House on the Left, definitely check it out. And that wraps up the top five. Have you seen any of these 1970s horror classics? Halloween, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Phantasm, Last House on the Left? It's the Halloween season, so you should go and check out at least one of these. And I apologize ahead of time for any nightmares that I give you from this list. I'll try to make sure my next top five is more sunshine and rainbows and less murders. Oh, this was a subject I could not wait to talk about. People of my age group, a little younger, a little older, no doubt have memories of this TV show. Notice I didn't say fond memories. I'm not saying the show was bad. This show was awesome. but it was also nightmare fuel for millions of younger viewers. No trip through the Halloween season and no look back at the nostalgia of the 80s and the 90s could possibly be complete without checking out the legendary Unsolved Mysteries TV show. For this Back in the Day segment, I am specifically looking at the Robert Stack years. The show has had two reboots in the recent years, but nothing tops the original. Interestingly, the concept of Unsolved Mysteries began as a series of seven specials on NBC. They were hosted by Raymond Burr, Carl Malden, and then Robert Stack. I'm sure most of you out there know the whole idea behind Unsolved Mysteries, looking at cold cases, paranormal stuff. Looking back on those episodes today as an adult, they're a fascinating collection of stories. But when you were watching it as a kid, so the show made its debut as a weekly series on October 5th, 1988 on NBC. So I was a few weeks before my 11th birthday. The music that kicks off the show, that eerie kind of keyboard synthesized music, And then, of course, the voice of Robert Stack. Slightly deep, slightly husky. Welcome to Unsolved Mysteries. And he would read you off what was coming up on the show. Interestingly, when watching the show when I was a kid, I was more worried about the paranormal stuff and the UFOs. I feared that UFOs would come and abduct me. And I was less worried about these serial killers and the murderers that were still on the loose. As the seasons went on and I got a little older, I did start to fear these murder cases. So the best possible thing for me when watching these shows was when the initial story would end and there would be that flash and you'd hear Robert Stack's voice say, update. And thankfully, some of these killers would be caught because Unsolved Mysteries put a lot of eyeballs back on these cold cases and helped some actually get solved. According to the show's website, unsolved.com, they say there's been 233 episodes of the show thus far. They also say they've run more than 1,300 different stories on those episodes. And in all those stories on the website, they say that half of the stories that featured fugitives, wanted criminals, they've been solved. Naturally, a lot of these resolutions, finding these fugitives, or the reconnections with lost family members, these updates came from viewers, people watching, and there was the hotline you could call 1-800-876-5353. Even when Robert Stack would read that number, it was terrifying. For those unfamiliar with Robert Stack, besides Unsolved Mysteries, he was an old school actor. He played Elliot Ness in the old Untouchables TV show in the late 50s, early 60s, and won an Emmy for that. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 1956 film Written on the Wind. For younger people, maybe the Gen X generation like me, we remember him from Airplane, where he was the crazy Captain Rex Kramer. He died in May 2003 at the age of 84, which kind of coincided with the end of the original Unsolved Mysteries series. Interestingly, in doing the reenactments of all of these cases, there have actually been famous actors that have been on the show. People like Matthew McConaughey, Cheryl Hines, Jackie Chan... Which, obviously, they weren't famous back then when they were on Unsolved Mystery, so I have no idea which episodes they were on. I could always research it and find out. There were also episodes featuring celebrities actually in it as part of the story. Like, New Kids on the Block were in an episode because a girl that went missing named Carrie Lynn Nixon, a girl resembling her, was last seen at one of their concerts. Football legend Reggie White appeared on an episode trying to find out the people that burned down his church. And Jon Bon Jovi was on there being interviewed about the death of his personal manager's daughter. For the most part, though, the cases were just everyday people, which I guess they make them resonate more and make them creepier because all the people on there are just normal people, so you think stuff that happened to them can happen to you. It would be really hard for me to... I'll see you next time. So me trying to come up with a list of the most famous cases on there or the ones that have been solved, it's really difficult. It's better to kind of pick episodes and just watch them on that unsolved.com, their website. You can watch all these episodes. Those ones in the late 80s, early 90s, a lot of slice of life of the fashion and such, hairstyles. Sometimes laughing at the people's clothes and their hairstyles made me less scared about what was actually going on. The show was a top 20 ratings draw for its first four seasons, and then it just fell to number 21 in its fifth season, but then it started to tail off. After its ninth season where the ratings kept dropping, NBC canceled the show and CBS was quick to pick it up. In an attempt to increase ratings, actress Virginia Madsen was brought in as a kind of co-host with Robert Stack. This was years after they had already brought in Keely Shea Smith to be kind of part of the update desk and things. The show ran for two seasons on CBS and was then canceled again, but it wasn't over because Lifetime Television had been running reruns of Unsolved Mysteries for years, and they ordered two brand new seasons to be aired on their channel. These shows were a mix of new and old cases, and it was too... abbreviated seasons because near the end of the first season Robert Stack got diagnosed with prostate cancer and then he died of heart failure the following year in 2003 it was when the syndication contract with Lifetime Television ended for the Unsolved Mysteries show that Spike TV brought it back as a new series with Dennis Farina which he was good but he's not Robert Stack no one would be him That revision of the show only lasted two seasons. It was criticized because it basically only showed old cases. There was nothing really new to the shows unless they were updated, if they were solved. And in 2020, it has been rebooted again for Netflix. I haven't seen any of these episodes. Maybe I'll have to check them out. Stranger Things executive producer Sean Levy and his company are the ones that put this together. So it's got to be good because Stranger Things is one of the best shows I've ever seen. Did any of you out there that watched Unsolved Mysteries recognize any of the cases? Because I know in my neck of the woods, Cape Cod, New England, there really weren't that many. But some of you that are listening from different parts of the country, maybe you were familiar with some of the cases. I remember I had my own Unsolved Mysteries moment in, I believe it was late 95, early 1996, when I found out that I had a cousin that had been given up for adoption at birth. I had had no idea, no knowledge of her at all. And then suddenly my aunt was telling me that I had this cousin, that she had given up her daughter for adoption. And this was literally like one of those updates, the family reunion moments, because she, my cousin, came and found us and came up and visited. And even though she didn't look exactly like my aunt, they sounded a lot alike. And I do remember at the time wishing that we could have had Unsolved Mysteries film it. Although with my wacky family, they probably would have had to edit out a lot of swears and such. But it still would have been good because it was a good story. It's a perfect time of year though for those of you that used to watch the show to maybe catch up on it. Jump back into those late 80s, early 90s days. And if you go to unsolved.com, they do keep having updates on cases. For example, they had run a story about the murder of Tupac Shakur, which happened in the fall of 1996. And because someone was finally arrested for that murder just a few weeks before this podcast goes live, the update is on the unsolved.com page, which is just fascinating. As I'm checking their website, the most recent update case is from October 4th of 2023. So that's not that long ago. Unsolved Mysteries was such a huge part of my childhood growing up. Yeah, sure, it scarred me and gave me nightmares at times, and Robert Stack's voice could be creepy, but not intentionally that way, I don't think. But man, that show was great. I watched it all the time knowing that I might have nightmares, especially about the alien stuff and the supernatural, because there was going to be no update about it being solved unless they actually found Bigfoot and interviewed him or had the Loch Ness Monster in a net. Otherwise, you had to go to sleep and keep the shades pulled just in case aliens were outside your window. Hell, I might even pull the blinds tight now if I watch the show just in case aliens hear me watching it. And don't worry, at some point in the podcast, I'm going to do a segment on kind of the sister show to Unsolved Mysteries that was Rescue 911, another nightmare fuel show. So get ready because that one's coming too. And that'll wrap up episode 116 of the In My Footsteps podcast. Like I always say, thank you so much to everyone who tunes into the podcast, who shares it. Those of you that give it a try, that stick around, I appreciate all of you. I can market this like crazy, and I'm trying to do it even more. But having you that listen tell people that they should check it out, that means more than anything I can say. Because of course I'm going to say my podcast is great. Like I said, check me out October 24th at 6.30 p.m. at the Falmouth Library. I'll be doing a presentation talking about my Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book. Find me all over social media, Instagram, YouTube, threads. I'm still on X right now, but that's getting less and less of a fun place to be. I've still got the Facebook fan page. No group yet for the podcast because my plate is filling up again, so I don't want to start a Facebook group for the podcast and then just never update it. You can always email me, ChristopherSetterlund at gmail.com. You can also become a subscriber at Patreon at Buzzsprout. You get access to the subscriber-only bonus episodes of the podcast. There's some digital art I've been putting up there. Thank you for watching. It might be a little bit shorter than usual, not much, but it's one specific topic we're going to dive deep into, and you're going to love this one to end the Halloween season. We're going to look at some of the legends and lore and myths of all of the New England states. I've got two good ones for each state, so it's going to be a lot of fun to dive into these. I wanted to take a moment and wish a special happy birthday to one of my oldest friends, Keisha. We go way back. What is it? 35 years at least now? Summers on Cherry Lane were pretty damn fun. I hope your birthday's awesome. Hope you enjoy 29. Also wanted to give another shout out to my friend Adam. I am so thrilled that you are on the mend. He went through some serious stuff the last couple of months. I won't go into much detail, but I am very happy that you have made it through. You're on the road to recovery. You're a good man with a great family. And I'm just happy to call you a friend. I don't want to get too sappy here. Probably laughing right now. And everyone out there, remember to take care of your mental health. It's fall, the leaves are changing, the weather's going to start to get crisp and cool, but you can still be outside, get that vitamin D, because God knows in a few months we're all going to be trapped inside. Hopefully it doesn't snow too much, but you know winter is coming. I try to keep these podcasts at a certain length. They're perfect for walking outside, walking the treadmill, something like that. But lean into what makes you happy. People, places... fun things to do, foods you like. Like I always say, if it's not hurting anyone else, do it. Hopefully this podcast makes you happy. I'm going to keep pumping out the content. I'm making some changes in life that are allowing me to have more time to do this, the podcast, my writing, content creation. Like my friend Patrick Hines told me, you got to know if you can do it. Take those chances. Better to try and fail and know than to have regrets and not try at all. And believe me, as you're making these changes to better yourself, you'll find out that very, very few people in your life actually care. That so many of them only care about what you can do for them. So that's why when you find those ones that do actually care about you and your life's journey, don't take them for granted and let them know how much they matter. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and leave the biggest footprint you can on this journey because you never know what tomorrow brings. I'll be back next week for episode 117. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund, and I'll talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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