Highway to Hell

Merch on sale until November 15th: https://monte-mader-shop.fourthwall.com/The door stopper Monte mentioned in episode: https://a.co/d/0548zyofOn Saturday, July 29, 2023, Erin Patterson served beef Wellington to her husband's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and to Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson and Heather's husband Ian, the pastor of the Korumburra Baptist Church, at her new house in Leongatha, Victoria. She told them over dessert that she had cancer. Within a week three of them were dead from death cap mushroom poisoning. Ian Wilkinson came out of a coma in late August and was back in his pulpit the following February.Let's take a trip to Australia! South Gippsland and the English oaks the settlers planted; Erin's childhood in Glen Waverley, her time as an air traffic controller, and what the people who worked with her said about her; the marriage to Simon Patterson, the two-million-dollar inheritance, the money she gave his family, and the child-support fight that ended in a Facebook message about his parents; how a death cap works and how it got to Australia; the phone-tower trips to Loch and Outtrim, the dehydrator, the lunch plate by plate, and the five minutes she spent in Leongatha Hospital before a doctor called triple-0; the deaths at the Austin, the tip, the phone resets and the police interview; and the nine-week trial in Morwell, her eight days in the witness box, the verdict, the life sentence, and the October 30, 2026 Court of Appeal decision that took away any chance of parole.Court and official- Supreme Court of Victoria. "Erin Patterson appeals: judgment." October 29, 2026. supremecourt.vic.gov.au- Patterson v The King [2026] VSCA 253, Court of Appeal of Victoria, October 30, 2026 (as reported by the ABC, CNN, The Conversation and the Supreme Court of Victoria).- DPP v Patterson, Supreme Court of Victoria, sentencing remarks of Justice Christopher Beale, September 8, 2025 (as broadcast and reported by the ABC, The Guardian and The Conversation).- Victorian Department of Health public health investigation, August 2023, as given in evidence by Sally Ann Atkinson, May 26–27, 2025- "Who is Erin Patterson, the host of Australia's infamous mushroom lunch?" July 8, 2025.- "The key people, timeline and evidence in Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial." Updated July 7, 2025.- Trial live blogs from the Latrobe Valley Law Courts, Morwell: May 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 22, 27 and 29, 2025; June 26, 2025.- "A girl's police interview brings 'truth' into focus during Erin Patterson's mushroom murder trial." May 10, 2025.- "Lunch guests' illnesses were 'not survivable', doctor tells Erin Patterson trial." May 23, 2025.- "Erin Patterson disputes testimony of witnesses and family in mushroom murder trial." June 10, 2025.- "Erin Patterson's guilty verdict over a death cap mushroom lunch brings her trial to an end." July 7, 2025.- "Doctor who treated Erin Patterson describes moment he came face-to-face with convicted murderer." July 8, 2025.- "Intensive care doctor Stephen Warrillow details agonising efforts to save Erin Patterson's mushroom murder victims." July 9, 2025.- "The evidence and events ruled inadmissible in the Erin Patterson mushroom murder trial." August 8, 2025.- "Mushroom murderer Erin Patterson denied poisoning husband using toxic pasta, chicken curry." August 8, 2025.- "Erin Patterson's police interview about deadly mushroom lunch released by court." August 8, 2025.- "Dropped attempted murder charges against Erin Patterson labelled 'dubious', court documents show." August 12, 2025.- "Prosecutor calls for Erin Patterson to be jailed for life with no parole for mushroom murders." August 25, 2025.- "Erin Patterson sentenced to life with 33 years non-parole for mushroom murders — as it happened." September 8, 2025.- Appeal live blogs: August 19 and 20, 2026; October 30, 2026.- "Erin Patterson's failed appeal leaves few legal avenues for the mushroom killer." October 30, 2026.

We are back and Happy Halloween! Since Monte just got back from Scotland-we figured we could give you a highland special! Thank you to hellions on patreon.com/highwaytohell - you will get the full download of Monte's entire itinerary there! In 1891 a chemistry professor alone on Ben Macdui heard footsteps behind him in the mist, each stride three times his own, and ran four miles down the mountain. In 1662 a farmer's wife at Auldearn told a notary, without torture, the rhyme she used to turn into a hare. In 1692 soldiers who had eaten the MacDonalds' food for twelve nights got up at five in the morning and shot their hosts. And this week, in a glen in Perthshire, somebody carried a family of stones into a thatched hut and shut the door on them for the winter, the way it's been done every Samhain since at least the 1880s.This episode follows the oldest layer of Celtic belief from the Highlands of Scotland, starting with the Bronze Age cairns at Clava and the Cailleach, the old woman of winter, and moving forward through the first written record of Samhain on a Gaulish calendar, Columba's beast in the River Ness in 565, the Hallowe'en fires, the cup of ale offered to the sea god Shony on Lewis, the bull sacrifices on Loch Maree, the fairy faith of Robert Kirk, Isobel Gowdie's confessions, the water horse, the baobhan sith, the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui, the Brahan Seer, the last witch burned in Britain, the massacre at Glencoe, Culloden, the Clearances, the three keepers who vanished from the Flannan Isles, and the bearded sailor of Sandwood Bay. We go across the sea to the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders of Darien, Georgia, who signed the South's first anti-slavery petition in 1739, the Cape Fear settlements, the dumb suppers of Appalachia, how guising became trick-or-treat and the turnip became a pumpkin, how Walter Scott's fiery cross ended up on Stone Mountain in 1915, and how a god named Samhain who never existed got into American church pamphlets.SourcesAdomnán, Life of St Columba (c. 697), trans. Sharpe (1995)Hugh G. Allison, Culloden Tales (2007)Robert Burns, "Halloween" (1785) and notesAlexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (1900)J. Norman Collie, address to the Cairngorm Club, Dec. 1925Mike Dash, "The Vanishing Lighthousemen of Eilean Mor," Fortean Studies 4 (1998)John H. Dixon, Gairloch in North-West Ross-shire (1886)Major Robert Duncanson, order to Glenlyon, 12 Feb. 1692Affleck Gray, The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui (1970)Northern Lighthouse Board: Harvie telegram, Moore and Muirhead reports (1900–01)Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth (1691)Donald Macleod, Gloomy Memories (1841)Alexander Mackenzie, The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer (1877)Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703)Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland (1769, 1772)Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. 3 (1833)Presbytery of Dingwall records, 1656 and 1678R. Macdonald Robertson, Selected Highland Folktales (1961)Alexander Tewnion, "A Shot in the Mist," The Scots Magazine, June 1958The Times, report from Croick, 2 June 1845Emma Wilby, The Visions of Isobel Gowdie (2010)Also: Canmore, Spooky Isles (Cape Wrath), Spooky Scotland (Culloden), Undiscovered Scotland, University of Aberdeen (Brahan Seer study), Your Ghost Stories no. 8902, and Alex Cochrane's Sandwood Bay blog with reader comment by Granville Parker.

Born at 30 Clarendon Square, Leamington Spa, on October 12, 1875, to a Plymouth Brethren preacher and a mother who would call him the Beast from the Book of Revelation, Edward Alexander Crowley grew up to make the name his own. This week we follow him from the prayer meetings of Warwickshire to a boarding house in Hastings: the sadistic Brethren school in Cambridge, the Golden Dawn and his brawl with W.B. Yeats on the stairs at Blythe Road, the house on Loch Ness where he tried to summon the kings of hell and never closed the door, the Cairo flat where a voice over his left shoulder dictated The Book of the Law over three lunch hours in April 1904, the Kangchenjunga expedition that left four men under an avalanche while he drank tea, the demon Choronzon in the Algerian desert, the Rites of Eleusis, the Paris Working, five strange years in wartime America, and the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily, where an Oxford graduate named Raoul Loveday died and Mussolini threw Crowley out of the country.We lay out what Thelema actually teaches, from True Will and the three Aeons to the A∴A∴ grades, sex magick, Liber OZ, and the women he called Scarlet and used up one after another. Then three hauntings that follow him: Boleskine House and Jimmy Page's caretaker's worst night, the House of Ghosts at Cefalù that Kenneth Anger scraped the whitewash off in 1955, and Lam, the big-eyed grey thing Crowley drew in 1918, which runs straight into Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard, and an explosion in Pasadena.We close with four days in the West Midlands: Leamington and Warwick Castle's Ghost Tower, Stratford and a night at the hotel where The Haunting was filmed, Coventry and Coombe Abbey, and Birmingham for the Black Sabbath Bench, Aston Hall, a balti, Dudley Castle's Grey Lady, and a four-pound pie in the Black Country.Support the show at patreon.com/highwaytohell for ad-free episodes and bonus content.SOURCESAleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (ed. Symonds and Grant, 1969); The Book of the Law (1904); The Equinox of the Gods (1936); Magick in Theory and Practice (1929); The Vision and the Voice (1911); Liber OZ (1941)Betty May, Tiger Woman (1929)Richard Kaczynski, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2010)Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley (2000)Tobias Churton, Aleister Crowley: The Biography (2011); Aleister Crowley in Paris (2022)John Symonds, The Great Beast (1951)Richard B. Spence, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (2008)Gary Lachman, Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World (2014)George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons (2005)Kenneth Grant, The Magical Revival (1972); "Statement on LAM," Starfire vol. 1 no. 3 (1989)Picture Post, "Kenneth Anger at the Abbey of Thelema," November 26, 1955Contemporary press via aleistercrowleytimeline.com: The Pioneer (Sept. 29, 1905); Daily Mail (Sept. 11, 1905); Alpine Journal (Feb. 1906); Morning Leader and Daily Chronicle (Oct. 1910); Sunday Express (Nov. 26, 1922); John Bull (Mar. 24, 1923); Daily Express (Apr. 14, 1934); Yorkshire Post and Birmingham Gazette (Dec. 2, 1947); Crowley's 1918 Amalantrah diariesThe Scotsman, "House of the Unholy"; The Wild Hunt, "Renovation Plans Underway for Boleskine House" (2019); Boleskine House FoundationJimmy Page interview, Rolling Stone (1975)Pasadena Police Department and Los Angeles press, June 1952 (Parsons)Travel: Leamington Observer; Visit Warwickshire supernatural trail; Higgypop and Spooky Isles haunted-location guides; Express & Star; Coventry Telegraph; Birmingham Westside BID and Central BID (Black Sabbath trail, 2025–26); Songkick and Stereoboard venue listings

Support the show and get bonus content at patreon.com/highwaytohellpodcastOn the top floor of a hotel in Sydney, on ground that was a convict hospital in 1788, two women on two different nights woke up to a sailor standing at the foot of the bed, looking at them. In a castle on the coast of Northern Ireland, a receptionist sent up the tower stair to sweep up a broken glass was shoved from behind on the top step and went down the whole flight. In Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel, a man hid under the covers at three in the morning while his wife whispered that something was bent over the bed with its mouth at her ear, and that she could still feel its breath. In a ground-floor suite in the Ozarks that used to be a cancer quack's office, four friends propped a vodka bottle against the inside of their door, came back at eleven, and found a row of cards laid out on the carpet in front of it with the two jokers turned face up. On a ship in Long Beach, a mother woke to a man made of darkness sitting on the other twin bed, and he sat there until dawn.Today we're counting down the ten most haunted hotels in the world, from number ten to number one. We're going from Sydney to the Scottish Highlands, the Antrim coast, London, the Canadian Rockies, the French Quarter, a California beach, a Cunard liner, an Arkansas mountaintop, and Estes Park, Colorado.Sources: 24 Hours in Sydney. "Room 8 in the Russell Hotel… Sleep There If You Dare." 24hoursinsydney.com.au.Abandoned NI. "The Haunted Ballygally Castle Hotel." abandonedni.com.Archer, Bella. "Haunted Tulloch Castle in Dingwall: Castles, Ghost Stories and Scottish Mornings." Buckle Up, Boo!, buckleupboo.com.Atteberry, Todd. "Ballygally Castle Hotel: The Knock at the Door Isn't Room Service." Witchery Art / Gothic Horror Stories, February 19, 2024. gothichorrorstories.com.Avenue Calgary. "The Ghosts of Fairmont Banff Springs." avenuecalgary.com.Ballygally Castle Hotel. "Ballygally Castle Hotel and Its Ghost Room" and "The History of Ballygally Castle." ballygallycastlehotel.com.Bauer, Ellen. "A Ghostly Maid on the Queen Mary." Ghostvillage.com. Encounter dated June 1, 1973.Brody, Mike. "Confessions of a Novice Ghost Investigator: Surviving the Stanley Hotel." Ghostvillage.com, January 2010.Cappy. "The Beautiful Lady in White." Your Ghost Stories, April 1, 2020. yourghoststories.com, story 27186.Crescent Hotel and Spa. "Haunting Ghost Experiences Revealed." crescent-hotel.com.Crescenta Valley Weekly. "The Legend of B340." crescentavalleyweekly.com.Cricket Australia. "Boo! Ghosts Have England Jumping." cricket.com.au, July 2014.Cushman, Paige, and Kristen Belue. "'This Isn't a Horror Film': A Night at Arkansas' Haunted 1886 Crescent Hotel." KATV, Little Rock, October 2020.Deccan Chronicle. "Haunted London Hotel Frightens England Cricketers." July 21, 2014.East Durham Paranormal Research Group. "Tulloch Castle: Ghost Sightings." eastdurhamparanormalrg.co.uk.Fiorito, Teddy. "My Wife and I Stayed at the Stanley Hotel and Experienced Something Out of This Realm." Thought Catalog, September 2015.Ghost City Tours. "The Ghosts of Haunted Hotel Monteleone." ghostcitytours.com.Ghost5034. "What an Experience – Ghost Included!" Review of Tulloch Castle Hotel, Dingwall. TripAdvisor, June 2009.Graham, Seanín. "'There's a Darkness to That Place': A Night in Northern Ireland's Most Haunted Castle." The Irish Times, October 31, 2025.Haunted Hotels UK. "The Langham – Haunted Hotel in London," including guest review by Deborah Newton, November 6, 2023. hauntedhotels.uk.Haunted India. "Ghosts of the Langham Hotel, London, Haunting English Cricketers." hauntedindia.blogspot.com, July 2014.Haunted Rooms. "The Langham Hotel – London." hauntedrooms.co.uk.Haunt Jaunts. "Researching London's Most Haunted Hotel Room." hauntjaunts.net.

In 1977, a charismatic former Seventh-day Adventist named Roch Thériault led a small group of followers into the woods of Quebec’s Gaspé region to await the end of the world. He renamed himself Moïse, after Moses, and told his followers God would end the world in February of 1979. When the apocalypse never came, he kept them anyway. The group lived in handmade cabins, cut off from their families, working so relentlessly that outsiders called them the Ant Hill Kids. Thériault took nearly all of the women as his wives and fathered more than twenty children with them. In 1984, after a brief prison stint, he moved the commune to a remote property near Burnt River, Ontario, where almost no one was watching.What happened there over the next five years is among the most horrific abuse ever documented in a Canadian cult. Thériault drank heavily and ruled through torture, forcing members to break their own limbs, pull out their own teeth, and sit naked in the snow. He performed brutal “surgeries” with kitchen tools. In 1988 one of his wives, Solange Boilard, died after he cut open her abdomen. The end came in 1989, when another follower, Gabrielle Lavallée, had her arm hacked off with a cleaver after years of mutilation. She escaped, walked into a hospital, and told police everything. Thériault pleaded guilty to murder and received a life sentence. In 2011 he was killed by his cellmate in a New Brunswick prison. Sources: Here's the bibliography, alphabetized, no headers, ready to paste. It's also saved as [Ant_Hill_Kids_Bibliography.txt](Ant_Hill_Kids_Bibliography.txt) in your home folder, and the script's Sources section at **https://claude.ai/artifact/DMtQSJp2AhK117SuJRjqkZ** and in the PDF now matches it.Adventist News Network. "J. Wayne McFarland" (obituary). March 24, 2011.Beeby, Dean. "Flowers and Pastels: Notorious Cult Killer's Artwork, Poetry for Sale." Canadian Press / Globe and Mail, March 10, 2008.Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec. "Union des électeurs, 1939–1948."Cameron, Daphné. "Roch Thériault assassiné." La Presse, February 27, 2011.Canadian Encyclopedia. "Asbestos Strike of 1949"; "Quiet Revolution."CBC News. Reports of July 11, 2002; April 6, 2009; February 27, 2011; May 6, 2011; March 5, 2012.Cloutier family genealogy. Entry for Solange Boilard.Dimmock, Gary. "Inside the Prison Killing of Roch Thériault." Ottawa Citizen, November 14, 2011.Fenelon Falls Gazette. December 12, 1984.Ferron, Madeleine, and Robert Cliche. Les Beaucerons, ces insoumis. Montreal, 1974.Fortin, Denis. "Above and Beyond: Adventism in Québec." Adventist Review, April 28, 2005.Gagné, Gilles. "Le spectre de Moïse." Le Nouvelliste, October 5, 2018.Gagnon, Karine. "Trois femmes suivent toujours leur maître." Le Journal de Québec, 2002.Gélinas, Geneviève. "Sectes: la responsabilité partagée." Le Soleil, October 5, 2018.Geneanet. Raymond Dallaire family tree (Thériault–Tremblay marriage, 1943).Global News / Canadian Press. February 28, 2011; May 13, 2011.Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control. Park Street Press, 1988.Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. "The Ant Hill Kids." Maclean's, February 8, 1993.Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. Savage Messiah: The Shocking Story of Cult Leader Rock Thériault and the Women Who Loved Him. Doubleday Canada, 1993.Kaihla, Paul, and Ross Laver. "Under the Spell of a Madman." Maclean's, September 27, 1993.Kropveld, Mike, and Marie-Andrée Pelland. "Le groupe de Roch 'Moïse' Thériault." Info-Secte / Info-Cult, Montreal, 2003.Laflamme, Francine. Roch Thériault dit Moïse. Stanké, 1997.Lalich, Janja. Bounded Choice. University of California Press, 2004.Lavallée, Gabrielle. L'alliance de la brebis: Rescapée de la secte de Moïse. Éditions JCL, 1993; revised 2009; 2023.Le Journal de Québec. Archives feature on the Thériault case. October 13, 2019.