Hold My Sweet Tea
Where True Crime collides with chilling ghost stories and Southern folklore. Join us, sip sweet tea, and uncover shocking tales of murder, mystery, and the supernatural, all with a healthy dose of Southern charm and a touch of sass!
Hold My Sweet Tea
Ep. 20-The Sausage Ghost of New Orleans
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Blood-curdling legends echo through the streets of New Orleans, but few tales match the macabre horror of the Mad Butcher, also known as the Sausage Ghost. This spine-tingling story follows Hans Mueller, a German immigrant who established a thriving sausage factory with his wife in the 1800s on Ursuline Street. Behind their successful business façade lurked a dark secret—Hans had grown weary of his aging wife and fallen for a younger woman.
Consumed by desire and desperation, Hans committed the unthinkable. After strangling his wife, he faced a dilemma: how to dispose of her body without raising suspicion in the tight-knit community. His solution was as ingenious as it was horrifying—he fed her remains through the sausage grinder, turning his murdered spouse into merchandise. For weeks, Hans sold his special new blend to unsuspecting customers while claiming his wife was away visiting relatives.
The gruesome truth began to surface when patrons discovered strange items in their sausages—strands of hair, bits of fabric, and eventually, a fragment of a gold wedding ring. Meanwhile, Hans descended into madness, haunted by visions of his wife emerging from the meat vats. When authorities finally confronted him, they found a broken man raving about vengeful ghosts. Committed to an asylum, he ultimately took his own life, unable to escape the horror of his actions.
While historical records cast doubt on whether the Muellers ever operated a business at 725 Ursuline Street, this chilling legend persists in New Orleans folklore. Fascinatingly, it bears striking similarities to the real-life New Orleans Trunk Murders of 1927—a gruesome case we'll explore in our next episode. Whether fact or fiction, the Sausage Ghost reminds us that sometimes the most terrifying monsters aren't supernatural entities, but the darkness lurking within ordinary people.
Have you heard other versions of this New Orleans legend? Share your thoughts and join us next week as we delve into the true crime case that may have inspired this enduring ghost story.
Source Material:
https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/whats-behind-grisly-tale-of-new-orleans-sausage-ghost/article_c83e1a74-d578-11ed-95ca-8792bde146a7.html
https://www.frenchquarterphantoms.com/blog/mad-butcher
http://hauntednation.blogspot.com/2016/10/sausage-manhans-muller-house-new.html
Introduction to the Sausage Ghost Legend
Speaker 1New Orleans, a city famous for its vibrant culture, its music and its ghost stories, but few are as chilling as the legend of the Mad Butcher, or to some it's known as the Sausage Ghost. This is Hold my Sweet Tea. Thank you, Guten Tag.
Speaker 2This is Holly and I'm P to the E-A-R-L. Not a rapper Like a pick a pearl. Oh my goodness, so really cool. Very exciting we got our first review on Apple Podcast. I love it, thank, you, shay, thank you. She said we were awesome. Yeah, she said we're slaying, slaying it. It's like so great, yeah, she said we're slaying, slaying it. It's like so great.
Speaker 1But that's good to hear. We're happy when we hear stuff like that and you know if you are enjoying listening to us like, just give us a little review, even if you don't like us. Give us a review.
Speaker 2We'll read it and then we'll go.
Speaker 1What is wrong with them?
Speaker 2We're awesome. Oh my God. Like us, give us a review, we'll read it and then we'll go. What is wrong with them? Oh my god, your ear holes are broken no, but really late us, we're okay with not getting the the greatest of review. I mean we don't expect to be perfect all the time. I mean obviously we're not. I like to leave mistakes in here, because we are human and so are you.
Speaker 1Absolutely. Tell me I say like too much, Because I do. Sometimes I'm like dang it. See, you said it in that sentence.
Speaker 2I know.
Speaker 1It happens. I'm trying not to. I've cut out a lot of the so's at the beginning, but I still say like, or you know, and I'm like no no, I don't know.
Speaker 2See, you said like because you, because you, I know I do, I say it all the time. I say like and I mean a ton.
Speaker 1I mean, I mean yeah but you know, those are mistakes that we, we are working on, are they?
Speaker 2mistakes. They're just habits. Yeah, really crazy, probably annoying to some people. Habits yeah, that's true, it's like chewing with your mouth open, you gotta.
Speaker 1But everybody I think I'm 100% sure everybody has an annoying habit. Oh yeah, everybody does. There's something about somebody and you're like not me, I'm perfect. No you're not. No, you just think you are because you're a leo. No, I'm just kidding. That's also the leos out there I love you guys, I have a leo moon I'm leo rising, so yeah, that's.
Speaker 2That's the only reason why I'm accepting this attention. Yes, it's the leo mine.
Speaker 1Well, mine's the the darker side of the le. Yes, it's the Leo. Well, mine's the darker side of the Leo because it's the moon and everything. But still I do crave attention occasionally. But you know, the rest of my chart's like no, go away, don't let anybody hear you Hide, run Right To the swamps. And then my Virgo rising is like judging everybody speaking of things that aren't perfect.
Traveling Through New Orleans Stories
Speaker 2I'm really agitated with my car. Oh yeah, I had things to do today places to be, people to see and teach and your car was like hold my sweet tea. Yeah, we're not going anywhere the price is wrong bitch exactly. But yeah, um, the fuel door on my nissan armada Nissan Armada will not open it's stuck shut, so she can't put gas in her car. You can no get to your gas cap, you can no have any gas, right? I don't know why it talks that way, don't?
Speaker 1either, but it does. Well, I'm glad mine has a little button on the inside that I can open mine.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm like dudes who make Nissans. Don't do this, don't make it like this. If you do make it like this, make something easily accessible for emergency purposes. Absolutely, because now I get to go home and try to use all the YouTube video explanations and sweat in my garage for hours trying to get it open so that I can. Then, apparently, the part that is messed up is like 500 bucks. Guess what's not getting fixed? Not the gas door that. Guess what's gonna happen? The little metal piece that the little plastic piece slides into to lock it is getting bent, so it doesn't go over the little piece that locks it.
Speaker 1So that it just shuts.
Speaker 2And I'm not spending $500. No, not at all. You want to steal my gas. It still costs me less than $500.
Speaker 1Exactly, take a gas as well Take it. Go for it, yeah, so um, are we ready to jump? Into the yeah what you're talking about. So you know, my last story was in algiers and which is part of new orleans, but I'm gonna linger in in New Orleans for a couple more episodes, just going to wait around in the New. Orleans pool. No, I do not want to wait around in the New Orleans pool.
Speaker 2Ew.
Speaker 1That gravy is not good. I remember seeing an old I don't know if it was on tiktok or if it was somewhere, it was years ago and some dude like at mardi gras, he was drunk and stumbled on the street, he took a cup and he took a like, how about it? Oh no, I'm like you don't, you don't even wear, don't even wear open-toed shoes in the French Quarter. Yeah, no. Because that stuff splashing on your feet is toxic.
Speaker 2Yeah, do not do it, you're going to have toe cancer when you get home.
Speaker 1No, don't do it, toe rot. But anyway, we're going to spend a couple more episodes in the New Orleans area.
Speaker 2All right.
Speaker 1Today, as the introduction said, it's about the Mad Butcher, or sometimes known as the Sausage Ghost, which is hilarious to me. But you know, it's a sausage party, here we go. It's a sausage party, here we go. So our tale begins in the 1800s with a young German couple, mr and Mrs Hans Mueller.
Speaker 2Mueller, mueller.
Speaker 1It's been a long day. Y'all we're going to do. We're going to, we're going on a little trip tomorrow out of town and we're both going to be doing pre-gaming with a shot of ibuprofen. Heck yeah, no Yeager, here it's going to be straight ibuprofen.
Speaker 2Because I got knee problems.
Speaker 1I got my lower back's killing me from work today. So the Muellers arrived in New Orleans with a dream. That dream was to open a sausage factory. I mean they could have went On.
Speaker 1Gallatin Street no, that would have been hilarious though. Actually, on Ursuline Street, oh wow, but or Ursuline Ursuline Ursuline Street, oh wow, but. Or Ursuline Ursuline they. You know, they could have went with the German like pretzels, they could have went with all kinds of things, but you know, he was a sausage maker and that's what they wanted to do. They wanted to bring their sausage to the new world. So they worked hard for years and those years paid off and their business at 725 Ursuline Street thrived. Everybody was like we love your sausage give me that sausage give me that sausage.
The Tale of Hans and Mrs. Mueller
Speaker 1so you know, like I, the community loved them. So they were a picture of like a happy, successful couple Making their sausage. Pearl's laughing at me. I'm not laughing at you.
Speaker 2I'm inside my head after I said give me that sausage I sold out.
Speaker 1I sold out. We have all the sausage jokes today.
Speaker 2No that's me and the words to songs, because things pop in my head when I say it a certain way and then I was like oh, how do I hold it in I?
Speaker 1can't hold it in. You know, behind their, behind their happiness and their smiles, a darkness was a brewing always, because, remember, happy, perfect couples have darkness behind them I'm gonna stand on this I'm gonna stand on this podium for the rest of my life. That soapbox.
Speaker 2It's got lots of suds in it, that's right.
Speaker 1So Hans had grown tired of his wife. He saw her, perhaps unfairly, as aged by their shared toll of building up this business. He was no longer attracted to the worn woman she had become, because you know oh yeah, I'm sure he was he was a treasure, right, that's what.
Speaker 2I was about to say yeah, because he ain't worn.
Speaker 1I'm sure. So his eyes started to wander and he found himself captivated by a beautiful younger woman. He was like, hey, I have a sausage factory do you want to see my sausage? This one's going to be an explicit one.
Speaker 2Hey there, pretty lady, I got a sausage over here for you.
Speaker 1So an affair began, because apparently she liked his sausage. And soon Hans was consumed by his desire for his you know, his new love. Yeah, he was happy.
Speaker 2He was like play and hide the sausage with someone new.
Speaker 1I swear people are going to be like I'm turning this off right now. Please don't Let me continue.
Speaker 2Listen to her story. I'm sorry. No, it's funny.
Speaker 1So he knew he could never be truly happy with his mistress, though, because they could never be together as long as his wife lived Dun dun dun. So a horrifying plan took root in his mind. So one night, as they were closing up the store, his wife was sweeping the floor, cleaning, doing all the things that she normally did every night. He crept up behind her with a cord, perhaps from the very sausages that they sold.
Speaker 2I was about to say was it sausage casing cord?
Speaker 1Yes, oh my God, so this became his weapon Murder sausage casing Murder.
Speaker 2Sausage Murder sausage.
Speaker 1There's a murder on the sausage floor. So he began strangling her, his grip holding tight as the life faded from her eyes. Her limp body fell lifeless to the floor with a thud. So he's like okay, I did it. I killed my wife. Now me and my mistress can be together, but wait a minute, what am I supposed to do with her body?
Speaker 2My sausage hoochie.
Speaker 1So you know this story is giving very Sweeney Todd vibes, if you get what my drift. So you know, in a city close-knit as New Orleans a missing person wouldn't go unnoticed for very long, especially, you know, that has a business and everything. So Hans, in his madness, devised a gruesome solution. He lifted his wife's lifeless body and, with a sickening heave, he shoved her headfirst into the sausage grinder. With a sickening heave, he shoved her headfirst into the sausage grinder, he like, murdered her and ground her up. Gross Yuck. I have to bring the grossness to the story, meh. So, day by day, week by week, hans continued the charade of telling customers his wife was ill or visiting family. But eventually secrets have a way of surfacing. Neighbors grew suspicious when Mrs Mueller did not return. Hans' guilt started to consume him and he had become haggard. His eyes were bloodshot and he was unable to sleep.
Speaker 2Yet Hans was still selling his sausage Was he selling his wife to people, his special sausage. Yeah, he was like this is a new mix You're going to love it.
Speaker 1Well he did, but customers started to complain about finding bits of hair. Right, you're going to love it. Well he did, but customers started to complain about finding bits of hair, even torn.
Speaker 2Fabric mixed in with the meat Like he didn't take her clothes off. Nope.
Speaker 1Before he threw her in there and ground her up. What the hell? That's what I said, sweeney Todd style Done.
Speaker 2I would have been like somebody coming in there going. I thought that I broke a tooth on your sausage Right Turns out I still got all of mine Right. Where did this?
Murder and a Gruesome Solution
Speaker 1tooth come from. So you know people were finding stuff in there. You know people were finding stuff in there, you know, mixed with their meat. So one evening, while you know he was cleaning the shop, he heard a strange noise from the back room, a thumping, a grinding sound. So he ran to investigate and froze in terror. Emerging from the sausage bat was his wife, her body mutilated, her eyes filled with a ghostly rage. She moaned a sound that chilled Hans to the bone and reached for him with bloodied hands. She's like come here, right, come here, I'm coming back from the sausage grave. So Hans fled into the street, screaming. His neighbors rushed out. But he could only stammer about a bad dream. But the hauntings continued. Night after night, the rumors intensified. Finally, a customer found a piece of a gold wedding ring in her sausage. The police were called of a gold wedding ring in her sausage.
Speaker 1The police were called. So you know, people had found pieces of hair and clothes, but that didn't stop them.
Speaker 2But the wedding ring. They were like this is it? Does he hear? A grinding grinding on his sausage floor. He did because he had some telltale heart going on here, a little ponus in there.
Speaker 1So when the police got there they found Hans huddled in the corner of the back room, a broken man. He raved about his wife's ghost, pointing and trembling a finger at the sausage grinder. He was taken to an asylum, but even there he found no peace. Driven to complete madness, he took his own life. So yeah, pretty much the telltale heart. He could hear it beating and his guilt consumed him.
Speaker 2And he heard that sausage linking and he was like I gotta go, I gotta go not the sausage nightmares.
Speaker 1The sausage factory was sold while he was in the asylum. The new owner claimed the ghost of Mrs Mueller continued to haunt the building until her husband's suicide. So she was still. She was going to come after whoever was in that building she's like well it sounds like she was just waiting for him to die.
Speaker 2She wanted to make sure it was.
Speaker 1He was also gone before she Right, she was like I'm going to drive you to madness You're going gonna kill yourself and then I can get peace. So you know, after her husband's suicide, she was never seen again. Some say that even today, the descendants of those who ate the tainted sausage carry a dark secret within them.
Speaker 2Well duh yeah, well, I mean, do they carry it? I'm pretty sure they passed that a long time ago but you know this is a.
Speaker 1Was this a true tale or was it like a tall tale? It's been passed down from generations of new orleans residents over and over. So a lot of people in the city that have lived there for years families. They have heard about the sausage ghost. A lot of the haunted history tours that go through that will go down Ursuline Street and not only tell you about the convent and everything. And I sure the the coffin girls and our casket girls I'm sorry the casket girls with their coffin, you know, but they also go down and they they talk about the sausage ghost. So believability, wise things start going downhill. So you know, people know people are like we're going to debunk this. So, for starters, there's no indication in the property record that the sausage factory ever existed at 725 Ursuline.
Speaker 2But what if it was a secret underground sausage operation, the secret sausage. It was like New Orleans mafia sausage.
Speaker 1It's a possibility. It's a possibility According to Historic New Orleans Digital Bucure Survey, which also provides no indication, anyone named Mueller owned property there. Maybe they like rented Right? I'm like, but you know they were like.
Speaker 2Businesses, rent places all the time.
Haunting and Madness
Speaker 1Right, they were like no, we didn't have a business there, we didn't have this person there, but maybe they didn't own the place, they just rented it. So this chilling tale, often called the sausage ghost, like I said, appeared in a collection of louisiana tales called gumbo yaya by lyle saxton in 1945. He often enjoyed delving into southern folklore, but the story might have roots in actual real-life horror. So just a few years before Gumbo Yaya's version was published, a gruesome crime occurred on Ursuline Street, right next door to where the sausage factory was said to have been. It was dubbed the New Orleans Trunk Murders. While not involving a sausage factory, it shared some disturbing similarities marital infidelity, a wedding ring found in a horrifying way. The real-life crime, which took place on 715 Ursuline Street in 1927, involved a man named Henry Moity who murdered his wife and sister-in-law, but I will cover that grisly case next week.
Speaker 2Hey, weren't they? They were both HM initials, yeah.
Speaker 1So I'm gonna. I'm gonna cover the New Orleans trunk murders next week, so we'll cut it here. But it does have a lot of similarities. But there's, this story is wild, so I didn't want to get into a whole other story.
Speaker 2So wedding ring. Yeah, there's a wedding ring that's like, found in a horrifying way, and when I was reading it I was like, oh my god well, can't wait for that episode, because I want to know and I know you're not going to tell me till you tell everybody else, because you're gonna want me to say something stupid, like I usually do we, you know, stupid funny anyway and we do truly appreciate you making it all the way to here because of our silliness today.
Speaker 1But, like you know, just like every 10-year-old prepubescent boy about to giggle at a sausage party. We had to also.
Speaker 2Apparently I'm a 10-year-old prepubescent boy. I had no idea it's so weird.
Speaker 1I had no idea it's so weird, but like if you've ever heard of this story, if you live in the New Orleans area and you've heard of it, like, let us know if there's a variation that you've heard.
Speaker 2Yeah, because Some little extra in it.
Speaker 1Yeah, because like, this is pretty much what I could find. This is pretty much what I could find, but, like I said, it's very Sweeney. Todd slash, edgar Allen Poe, telltale heart Like put together. But you know, don't let the sausage drive you mad. There's other sausage out there.
Speaker 2Right, sausage out there, right, I can't, I can't combine sausage and hypnotized, so it's not working out. I'm like over here wrecking my brain for something else funny to say and I'm going yeah, no, those words don't go together no link my ties.
Speaker 1No, it doesn't work, it's not funny so I want to know what happened to the mistress?
Speaker 2like she didn't get haunted I guess not.
Speaker 1There was nothing else with the mistress uh. One story said that they did get married like while, while he was losing his mind while he was losing his mind.
Speaker 1But I could only find one instance of that. But they never went into anything, they didn't say what her name was, anything like that. So I don't know if they actually got married, if she left him because she was like you're cuckoo and peaced out, I have no idea. And peaced out, I have no idea, yeah, huh. But so she was like. She was like oh, that's your wife coming back, I'm gone.
Speaker 2Right Bye. She said.
Speaker 1I'm a vegetarian. I don't want your sausage anymore.
Speaker 2Bye.
Speaker 1Bye, bye, yep, exactly.
Speaker 2bye, bye, bye, yep, exactly oh my goodness, yes, so sausage party over the sausage party is done.
Speaker 1How sad, yeah, but you know we have a. We have another part coming up, so not of the sausage party.
Speaker 2Yeah, now I'll have to have the other stuff.
Speaker 1Yep, the trunk jokes.
Speaker 2I'll find some Yep. I usually come up with some pretty decent stuff on the fly, which is why I did what I did earlier and laughed, and then I was like I sold out.
Speaker 1Right. What's wrong with me? We think of all kinds of things. We'll just be talking in general, and you know.
Speaker 2Well, and I changed like we did it together. Actually, I changed the entire lyrics in Baby Got Back too. So now it's like instead of I like big butts, it's I like beer guts. Yep, beer guts, yeah, beer guts. Jiggle in the middle because you got much fat. I had to throw that in there and I do that stuff all the time. You know our theme music by Patti Salzetta, she knows that. I'm terrible with it and she will find stuff and she'll be like, oh my god, this reminded me of you.
Speaker 2This sounds like you, this sounds like you, stuff you do I am like I guess I could be a little weird Al, but I'm cuter, exactly.
Speaker 1I have better hair, yep you don't have curly wild hair.
Speaker 2Still wear glasses, though.
Truth Behind the Legend
Speaker 1There you go. There's your similarity, but, like I said, we are going on a little adventure tomorrow. It's going to be so fun. Yes, so we will post that over on our TikTok and Facebook page, we'll even show you our food. Yep, we're going to do a little blog.
Speaker 2Yeah. So make sure, if you haven't done it already, that you go subscribe to our YouTube channel, because we plan on editing the video and piecing everything together, throwing it up there so, besides the stuff you see on TikTok, you can go see the whole thing on YouTube, us acting like fools.
Speaker 1And by the time this comes out, we should have our t-shirts in, because we did a little merch and we ordered just to make sure that everything looks right, because we want to make sure it looks good. So, as long as everything's A-OK and we don't have to change anything, we're going to do a little photo shoot and put pictures of our shirts up and then tell you where you can go buy some. Yeah, so excited.
Speaker 2Yes, they're cute too. Yes, indeed, and I mean obviously, the more silly things, things we say, the more we'll have to put on t-shirts, exactly like we need something with a sausage party.
Speaker 1Oh, my goodness, you know what?
Speaker 2we totally missed the grinder jokes oh yes we sure did you know, we do that a lot. We come back to each other and we're like oh man, I could have said yep, whatever, but that's how you know like we're really reacting in the moment. Right, because then I'll re-listen to it and then I'm like shoot I should have said none of this is scripted none of this is like, not at all.
Speaker 1Let's, we'll just be like so what do we want to talk about today, and we'll say something, and then we'll just totally go off topic.
Speaker 2Yeah, it ends up not even being what we talk about. Yeah, I mean it'll start that way.
Speaker 1But we just go, we just let it fly. This is us real, every day.
Speaker 2Yeah, it just becomes whatever it becomes. It's very organic, unlike that sausage I don't know it was pretty organic.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, You're right.
Speaker 2It was probably full of organs and the ick and hair and clothes and a wedding ring.
Speaker 2And the ick and the ick. So I was wrong. I was so wrong. It's definitely organic sausage, not vegan. No, not even close. All right, I guess I'm done acting like an idiot. So thank you for joining us on Hold my Sweet Tea. I already told you who made our theme music, but I'll say it again it is by our dear friend, patty Salzetta. You know we're on all the socials and obviously you're listening to us, but tell all your friends, yes, and let them know that we are on every platform that you listen to podcasts on.
Speaker 1We have infiltrated everywhere yeah, we have spread far and wide. When we went and got our tattoos last week and somebody was like, oh well, what? What are y'all on? Where can I listen to you? I'm like literally everywhere, everywhere, think of something. And then she's like oh, are you on app? Yep, we are on that. We're on spotify, we're everything audible. I said just search hold my sweet tea. Yep, yeah, podcast index, like all the Just search Hold my Sweet Tea Castbox.
Speaker 2Yep, yeah, podcast Index, like all the stuff that I didn't even know existed before. I started podcasting. We're on those too, and if you have something you want to share with us whether that be true crime, you want to tell us about your sausage party? Well, we're down.
Speaker 1Just please don't send pictures. Yeah, no, pictures.
Speaker 2I'm I'm cool with the written word I love to read. Please don't send us pictures of your sausage party or or your roosters, thanks. But you can email us at steeped at whole, my sweet tea dot com yep, yep.
Speaker 1So y'all you know. Remember to listen to us and go do all the things that pearl said to do. Oh, my sweet tea is a drunken bee production. Y'all stay safe out there and remember just because we're dipping doesn't mean you can't keep sipping. Bye.
Speaker 2Put the casing on your sausage.
Speaker 1Wrap up your sausage. Thank you you.