Divine Intervention

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 Hanks, 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 and 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. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to let the fall of buttons stay in your Airbnb for free. But don't tell them about all those human-hating honey badgers you've hid under all the bets.

Okay, let's get into our first story, called Leeding Out.

“On the afternoon of June 29, 1934, a 37-year-old police officer named Captain Alan Fallby,”

pressed the throttle on his police motorcycle and sped down a street in El Paso, Texas. Captain Fallby'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 Fallby was in pursuit of this person, they were not slowing down at all.

So Captain Fallby 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 served hard to the left.

Fallby tried to slow down, but it was too late. He slammed into the back of his truck, and then he and his bike went sliding across the asphalt for a few seconds, and the whole time Fallby is feeling his body getting totally

“scraped against the pavement, and the winds getting knocked out of him.”

And then finally, when he came to a stop, he was displayed 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 Fallby 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.

They're not going to stay in help. They just drove off protecting themselves. And so pretty quickly, Fallby 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, like 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 Fallby. 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 Fallby what he needed, these two men saw the situation, you know, the bike is pinned on top of the cop. And 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 Fallby's leg, right above his knee that was just pouring out blood. And Captain Fallby, you know, he saw that, and he was already starting to feel light-headed, and 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 Fallby kept their composure. And one of them actually noticed that Captain Fallby was wearing a neck tie. He had a formal police uniform on that had, you know, a neck tie as part of it. And he gently reached over, and he told Captain Fallby to relax, and he undid his neck tie.

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 neck tie, he tied it around Captain Fallby's leg above the wound,

basically cutting off circulation to that wound, a turnic hit, he tied it off,

and then the other guy came back over with the stick, and he handed it to the guy with the neck tie, and he took the stick and threaded it carefully through the neck tie that was now wrapped around the Captain's leg, and he began twisting the stick wrapping up the fabric as he twisted it,

Much tighter than you could do, you know, without something mechanical.

“Like, this is somebody who clearly knew how to make a real turnic hit out of sort of everyday”

materials, and so they tie off the super tight turnic hit, they stop the bleeding, and it ultimately

saves Captain Fallby's life. In fact, by the time Captain Fallby actually got brought to the hospital, and they took off this DIY turnic hit and patched him up for real, the doctor would tell Captain Fallby 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 turnic hit, he very likely would have died.

Four years later, on December 12, 1938, Captain Fallby was back at work, and 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 Fallby 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 Fallby 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 seat and they

were unconscious. And so Fallby was the first on the scene, he pulls over, he gets office 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 Fallby himself had had four years earlier when he crashed his motorcycle, Fallby knew what to do. He didn't have, you know, a issued turnic hit on hand, but he knew how to make one,

he had a neck tie, 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 neck tie, 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. And so at this point, now that Captain Fallby 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 fight in 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 turnic hit was literally the actual same guy who had

saved Captain Fallby with the DIY turnic hit four years earlier. Captain Fallby 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 Fallby. So literally, this DIY turnic hit story played out

almost exactly the same way with these two guys doing it to each other, but four years apart. Later on, Captain Fallby and Alfred Smith would give an interview to Ripley's Believe It or Not in a TV show to talk about the incredible coincidence that saved both their lives. And when the interviewer at some point congratulated Captain Fallby on his heroic efforts, Fallby simply stated, quote, "One good turnic hit deserves another."

You see, Alfred Smith was the man who put the turnic hit around my leg and saved my life on my motorcycle, hit that truck. After all, one good turnic hit deserves another. The next and final story of today's episode is called Three Hengings. Later the evening of November 15, 1884, a 20-year-old man named John Lee helped his sister Elizabeth, clear the dining room table in the English manner where they both worked.

John was a Butler at this manner and his sister Elizabeth was a cook. And the manner itself had a name, it was called the Glenn, it was this gorgeous property right on the beach in the seaside community in England. Now, years ago, the Glenn had been much more grand and, in fact, the king and queen of England had at one point came to stay at the Glenn. But recently, the Glenn and the family who owned it

had fallen on hard times. The 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 in his arms to bring out to the kitchen, and as he was doing this, he was trying to talk to a sister who was also kind of helping clear the table. About an upcoming dinner party,

“they were going to host at the Glenn 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

room table, while John is carrying like 50. And so, John was becoming really annoyed with a 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. Now, you need to understand that Elizabeth did not tell John that she was pregnant.”

In order to 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, and 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, he just told her, "You know what? I'm fine. I'll finish up. You go lay down. I hope you feel better." By 11pm, John was nearly done with all of his chores, 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 night close. 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. There was something she really enjoyed doing. Now, 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 was kind of like a rough kid and a trouble maker, but Emma, she just had a soft spot brown. 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, but 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, but 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 get 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. And so she said to John, "You know what, I understand you made a mistake. Why don't you come

back to the glam and work for me? You can be our buttler." 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 glam. He did whatever Emma wanted, and that included nightly prayers. So 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,

it was just kind of her time to be alone and to be left alone. And so after the maids had gone,

“John stood up too, and he said, "Good night 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 330 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.

He 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, and 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 up stairs, the fire up there had really spread, and there was like a wall of fire right in front of Emma's bedroom, so 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, before them knew they couldn't do anything more, and so finally the

four of them turned and began running down stairs 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. John 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.

“I mean, it was basically like pseudo science. 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. Instead, 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 Glen 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. The next day, John was in his jail cell and a guard came down the hall and wrapped on the bars and told John he had a visitor. His lawyer was here to talk to him, but John was confused because he didn't have a lawyer so he had no idea who this was. But regardless, the guard opened up the cell and he led John down the hallway to this room and when John walked in, he saw there was this man who

was very well-dressed at very handsome, he was sitting at this table and clearly he was waiting for John and John, you know, at first he didn't really know who this guy was, then it dawned on him that he knows who this guy is and it made no sense that he was here to defend John.

area and he also happened to be one of Emma's absolute closest friends. So, Reginald Templar, Emma's close friend, the woman who's been murdered, is here to defend the person who's accused of killing Emma, it just didn't make any sense. But eventually Reginald gestured for John to come in the room and sit down and so John just kind of made his way in and he sat down and Reginald

“immediately said, "John, I know you did not kill Emma." That's why I'm here. John was so relieved”

and before long he was pouring out all the information he could about everything he could recall about the night of the fire and the murder and as he did Reginald took all these notes and he began creating a framework for John's defense. And so by the time John was back in his jail cell he couldn't help but feel kind of optimistic that maybe with Reginald's help he could actually beat this thing and prove he didn't do this. But, John's relief would be

short-lived. His first court appearance went extremely well. Reginald showed up in a fancy suit

and he was just completely on his game and just ripped the prosecution apart and basically said their entire case was just circumstantial and he rattled off all these legal precedents which John didn't really understand but he looked up and saw the judge definitely knew these precedents and was impressed with what Reginald was doing and then also Reginald would say that the police

“did a terrible job investigating. They basically didn't investigate and just jumped to conclusions”

that it was John. And so as Reginald is basically destroying the prosecution, Reginald looked over at the prosecutor and he could tell the prosecutor looked really nervous and so John was really starting to feel confident that Reginald was exactly what he needed. But on the day of the second court appearance Reginald just didn't show up with no explanation he didn't contact anybody and so John just sat there waiting to see what was going to happen. The judge delayed for as long

as he could but eventually when you know Reginald still didn't show up the judge looked to John and said I'm sorry but you're going to have to defend yourself which of course John did not know how to do. I mean he barely hit even gone to school, let alone studied law and from there things only got worse for John. Reginald continued to miss court dates with no explanation and then on other times he would show up to court but instead of being the fantastic you know very sharp

“lawyer he kind of acted like a maniac. He would start all these unnecessary fights with the judge”

over totally irrelevant matters like how to pronounce a particular word and then when he had witnesses on the stand his line of questioning didn't make any sense. He would ask things like

well what did you have for breakfast today and what's your favorite color? And then finally Reginald

just withdrew all together from the case leaving John with no lawyer at all which admittedly might have actually been an improvement for John. After Reginald withdrew another lawyer found out about it and took pity on John and fallen to here to take on the case but it was on very short notice and this other lawyer had good intentions but was not nearly as skilled as Reginald was when he was kind of on his game on that first day and so really quickly this lawyer kind of

fumbled the case and then when it went to the jury to decide whether or not Reginald was guilty it took them less than an hour to come back and say oh yeah he's guilty he killed Emma and so John was sentenced to death by hanging. For the next three months John sat in his jail cell waiting for his execution and as he waited he continually insisted that he really was innocent

and that ultimately God would protect him. Finally February 23rd 1885 rolled around this was

the day of John's execution except something very weird happened on this day. When John was led from the jail to the gallows where he was going to be executed the hangman could not get the gallows to work. The trap door in the gallows where the condemned stands where it's supposed to open up and they fall down and the new sprakes their neck that trap door it would not function whenever John was standing on it. Now when John was moved off the trap door it function perfectly fine.

It was only when he was on that trap door that it would not work and so think about this. Pretend you're John. Three different times a hangman led him onto that trap door they put the news around his neck put a bag over his head asked him for his last words and they threw that lever and each time John is expecting to die and it's not working. Finally after the third failure the hangman just called off the execution and then actually a judge would weigh in and say you know

what we cannot possibly attempt for a fourth time to execute John. This constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and so they swapped his sentence from a death sentence to 22 years in prison and none of this would make any sense until one day six years after Emma's murder when John by this point was just sitting in a jail cell and everybody had forgotten about him. On that day in 1890 a group of very high society type people you know politicians lawyers and rich people they all gathered in

important and well-respected man who had died after slowly going insane. As the priest finished

“his final blessing the mourners began chucking handfuls of dirt into the grave and as they did”

one of them said quietly but out loud today we have buried a murderer.

Here's what many people believe really happened on the night of November 15th 1884 when Emma was killed.

At the time of Emma's murder Elizabeth's pregnancy was very scandalous but not just for Elizabeth it was also scandalous for the father of the baby the father who nobody knew except for Elizabeth and it was scandalous for the father because like Elizabeth he was worried what society would think if they found out he was having a baby out of wedlock especially with Elizabeth who basically from a societal standpoint was kind of below his station but despite all that the father of the

baby did not attempt to distance himself from Elizabeth instead on the night of the murder the father of the baby actually decided to sneak into the Glen to see Elizabeth but Emma was still

awake she was up late drinking her hot cocoa writing and reading and she heard the sound of the

father coming into her home and so she got up to go investigate and she would eventually find the

“father up in the hallway right outside of Elizabeth's bedroom and remember Emma is very traditional”

she's very conservative and religious and she's seeing this strange man in her house clearly going into or coming out of Elizabeth's room and she was so offended and angry and so Emma just began screaming at the sky to get out of her house and if he didn't she was going to tell the whole world about this illicit relationship and then Emma walked up and hit this guy right in the face and at this point the father just snapped and he flew into this rage and he began screaming

back at Emma and then he grabbed a hatchet that was on the wall right near the pantry he pulled it off and brought it down right on top of Emma's head and Emma crumpled to the ground and the man you know he's looking down at Emma and he's realizing he's inflicted this horrific injury on Emma and if she doesn't die she's going to tell someone and then this father is going to go to jail if not worse so in a moment of panic this father runs into the kitchen gets a kitchen knife

comes back and he finished Emma off once she was deceased he dragged her back to the dining room where she normally did her reading and writing and then he doused her and the whole house in that weird oil that he found in the pantry where John was sleeping and after getting the whole house covered in it united it and then he ran out of the house but over the next six years Emma's killer felt so bad about what he had done both to Emma and then nearly killing Elizabeth and his unborn child

that he went completely insane and this caused his physical health to totally fail and he died but right before he died as he's laying in his deathbed he began ranting and raving about all the things he regretted in his life including murdering a woman at a big beautiful seaside estate

basically he was admitting to killing Emma and he did it in the company of all the people who would

“then be at his burial and so that's why as they're thrown the dirt onto his casket they're saying”

today we buried a murderer the killer's identity was none other than Reginald Templar John's lawyer now nobody knows if Reginald took John's case because he felt guilty and wanted to prevent an innocent man from going to jail or if he just wanted to sabotage John's case to ensure he didn't go to jail to protect himself like we don't know either way though it was during the course of this trial that Reginald began his descent into madness which would ultimately lead to his death

some people believe the reason the gallows malfunctioned every time John stood on that trap door and it wouldn't open was because of divine intervention that god or a god or some deity came to earth and literally interfered with the execution to spare John's life and the reason people think that is because you know John really wasn't an innocent man and he did not deserve to die John would serve all 22 years of the sentence and then when he got out he became famous for being the man

who could not be hanged John would eventually get married and he would move to America or he would live a very happy and quiet life until he died at the age of 81 a quick note about our stories they are all based on true events but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes The Mr. Ballum podcast strange dark and mysterious stories is hosted and executive

produced by me Mr. Ballum our head of writing is Evan Allen produced by Jeremy Bohn and Colicocio

Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano Research in fact checking supervision by Steven Eher

“Audio editing and post-produced by Whitlicoccio and Jordan Stitham production support by Antonio”

Manada and Delana Corley artwork by Jessica Klogston-Kiner theme song something wicked by Ross

Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballum podcast and just a reminder every new and exclusive

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that very same day and trust me some of these stories you truly have to see to believe again my

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and add free you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcast+ to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice so that's going to do it I really appreciate your support until next time see ya