Divine Intervention

0:00Today's podcast will feature two stories that are about events that simply couldn't have happened by chance alone. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Bleeding Out, and this story comes full circle in the most unbelievable way. And the second and final story you'll hear today is called Three Hangings, and it might be one of the strongest examples of unseen forces shaping an outcome. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays.

0:44So if that's of interest to you, please offer to let the follow button stay in your Airbnb for free. But don't tell them about all those human-hating honey badgers you've hid under all the beds. Okay, let's get into our first story called Bleeding Out.

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2:25On the afternoon of June 29, 1934, a 37-year-old police officer named Captain Alan Falby pressed the throttle on his police motorcycle and sped down a street in El Paso, Texas. Captain Falby's motorcycle lights and sirens were on because he was chasing a speeding pickup truck down the road. But despite the fact that obviously Captain Falby was in pursuit of this person, they were not slowing down at all. So Captain Falby had been a police officer for 11 years, and he loved his job, he loved his motorcycle, and he hated when suspects got away. So he kept his hand on the throttle and kept chasing down the suspect, but suddenly the truck he was going after slammed on its brakes and swerved hard to the left.

3:07Falby tried to slow down, but it was too late. He slammed into the back of this truck, and then he and his bike went sliding across the asphalt for a few seconds. And the whole time, Falby is feeling his body getting totally scraped against the pavement and the wind's getting knocked out of him. And then finally, when he came to a stop, you know, he was splayed out in the middle of the road and his motorcycle, his beloved motorcycle, was laying on top of him, pinning his legs under him. And this bike weighed like 500 pounds. And adding insult to injury here, you know, as Falby is screaming out in pain because obviously horrible injuries have been sustained here, You know, he looks down the road and he sees the truck he was chasing, who clearly knew he just wrecked behind them.

3:48They're not going to stay and help. They just drove off protecting themselves. And so pretty quickly, Falby kind of assessed the situation he was in. You know, he tried for a second to push this bike off of him, but not only could he not move it, but every time he moved it just a little bit, the weight would kind of come down even harder and a little bit more pointed on his legs, which were crushed and he had this excruciating pain down there. and worse, he's looking underneath him and he's seeing this growing pool of blood. Clearly, he's sustained potentially life-threatening injuries here, and he's all alone.

4:18Like, there's nobody here to help him, and he's totally stuck. And so even though he began calling out for help, the reality was, you know, if nobody came along soon, he was done for. And he found himself starting to panic. Luckily, though, just then, two men from down the road came running up to Captain Falby. Apparently, they had been sort of behind the captain and were watching him pursuing this truck. and they had actually seen the accident. And so they had pulled over and they were now running up to see if he was okay. And so right away, without even needing to ask Captain Falby what he needed, these two men saw the situation, you know, the bike is pinned on top of the cop.

4:52And so together, these two men were able to lift this heavy motorcycle off of the captain's legs. And as soon as they did, all three of them looked and they could clearly see, you know, the reason there's all this blood all over the pavement. There was this huge gash in Captain Falby's leg right above his knee that was just pouring out blood. And Captain Falby, you know, he saw that and he was already starting to feel lightheaded from blood loss, but just seeing this huge wound was totally disorienting. Fortunately, though, the two men who had arrived on the scene to help Captain Falby kept their composure.

5:24And one of them actually noticed that Captain Falby was wearing a necktie. He had a formal police uniform on that had, you know, a necktie as part of it. And he gently reached over and he told Captain Falby to relax and he undid his necktie. Meanwhile, the other man, he ran over to the side of the road where this big tree was, and he got a stick, a pretty sturdy stick. And so the guy who undid the necktie, he tied it around Captain Falby's leg above the wound, basically cutting off circulation to that wound, a tourniquet. He tied it off, and then the other guy came back over with the stick, and he handed it to the guy with the necktie, and he took the stick and threaded it carefully through the necktie that was now wrapped around the captain's leg, and he began twisting the stick, wrapping up the fabric as he twisted it, which in turn mechanically tightened that tourniquet around the captain's leg, much tighter than you could do, you know, without something mechanical.

6:15Like this is somebody who clearly knew how to make a real tourniquet out of sort of everyday materials. And so they tie off the super tight tourniquet, they stop the bleeding, and it ultimately saves Captain Falby's life. In fact, by the time Captain Falby actually got brought to the hospital and they took off this DIY tourniquet and patched him up for real, the doctor would tell Captain Falby that, you know, he was about 10 minutes away from death, from blood loss. So had it not been for those two guys who showed up and made that tourniquet, he very likely would have died. Four years later, on December 12th, 1938, Captain Falby was back at work.

6:51And he had been, you know, ever since maybe six months after his injury. He had just gone back to work, fully recovered. You know, he did have some scar tissue on his leg, but he was basically back to full capacity. And so on this particular day, Captain Falby was on patrol like he normally was in El Paso when he got a call over the radio about a bad car accident that had happened out on Route 80, which is a major road in that town. And so Captain Falby races over to the scene, and he sees there's this car that's clearly veered off the road and smashed into a tree, and the driver, or who appears to be the driver, is sitting still in the driver's seat, and they were unconscious.

7:25And so Falby was the first on the scene. He pulls over, he gets off his bike, he rushes over to the car, and he carefully pulls this unconscious man out of the car, and he lays him on the ground, and he sees this guy has a horrible gash in his leg, and it's bleeding profusely. But because this basically mirrored the exact same type of injury that Falby himself had had four years earlier when he crashed his motorcycle, Falby knew what to do. He didn't have, you know, a issued tourniquet on hand, but he knew how to make one. He had a necktie, and there were sticks on the side of the road. So as quick as he could, he rushed over, grabbed a sturdy stick, took off his necktie, tied it around this man's leg, used the stick to tighten it up even further, and he cut off the bleeding to that wound.

8:08And so at this point, now that Captain Falby has realized that, okay, you know, this guy appears to be stable now, he's not actively bleeding, he's clearly still breathing, albeit unconscious, but, you know, it seems like he has a fighting chance here. So he's waiting for paramedics to show up and take this guy to the hospital, and he's just sitting there, sort of, you know, happy he was able to be here and save this guy, when he sort of looks at this guy and he realizes something. The man he had just saved with his DIY tourniquet was literally the actual same guy who had saved Captain Falby with a DIY tourniquet four years earlier.

8:42Captain Falby had never even gotten the guy's name. They had not stayed in touch after his accident. They had gone separate ways. But now he's looking down at this man and he's realizing it's the same one. The guy's name was Alfred Smith, and he would make a full recovery. But when he was rushed to the hospital, they would say, you know, you were within about maybe 10 minutes of bleeding to death had it not been for Captain Falby. So literally, this DIY tourniquet story played out almost exactly the same way with these two guys doing it to each other, but four years apart. Later on, Captain Falby and Alfred Smith would give an interview to Ripley's Believe It or Not, a TV show, to talk about the incredible coincidence that saved both their lives.

9:23And when the interviewer at some point congratulated Captain Falby on his heroic efforts, Falby simply stated, quote, one good tourniquet deserves another. You see, Alfred Smith was the man who put the tourniquet around my leg and saved my life when my motorcycle hit that truck. After all, one good tourniquet deserves another. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

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13:02The next and final story of today's episode is called Three Hangings.

13:16Late on the evening of November 15th, 1884, a 20-year-old man named John Lee helped his sister Elizabeth clear the dining room table in the English manor where they both worked. John was a butler at this manor, and his sister Elizabeth was a cook. And the manor itself had a name, it was called the Glen, and it was this gorgeous property right on the beach in the seaside community in England. Now, years ago, the Glen had been much more grand, and in fact, the King and Queen of England had at one point came to stay at the Glen. But recently, the Glen and the family who owned it had fallen on hard times.

13:49The staff was down to a skeleton crew of just John, his sister Elizabeth, and two elderly maids, which meant virtually all the physical labor at this property fell to John to take care of. So, on this night, John was lugging a huge pile of heavy china and his arms to bring out to the kitchen. And as he was doing this, he was trying to talk to his sister, who was also kind of helping clear the table, about an upcoming dinner party they were going to host at the Glen for some very important lawyers and politicians. But as John tried to talk to Elizabeth, Elizabeth just wasn't really reacting. She was kind of staring off into space, and you know, she was only carrying one or maybe two plates off the dining room table, while John is carrying like 50.

14:29And so John was becoming really annoyed with his sister. I mean, she's not really helping and she's ignoring him. And so John was about to complain to his sister about her behavior when suddenly she turned around and she apologized to him and said, you know what? I'm sorry I'm acting this way. I just don't feel very good. And I really think I should go lie down. Now, John was about to be really annoyed at this, but then he noticed his sister had her hands kind of reflexively over her stomach and John knew his sister was pregnant. And so suddenly he felt like, okay, you know, the reason she's acting this way must be because of her pregnancy, and so he did not press the issue.

15:03Now, you need to understand that Elizabeth did not tell John that she was pregnant, nor did she tell anybody else in the house, because the owners of the Glen were very traditional and very religious, and they almost certainly would not approve of Elizabeth's pregnancy because she wasn't married. At the time in England, it was not okay to have babies out of wedlock. It was viewed as like this totally taboo thing that you should never do. But despite Elizabeth's best efforts to conceal her pregnancy, John and the other two elderly maids very quickly realized what was going on because every morning they would see Elizabeth vomiting because of morning sickness.

15:39And so when they approached her and said, hey, you know, it looks like you're pregnant. You know, what's going on here? Elizabeth refused to talk about it. She did not admit to being pregnant. She just kind of said, leave me alone. I mean, John didn't even know who the father was. Like Elizabeth did not want to talk to anyone about her pregnancy. But despite all that, John and the other two maids really wanted to support Elizabeth and help her get through this pregnancy, you know, without being found out and potentially fired because of it. So when Elizabeth said to John that she just wanted to go lie down because she was feeling sick, he didn't press the issue, and he just told her, You know what?

16:11I'm fine. I'll finish up. You go lay down. I hope you feel better. By 11 p.m., John was nearly done with all of his chores, and he was getting ready for bed, when one of the elderly maids came into the room and told John it was time for their nightly prayers. And without any hesitation, John put down the silverware that he was polishing and followed the maid into the living room where one of the owners of the Glen was waiting in her nightclothes. The owner was a 68-year-old woman named Emma Case, and at night she really liked to lead a nightly prayer with her staff. It was something she really enjoyed doing.

16:41Now, John was not a very religious person, but he really cared about Emma. And so he agreed to do these nightly prayers really just to make her happy. I mean, after all, Emma had basically saved him on multiple occasions. John had begun working for Emma six years earlier when he was just 14 years old. And John, he was kind of like a rough kid and a troublemaker, but Emma, she just had a soft spot for him. And at some point when John admitted to Emma that he was really interested in traveling the world someday, Emma would help him get into the British Royal Navy. And for two years, John very happily served in the military and did get to see the world.

17:18But at the two-year mark, John came down with this terrible case of pneumonia, and it forced him to leave the military early. And so when John was medically discharged, he came back home, and he had no idea what he was going to do. I mean, he anticipated staying in the Navy for some time, not just two years. But luckily, Emma stepped in again, and she gave this glowing recommendation of John to one of her very wealthy friends, basically saying, hey, you should hire John. And this wealthy friend of Emma's agreed and hired John, and John was so happy, so relieved. I mean, Emma has totally picked him up again.

17:51But after getting hired, John would make a totally stupid mistake. He would steal this really expensive plate from this wealthy friend, and he would get caught. And this wealthy friend, they didn't just scold John and make him give the plate back. They got the police involved, and ultimately John would be sent to prison for six months for the theft. And when John got out again, he was certain nobody was going to hire him. I mean, he just went to jail for stealing. But that was when Emma, for a third time, stepped in and helped John again. Emma was a big believer in forgiving people and giving them additional chances when they screwed up.

18:27And so she said to John, You know what? I understand you made a mistake. Why don't you come back to the Glen and work for me? You can be our butler. John couldn't believe it. I mean, he knew he did not deserve this chance, especially from Emma, who's now been done wrong by him multiple times. But, you know, he was so grateful and he said to Emma, you know, I'll take this, of course, and I will do anything you want, you know, no matter what. I will do the best possible job. I'm not going to screw this up. And so far, that was exactly what John had done since coming back to the Glen. He did whatever Emma wanted, and that included nightly prayers.

19:00So on this night, after John walked into the dining room, he took a seat next to Emma at the table, and then after Elizabeth and the other two elderly maids took their seats at the table, they all held hands and they bowed their heads, and then Emma began to lead them in prayer. When the service was over, the two maids got up and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of hot cocoa for Emma. Emma typically stayed up really, really late, basically later than anybody else in the house, and she liked to drink hot cocoa and just sit by the fire and, you know, read and write letters. It was just kind of her time to be alone and to be left alone.

19:32And so after the maids had gone, John stood up too, and he said goodnight to Emma and told her to enjoy the rest of her night, and then he made his way into the kitchen, and he went into the pantry, which doubled as his bedroom. And once in the pantry, he pulled out his cot, climbed under the covers, and he fell asleep. A few hours later, at about 3 30 in the morning, John suddenly woke up in the pantry to the sound of somebody screaming outside the door. And so John, you know, he burst out of the pantry door, and right away he's looking in the kitchen and it's just completely covered in smoke.

20:04He can barely see, but not far from him in the kitchen was his sister and also one of the maids and they were the ones screaming and they were actually screaming at John to wake up and go get everybody. We need to get them out of the house and get some help. And so John, you know, his first instinct is, okay, clearly there's a fire or something and Emma, you know, she's upstairs and she could be in trouble. And so John, you know, he instinctively ran towards the stairs and began going up to the second floor to save Emma. But as he went up the stairs, the other maid was coming down the stairs looking totally frantic.

20:35And she would tell John that she was just in Emma's bedroom and she couldn't see Emma anywhere. And her bed was totally on fire. And so she didn't know if Emma was even in there, but it didn't look good. And so John, at this point, he turned and went with that maid back to the kitchen where they linked up with John's sister and that other maid. And the four of them filled up buckets of water and tried to run back up the stairs to attempt to put out the fire that was in Emma's bedroom. but by the time they got back upstairs, the fire up there had really spread and there was like a wall of fire right in front of Emma's bedroom.

21:06So there was no way to really get through it and their little buckets of water did nothing. And so even though they hated the idea of leaving Emma potentially behind, the four of them knew they couldn't do anything more. And so finally the four of them turned and began running downstairs to evacuate. And as they ran through the dining room on the first floor, they would find Emma. She was laying on the ground, sprawled out, and it was obvious to all four of them that she was clearly dead. However, it was also obvious that the fire had not killed her. She had clearly been hacked to death. She had all these horrible wounds on her head that looked like somebody had taken an axe basically to her head and her neck was so deeply cut it was almost like someone tried to remove her head.

21:48John and Elizabeth and the two maids just stood there staring in shock at Emma, not even sure what to do. And then one of the maids just started screaming and then all four of them just turned and ran out of the house. Eventually, some neighbors, some local fishermen, and members of the Coast Guard were able to put out the fire at the glen. But this was not just a fire, this was a murder. And so when police came to investigate, suspicion immediately fell on John. This was back in the day, well before forensic science was used in investigations. And so at the time, the way police kind of figured out who done it is by intuition and gut feeling and assumptions.

22:26I mean, it was basically like pseudoscience. But at the time, that's how it was. And quickly, the police determined that whoever had killed Emma and inflicted these horrible injuries on her, they had to be really strong. And so the assumption was, you know, John is the only man in the house, and so very likely the strongest person in the house. And so he must have been the one to do this, because it didn't look like anybody else had the strength to do this. Also, the investigators found these blood trails underneath the rubble from the fire that showed Emma had not actually been murdered where she was found on the ground in the dining room.

23:00Instead, she had actually been killed in the hallway near the stairs, which was not far from the pantry where John slept. And basically right outside of John's pantry door was a bloody hatchet and a bloody knife. And on top of all of that, investigators also determined that the fire had been set intentionally, and the person who set it had used this particular type of oil that was very flammable, and they had doused it all over the house and ignited it. And it turned out the only place where this oil was located inside of the was inside of the pantry where John slept. So on the same day this whole fire breaks out and they find Emma dead, John was arrested for Emma's murder.