HeyJaredPennsylvania Oddities
Author and "historian of the macabre" Marlin Bressi explores true crime, unsolved mysteries, haunted places, and strange history from around the Keystone State. Based on the Pennsylvania Oddities blog and book series by Sunbury Press.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 3
- Latest publication
- Sep 15, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 15, 2026
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The Urdanivia Tragedy (opens the original)
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Recently, the nation turned its attention to Massachusetts and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, leading to serious discussion about mental health and the consequences of a mother's heinous actions. However, in the spring of 1960, one mother from Pennsylvania left a nation asking the very same questions when she went on trial for taking the lives of her five children. This is the astonishing true story of Ruth Mae Urdanivia and her even more astonishing fate.
From Coal Cracker to Caribbean King (opens the original)
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The strange but true story of Faustin Wirkus, a coal region breaker boy who found fame thousands of miles away from the anthracite fields as ruler of a Caribbean island.
Mamie Toogood and the Burning Boarder (opens the original)
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Summer Break! Pennsylvania Oddities will return on September 1! Born on Christmas Day of 1856 to George and Mary Brown, Mary E. Brown spent her youth in the Chester County Quaker community of Ercildoun, an important stop on the Underground Railroad and an early center of the American abolitionist movement. There she lived until the day she met a laborer named George Toogood and fell in love. They were soon married. After being deserted by her husband, Mary settled in West Chester, operating a bo
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