*Cascading Curses* James Dean: Destined to Die Young

When one unfortunate event begins a series of tragic coincidences it has the tendency to evolve into a curse. The more coincidences that are involved, the more likely people are to believe otherworldly factors have come into play– the circumstances are just too unwieldy to be anything but the result of a curse!

A series of tragic events that link back to the death of a young up-and-coming actor have managed to achieve a level of curse that only a series of coincidence of this magnitude can afford.

James Byron Dean lived life in the fast lane, so it comes as no surprise that this “Rebel Without a Cause” spent his last moments of life behind the wheel of a car.

Burbon Street Blood Bath

Preface
When I first learned of this case, it had been transmogrified. I already knew that legends change from telling to telling, but this story is an excellent example of how the stories we hear aren’t always as they seem. What I had heard about a “vampire murder” was, in fact, a much greater tragedy. I briefly talk about my quest for truth in a previous blog article called “New Orleans Vampire Murder: A Lesson in Truth“. This article approaches the story from a different angle– it contains further details of the crime and investigation as described in the television broadcast of the Investigation Discovery network’s show “Dead of Night”. Tuesday, March 26, 2013 was when they first broadcast the episode titled “Bourbon Street Bloodbath” which regards this phantasmagorical murder. Because of the interest in this story, I’ve decided to summarize the details presented in the episode of Dead of Night.

Once again, please note that comments to this article have been CLOSED. This blog is NOT a memorial. It’s NOT meant to berate or glorify those involved in the murder. This is NOT a place to grieve for those who have lost their lives in conjunction with this event. This article was written for the purpose of conveying information about the event and also to correct misinformation being spread throughout the paranormal community.

Winter Ghost Stories

On a long car ride, I had the radio blaring Christmas songs. It’s the one time of year where you can really justify listening to Christmas music and not get funny looks. (Though, I admittedly enjoy Christmas songs in July and August when it’s over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit outside because it makes me think cool thoughts.) As the radio blared, I sang loudly. My cheeks were rosy with the effort of singing, and I was having a jolly old time even if I may have been off-key at times because I knew– despite the rare glimpse of other drivers– they couldn’t hear me, and therefore could not hear me make up words to songs I didn’t know!

On the radio came “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, a 1963 song celebrating Christmas which was written by Edward Pola and George Wyle. It was performed by pop singer Andy Williams that same year. As I stopped singing to listen to the song’s lyrics, one of the lines from the song really struck me:

There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.

The line made me stop and think about why we might not carry out this tradition– sung about a mere half-century ago. What caused it to fall out of favor?

New Orleans Vampire Murder: The Real Story Televised

Those of you who follow this blog might be interested to know that one of the stories we mentioned here at The Witching Hour blog is part of a TV series on Investigation Discovery (ID). The story was about Shawn Johnson. Here on the blog it’s titled New Orleans Vampire Murder: A Lesson in Truth. (Please note: This episode has nothing to do with our blog entry other than a shared topic.)

The Investigation Discovery (ID) network has a show called “Dead of Night”. They aired an episode titled “Bourbon Street Bloodbath” regarding this phantasmagorical murder on Tuesday, March 26, 2013.
A clip from the show titled “He Heard Screaming” is/was available here:
http://investigation.discovery.com/tv-shows/dead-of-night

If you have the ID channel, you can see when the “Bourbon Street Bloodbath” episode airs by going to this website:
http://investigation.discovery.com/tv-shows/dead-of-night/tv-schedule.htm

If you aren’t able to watch it, I finally posted a recap of “Burbon Street Bloodbath” after watching the show– granted, the show was still worth watching.

Tombstone Thunderbird Photo (Part II)

The hunt for the elusive Tombstone Thunderbird photo is an enigmatic tale of mystery because of the particular circumstances surrounding this photograph, which may or may not have ever existed.  Several people claim to have seen the photograph in books or magazines, but no one can remember which book they saw it inside or where it was published. People look and look, but can’t find a photograph which they will swear up and down they’ve seen before. The photograph is supposed to be evidence of a referenced Thunderbird encounter from an article in the Tombstone Epitaph. Whether or not the photo exists and where it can be found if it DOES exist still remains a mystery…