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
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