Explore hauntings, hexes and other strange happenings from Bay Area history.
How John Steinbeck Fueled the Lore of Big Sur’s ‘Dark Watchers’
San Francisco’s First Serial Killer Was a Doctor Named J. Milton Bowers ... Probably
Why Do So Many People Think This East Bay Road Is Haunted?
Derby, Disco and Dirty Devils: 11 Bay Area Halloween Events for 2025
We Just Figured Out Why 598 Guerrero Is the Most Cursed Restaurant Location in SF
Forget Haunted Toys, Sunnyvale Once Had a Haunted Toys R Us
Happy Valentine’s Day! 3 Pairs of Doomed Lovers From San Francisco History
7 (More) Bay Area Horror Movies For Your Halloween Viewing Pleasure
7 Bay Area Horror Movies For Your Halloween Viewing Pleasure
How the Zodiac Killer Investigation Fell Apart in 1978 ... Because of Armistead Maupin
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They are called the Dark Watchers, and believers say they dwell in the Santa Lucia mountain range, unnervingly overlooking human activity in remote areas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Any discussion of the Dark Watchers — be it in books (like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Big-Book-of-California-Ghost-Stories/Janice-Oberding/Big-Book-of-Ghost-Stories/9781493058624\">The Big Book of California Ghost Stories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Janice Oberding) or on TV (see: the History Channel’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42GxYs1u_ro&t=163s\">\u003cem>MonsterQuest: Origins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) — usually mentions that these mysterious figures were first named by California’s earliest Spanish settlers. Back then, witnesses apparently called the shadow people in the Big Sur wilderness “Los Vigilantes Oscuros.” Despite this frequently given history, source texts remain elusive. 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I always found in myself a dread of the west.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In this passage, Steinbeck was continuing a narrative he’d begun 14 years earlier, in a grim little short story, \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, found in his 1938 collection \u003cem>The Long Valley\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> tells the story of Pepé Torres, a “gentle, affectionate … but very lazy” 19-year-old who flees into the Santa Lucia mountains after killing a man in Monterey. As his mother assists Pepé’s exit, she warns cryptically, “When thou comest to the high mountains, if thou seest any of the dark watching men, go not near to them nor try to speak to them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pepé does, inevitably, encounter those very men along his ill-fated journey. Steinbeck writes: “Pepé looked suspiciously back every minute or so, and his eyes sought the tops of the ridges ahead. Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another Dark Watcher appears in the story shortly afterwards as, “a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock … When a moment later [Pepé] looked up again, the figure was gone.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These mysterious figures are, in the course of \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, terrible omens — it doesn’t take long for Pepé to reach a tragic end. But the Dark Watchers were not entirely an invention of Steinbeck’s. A year before \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> was published, poet Robinson Jeffers — a lifelong Carmel resident — wrote in \u003cem>Such Counsels You Gave Me\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“He thought it might be one of the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast-range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1438\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png\" alt=\"A book cover featuring a painting of a tree-lined hillside at dusk, with a view of water on the horizon.\" class=\"wp-image-13991635\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-160x115.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-768x552.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-1536x1104.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">‘In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur’ by Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode. (Steinbeck Press)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If John Steinbeck was the main reason the lore of the Dark Watchers stayed alive in the 20th century, it’s his son that has done so in the 21st. After publishing his 2014 book \u003cem>In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur\u003c/em> — a collaboration with fine artist Benjamin Brode — \u003ca href=\"https://www.studiobrode.com/news-and-reviews\">Thomas Steinbeck appeared on \u003cem>Simple Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Radio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> with Cynthia Fernandes. In that 2015 interview, he stated:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They live in the misty hillsides of Big Sur … migratory beings, possessed of incredible hearing and impeccable eyesight. Like crows, they can sense the presence of gun oil and the smell of plastics and weatherproof coatings, therefore they are immune to high-tech detection and only reveal themselves to trekkers simply equipped with sticks and hats.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The younger Steinbeck continued: “I’ve gotten this from some of my father’s relatives, that since the time of the conquistadors, people just talked about being in the Big Sur and being watched by these creatures that they can’t quite see. My grandmother … swore that she traded with them. She’d leave them fruit and nuts in a very specific place and when she came back a couple of weeks later, there would be shells with holes drilled in them, decorated feathers, other things … They didn’t use fire, you could never find their camps, they were constantly on the move, and they’ve been there forever. And everybody talks about them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Perhaps the oddest thing about Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode’s take on the Dark Watchers is that they both believe the forest-dwellers are actually small and gnome-like, not the towering creatures most commonly referenced when \u003ca href=\"https://www.darkwatching.com/stories\">reported sightings do occur\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brode added, “The thing about Big Sur is, you can get away from humans really, really easily. The habitat for the Dark Watchers is better than it was maybe 20 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And perhaps that’s at the core of all of this. Big Sur is intimidating, otherworldy, and awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. Because of that, it hasn’t just conjured stories of Dark Watchers over the years. Reports of \u003ca href=\"https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2022-03-11-hiker-thinks-they-found-proof-of-bigfoot-in-california/\">Bigfoot footprints\u003c/a> have been reported by \u003ca href=\"https://campchimp.com/blog/california/pfeiffer-big-sur-campgroundbigfoot-map\">multiple sources\u003c/a> as recently as November 2025. Reddit users have shared multiple Bigfoot sightings they said happened at Big Sur, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/l4k9zf/our_up_close_sighting_in_big_sur_california_1978/\">from 1978\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://sasquatchchronicles.com/sc-ep515-i-shouldnt-be-alive/\">the late ’80s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/31/trekking-californias-mysterious-bigfoot-trail/\">beyond\u003c/a>. Big Sur is also, infamously, the location where two air force employees claimed a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur_UFO\">UFO shot down a test missile\u003c/a>, using beams of light, in 1964.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could it be possible that these misty mountains just play tricks on the minds of humans? Might this legend have died without the Steinbecks? It’s impossible to know. But if you catch sight of a Dark Watcher on your next hike, rest assured that they won’t bother you. If they were willing to have such interactions, we might be more sure of their existence. \u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They’ve been part of California mountain lore for centuries: featureless black figures, more than 7 feet tall, often wearing brimmed hats and long cloaks, who appear during dusk and dawn to silently observe the unfortunates who wander into their midst. They are called the Dark Watchers, and believers say they dwell in the Santa Lucia mountain range, unnervingly overlooking human activity in remote areas.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Any discussion of the Dark Watchers — be it in books (like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Big-Book-of-California-Ghost-Stories/Janice-Oberding/Big-Book-of-Ghost-Stories/9781493058624\">The Big Book of California Ghost Stories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Janice Oberding) or on TV (see: the History Channel’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42GxYs1u_ro&t=163s\">\u003cem>MonsterQuest: Origins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) — usually mentions that these mysterious figures were first named by California’s earliest Spanish settlers. Back then, witnesses apparently called the shadow people in the Big Sur wilderness “Los Vigilantes Oscuros.” Despite this frequently given history, source texts remain elusive. Today, it’s unclear where or how the Spaniards documented the vigilantes at all — perhaps the stories were passed down orally. Some sources say California’s Indigenous people believed in them, though there’s no clear record of that either.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Any discussion of the Dark Watchers — be it in books (like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Big-Book-of-California-Ghost-Stories/Janice-Oberding/Big-Book-of-Ghost-Stories/9781493058624\">The Big Book of California Ghost Stories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Janice Oberding) or on TV (see: the History Channel’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42GxYs1u_ro&t=163s\">\u003cem>MonsterQuest: Origins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) — usually mentions that these mysterious figures were first named by California’s earliest Spanish settlers. Back then, witnesses apparently called the shadow people in the Big Sur wilderness “Los Vigilantes Oscuros.” Despite this frequently given history, source texts remain elusive. Today, it’s unclear where or how the Spaniards documented the vigilantes at all — perhaps the stories were passed down orally. Some sources say California’s Indigenous people believed in them, though there’s no clear record of that either.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Much of the reason the lore of the Dark Watchers has survived to the present day is John Steinbeck. On the very first page of his 1952 classic \u003cem>East of Eden\u003c/em>, the Salinas-born author describes the Santa Lucia mountain range in Monterey County as a place of personal terror. He writes: “The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding — unfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of the west.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Much of the reason the lore of the Dark Watchers has survived to the present day is John Steinbeck. On the very first page of his 1952 classic \u003cem>East of Eden\u003c/em>, the Salinas-born author describes the Santa Lucia mountain range in Monterey County as a place of personal terror. He writes: “The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding — unfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of the west.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In this passage, Steinbeck was continuing a narrative he’d begun 14 years earlier, in a grim little short story, \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, found in his 1938 collection \u003cem>The Long Valley\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> tells the story of Pepé Torres, a “gentle, affectionate … but very lazy” 19-year-old who flees into the Santa Lucia mountains after killing a man in Monterey. As his mother assists Pepé’s exit, she warns cryptically, “When thou comest to the high mountains, if thou seest any of the dark watching men, go not near to them nor try to speak to them.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In this passage, Steinbeck was continuing a narrative he’d begun 14 years earlier, in a grim little short story, \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, found in his 1938 collection \u003cem>The Long Valley\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> tells the story of Pepé Torres, a “gentle, affectionate … but very lazy” 19-year-old who flees into the Santa Lucia mountains after killing a man in Monterey. As his mother assists Pepé’s exit, she warns cryptically, “When thou comest to the high mountains, if thou seest any of the dark watching men, go not near to them nor try to speak to them.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Pepé does, inevitably, encounter those very men along his ill-fated journey. Steinbeck writes: “Pepé looked suspiciously back every minute or so, and his eyes sought the tops of the ridges ahead. Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Pepé does, inevitably, encounter those very men along his ill-fated journey. Steinbeck writes: “Pepé looked suspiciously back every minute or so, and his eyes sought the tops of the ridges ahead. Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another Dark Watcher appears in the story shortly afterwards as, “a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock … When a moment later [Pepé] looked up again, the figure was gone.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Another Dark Watcher appears in the story shortly afterwards as, “a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock … When a moment later [Pepé] looked up again, the figure was gone.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These mysterious figures are, in the course of \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, terrible omens — it doesn’t take long for Pepé to reach a tragic end. But the Dark Watchers were not entirely an invention of Steinbeck’s. A year before \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> was published, poet Robinson Jeffers — a lifelong Carmel resident — wrote in \u003cem>Such Counsels You Gave Me\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These mysterious figures are, in the course of \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, terrible omens — it doesn’t take long for Pepé to reach a tragic end. But the Dark Watchers were not entirely an invention of Steinbeck’s. A year before \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> was published, poet Robinson Jeffers — a lifelong Carmel resident — wrote in \u003cem>Such Counsels You Gave Me\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“He thought it might be one of the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast-range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“He thought it might be one of the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast-range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png\" alt=\"A book cover featuring a painting of a tree-lined hillside at dusk, with a view of water on the horizon.\" class=\"wp-image-13991635\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-160x115.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-768x552.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-1536x1104.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">‘In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur’ by Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png\" alt=\"A book cover featuring a painting of a tree-lined hillside at dusk, with a view of water on the horizon.\" class=\"wp-image-13991635\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">‘In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur’ by Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If John Steinbeck was the main reason the lore of the Dark Watchers stayed alive in the 20th century, it’s his son that has done so in the 21st. After publishing his 2014 book \u003cem>In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur\u003c/em> — a collaboration with fine artist Benjamin Brode — \u003ca href=\"https://www.studiobrode.com/news-and-reviews\">Thomas Steinbeck appeared on \u003cem>Simple Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Radio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> with Cynthia Fernandes. In that 2015 interview, he stated:\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If John Steinbeck was the main reason the lore of the Dark Watchers stayed alive in the 20th century, it’s his son that has done so in the 21st. After publishing his 2014 book \u003cem>In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur\u003c/em> — a collaboration with fine artist Benjamin Brode — \u003ca href=\"https://www.studiobrode.com/news-and-reviews\">Thomas Steinbeck appeared on \u003cem>Simple Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Radio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> with Cynthia Fernandes. In that 2015 interview, he stated:\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“They live in the misty hillsides of Big Sur … migratory beings, possessed of incredible hearing and impeccable eyesight. Like crows, they can sense the presence of gun oil and the smell of plastics and weatherproof coatings, therefore they are immune to high-tech detection and only reveal themselves to trekkers simply equipped with sticks and hats.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“They live in the misty hillsides of Big Sur … migratory beings, possessed of incredible hearing and impeccable eyesight. Like crows, they can sense the presence of gun oil and the smell of plastics and weatherproof coatings, therefore they are immune to high-tech detection and only reveal themselves to trekkers simply equipped with sticks and hats.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The younger Steinbeck continued: “I’ve gotten this from some of my father’s relatives, that since the time of the conquistadors, people just talked about being in the Big Sur and being watched by these creatures that they can’t quite see. My grandmother … swore that she traded with them. She’d leave them fruit and nuts in a very specific place and when she came back a couple of weeks later, there would be shells with holes drilled in them, decorated feathers, other things … They didn’t use fire, you could never find their camps, they were constantly on the move, and they’ve been there forever. And everybody talks about them.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The younger Steinbeck continued: “I’ve gotten this from some of my father’s relatives, that since the time of the conquistadors, people just talked about being in the Big Sur and being watched by these creatures that they can’t quite see. My grandmother … swore that she traded with them. She’d leave them fruit and nuts in a very specific place and when she came back a couple of weeks later, there would be shells with holes drilled in them, decorated feathers, other things … They didn’t use fire, you could never find their camps, they were constantly on the move, and they’ve been there forever. And everybody talks about them.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Perhaps the oddest thing about Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode’s take on the Dark Watchers is that they both believe the forest-dwellers are actually small and gnome-like, not the towering creatures most commonly referenced when \u003ca href=\"https://www.darkwatching.com/stories\">reported sightings do occur\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Perhaps the oddest thing about Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode’s take on the Dark Watchers is that they both believe the forest-dwellers are actually small and gnome-like, not the towering creatures most commonly referenced when \u003ca href=\"https://www.darkwatching.com/stories\">reported sightings do occur\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Brode added, “The thing about Big Sur is, you can get away from humans really, really easily. The habitat for the Dark Watchers is better than it was maybe 20 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Brode added, “The thing about Big Sur is, you can get away from humans really, really easily. The habitat for the Dark Watchers is better than it was maybe 20 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And perhaps that’s at the core of all of this. Big Sur is intimidating, otherworldy, and awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. Because of that, it hasn’t just conjured stories of Dark Watchers over the years. Reports of \u003ca href=\"https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2022-03-11-hiker-thinks-they-found-proof-of-bigfoot-in-california/\">Bigfoot footprints\u003c/a> have been reported by \u003ca href=\"https://campchimp.com/blog/california/pfeiffer-big-sur-campgroundbigfoot-map\">multiple sources\u003c/a> as recently as November 2025. Reddit users have shared multiple Bigfoot sightings they said happened at Big Sur, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/l4k9zf/our_up_close_sighting_in_big_sur_california_1978/\">from 1978\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://sasquatchchronicles.com/sc-ep515-i-shouldnt-be-alive/\">the late ’80s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/31/trekking-californias-mysterious-bigfoot-trail/\">beyond\u003c/a>. Big Sur is also, infamously, the location where two air force employees claimed a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur_UFO\">UFO shot down a test missile\u003c/a>, using beams of light, in 1964.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And perhaps that’s at the core of all of this. Big Sur is intimidating, otherworldy, and awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. Because of that, it hasn’t just conjured stories of Dark Watchers over the years. Reports of \u003ca href=\"https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2022-03-11-hiker-thinks-they-found-proof-of-bigfoot-in-california/\">Bigfoot footprints\u003c/a> have been reported by \u003ca href=\"https://campchimp.com/blog/california/pfeiffer-big-sur-campgroundbigfoot-map\">multiple sources\u003c/a> as recently as November 2025. Reddit users have shared multiple Bigfoot sightings they said happened at Big Sur, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/l4k9zf/our_up_close_sighting_in_big_sur_california_1978/\">from 1978\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://sasquatchchronicles.com/sc-ep515-i-shouldnt-be-alive/\">the late ’80s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/31/trekking-californias-mysterious-bigfoot-trail/\">beyond\u003c/a>. Big Sur is also, infamously, the location where two air force employees claimed a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur_UFO\">UFO shot down a test missile\u003c/a>, using beams of light, in 1964.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Could it be possible that these misty mountains just play tricks on the minds of humans? Might this legend have died without the Steinbecks? It’s impossible to know. But if you catch sight of a Dark Watcher on your next hike, rest assured that they won’t bother you. If they were willing to have such interactions, we might be more sure of their existence. \u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>They’ve been part of California mountain lore for centuries: featureless black figures, more than 7 feet tall, often wearing brimmed hats and long cloaks, who appear during dusk and dawn to silently observe the unfortunates who wander into their midst. They are called the Dark Watchers, and believers say they dwell in the Santa Lucia mountain range, unnervingly overlooking human activity in remote areas.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Any discussion of the Dark Watchers — be it in books (like \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Big-Book-of-California-Ghost-Stories/Janice-Oberding/Big-Book-of-Ghost-Stories/9781493058624\">The Big Book of California Ghost Stories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> by Janice Oberding) or on TV (see: the History Channel’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42GxYs1u_ro&t=163s\">\u003cem>MonsterQuest: Origins\u003c/em>\u003c/a>) — usually mentions that these mysterious figures were first named by California’s earliest Spanish settlers. Back then, witnesses apparently called the shadow people in the Big Sur wilderness “Los Vigilantes Oscuros.” Despite this frequently given history, source texts remain elusive. Today, it’s unclear where or how the Spaniards documented the vigilantes at all — perhaps the stories were passed down orally. Some sources say California’s Indigenous people believed in them, though there’s no clear record of that either.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Much of the reason the lore of the Dark Watchers has survived to the present day is John Steinbeck. On the very first page of his 1952 classic \u003cem>East of Eden\u003c/em>, the Salinas-born author describes the Santa Lucia mountain range in Monterey County as a place of personal terror. He writes: “The Santa Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding — unfriendly and dangerous. I always found in myself a dread of the west.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In this passage, Steinbeck was continuing a narrative he’d begun 14 years earlier, in a grim little short story, \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, found in his 1938 collection \u003cem>The Long Valley\u003c/em>. \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> tells the story of Pepé Torres, a “gentle, affectionate … but very lazy” 19-year-old who flees into the Santa Lucia mountains after killing a man in Monterey. As his mother assists Pepé’s exit, she warns cryptically, “When thou comest to the high mountains, if thou seest any of the dark watching men, go not near to them nor try to speak to them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pepé does, inevitably, encounter those very men along his ill-fated journey. Steinbeck writes: “Pepé looked suspiciously back every minute or so, and his eyes sought the tops of the ridges ahead. Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another Dark Watcher appears in the story shortly afterwards as, “a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock … When a moment later [Pepé] looked up again, the figure was gone.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These mysterious figures are, in the course of \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em>, terrible omens — it doesn’t take long for Pepé to reach a tragic end. But the Dark Watchers were not entirely an invention of Steinbeck’s. A year before \u003cem>Flight\u003c/em> was published, poet Robinson Jeffers — a lifelong Carmel resident — wrote in \u003cem>Such Counsels You Gave Me\u003c/em>:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“He thought it might be one of the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast-range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1438\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png\" alt=\"A book cover featuring a painting of a tree-lined hillside at dusk, with a view of water on the horizon.\" class=\"wp-image-13991635\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-160x115.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-768x552.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/dark-watchers-book-1536x1104.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">‘In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur’ by Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode. (Steinbeck Press)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If John Steinbeck was the main reason the lore of the Dark Watchers stayed alive in the 20th century, it’s his son that has done so in the 21st. After publishing his 2014 book \u003cem>In Search of the Dark Watchers: Landscapes and Lore of Big Sur\u003c/em> — a collaboration with fine artist Benjamin Brode — \u003ca href=\"https://www.studiobrode.com/news-and-reviews\">Thomas Steinbeck appeared on \u003cem>Simple Life\u003c/em> \u003cem>Radio\u003c/em>\u003c/a> with Cynthia Fernandes. In that 2015 interview, he stated:\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“They live in the misty hillsides of Big Sur … migratory beings, possessed of incredible hearing and impeccable eyesight. Like crows, they can sense the presence of gun oil and the smell of plastics and weatherproof coatings, therefore they are immune to high-tech detection and only reveal themselves to trekkers simply equipped with sticks and hats.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The younger Steinbeck continued: “I’ve gotten this from some of my father’s relatives, that since the time of the conquistadors, people just talked about being in the Big Sur and being watched by these creatures that they can’t quite see. My grandmother … swore that she traded with them. She’d leave them fruit and nuts in a very specific place and when she came back a couple of weeks later, there would be shells with holes drilled in them, decorated feathers, other things … They didn’t use fire, you could never find their camps, they were constantly on the move, and they’ve been there forever. And everybody talks about them.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Perhaps the oddest thing about Thomas Steinbeck and Benjamin Brode’s take on the Dark Watchers is that they both believe the forest-dwellers are actually small and gnome-like, not the towering creatures most commonly referenced when \u003ca href=\"https://www.darkwatching.com/stories\">reported sightings do occur\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Brode added, “The thing about Big Sur is, you can get away from humans really, really easily. The habitat for the Dark Watchers is better than it was maybe 20 years ago.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And perhaps that’s at the core of all of this. Big Sur is intimidating, otherworldy, and awesome in the most traditional sense of the word. Because of that, it hasn’t just conjured stories of Dark Watchers over the years. Reports of \u003ca href=\"https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2022-03-11-hiker-thinks-they-found-proof-of-bigfoot-in-california/\">Bigfoot footprints\u003c/a> have been reported by \u003ca href=\"https://campchimp.com/blog/california/pfeiffer-big-sur-campgroundbigfoot-map\">multiple sources\u003c/a> as recently as November 2025. Reddit users have shared multiple Bigfoot sightings they said happened at Big Sur, \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/bigfoot/comments/l4k9zf/our_up_close_sighting_in_big_sur_california_1978/\">from 1978\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://sasquatchchronicles.com/sc-ep515-i-shouldnt-be-alive/\">the late ’80s\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/31/trekking-californias-mysterious-bigfoot-trail/\">beyond\u003c/a>. Big Sur is also, infamously, the location where two air force employees claimed a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur_UFO\">UFO shot down a test missile\u003c/a>, using beams of light, in 1964.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Could it be possible that these misty mountains just play tricks on the minds of humans? Might this legend have died without the Steinbecks? It’s impossible to know. But if you catch sight of a Dark Watcher on your next hike, rest assured that they won’t bother you. If they were willing to have such interactions, we might be more sure of their existence. \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "San Francisco’s First Serial Killer Was a Doctor Named J. Milton Bowers ... Probably",
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"content": "\u003cp>If you’re a Bay Area true crime nerd with an extensive knowledge of the region’s most notorious serial killers, you might be wondering why you’ve never heard of San Francisco’s very first serial killer, Dr. J. Milton Bowers. The answer is that nobody ever conclusively proved it. (Okay, fine, then: \u003cem>alleged\u003c/em> serial killer.) If you were a San Franciscan in the 1880s, however, you’d know all about Dr. Bowers. You’d certainly know enough not to marry the bearded weirdo.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers was a physician whose medical specialty was, according to newspaper ads of the era, “diseases of women and children.” Which is unfortunate given that his first three wives ended up dead under suspicious circumstances while under his care. The first, Fannie Hammond, died in 1874 of “undetermined causes” and the couple’s Chicago home burned down shortly after her death. Not suspicious at all!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers immediately moved to New York and married a popular actress and writer named Theresa Sherek, who was 15 years his junior. Together, the couple relocated to San Francisco, but marital bliss was short-lived. Sherek died on Jan. 28, 1881, aged 24, and was buried the very same day. The presumed cause of death was an abscess of the liver.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Within a year, Bowers was married yet again. This time to 29-year-old Cecelia Benhayon, who was a beloved San Francisco socialite. After a sudden and excruciating illness, Cecelia died on Nov. 3, 1885. And — wouldn’t you know it? — her initial death certificate suggested the cause was an abscess of the liver, just like the second Mrs. Bowers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After Cecelia’s death, San Francisco coroner C. C. O’Donnell was quickly tipped off, via anonymous note, that there was cause to perform an autopsy. When O’Donnell rushed to the Bowers home on Market Street and demanded one, Bowers did everything in his power to prevent the procedure. This included burying Cecelia’s body before the city physician, Dr. Black, could get to it. After some legal wrangling, O’Donnell managed to get poor Cecelia disinterred. One of his arguments for it: Bowers had recently taken out a $17,000 life insurance policy on his wife.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dr. Black finally got his scalpel on Cecelia’s remains, lo and behold he found zero evidence of a liver abscess. What he \u003cem>did\u003c/em> find was an abnormal-looking stomach, which he promptly placed in a jar and sent to a chemist named Dr. William Johnson. (Pity the delivery boy…) Johnson later testified that he could smell phosphorus on the organ before he’d even tested it for chemicals. His findings were backed by several other doctors and they were conclusive: Cecelia had been poisoned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the Nov. 10 inquest, when Bowers was asked to account for the phosphorus in Cecelia’s stomach, he stumbled incredulously for a while, before stating: “I did not give it to her. She must have taken it herself!” When the inquest also raised the fact that the coroner had found evidence of a recent abortion, Bowers replied, “Yes [but] I did not perform it. She did it herself!”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Faced with this level of buffoonery, nine inquest jurors decided that Bowers needed to be placed under arrest immediately. Once in the county jail, Bowers talked to the local press at every opportunity. He complained to the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> that he was “unused to close confinement,” but found the strength to insist that if was going to poison his wife, he would have used something less traceable than phosphorus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"950\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white portrait of a white man with coiffed hair and a long white beard, accompanied by two courtroom illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-13990863\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png 650w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904-160x234.png 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dr. J. Milton Bower as depicted in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 8, 1904. (Archival image)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers’ six-week trial — the longest in San Francisco history at the time — began on March 9, 1886 and saw 130 witnesses testify. Cecelia’s loved ones said they had been denied access to her in her final days, and claimed repeatedly that Bowers was a chronically unfaithful man who treated his wife terribly. Cecelia’s brother Henry Benhayon said Bowers once forced Cecelia to share a bed with one of Bowers’ mistresses. More explicit details were shared in court that the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> deemed “unfit for publication, even in technical terms.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, Henry testified that he found two pills in Cecelia’s deathbed that contained phosphorus. He also said he’d witnessed Cecelia sobbing to Bowers, “You are torturing me to death with medicine.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In contrast, Bowers’ associates testified that the marriage had been a happy one, and Bowers himself denied all accusations in a day-long testimony. It didn’t work. After a 35-minute deliberation, the jury found Bowers guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death by hanging.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>All’s well that ends well, right? Well, no. This is actually where things get even stranger…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eighteen months after the end of Bowers’ trial, Henry Benhayon (yes, Cecelia’s brother again) was found dead in a Geary Street rooming house that was next door to Bowers’ former medical office. Near Henry’s lifeless body (which was found in an odd, face-down position) were three bottles: whiskey, chloroform and a tightly capped bottle of cyanide. Close to those were three letters signed with Henry’s name, one of which stated that he’d planned to murder both his sister and Bowers so he could become guardian to his niece and inherit the insurance money. The letter also stated that Henry had bought the phosphorus used to kill his sister from a unnamed man who had later committed suicide. (How convenient!)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When reporters told Bowers about the confession letter, the doctor said, rather smugly, “Strange that with all my watchfulness, and despite the fact that I was continually at her bedside, that [Henry] should be able to get in and poison her in such a mysterious manner.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re thinking, “Sounds like Dr. Bowers had his brother-in-law murdered,” you’re not the first. Investigators quickly jumped on the case, and after following some boulder-sized breadcrumbs, arrested a friend of Bowers’ named John Dimmig. Not only was Dimmig a frequent visitor to Bowers in prison, he’d also recently rented the room that Henry’s body was found in. (Dimmig claimed that Henry must have stolen his key.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite Dimmig making several preposterous assertions (like admitting he’d recently bought cyanide, yes, but that it was just for a doctor friend), Dimmig’s murder trial was complicated by confusing witness testimony and conflicting handwriting analysis. (One expert said the confession letter was definitely fake, the other said it absolutely matched Henry’s penmanship.) The trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial six months later also resulted in a deadlock, but this time the judge refused to let the jury give up and go home. The end result? Dimmig was found not guilty.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a result of Dimmig being acquitted — and brace yourself for this nonsense — the California Supreme Court decided that the confession letter with Henry’s name on it was enough grounds for Bowers to be released. The doctor got out after just four years in the clink. He quickly opened a medical practice in San Francisco that no one wanted to go to. Then he tried again in Oakland, another location where he was a pariah. Finally, he limped on down to San José, where he was less well-known, and opened an office there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Dr. Bowers died of a stroke in 1904, after battling health problems for two years. The \u003cem>San Francisco\u003c/em> \u003cem>Call\u003c/em>’s report of his death kindly noted that his fourth wife — a schoolteacher named Mary Bird who married him in 1895 — “fortunately survives him.” The article also quoted one detective, Robert Hogan, who had never forgotten the details of Cecelia Benhayon’s agonizing death. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dr. Bowers should have broken his neck from a trap,” Hogan asserted, “instead of dying peaceably from paralysis.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Bowers was a physician whose medical specialty was, according to newspaper ads of the era, “diseases of women and children.” Which is unfortunate given that his first three wives ended up dead under suspicious circumstances while under his care. The first, Fannie Hammond, died in 1874 of “undetermined causes” and the couple’s Chicago home burned down shortly after her death. Not suspicious at all!\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Bowers immediately moved to New York and married a popular actress and writer named Theresa Sherek, who was 15 years his junior. Together, the couple relocated to San Francisco, but marital bliss was short-lived. Sherek died on Jan. 28, 1881, aged 24, and was buried the very same day. The presumed cause of death was an abscess of the liver.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Within a year, Bowers was married yet again. This time to 29-year-old Cecelia Benhayon, who was a beloved San Francisco socialite. After a sudden and excruciating illness, Cecelia died on Nov. 3, 1885. And — wouldn’t you know it? — her initial death certificate suggested the cause was an abscess of the liver, just like the second Mrs. Bowers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After Cecelia’s death, San Francisco coroner C. C. O’Donnell was quickly tipped off, via anonymous note, that there was cause to perform an autopsy. When O’Donnell rushed to the Bowers home on Market Street and demanded one, Bowers did everything in his power to prevent the procedure. This included burying Cecelia’s body before the city physician, Dr. Black, could get to it. After some legal wrangling, O’Donnell managed to get poor Cecelia disinterred. One of his arguments for it: Bowers had recently taken out a $17,000 life insurance policy on his wife.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After Cecelia’s death, San Francisco coroner C. C. O’Donnell was quickly tipped off, via anonymous note, that there was cause to perform an autopsy. When O’Donnell rushed to the Bowers home on Market Street and demanded one, Bowers did everything in his power to prevent the procedure. This included burying Cecelia’s body before the city physician, Dr. Black, could get to it. After some legal wrangling, O’Donnell managed to get poor Cecelia disinterred. One of his arguments for it: Bowers had recently taken out a $17,000 life insurance policy on his wife.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When Dr. Black finally got his scalpel on Cecelia’s remains, lo and behold he found zero evidence of a liver abscess. What he \u003cem>did\u003c/em> find was an abnormal-looking stomach, which he promptly placed in a jar and sent to a chemist named Dr. William Johnson. (Pity the delivery boy…) Johnson later testified that he could smell phosphorus on the organ before he’d even tested it for chemicals. His findings were backed by several other doctors and they were conclusive: Cecelia had been poisoned.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When Dr. Black finally got his scalpel on Cecelia’s remains, lo and behold he found zero evidence of a liver abscess. What he \u003cem>did\u003c/em> find was an abnormal-looking stomach, which he promptly placed in a jar and sent to a chemist named Dr. William Johnson. (Pity the delivery boy…) Johnson later testified that he could smell phosphorus on the organ before he’d even tested it for chemicals. His findings were backed by several other doctors and they were conclusive: Cecelia had been poisoned.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>At the Nov. 10 inquest, when Bowers was asked to account for the phosphorus in Cecelia’s stomach, he stumbled incredulously for a while, before stating: “I did not give it to her. She must have taken it herself!” When the inquest also raised the fact that the coroner had found evidence of a recent abortion, Bowers replied, “Yes [but] I did not perform it. She did it herself!”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>At the Nov. 10 inquest, when Bowers was asked to account for the phosphorus in Cecelia’s stomach, he stumbled incredulously for a while, before stating: “I did not give it to her. She must have taken it herself!” When the inquest also raised the fact that the coroner had found evidence of a recent abortion, Bowers replied, “Yes [but] I did not perform it. She did it herself!”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Faced with this level of buffoonery, nine inquest jurors decided that Bowers needed to be placed under arrest immediately. Once in the county jail, Bowers talked to the local press at every opportunity. He complained to the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> that he was “unused to close confinement,” but found the strength to insist that if was going to poison his wife, he would have used something less traceable than phosphorus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Faced with this level of buffoonery, nine inquest jurors decided that Bowers needed to be placed under arrest immediately. Once in the county jail, Bowers talked to the local press at every opportunity. He complained to the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> that he was “unused to close confinement,” but found the strength to insist that if was going to poison his wife, he would have used something less traceable than phosphorus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white portrait of a white man with coiffed hair and a long white beard, accompanied by two courtroom illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-13990863\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png 650w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904-160x234.png 160w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dr. J. Milton Bower as depicted in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 8, 1904.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white portrait of a white man with coiffed hair and a long white beard, accompanied by two courtroom illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-13990863\"/>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dr. J. Milton Bower as depicted in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 8, 1904.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Bowers’ six-week trial — the longest in San Francisco history at the time — began on March 9, 1886 and saw 130 witnesses testify. Cecelia’s loved ones said they had been denied access to her in her final days, and claimed repeatedly that Bowers was a chronically unfaithful man who treated his wife terribly. Cecelia’s brother Henry Benhayon said Bowers once forced Cecelia to share a bed with one of Bowers’ mistresses. More explicit details were shared in court that the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> deemed “unfit for publication, even in technical terms.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Bowers’ six-week trial — the longest in San Francisco history at the time — began on March 9, 1886 and saw 130 witnesses testify. Cecelia’s loved ones said they had been denied access to her in her final days, and claimed repeatedly that Bowers was a chronically unfaithful man who treated his wife terribly. Cecelia’s brother Henry Benhayon said Bowers once forced Cecelia to share a bed with one of Bowers’ mistresses. More explicit details were shared in court that the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> deemed “unfit for publication, even in technical terms.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Additionally, Henry testified that he found two pills in Cecelia’s deathbed that contained phosphorus. He also said he’d witnessed Cecelia sobbing to Bowers, “You are torturing me to death with medicine.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Additionally, Henry testified that he found two pills in Cecelia’s deathbed that contained phosphorus. He also said he’d witnessed Cecelia sobbing to Bowers, “You are torturing me to death with medicine.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In contrast, Bowers’ associates testified that the marriage had been a happy one, and Bowers himself denied all accusations in a day-long testimony. It didn’t work. After a 35-minute deliberation, the jury found Bowers guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death by hanging.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In contrast, Bowers’ associates testified that the marriage had been a happy one, and Bowers himself denied all accusations in a day-long testimony. It didn’t work. After a 35-minute deliberation, the jury found Bowers guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death by hanging.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>All’s well that ends well, right? Well, no. This is actually where things get even stranger…\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eighteen months after the end of Bowers’ trial, Henry Benhayon (yes, Cecelia’s brother again) was found dead in a Geary Street rooming house that was next door to Bowers’ former medical office. Near Henry’s lifeless body (which was found in an odd, face-down position) were three bottles: whiskey, chloroform and a tightly capped bottle of cyanide. Close to those were three letters signed with Henry’s name, one of which stated that he’d planned to murder both his sister and Bowers so he could become guardian to his niece and inherit the insurance money. The letter also stated that Henry had bought the phosphorus used to kill his sister from a unnamed man who had later committed suicide. (How convenient!)\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Eighteen months after the end of Bowers’ trial, Henry Benhayon (yes, Cecelia’s brother again) was found dead in a Geary Street rooming house that was next door to Bowers’ former medical office. Near Henry’s lifeless body (which was found in an odd, face-down position) were three bottles: whiskey, chloroform and a tightly capped bottle of cyanide. Close to those were three letters signed with Henry’s name, one of which stated that he’d planned to murder both his sister and Bowers so he could become guardian to his niece and inherit the insurance money. The letter also stated that Henry had bought the phosphorus used to kill his sister from a unnamed man who had later committed suicide. (How convenient!)\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When reporters told Bowers about the confession letter, the doctor said, rather smugly, “Strange that with all my watchfulness, and despite the fact that I was continually at her bedside, that [Henry] should be able to get in and poison her in such a mysterious manner.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When reporters told Bowers about the confession letter, the doctor said, rather smugly, “Strange that with all my watchfulness, and despite the fact that I was continually at her bedside, that [Henry] should be able to get in and poison her in such a mysterious manner.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re thinking, “Sounds like Dr. Bowers had his brother-in-law murdered,” you’re not the first. Investigators quickly jumped on the case, and after following some boulder-sized breadcrumbs, arrested a friend of Bowers’ named John Dimmig. Not only was Dimmig a frequent visitor to Bowers in prison, he’d also recently rented the room that Henry’s body was found in. (Dimmig claimed that Henry must have stolen his key.)\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re thinking, “Sounds like Dr. Bowers had his brother-in-law murdered,” you’re not the first. Investigators quickly jumped on the case, and after following some boulder-sized breadcrumbs, arrested a friend of Bowers’ named John Dimmig. Not only was Dimmig a frequent visitor to Bowers in prison, he’d also recently rented the room that Henry’s body was found in. (Dimmig claimed that Henry must have stolen his key.)\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Despite Dimmig making several preposterous assertions (like admitting he’d recently bought cyanide, yes, but that it was just for a doctor friend), Dimmig’s murder trial was complicated by confusing witness testimony and conflicting handwriting analysis. (One expert said the confession letter was definitely fake, the other said it absolutely matched Henry’s penmanship.) The trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial six months later also resulted in a deadlock, but this time the judge refused to let the jury give up and go home. The end result? Dimmig was found not guilty.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Despite Dimmig making several preposterous assertions (like admitting he’d recently bought cyanide, yes, but that it was just for a doctor friend), Dimmig’s murder trial was complicated by confusing witness testimony and conflicting handwriting analysis. (One expert said the confession letter was definitely fake, the other said it absolutely matched Henry’s penmanship.) The trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial six months later also resulted in a deadlock, but this time the judge refused to let the jury give up and go home. The end result? Dimmig was found not guilty.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As a result of Dimmig being acquitted — and brace yourself for this nonsense — the California Supreme Court decided that the confession letter with Henry’s name on it was enough grounds for Bowers to be released. The doctor got out after just four years in the clink. He quickly opened a medical practice in San Francisco that no one wanted to go to. Then he tried again in Oakland, another location where he was a pariah. Finally, he limped on down to San José, where he was less well-known, and opened an office there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>As a result of Dimmig being acquitted — and brace yourself for this nonsense — the California Supreme Court decided that the confession letter with Henry’s name on it was enough grounds for Bowers to be released. The doctor got out after just four years in the clink. He quickly opened a medical practice in San Francisco that no one wanted to go to. Then he tried again in Oakland, another location where he was a pariah. Finally, he limped on down to San José, where he was less well-known, and opened an office there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Dr. Bowers died of a stroke in 1904, after battling health problems for two years. The \u003cem>San Francisco\u003c/em> \u003cem>Call\u003c/em>’s report of his death kindly noted that his fourth wife — a schoolteacher named Mary Bird who married him in 1895 — “fortunately survives him.” The article also quoted one detective, Robert Hogan, who had never forgotten the details of Cecelia Benhayon’s agonizing death. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Dr. Bowers died of a stroke in 1904, after battling health problems for two years. The \u003cem>San Francisco\u003c/em> \u003cem>Call\u003c/em>’s report of his death kindly noted that his fourth wife — a schoolteacher named Mary Bird who married him in 1895 — “fortunately survives him.” The article also quoted one detective, Robert Hogan, who had never forgotten the details of Cecelia Benhayon’s agonizing death. \u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’re a Bay Area true crime nerd with an extensive knowledge of the region’s most notorious serial killers, you might be wondering why you’ve never heard of San Francisco’s very first serial killer, Dr. J. Milton Bowers. The answer is that nobody ever conclusively proved it. (Okay, fine, then: \u003cem>alleged\u003c/em> serial killer.) If you were a San Franciscan in the 1880s, however, you’d know all about Dr. Bowers. You’d certainly know enough not to marry the bearded weirdo.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers was a physician whose medical specialty was, according to newspaper ads of the era, “diseases of women and children.” Which is unfortunate given that his first three wives ended up dead under suspicious circumstances while under his care. The first, Fannie Hammond, died in 1874 of “undetermined causes” and the couple’s Chicago home burned down shortly after her death. Not suspicious at all!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers immediately moved to New York and married a popular actress and writer named Theresa Sherek, who was 15 years his junior. Together, the couple relocated to San Francisco, but marital bliss was short-lived. Sherek died on Jan. 28, 1881, aged 24, and was buried the very same day. The presumed cause of death was an abscess of the liver.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Within a year, Bowers was married yet again. This time to 29-year-old Cecelia Benhayon, who was a beloved San Francisco socialite. After a sudden and excruciating illness, Cecelia died on Nov. 3, 1885. And — wouldn’t you know it? — her initial death certificate suggested the cause was an abscess of the liver, just like the second Mrs. Bowers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After Cecelia’s death, San Francisco coroner C. C. O’Donnell was quickly tipped off, via anonymous note, that there was cause to perform an autopsy. When O’Donnell rushed to the Bowers home on Market Street and demanded one, Bowers did everything in his power to prevent the procedure. This included burying Cecelia’s body before the city physician, Dr. Black, could get to it. After some legal wrangling, O’Donnell managed to get poor Cecelia disinterred. One of his arguments for it: Bowers had recently taken out a $17,000 life insurance policy on his wife.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Dr. Black finally got his scalpel on Cecelia’s remains, lo and behold he found zero evidence of a liver abscess. What he \u003cem>did\u003c/em> find was an abnormal-looking stomach, which he promptly placed in a jar and sent to a chemist named Dr. William Johnson. (Pity the delivery boy…) Johnson later testified that he could smell phosphorus on the organ before he’d even tested it for chemicals. His findings were backed by several other doctors and they were conclusive: Cecelia had been poisoned.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>At the Nov. 10 inquest, when Bowers was asked to account for the phosphorus in Cecelia’s stomach, he stumbled incredulously for a while, before stating: “I did not give it to her. She must have taken it herself!” When the inquest also raised the fact that the coroner had found evidence of a recent abortion, Bowers replied, “Yes [but] I did not perform it. She did it herself!”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Faced with this level of buffoonery, nine inquest jurors decided that Bowers needed to be placed under arrest immediately. Once in the county jail, Bowers talked to the local press at every opportunity. He complained to the \u003cem>San Francisco Call\u003c/em> that he was “unused to close confinement,” but found the strength to insist that if was going to poison his wife, he would have used something less traceable than phosphorus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-block-image\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"aligncenter size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"650\" height=\"950\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white portrait of a white man with coiffed hair and a long white beard, accompanied by two courtroom illustrations.\" class=\"wp-image-13990863\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904.png 650w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/06/Chron-mar-8-1904-160x234.png 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Dr. J. Milton Bower as depicted in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 8, 1904. (Archival image)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/div>\n\n\n\u003cp>Bowers’ six-week trial — the longest in San Francisco history at the time — began on March 9, 1886 and saw 130 witnesses testify. Cecelia’s loved ones said they had been denied access to her in her final days, and claimed repeatedly that Bowers was a chronically unfaithful man who treated his wife terribly. Cecelia’s brother Henry Benhayon said Bowers once forced Cecelia to share a bed with one of Bowers’ mistresses. More explicit details were shared in court that the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> deemed “unfit for publication, even in technical terms.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Additionally, Henry testified that he found two pills in Cecelia’s deathbed that contained phosphorus. He also said he’d witnessed Cecelia sobbing to Bowers, “You are torturing me to death with medicine.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In contrast, Bowers’ associates testified that the marriage had been a happy one, and Bowers himself denied all accusations in a day-long testimony. It didn’t work. After a 35-minute deliberation, the jury found Bowers guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death by hanging.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>All’s well that ends well, right? Well, no. This is actually where things get even stranger…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eighteen months after the end of Bowers’ trial, Henry Benhayon (yes, Cecelia’s brother again) was found dead in a Geary Street rooming house that was next door to Bowers’ former medical office. Near Henry’s lifeless body (which was found in an odd, face-down position) were three bottles: whiskey, chloroform and a tightly capped bottle of cyanide. Close to those were three letters signed with Henry’s name, one of which stated that he’d planned to murder both his sister and Bowers so he could become guardian to his niece and inherit the insurance money. The letter also stated that Henry had bought the phosphorus used to kill his sister from a unnamed man who had later committed suicide. (How convenient!)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When reporters told Bowers about the confession letter, the doctor said, rather smugly, “Strange that with all my watchfulness, and despite the fact that I was continually at her bedside, that [Henry] should be able to get in and poison her in such a mysterious manner.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, if you’re thinking, “Sounds like Dr. Bowers had his brother-in-law murdered,” you’re not the first. Investigators quickly jumped on the case, and after following some boulder-sized breadcrumbs, arrested a friend of Bowers’ named John Dimmig. Not only was Dimmig a frequent visitor to Bowers in prison, he’d also recently rented the room that Henry’s body was found in. (Dimmig claimed that Henry must have stolen his key.)\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite Dimmig making several preposterous assertions (like admitting he’d recently bought cyanide, yes, but that it was just for a doctor friend), Dimmig’s murder trial was complicated by confusing witness testimony and conflicting handwriting analysis. (One expert said the confession letter was definitely fake, the other said it absolutely matched Henry’s penmanship.) The trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial six months later also resulted in a deadlock, but this time the judge refused to let the jury give up and go home. The end result? Dimmig was found not guilty.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As a result of Dimmig being acquitted — and brace yourself for this nonsense — the California Supreme Court decided that the confession letter with Henry’s name on it was enough grounds for Bowers to be released. The doctor got out after just four years in the clink. He quickly opened a medical practice in San Francisco that no one wanted to go to. Then he tried again in Oakland, another location where he was a pariah. Finally, he limped on down to San José, where he was less well-known, and opened an office there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Dr. Bowers died of a stroke in 1904, after battling health problems for two years. The \u003cem>San Francisco\u003c/em> \u003cem>Call\u003c/em>’s report of his death kindly noted that his fourth wife — a schoolteacher named Mary Bird who married him in 1895 — “fortunately survives him.” The article also quoted one detective, Robert Hogan, who had never forgotten the details of Cecelia Benhayon’s agonizing death. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For decades now, there have been rumors that strange specters and ghostly goings-on haunt Niles Canyon Road. The winding, seven-mile stretch of highway, which runs alongside Alameda Creek to the northeast of Fremont, has been the subject of paranormal speculation for almost the entire century that cars have been using it. But why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One major incident happened in 1950 with a man named Fred Rogers (not to be confused with the cardigan-clad hero of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mr-rogers\">Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood\u003c/a>\u003c/em>). Rogers reported that, late one night, he saw a girl wearing a white gown and combing her long black hair next to the creek. Concerned for her safety, Rogers drove towards the rock where she sat, only to have her suddenly disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13979698']“She was gone,” he told the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> in 1960. “She vanished the way a rock does when you throw it into a river.” Rogers searched the banks in both directions to no avail and walked down to the area where he had seen the girl. He searched for footprints and found none. “I only know that I saw that girl and I could pick her out of a crowd if I ever saw her again,” he reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rogers is far from the only person witness to strange happenings on Niles Canyon Road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 28, 1978, a Vietnam veteran named Bill and his wife Pat were driving from Livermore to Fremont when they encountered a massive road block. As they slowly moved around police cars, swirling lights and at least one officer standing outside of his vehicle, Pat saw “a little person” sitting on the edge of the road, laughing hysterically. As the confused couple passed the roadblock, already regretting their decision not to use 680, they both witnessed the figure of a translucent woman with no legs and no facial features floating at the side of the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the couple finally cleared the chaotic corner, Bill glanced at his rearview mirror only to find that the entire scene had vanished into thin air. The tale was later \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FprwJP6CCdw\">shared on YouTube by Bill and Pat’s daughter\u003c/a>, who had spent her entire life being cautioned by her parents to avoid Niles Canyon Road at all costs. She has yet to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was sightings like these that compounded long-held lore that Niles Canyon Road was haunted by a so-called “White Witch.” The origin of that particular legend is unknown, but centers around a tale in which a man picked up a young female hitchhiker who was trying to get to South San Francisco. The story goes that when the driver reached the Dumbarton Bridge, he realized that his mysterious passenger had vanished inexplicably from the seat next to him. When he decided to continue to the final destination she had given him, a woman at that address informed him that her daughter had been killed in a Niles Canyon car crash a full decade earlier, on Feb. 26 or 28. (The date varies according to source.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13976828']The nameless driver, lack of origin year and changing details attached to this particular story suggest this one is the stuff of pure imagination. Over time, however, the story became increasingly embellished. It is said that the mysterious passenger was the spirit of a young woman (the name of whom also varies according to source — Mary, Mary Ann, Lucinda, etc.) who died in a crash alongside her sweetheart, while returning from an event in Sunol. The story persists today not just because of ghostly sightings on Niles Canyon Road; there have also been reports of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEPjbAicdxw\">disembodied footsteps\u003c/a> in the hiking trails nearby. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/bay-area-niles-canyon-road-ghost-18684782.php\">witness who was startled on the road by an unnaturally bright light\u003c/a> in 1979 shared his story with SFGate last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the truth about the alleged hauntings, there is no denying the fact that Niles Canyon Road has been the site of tragedy and misfortune since it was first constructed. After major investment to build out the road in the early 1930s, the two-lane stretch of State Route 84 remained plagued by floods, slides and repeated incidents of motorists being robbed at gunpoint, highwayman-style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13982599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13982599\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd.jpg\" alt=\"A narrow road surrounded by stark hills, running past a creek full of brown water, has a chunk missing. The missing section of the road can be seen near the water below.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This portion of Niles Canyon Road collapsed into Alameda Creek near Sunol in 2024. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On April 6, 1936, one couple was hit by thieves that were so well organized, one assailant held them at gunpoint, while another stole their valuables and a third disabled the ignition wires in the pair’s car. The couple escaped shaken but unharmed. That same year, four men stole a car, robbed a party of picnickers in Niles Canyon and then promptly smashed their vehicle into guard rails near Farwell Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13892672']Indeed, automobile collisions are what have always most plagued Niles Canyon Road — especially in its earliest years. And it seems to have been local children who first suffered the most. In April 1935, 8-year-old Gloria Arias was struck by a car and killed at the entrance to Niles Canyon Road. Eight months later, on her way to the Niles Grammar School where she was in second grade, Gloria’s friend Rafaella Morilla died at the exact same spot, having been mowed down by a gravel truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the ’30s and ’40s, the number of deadly crashes that happened on Niles Canyon Road was so excessive that a 1947 issue of the \u003cem>Oakland Post Enquirer\u003c/em> referred to one section of the road as “a traffic hazard and death trap.” The newspapers of the era regularly covered horrific, life-ending incidents there. Any number of young women lost their lives on the road during this time. Perhaps that’s why the name of the White Witch varies according to who’s telling the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incidents along Niles Canyon Road were also downright bizarre during this period. In 1933, a 30-year-old man named Gene Goss left a party held by a friend and began throwing rocks at vehicles driving on Niles Canyon Road. One of those rocks crashed through the windshield of a car, crushing the skull of its passenger, who was pronounced dead an hour later at Hayward Hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goss wasn’t the only man seemingly led astray by the road. In February 1940, a 40-year-old Niles Canyon Road worker wandered into Niles, broke into his sister’s home, threw chairs through her windows, then went about trying to break into the Niles jail using a four-foot plank of wood. When Deputy Sheriff Henry Vervais arrived and asked the unruly man what he was doing, he replied simply, “I guess I’m crazy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worse still, in 1944, a “badly decomposed” body was discovered in brush just off Niles Canyon Road after a “carefully drawn mystery map” was delivered to a five-and-dime store in Niles. The map led local law enforcement to what amounted to little more than bones. The \u003cem>Oakland Post Enquirer\u003c/em> reported: “Some dry skin remained on the left arm and ribs. A little gray hair held to the scalp. Scraps of clothing and two black shoes, each of different make were also found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13881990']The plethora of accidents on Niles Canyon Road continued well in the 1950s, with fiery collisions, cars running clear off the road, passengers being thrown from vehicles, cars and trucks overturning and at least one deadly crash that also took out major power lines. Children continued to die in tragic events too, with a 19-month-old dying in Alameda Creek in 1951 while playing with other children, and a 3-year-old named Antone Macias suffering a fractured skull after falling from his father’s car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The infamy of Niles Canyon Road seemed only to compound its deadliness. In 1959, the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> reported the deaths of five “youngsters” in five weeks, “as the result of violent high speed crashes” on the highway. “Several youths have boasted they could ‘make any curve in Niles Canyon’ at high speed safely,” the newspaper reported. “One youth made this remark and failed on the first curve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is it any wonder then, that Niles Canyon Road and the land around it continue to be of fascination to ghost hunters and thrill seekers? If anything, the lore of the White Witch simplifies the true extent of the route’s tragic history. If she is indeed still there, wearing her white gown and brushing her long black hair, it’s fairly likely that she has plenty of company.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For decades now, there have been rumors that strange specters and ghostly goings-on haunt Niles Canyon Road. The winding, seven-mile stretch of highway, which runs alongside Alameda Creek to the northeast of Fremont, has been the subject of paranormal speculation for almost the entire century that cars have been using it. But why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One major incident happened in 1950 with a man named Fred Rogers (not to be confused with the cardigan-clad hero of \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/mr-rogers\">Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood\u003c/a>\u003c/em>). Rogers reported that, late one night, he saw a girl wearing a white gown and combing her long black hair next to the creek. Concerned for her safety, Rogers drove towards the rock where she sat, only to have her suddenly disappear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“She was gone,” he told the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> in 1960. “She vanished the way a rock does when you throw it into a river.” Rogers searched the banks in both directions to no avail and walked down to the area where he had seen the girl. He searched for footprints and found none. “I only know that I saw that girl and I could pick her out of a crowd if I ever saw her again,” he reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rogers is far from the only person witness to strange happenings on Niles Canyon Road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 28, 1978, a Vietnam veteran named Bill and his wife Pat were driving from Livermore to Fremont when they encountered a massive road block. As they slowly moved around police cars, swirling lights and at least one officer standing outside of his vehicle, Pat saw “a little person” sitting on the edge of the road, laughing hysterically. As the confused couple passed the roadblock, already regretting their decision not to use 680, they both witnessed the figure of a translucent woman with no legs and no facial features floating at the side of the road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the couple finally cleared the chaotic corner, Bill glanced at his rearview mirror only to find that the entire scene had vanished into thin air. The tale was later \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FprwJP6CCdw\">shared on YouTube by Bill and Pat’s daughter\u003c/a>, who had spent her entire life being cautioned by her parents to avoid Niles Canyon Road at all costs. She has yet to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was sightings like these that compounded long-held lore that Niles Canyon Road was haunted by a so-called “White Witch.” The origin of that particular legend is unknown, but centers around a tale in which a man picked up a young female hitchhiker who was trying to get to South San Francisco. The story goes that when the driver reached the Dumbarton Bridge, he realized that his mysterious passenger had vanished inexplicably from the seat next to him. When he decided to continue to the final destination she had given him, a woman at that address informed him that her daughter had been killed in a Niles Canyon car crash a full decade earlier, on Feb. 26 or 28. (The date varies according to source.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The nameless driver, lack of origin year and changing details attached to this particular story suggest this one is the stuff of pure imagination. Over time, however, the story became increasingly embellished. It is said that the mysterious passenger was the spirit of a young woman (the name of whom also varies according to source — Mary, Mary Ann, Lucinda, etc.) who died in a crash alongside her sweetheart, while returning from an event in Sunol. The story persists today not just because of ghostly sightings on Niles Canyon Road; there have also been reports of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEPjbAicdxw\">disembodied footsteps\u003c/a> in the hiking trails nearby. One \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/bay-area-niles-canyon-road-ghost-18684782.php\">witness who was startled on the road by an unnaturally bright light\u003c/a> in 1979 shared his story with SFGate last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever the truth about the alleged hauntings, there is no denying the fact that Niles Canyon Road has been the site of tragedy and misfortune since it was first constructed. After major investment to build out the road in the early 1930s, the two-lane stretch of State Route 84 remained plagued by floods, slides and repeated incidents of motorists being robbed at gunpoint, highwayman-style.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13982599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13982599\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd.jpg\" alt=\"A narrow road surrounded by stark hills, running past a creek full of brown water, has a chunk missing. The missing section of the road can be seen near the water below.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/niles-canyon-rd-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This portion of Niles Canyon Road collapsed into Alameda Creek near Sunol in 2024. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On April 6, 1936, one couple was hit by thieves that were so well organized, one assailant held them at gunpoint, while another stole their valuables and a third disabled the ignition wires in the pair’s car. The couple escaped shaken but unharmed. That same year, four men stole a car, robbed a party of picnickers in Niles Canyon and then promptly smashed their vehicle into guard rails near Farwell Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Indeed, automobile collisions are what have always most plagued Niles Canyon Road — especially in its earliest years. And it seems to have been local children who first suffered the most. In April 1935, 8-year-old Gloria Arias was struck by a car and killed at the entrance to Niles Canyon Road. Eight months later, on her way to the Niles Grammar School where she was in second grade, Gloria’s friend Rafaella Morilla died at the exact same spot, having been mowed down by a gravel truck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the ’30s and ’40s, the number of deadly crashes that happened on Niles Canyon Road was so excessive that a 1947 issue of the \u003cem>Oakland Post Enquirer\u003c/em> referred to one section of the road as “a traffic hazard and death trap.” The newspapers of the era regularly covered horrific, life-ending incidents there. Any number of young women lost their lives on the road during this time. Perhaps that’s why the name of the White Witch varies according to who’s telling the tale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Incidents along Niles Canyon Road were also downright bizarre during this period. In 1933, a 30-year-old man named Gene Goss left a party held by a friend and began throwing rocks at vehicles driving on Niles Canyon Road. One of those rocks crashed through the windshield of a car, crushing the skull of its passenger, who was pronounced dead an hour later at Hayward Hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goss wasn’t the only man seemingly led astray by the road. In February 1940, a 40-year-old Niles Canyon Road worker wandered into Niles, broke into his sister’s home, threw chairs through her windows, then went about trying to break into the Niles jail using a four-foot plank of wood. When Deputy Sheriff Henry Vervais arrived and asked the unruly man what he was doing, he replied simply, “I guess I’m crazy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Worse still, in 1944, a “badly decomposed” body was discovered in brush just off Niles Canyon Road after a “carefully drawn mystery map” was delivered to a five-and-dime store in Niles. The map led local law enforcement to what amounted to little more than bones. The \u003cem>Oakland Post Enquirer\u003c/em> reported: “Some dry skin remained on the left arm and ribs. A little gray hair held to the scalp. Scraps of clothing and two black shoes, each of different make were also found.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The plethora of accidents on Niles Canyon Road continued well in the 1950s, with fiery collisions, cars running clear off the road, passengers being thrown from vehicles, cars and trucks overturning and at least one deadly crash that also took out major power lines. Children continued to die in tragic events too, with a 19-month-old dying in Alameda Creek in 1951 while playing with other children, and a 3-year-old named Antone Macias suffering a fractured skull after falling from his father’s car.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The infamy of Niles Canyon Road seemed only to compound its deadliness. In 1959, the \u003cem>Oakland Tribune\u003c/em> reported the deaths of five “youngsters” in five weeks, “as the result of violent high speed crashes” on the highway. “Several youths have boasted they could ‘make any curve in Niles Canyon’ at high speed safely,” the newspaper reported. “One youth made this remark and failed on the first curve.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Bay Area tends to outdo itself every Halloween, and 2025 offers something for everyone, whether you want to go on your own ghost hunt, \u003cem>boo\u003c/em>-gie down with disco freaks or get spooky with a symphony. Gracious goths, ghostly tour guides and even Rolling Dead skaters are all running wild this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are 11 unmissable events for Halloween 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980995\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980995\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white image of UC Berkeley's campanile tower lit up at night, viewed behind trees.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-160x110.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-768x527.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-1536x1054.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Explore UC Berkeley from a whole new (haunted) perspective on the Berkeley Haunted Hike. \u003ccite>(Berkeley Haunted Hike)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://thehauntedbayberkeleyhauntedhike.fearticket.com/\">Berkeley Haunted Hike\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>UC Berkeley Campus, Berkeley\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Select dates throughout October\u003c/em>[aside postID=news_12056776 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/holt_286_4870-e1758301572353.jpg']Since 2013, filmmaker Ying Liu has been sharing bone-chilling tales of local hauntings via her \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/thehauntedbay/\">\u003cem>Haunted Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a> series. Liu has proven time and again that, for her, no lore is too off-putting, no history is too horrifying, and no location is too dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Liu is a tireless seeker of the strange, she knows a terrifying thing or two about locations that, to the rest of us, seem perfectly normal — including the grounds of UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liu has assembled a team of likeminded guides and ghost hunters to lead groups on a three-hour hike around the campus that has been known to scare the wits out of people during its second half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tours include elements of true crime, history and evidence from paranormal investigations, as well as personal anecdotes from the team. Bring your own flashlights (and good luck charms).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand on a rural road, surrounded by autumnal trees, dressed as traditional ghosts in white sheet. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Want a side of tea with your ghost stories? Check out ‘Ghosts in the Post.’ \u003ccite>(Vuk Saric/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Ghosts in the Post\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.neonraspberry.com/\">Neon Raspberry Art House\u003c/a>, Occidental\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Nov. 2, 6 p.m—8 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In collaboration with Books & Barns, a volunteer-run organization that showcases writers in rural spaces, the Neon Raspberry art space is hosting a night of haunted readings from classic texts. These are no ordinary readers, however. “Undead mushrooms, very dead authors and beautiful monsters” will all take the podium, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After story time is over, attendees can participate in a lantern-lit procession to \u003ca href=\"https://www.twotreesteahouse.com/pages/the-tea-house\">Two Trees Tea House\u003c/a> where there will be snacks, more ghostly goings-on and, duh, tea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wondering why the event is called Ghosts in the Post? The organizers will send out curated ghost stories to everyone that requests one via the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/booksandbarns_aliterarything\">Books & Barns Instagram page\u003c/a>. Just send them a private message with your address and prepare for mail that’ll make you pale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13976494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13976494 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A flamboyant singer with cascading red hair performs on stage, wearing striking make-up and pink and white hot pants, top and ribbons.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We’re not saying that everyone at Discoween is going to be dressed as Chappell Roan, but an awful lot of people at Discoween are probably going to be dressed as Chappell Roan.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sapphic-spooky-showgirl-discoween-tickets-1602582630789\">Discoween\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>El Rio, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 31, 9 p.m.—2 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a portion of the population of San Francisco that is so perpetually ebullient, so utterly fueled by queer joy, that they’ll make even the darkest holiday on the calendar sparkle. That is what Discoween is for. (That is also, as we all know, what El Rio is for.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organized by All Your Stupid Friends, this Halloween night shindig promises “Sapphic, Spooky, Showgirl” fun, fueled by your favorite pop and dance tunes from across time. There will be a bunch of costume contests, at least 10 people dressed as Chappell Roan, probably at least one impromptu “Thriller” dance routine and, scariest of all, ABBA songs (*shudder*). It’s also only $5 to get in. Go nuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979700\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979700\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a white dress, veil and ghostly make-up stands in a grand hall, lit in red. She is holding dried flowers.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Nightfall at Filoli.’ \u003ccite>(Julia Rose Photography/Courtesy of Filoli Historic House and Garden)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://filoli.org/nightfall/\">Nightfall at Filoli\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Filoli Historic House & Garden, Woodside\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 3—Nov. 10\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t yet paid a visit to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13979279/giant-trolls-filoli-gardens-thomas-dambo-woodside-eco-art-sculpture\"> enchanting giant trolls\u003c/a> that are currently hanging out on Filoli’s grounds, rejoice! Your slackness has paid off! Because now you get to see Thomas Dambo’s fascinating creatures by moonlight, surrounded by \u003cem>Children of the Corn\u003c/em>-level creepy scarecrows, scores of jack-o’-lanterns and monster-sized banana slugs. (Just go with it…)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Filoli’s historic house will be hauntingly decorated. There’s a hay maze to get lost in, and even “a blacklight mushroom forest” (whatever that might entail). If you need further enticement, there will also be tarot readings, live music, games and kid-friendly activities to freak out the whole family. Visitors are encouraged to attend in costume, so get your Miss Havisham gowns ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 933px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971723\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage.jpg\" alt=\"A young woman with green-hued skin looks away as another young woman rests her head on her shoulder\" width=\"933\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage.jpg 933w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 933px) 100vw, 933px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in ‘Wicked.’ \u003ccite>(Universal Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.symphonysanjose.org/attend/2025-2026-season/concerts/symphonic-spooktacular/\">Bewitching Broadway\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>California Theatre, San Jose\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 26 at 2:30 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039342/travel-through-the-solar-system-at-symphony-san-jose\">Symphony San Jose\u003c/a> conductor \u003ca href=\"https://www.theconductorsinstitute.com/peterjaffe\">Peter Jaffe\u003c/a> leads an evening of enchanting picks from Broadway’s most supernatural moments. Bookended by favorites from \u003cem>Wicked\u003c/em>, the program will include highlights from \u003cem>Sweeney Todd\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Dance of the Vampires\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Phantom of the Opera, Little Shop of Horrors \u003c/em>and many more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaffe has been known to conduct orchestras in full Halloween attire before, setting the perfect tone for the Bewitching Broadway audience costume contest. Participants in the under-18 category can win four tickets to Legoland, and the winner of the special judges’ prize will get two tickets to an upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://broadwaysanjose.com/\">Broadway San Jose\u003c/a> show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13982025\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13982025\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis.png\" alt=\"A large, grand hotel lit up at night, overlooking San Francisco's Union Square.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-1536x1021.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The storied St. Francis hotel has surprises waiting for you in room 1219.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marriott.com/offers/haunted-suite-experience-off-185722/sfouw-the-westin-st-francis-san-francisco-on-union-square\">The Haunted Suite\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 1—Nov. 1. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Old hotels often have rooms they caution guests about because of creepy histories or ghostly goings on. By far the most notorious room in Union Square’s landmark \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953890/st-francis-hotel-san-francisco-history-arbuckle-jolson-crocker-gerald-ford\">St. Francis Hotel\u003c/a> is 1219. This former suite was the place where Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of assaulting actress Virginia Rappe, resulting in injuries that later caused her death in 1921. (Arbuckle was found not guilty only after three trials.) The room was also where infamous blackface-performer Al Jolson died in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the month of October, the hotel is leaning all the way into that notoriety with special decorations in the room, including velvet drapes, flickering candlelight and other 1920s accents. The room even comes equipped with a Ouija board and themed tarot deck, in case you wish to chat with Arbuckle and Olson, or divine whether or not you’ll be leaving in the morning. Don’t expect to sleep soundly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print.jpg\" alt=\"Traditional Mexican print shows a fierce calavera brandishing a knife with a crowd of calaveras behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1257\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-768x483.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-1536x965.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Calavera Oaxaquena,’ published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, circa 1903. \u003ccite>(VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/689b781e709d274100369a4b\">Linocut Block Printing with Amor Eterno Arte\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Oakland Public Library, Rockridge branch\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 21, 6 p.m—7:30 p.m\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The artisans of East Oakland tattoo studio and gallery \u003ca href=\"https://amoreternoarte.com/\">Amor Eterno Arte\u003c/a> will be hosting this celebration of Latine printmaking in the run-up to Día de los Muertos. This class will teach attendees (aged 10 and over) the basics of block printing, with all materials provided by Oakland’s Rockridge library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants will make their own prints during the class but — even better — they’ll leave with the skills needed to make their own decorations in good time for Day of the Dead celebrations on Nov. 1 and 2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979935\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby.png\" alt=\"A roller derby skater wearing face paint, knee and elbow pads and a green and black uniform gestures to the camera while skating.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-1536x1021.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craving some competitive organized chaos this Halloween? Bay Area Derby has you covered. \u003ccite>(Will Toft/Courtesy of Bay Area Derby)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bay-area-derby-halloween-bout-tickets-1207561281299\">Bay Area Derby Halloween Bout\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Richmond Memorial Auditorium, Richmond\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25, 4 p.m—9 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roller derby is wild on any given day of the year, but the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareaderby.com/about/teams/oakland-outlaws\">Oakland Outlaws\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareaderby.com/about/teams/san-francisco-rolling-dead\">San Francisco Rolling Dead\u003c/a> will be upping the stakes this October in a raucous Halloween Bay Area Derby special. Come see relentless skaters named things like Barbarian Streisand, Sylvia Wrath and Lexistential Dead tearing up the track — and each other — while in costume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First whistle is at 6 p.m., and there will be vendors, food offerings and a costume contest to keep you entertained and refreshed before and during. Given that the Rolling Dead consider themselves “vengeful for victory and hungry for brains” and the Outlaws’ motto is “skate fast, hit hard, and win a good-looking trophy,” this promises to be a rager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13981153 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost.png\" alt=\"A chaotic room lit by lasers and spotlights. Bare pipes are visible on the wall. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-160x107.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-768x512.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-1536x1025.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bat Witch Ghost are haunting YBCA in 2025. \u003ccite>(Bat Witch Ghost)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/batwitchghost/\">Bat Witch Ghost Haunt\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/\">YBCA\u003c/a>, San Francisco\u003cbr>\nOct. 25—Nov. 1\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, Aaron Wojack turned the service entrance and garages of his apartment building into “The Corridor of Horror,” a mind-melting DIY haunted house that KQED Arts’ own Sarah Hotchkiss later described as “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969008/the-best-art-i-didnt-write-about-in-2024\">the most thrilling, scream-filled minutes of my 2024\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event was such a hit that, this year, Wojack’s vision is hitting the hallowed halls of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/ybca\">YBCA\u003c/a>, after an invitation from the art center’s CEO, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969404/ybca-new-ceo-mari-robles-headlands\">Mari Robles\u003c/a>. Ten artists will be presenting their own takes on the haunt’s theme, “Forest of the Eye.” An indoor labyrinth will dominate YBCA’s Forum room, while a graveyard featuring a bar, ambient DJs, psychic readers and face painters will be outside. Costumes are encouraged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults can attend nighttime shows complete with actors, while families are invited to a to-be-announced number of kid-friendly daytime events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980364\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1164\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-768x447.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-1536x894.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Glynn Washington and friends are taking ‘Spooked’ live. \u003ccite>(KQED/Snap Judgment)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.paramountoakland.org/events/detail/kqed-spooked-live\">‘Spooked’ Live\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Paramount Theater, Oakland\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25, 7 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For mysterious host \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glynn_Washington\">Glynn Washington\u003c/a> and the producers of KQED’s\u003ca href=\"https://spookedpodcast.org/\">\u003cem> Spooked\u003c/em> podcast\u003c/a>, scary stories are for every week of the year, not just Halloween. And as any \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> listener could tell you, the most frightening thing of all is that every spine-chilling story featured in the series is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington will be joined by three storytellers from the \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> annals, Tiyi Schippers, Esther Squires and “Hawaii Ghost Guy” \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hawaiighostguy/?hl=en\">Lopaka Kapanui\u003c/a>. Their tales from beyond the veil will be brought to life with the assistance of animations by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/underpresser/?hl=en\">Joe Presser\u003c/a> and music by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/clayxavier/?hl=en\">Clay Xavier\u003c/a>. There’s no better venue for this than the historic Paramount Theatre — a location renowned for its secret trapdoors and passageways, ghostly lore and rumors of hauntings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attend in your spookiest Halloween attire for a chance to win the \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> \u003cem>Live\u003c/em> best-dressed prize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981005\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror.jpg\" alt=\"A white man in garish make-up wearing a corset, stockings and garter belt performs on a stage with a strange woman and man posing behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-768x573.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-1536x1146.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) in all his glory, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ \u003ccite>(Getty Images/United Archives)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/\">‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ 50th Anniversary Parties\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various venues, Petaluma, Berkeley, Modesto, San Francisco, San Jose\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Throughout October\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been half a century since Brad and Janet happened upon the gender-bending Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his mansion of strange seduction in \u003cem>The Rocky Horror Picture Show\u003c/em>. In that time, late night screenings of the lowbrow classic have become raucous parties where audience participation heightens all the saucy action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13982172']Now, thanks to\u003cem> Rocky Horror\u003c/em> fanatics \u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/about.htm\">Barely Legal\u003c/a>, a run of anniversary screenings are taking over the Bay. Screenings will include an interactive pre-show by the Barely Legal performers, as well as a pack of props to utilize during the movie. Tickets are available at the following links: \u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/rocky-horror-petaluma.htm\">Phoenix Theater\u003c/a>, Petaluma; \u003ca href=\"https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/45328066/rocky-horror-picture-show-berkeley-the-uc-theatre?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22902075321&gbraid=0AAAAABPNr9sW5xSRsC5VHfBUbQke_FQM4&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzt_FBhCEARIsAJGFWVlsmsMnVlgcEkY1vxVfJ6QBulmdbR7gHFsc3J4P6dY-PmSqnIOVHgcaAqTrEALw_wcB\">UC Theater\u003c/a>, Berkeley; \u003ca href=\"https://prod5.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=216261~4e8b4fa5-aaf4-4669-af20-791dec4fd008&\">State Theater\u003c/a>, Modesto; \u003ca href=\"https://www.broadwaysf.com/events/bsf-rhps-2025/curran-theater/tickets/58E541CC-022A-4CBC-BB75-4E53580B04D9\">The Curran Theater\u003c/a>, San Francisco; \u003ca href=\"https://3belowtheaters.com/rhps/\">3Below Theater\u003c/a>, San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a movie nerd and want more, please visit our \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982172/san-francisco-halloween-2025-movie-screenings\">guide to Halloween movie happenings in San Francisco\u003c/a> this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Bay Area tends to outdo itself every Halloween, and 2025 offers something for everyone, whether you want to go on your own ghost hunt, \u003cem>boo\u003c/em>-gie down with disco freaks or get spooky with a symphony. Gracious goths, ghostly tour guides and even Rolling Dead skaters are all running wild this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are 11 unmissable events for Halloween 2025.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980995\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980995\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike.png\" alt=\"A grainy black and white image of UC Berkeley's campanile tower lit up at night, viewed behind trees.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1373\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-160x110.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-768x527.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/UCB-hike-1536x1054.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Explore UC Berkeley from a whole new (haunted) perspective on the Berkeley Haunted Hike. \u003ccite>(Berkeley Haunted Hike)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://thehauntedbayberkeleyhauntedhike.fearticket.com/\">Berkeley Haunted Hike\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>UC Berkeley Campus, Berkeley\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Select dates throughout October\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Since 2013, filmmaker Ying Liu has been sharing bone-chilling tales of local hauntings via her \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/thehauntedbay/\">\u003cem>Haunted Bay\u003c/em>\u003c/a> series. Liu has proven time and again that, for her, no lore is too off-putting, no history is too horrifying, and no location is too dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because Liu is a tireless seeker of the strange, she knows a terrifying thing or two about locations that, to the rest of us, seem perfectly normal — including the grounds of UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liu has assembled a team of likeminded guides and ghost hunters to lead groups on a three-hour hike around the campus that has been known to scare the wits out of people during its second half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tours include elements of true crime, history and evidence from paranormal investigations, as well as personal anecdotes from the team. Bring your own flashlights (and good luck charms).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980498\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980498\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post.jpg\" alt=\"Two people stand on a rural road, surrounded by autumnal trees, dressed as traditional ghosts in white sheet. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/ghosts-in-the-post-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Want a side of tea with your ghost stories? Check out ‘Ghosts in the Post.’ \u003ccite>(Vuk Saric/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Ghosts in the Post\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.neonraspberry.com/\">Neon Raspberry Art House\u003c/a>, Occidental\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Nov. 2, 6 p.m—8 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In collaboration with Books & Barns, a volunteer-run organization that showcases writers in rural spaces, the Neon Raspberry art space is hosting a night of haunted readings from classic texts. These are no ordinary readers, however. “Undead mushrooms, very dead authors and beautiful monsters” will all take the podium, apparently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After story time is over, attendees can participate in a lantern-lit procession to \u003ca href=\"https://www.twotreesteahouse.com/pages/the-tea-house\">Two Trees Tea House\u003c/a> where there will be snacks, more ghostly goings-on and, duh, tea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wondering why the event is called Ghosts in the Post? The organizers will send out curated ghost stories to everyone that requests one via the \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/booksandbarns_aliterarything\">Books & Barns Instagram page\u003c/a>. Just send them a private message with your address and prepare for mail that’ll make you pale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13976494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13976494 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-scaled.jpeg\" alt=\"A flamboyant singer with cascading red hair performs on stage, wearing striking make-up and pink and white hot pants, top and ribbons.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-scaled.jpeg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-800x533.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1020x680.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/00-chappell-roan-by-will-heath-nbc-1920x1280.jpeg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We’re not saying that everyone at Discoween is going to be dressed as Chappell Roan, but an awful lot of people at Discoween are probably going to be dressed as Chappell Roan.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sapphic-spooky-showgirl-discoween-tickets-1602582630789\">Discoween\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>El Rio, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 31, 9 p.m.—2 a.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is a portion of the population of San Francisco that is so perpetually ebullient, so utterly fueled by queer joy, that they’ll make even the darkest holiday on the calendar sparkle. That is what Discoween is for. (That is also, as we all know, what El Rio is for.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organized by All Your Stupid Friends, this Halloween night shindig promises “Sapphic, Spooky, Showgirl” fun, fueled by your favorite pop and dance tunes from across time. There will be a bunch of costume contests, at least 10 people dressed as Chappell Roan, probably at least one impromptu “Thriller” dance routine and, scariest of all, ABBA songs (*shudder*). It’s also only $5 to get in. Go nuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979700\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979700\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli.jpg\" alt=\"A woman wearing a white dress, veil and ghostly make-up stands in a grand hall, lit in red. She is holding dried flowers.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1331\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/Nightfallfiloli-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Nightfall at Filoli.’ \u003ccite>(Julia Rose Photography/Courtesy of Filoli Historic House and Garden)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://filoli.org/nightfall/\">Nightfall at Filoli\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Filoli Historic House & Garden, Woodside\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 3—Nov. 10\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you haven’t yet paid a visit to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13979279/giant-trolls-filoli-gardens-thomas-dambo-woodside-eco-art-sculpture\"> enchanting giant trolls\u003c/a> that are currently hanging out on Filoli’s grounds, rejoice! Your slackness has paid off! Because now you get to see Thomas Dambo’s fascinating creatures by moonlight, surrounded by \u003cem>Children of the Corn\u003c/em>-level creepy scarecrows, scores of jack-o’-lanterns and monster-sized banana slugs. (Just go with it…)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s more, Filoli’s historic house will be hauntingly decorated. There’s a hay maze to get lost in, and even “a blacklight mushroom forest” (whatever that might entail). If you need further enticement, there will also be tarot readings, live music, games and kid-friendly activities to freak out the whole family. Visitors are encouraged to attend in costume, so get your Miss Havisham gowns ready.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971723\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 933px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971723\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage.jpg\" alt=\"A young woman with green-hued skin looks away as another young woman rests her head on her shoulder\" width=\"933\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage.jpg 933w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/wicked.pressimage-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 933px) 100vw, 933px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in ‘Wicked.’ \u003ccite>(Universal Pictures)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.symphonysanjose.org/attend/2025-2026-season/concerts/symphonic-spooktacular/\">Bewitching Broadway\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>California Theatre, San Jose\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 26 at 2:30 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039342/travel-through-the-solar-system-at-symphony-san-jose\">Symphony San Jose\u003c/a> conductor \u003ca href=\"https://www.theconductorsinstitute.com/peterjaffe\">Peter Jaffe\u003c/a> leads an evening of enchanting picks from Broadway’s most supernatural moments. Bookended by favorites from \u003cem>Wicked\u003c/em>, the program will include highlights from \u003cem>Sweeney Todd\u003c/em>, \u003cem>Dance of the Vampires\u003c/em>, \u003cem>The Phantom of the Opera, Little Shop of Horrors \u003c/em>and many more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jaffe has been known to conduct orchestras in full Halloween attire before, setting the perfect tone for the Bewitching Broadway audience costume contest. Participants in the under-18 category can win four tickets to Legoland, and the winner of the special judges’ prize will get two tickets to an upcoming \u003ca href=\"https://broadwaysanjose.com/\">Broadway San Jose\u003c/a> show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13982025\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13982025\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis.png\" alt=\"A large, grand hotel lit up at night, overlooking San Francisco's Union Square.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/St-Francis-1536x1021.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The storied St. Francis hotel has surprises waiting for you in room 1219.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.marriott.com/offers/haunted-suite-experience-off-185722/sfouw-the-westin-st-francis-san-francisco-on-union-square\">The Haunted Suite\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Westin St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 1—Nov. 1. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Old hotels often have rooms they caution guests about because of creepy histories or ghostly goings on. By far the most notorious room in Union Square’s landmark \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953890/st-francis-hotel-san-francisco-history-arbuckle-jolson-crocker-gerald-ford\">St. Francis Hotel\u003c/a> is 1219. This former suite was the place where Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was accused of assaulting actress Virginia Rappe, resulting in injuries that later caused her death in 1921. (Arbuckle was found not guilty only after three trials.) The room was also where infamous blackface-performer Al Jolson died in 1950.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the month of October, the hotel is leaning all the way into that notoriety with special decorations in the room, including velvet drapes, flickering candlelight and other 1920s accents. The room even comes equipped with a Ouija board and themed tarot deck, in case you wish to chat with Arbuckle and Olson, or divine whether or not you’ll be leaving in the morning. Don’t expect to sleep soundly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981003\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981003\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print.jpg\" alt=\"Traditional Mexican print shows a fierce calavera brandishing a knife with a crowd of calaveras behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1257\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-160x101.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-768x483.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/block-print-1536x965.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">‘Calavera Oaxaquena,’ published by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, circa 1903. \u003ccite>(VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/689b781e709d274100369a4b\">Linocut Block Printing with Amor Eterno Arte\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Oakland Public Library, Rockridge branch\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 21, 6 p.m—7:30 p.m\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The artisans of East Oakland tattoo studio and gallery \u003ca href=\"https://amoreternoarte.com/\">Amor Eterno Arte\u003c/a> will be hosting this celebration of Latine printmaking in the run-up to Día de los Muertos. This class will teach attendees (aged 10 and over) the basics of block printing, with all materials provided by Oakland’s Rockridge library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Participants will make their own prints during the class but — even better — they’ll leave with the skills needed to make their own decorations in good time for Day of the Dead celebrations on Nov. 1 and 2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13979935\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13979935\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby.png\" alt=\"A roller derby skater wearing face paint, knee and elbow pads and a green and black uniform gestures to the camera while skating.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1330\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-160x106.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-768x511.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/BAD-Halloween-derby-1536x1021.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craving some competitive organized chaos this Halloween? Bay Area Derby has you covered. \u003ccite>(Will Toft/Courtesy of Bay Area Derby)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bay-area-derby-halloween-bout-tickets-1207561281299\">Bay Area Derby Halloween Bout\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Richmond Memorial Auditorium, Richmond\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25, 4 p.m—9 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roller derby is wild on any given day of the year, but the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareaderby.com/about/teams/oakland-outlaws\">Oakland Outlaws\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bayareaderby.com/about/teams/san-francisco-rolling-dead\">San Francisco Rolling Dead\u003c/a> will be upping the stakes this October in a raucous Halloween Bay Area Derby special. Come see relentless skaters named things like Barbarian Streisand, Sylvia Wrath and Lexistential Dead tearing up the track — and each other — while in costume.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First whistle is at 6 p.m., and there will be vendors, food offerings and a costume contest to keep you entertained and refreshed before and during. Given that the Rolling Dead consider themselves “vengeful for victory and hungry for brains” and the Outlaws’ motto is “skate fast, hit hard, and win a good-looking trophy,” this promises to be a rager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981153\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13981153 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost.png\" alt=\"A chaotic room lit by lasers and spotlights. Bare pipes are visible on the wall. \" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-160x107.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-768x512.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/bat-witch-ghost-1536x1025.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bat Witch Ghost are haunting YBCA in 2025. \u003ccite>(Bat Witch Ghost)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/batwitchghost/\">Bat Witch Ghost Haunt\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://ybca.org/\">YBCA\u003c/a>, San Francisco\u003cbr>\nOct. 25—Nov. 1\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2024, Aaron Wojack turned the service entrance and garages of his apartment building into “The Corridor of Horror,” a mind-melting DIY haunted house that KQED Arts’ own Sarah Hotchkiss later described as “\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969008/the-best-art-i-didnt-write-about-in-2024\">the most thrilling, scream-filled minutes of my 2024\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The event was such a hit that, this year, Wojack’s vision is hitting the hallowed halls of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/ybca\">YBCA\u003c/a>, after an invitation from the art center’s CEO, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13969404/ybca-new-ceo-mari-robles-headlands\">Mari Robles\u003c/a>. Ten artists will be presenting their own takes on the haunt’s theme, “Forest of the Eye.” An indoor labyrinth will dominate YBCA’s Forum room, while a graveyard featuring a bar, ambient DJs, psychic readers and face painters will be outside. Costumes are encouraged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adults can attend nighttime shows complete with actors, while families are invited to a to-be-announced number of kid-friendly daytime events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980364\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1164\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-768x447.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/spooked-live-1536x894.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Glynn Washington and friends are taking ‘Spooked’ live. \u003ccite>(KQED/Snap Judgment)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"https://www.paramountoakland.org/events/detail/kqed-spooked-live\">‘Spooked’ Live\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Paramount Theater, Oakland\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Oct. 25, 7 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For mysterious host \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glynn_Washington\">Glynn Washington\u003c/a> and the producers of KQED’s\u003ca href=\"https://spookedpodcast.org/\">\u003cem> Spooked\u003c/em> podcast\u003c/a>, scary stories are for every week of the year, not just Halloween. And as any \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> listener could tell you, the most frightening thing of all is that every spine-chilling story featured in the series is true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Washington will be joined by three storytellers from the \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> annals, Tiyi Schippers, Esther Squires and “Hawaii Ghost Guy” \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/hawaiighostguy/?hl=en\">Lopaka Kapanui\u003c/a>. Their tales from beyond the veil will be brought to life with the assistance of animations by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/underpresser/?hl=en\">Joe Presser\u003c/a> and music by \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/clayxavier/?hl=en\">Clay Xavier\u003c/a>. There’s no better venue for this than the historic Paramount Theatre — a location renowned for its secret trapdoors and passageways, ghostly lore and rumors of hauntings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attend in your spookiest Halloween attire for a chance to win the \u003cem>Spooked\u003c/em> \u003cem>Live\u003c/em> best-dressed prize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13981005\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13981005\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror.jpg\" alt=\"A white man in garish make-up wearing a corset, stockings and garter belt performs on a stage with a strange woman and man posing behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1492\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-768x573.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/rocky-horror-1536x1146.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) in all his glory, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ \u003ccite>(Getty Images/United Archives)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/\">‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ 50th Anniversary Parties\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Various venues, Petaluma, Berkeley, Modesto, San Francisco, San Jose\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Throughout October\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s been half a century since Brad and Janet happened upon the gender-bending Dr. Frank-N-Furter and his mansion of strange seduction in \u003cem>The Rocky Horror Picture Show\u003c/em>. In that time, late night screenings of the lowbrow classic have become raucous parties where audience participation heightens all the saucy action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Now, thanks to\u003cem> Rocky Horror\u003c/em> fanatics \u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/about.htm\">Barely Legal\u003c/a>, a run of anniversary screenings are taking over the Bay. Screenings will include an interactive pre-show by the Barely Legal performers, as well as a pack of props to utilize during the movie. Tickets are available at the following links: \u003ca href=\"http://barelylegal.rhps.org/rocky-horror-petaluma.htm\">Phoenix Theater\u003c/a>, Petaluma; \u003ca href=\"https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/45328066/rocky-horror-picture-show-berkeley-the-uc-theatre?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22902075321&gbraid=0AAAAABPNr9sW5xSRsC5VHfBUbQke_FQM4&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzt_FBhCEARIsAJGFWVlsmsMnVlgcEkY1vxVfJ6QBulmdbR7gHFsc3J4P6dY-PmSqnIOVHgcaAqTrEALw_wcB\">UC Theater\u003c/a>, Berkeley; \u003ca href=\"https://prod5.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=216261~4e8b4fa5-aaf4-4669-af20-791dec4fd008&\">State Theater\u003c/a>, Modesto; \u003ca href=\"https://www.broadwaysf.com/events/bsf-rhps-2025/curran-theater/tickets/58E541CC-022A-4CBC-BB75-4E53580B04D9\">The Curran Theater\u003c/a>, San Francisco; \u003ca href=\"https://3belowtheaters.com/rhps/\">3Below Theater\u003c/a>, San Jose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a movie nerd and want more, please visit our \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13982172/san-francisco-halloween-2025-movie-screenings\">guide to Halloween movie happenings in San Francisco\u003c/a> this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "598-guerrero-san-francisco-restaurant-curse-mission-history-handroll-project-als-yuzuki-ebb-craigs",
"title": "We Just Figured Out Why 598 Guerrero Is the Most Cursed Restaurant Location in SF",
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"headTitle": "We Just Figured Out Why 598 Guerrero Is the Most Cursed Restaurant Location in SF | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>This week, yet another restaurant boldly moved into 598 Guerrero St. in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>, despite the Mission District location’s many years of proving how cursed it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The owners of \u003ca href=\"https://www.handrollproject.com/\">Handroll Project\u003c/a>, the location’s most recent tenant, will reopen the restaurant as Hamburger Project Two — a second location for \u003ca href=\"https://www.hamburgerproject.com/\">the burger spot at 808 Divisadero\u003c/a>. Handroll Project took over the high-ceilinged space on the corner of 18th Street in 2022 and survived just over three years, having taken over from \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/als-deli-san-francisco\">AL’s Deli\u003c/a>, which soldiered on there for just eight months until March 2020. (At the time of that departure, owner \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/3/10/21173569/als-deli-aaron-london-mission-closed\">Aaron London told Eater\u003c/a>, “It just never really hit the mass appeal to make that model make sense.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13976828']Remarkably, AL’s Deli wasn’t even the shortest-lived restaurant to occupy 598 Guerrero. That honor belongs to \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/ebb-and-flow-san-francisco\">Ebb & Flow\u003c/a>, which lasted just six months in 2010. Before that, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/craigs-place-san-francisco\">Craig’s Place\u003c/a> served diner food between 2007 and 2008. The location’s longest restaurant success story was \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCTYmTmq2U\">Izakaya Yuzuki\u003c/a>, which endured from 2011 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sheer number of restaurants that have tried and failed to make this spot work belies good sense. Situated opposite \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/tartine\">Tartine\u003c/a>’s always bustling original location, and a short walk from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/delfina\">Delfina\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/bi-rite-market\">Bi-Rite\u003c/a> and other popular neighborhood spots, the repeated failures at 598 Guerrero have been perplexing. (Just a few doors down, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/fayes-san-francisco\">Faye’s\u003c/a> has been going strong since 1998.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handroll Project was a usually busy sushi joint that I believed would break the spell. I wasn’t the first to think a restaurant could actually survive there. Writing about Izakaya Yuzuki for the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> in 2017, Chris Ying remained idealistic: “It turns out there are no cursed restaurants. It comes down to the right idea taking root, and, when something great begins to grow from it, diners nurturing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Izakaya Yuzuki was gone two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what exactly \u003cem>is\u003c/em> wrong with 598 Guerrero? While claims of a curse have long been pooh-poohed by skeptics (and optimistic new tenants), the answer might be just as strange as rumored.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A paranormal property\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It turns out that, all the way back in 1889, 598 Guerrero was occupied by a “trance medium” and fortune teller by the name of Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers. Mayo-Steers held healing circles (“skeptics invited”), “psychometric readings,” “psychic delineations,” and claimed to provide “diagnosis of diseases.” For at least 15 years, Mayo-Steers operated out of locations all over San Francisco — Turk, Market, Oak, Grove, 24th and 17th Streets included — but 598 Guerrero was where she communed with spirits in daily “sittings,” at least for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a member of the Progressive Mediums’ Society, Mayo-Steers was well known in Victorian San Francisco’s spookier society corners, once speaking at a meeting for Progressive Spiritualists in 1889 and appearing at the State Spiritualist Convention of 1896. In a 1903 edition of \u003cem>Now\u003c/em> — a journal “devoted to the science and art of soul culture” — the editor wrote that “among the Spiritualists, our friend … Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers [has] resumed work in the city. In work along New Thought and psychic lines, our city is wide awake.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13919589']If in fact Mayo-Steers turned 598 Guerrero into a psychic hotspot, that could explain what happened there in 2022, shortly after Handroll Project moved in. At the time, Eater reported that staff members \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2022/10/17/23403425/handroll-project-san-francisco-haunted\">believed there was paranormal activity\u003c/a> at the restaurant. Lights were said to inexplicably flicker on and off, and containers seemed to fly across the room on their own volition. One employee even claimed to see a long-haired apparition in the basement break room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just too crazy,” restaurant partner Geoffrey Lee said at the time. “Customers have been saying the veil between the living and the dead is very thin right now because of Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos and I’m like, ‘I’m not trying to hear that stuff.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some observers at the time attributed the paranormal activity to an incident in 2003, just three months after Central American bistro \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/platanos-san-francisco\">Platanos\u003c/a> had moved into 598 Guerrero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After leaving work late one night, Platanos’ executive chef Carlos Perez got into an altercation and died on Valencia near 22nd. The fight reportedly started over the volume of Perez’s car stereo. According to a report in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> that February, police considered the death a result of self-defense. However, Platanos’ co-owner Lisa Lazarus told the newspaper, “I just saw him in the casket [and] this was not a guy hit with a couple of blows and then stopped breathing … He was beaten to death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lazarus sold Platanos to a new owner, Pascal Rigo, in September 2005. Nine months later, the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>’s Michael Bauer wrote: “The food has now taken an even more delectable turn, and customers are returning.” Within a year, Platanos was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980643\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980643\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photograph of a 1930s-era streetcar traveling along a residential street in San Francisco.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1176\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-160x94.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-768x452.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-1536x903.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The corner of Guerrero and 18th in December 1939. On the left, out of frame, would be 958 Guerrero. The photographer probably left it out lest their camera burst into flames. \u003ccite>(OpenSFHistory/wnp14.1438)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Raided by federal agents\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So what was at 598 Guerrero between the psychic lady and the failed restaurants? Well, a speakeasy, for one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building’s post-1906 earthquake iteration arrived in about 1909, when it appeared for sale in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>’s “City Real Estate” classifieds as a “clean, level lot 25 x 80” complete with “gas, water, sewer.” By 1920, the address was an entertainment venue under the proprietorship of a J. Hoegeman. That year, Hoegeman advertised the availability of a beverage at his joint called New Crow, marketed as “the California drink that makes YOU FORGET prohibition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13881990']Clearly, New Crow did not achieve its stated goal. On Sept. 29, 1922, 598 Guerrero was raided by federal prohibition agents who hit venues all over the Mission that night. The speakeasy was forcibly closed for violating alcohol laws, and its operators at the time, Peter Jacobs and Jack Warren — as well as building owner Ellen Boardman — were charged in abatement suits by Assistant United States Attorney Garton D. Keystone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after prohibition hammered 598 Guerrero’s doors closed, the building transformed into a pharmacy — Dunnigan’s in the ’20s and ’30s, and Mission Prescription Pharmacy in the ’50s and ’60s. In the 1970s, the location became a produce store that wound up listed for sale in the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>’s “Business Offers” in 1982. It was, the ad noted, “priced to sell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever happens to Hamburger Project Two, you have to admire the devil-may-care confidence to stay at 598 Guerrero. May the ghost of Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers enjoy smash burgers and loaded fries as much as the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Project Handroll is the latest casualty of the corner spot — one with a history of murder, mediums and ghosts.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This week, yet another restaurant boldly moved into 598 Guerrero St. in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a>, despite the Mission District location’s many years of proving how cursed it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The owners of \u003ca href=\"https://www.handrollproject.com/\">Handroll Project\u003c/a>, the location’s most recent tenant, will reopen the restaurant as Hamburger Project Two — a second location for \u003ca href=\"https://www.hamburgerproject.com/\">the burger spot at 808 Divisadero\u003c/a>. Handroll Project took over the high-ceilinged space on the corner of 18th Street in 2022 and survived just over three years, having taken over from \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/als-deli-san-francisco\">AL’s Deli\u003c/a>, which soldiered on there for just eight months until March 2020. (At the time of that departure, owner \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/3/10/21173569/als-deli-aaron-london-mission-closed\">Aaron London told Eater\u003c/a>, “It just never really hit the mass appeal to make that model make sense.”)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Remarkably, AL’s Deli wasn’t even the shortest-lived restaurant to occupy 598 Guerrero. That honor belongs to \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/ebb-and-flow-san-francisco\">Ebb & Flow\u003c/a>, which lasted just six months in 2010. Before that, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/craigs-place-san-francisco\">Craig’s Place\u003c/a> served diner food between 2007 and 2008. The location’s longest restaurant success story was \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCTYmTmq2U\">Izakaya Yuzuki\u003c/a>, which endured from 2011 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sheer number of restaurants that have tried and failed to make this spot work belies good sense. Situated opposite \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/tartine\">Tartine\u003c/a>’s always bustling original location, and a short walk from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/delfina\">Delfina\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/tag/bi-rite-market\">Bi-Rite\u003c/a> and other popular neighborhood spots, the repeated failures at 598 Guerrero have been perplexing. (Just a few doors down, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/fayes-san-francisco\">Faye’s\u003c/a> has been going strong since 1998.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Handroll Project was a usually busy sushi joint that I believed would break the spell. I wasn’t the first to think a restaurant could actually survive there. Writing about Izakaya Yuzuki for the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> in 2017, Chris Ying remained idealistic: “It turns out there are no cursed restaurants. It comes down to the right idea taking root, and, when something great begins to grow from it, diners nurturing it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Izakaya Yuzuki was gone two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So what exactly \u003cem>is\u003c/em> wrong with 598 Guerrero? While claims of a curse have long been pooh-poohed by skeptics (and optimistic new tenants), the answer might be just as strange as rumored.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A paranormal property\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It turns out that, all the way back in 1889, 598 Guerrero was occupied by a “trance medium” and fortune teller by the name of Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers. Mayo-Steers held healing circles (“skeptics invited”), “psychometric readings,” “psychic delineations,” and claimed to provide “diagnosis of diseases.” For at least 15 years, Mayo-Steers operated out of locations all over San Francisco — Turk, Market, Oak, Grove, 24th and 17th Streets included — but 598 Guerrero was where she communed with spirits in daily “sittings,” at least for a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a member of the Progressive Mediums’ Society, Mayo-Steers was well known in Victorian San Francisco’s spookier society corners, once speaking at a meeting for Progressive Spiritualists in 1889 and appearing at the State Spiritualist Convention of 1896. In a 1903 edition of \u003cem>Now\u003c/em> — a journal “devoted to the science and art of soul culture” — the editor wrote that “among the Spiritualists, our friend … Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers [has] resumed work in the city. In work along New Thought and psychic lines, our city is wide awake.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If in fact Mayo-Steers turned 598 Guerrero into a psychic hotspot, that could explain what happened there in 2022, shortly after Handroll Project moved in. At the time, Eater reported that staff members \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2022/10/17/23403425/handroll-project-san-francisco-haunted\">believed there was paranormal activity\u003c/a> at the restaurant. Lights were said to inexplicably flicker on and off, and containers seemed to fly across the room on their own volition. One employee even claimed to see a long-haired apparition in the basement break room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just too crazy,” restaurant partner Geoffrey Lee said at the time. “Customers have been saying the veil between the living and the dead is very thin right now because of Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos and I’m like, ‘I’m not trying to hear that stuff.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some observers at the time attributed the paranormal activity to an incident in 2003, just three months after Central American bistro \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/platanos-san-francisco\">Platanos\u003c/a> had moved into 598 Guerrero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After leaving work late one night, Platanos’ executive chef Carlos Perez got into an altercation and died on Valencia near 22nd. The fight reportedly started over the volume of Perez’s car stereo. According to a report in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> that February, police considered the death a result of self-defense. However, Platanos’ co-owner Lisa Lazarus told the newspaper, “I just saw him in the casket [and] this was not a guy hit with a couple of blows and then stopped breathing … He was beaten to death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lazarus sold Platanos to a new owner, Pascal Rigo, in September 2005. Nine months later, the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>’s Michael Bauer wrote: “The food has now taken an even more delectable turn, and customers are returning.” Within a year, Platanos was gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13980643\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13980643\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photograph of a 1930s-era streetcar traveling along a residential street in San Francisco.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1176\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-160x94.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-768x452.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/08/18th-and-guerrero-1536x903.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The corner of Guerrero and 18th in December 1939. On the left, out of frame, would be 958 Guerrero. The photographer probably left it out lest their camera burst into flames. \u003ccite>(OpenSFHistory/wnp14.1438)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Raided by federal agents\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>So what was at 598 Guerrero between the psychic lady and the failed restaurants? Well, a speakeasy, for one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The building’s post-1906 earthquake iteration arrived in about 1909, when it appeared for sale in the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>’s “City Real Estate” classifieds as a “clean, level lot 25 x 80” complete with “gas, water, sewer.” By 1920, the address was an entertainment venue under the proprietorship of a J. Hoegeman. That year, Hoegeman advertised the availability of a beverage at his joint called New Crow, marketed as “the California drink that makes YOU FORGET prohibition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Clearly, New Crow did not achieve its stated goal. On Sept. 29, 1922, 598 Guerrero was raided by federal prohibition agents who hit venues all over the Mission that night. The speakeasy was forcibly closed for violating alcohol laws, and its operators at the time, Peter Jacobs and Jack Warren — as well as building owner Ellen Boardman — were charged in abatement suits by Assistant United States Attorney Garton D. Keystone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly after prohibition hammered 598 Guerrero’s doors closed, the building transformed into a pharmacy — Dunnigan’s in the ’20s and ’30s, and Mission Prescription Pharmacy in the ’50s and ’60s. In the 1970s, the location became a produce store that wound up listed for sale in the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>’s “Business Offers” in 1982. It was, the ad noted, “priced to sell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whatever happens to Hamburger Project Two, you have to admire the devil-may-care confidence to stay at 598 Guerrero. May the ghost of Mrs. C. Mayo-Steers enjoy smash burgers and loaded fries as much as the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "haunted-toys-r-us-sunnyvale-yonny-johnson-murphy-ranch-doll",
"title": "Forget Haunted Toys, Sunnyvale Once Had a Haunted Toys R Us",
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"headTitle": "Forget Haunted Toys, Sunnyvale Once Had a Haunted Toys R Us | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Any child of the 1980s knows that Toys R Us could be scary at the best of times. Row upon row of squished-up Cabbage Patch Kids faces. Talking Teddy Ruxpins with their backs made of machinery. The looming figure of creepy store mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. But one Toys R Us in Northern California had an extra-sinister reputation. It was the Sunnyvale location: a store that a multitude of employees, customers and even a famous psychic repeatedly asserted was haunted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the time the store opened at 130 El Camino Real in 1970, stories were rife that something was amiss within its walls. Folks told of lights and faucets turning on and off unassisted. There were tales that doors and toys had minds of their own. Shelves apparently fell down inexplicably and several female employees heard their names whispered in empty rooms. Reports of bangs and loud footsteps emerging from vacated parts of the store were also commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13919589']In 1979, the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> carried an article about the store’s unusual issues, featuring a Toys R Us employee named Margie Honey. Honey was deeply disturbed by a 3-foot-tall, jumpsuit-wearing doll with blonde hair that was, by design, supposed to talk. The \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>’s report stated that the doll had been returned to the store after a customer was unable to get it to make a sound. Honey, also unable to get the doll to function, accepted the return. It was only when she placed the doll inside a box that it began to cry out. Every time Honey opened the box, the noise stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After this happened a few times, it ceased to be funny,” Honey told the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>. “I began to feel that the doll had a will of its own. Finally I called a clerk and asked him to take the toy away. It cried all the way to the stockroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Honey was later plagued by bulletin boards swinging off the wall and stacks of papers falling to the floor, one sheet at a time, despite being nowhere near a breeze, a fan or a vent.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another witness featured in the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> was Charlie Brown (\u003cem>good grief!\u003c/em>), an employee who had a hard time locking up one night because every time he secured the doors, loud banging would erupt inside. After checking that no one was stuck in the building, Brown relocked the doors only for the banging to start again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One clerk named Regina Gibson felt unseen hands touching her hair while she was high up a ladder stocking shelves. Another clerk, Bill Peevan, found his meticulously arranged displays dismantled and reconfigured on the floor, even though no other coworkers were around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years later, on Halloween 1984, the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> revisited the Sunnyvale Toys R Us, quoting an employee who said they were “spooked” by the store and that “crazy things do happen. I’ve seen something out of the corner of my eye a few times over the past three years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13976843\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13976843 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne.png\" alt=\"A white senior woman with short brown hair stands in front of a Toys ‘R’ Us store.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1358\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-800x543.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1020x693.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-768x521.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1536x1043.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1920x1304.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Who you gonna call?! If you’re the haunted Sunnyvale Toys R Us in 1991, you apparently call TV psychic Sylvia Browne. \u003ccite>(YouTube)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At some point, Toys R Us management was so flabbergasted by all of the strange goings on, they invited one of the most famous psychics in the country to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After spending some time in the store, Sylvia Browne claimed that the activity on the property was due to a man named John “Yonny” Johnson who had worked on the land in the late 1800s. Browne said that Johnson was employed on the ranch of Sunnyvale’s founder, Martin Murphy. According to lore, Johnson was desperately in unrequited love with Murphy’s daughter Elizabeth, who was engaged to another man. Johnson, the story goes, eventually bled to death on the property after a terrible accident with an axe, and never wound up winning the woman of his dreams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13884403']The Murphy ranch’s lovely frame house stayed standing until 1961, when the state historical landmark was destroyed by a fire. Browne claimed that Johnson’s longing for Murphy’s daughter kept him trapped on the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(You can’t really blame a spirit for acting up under the circumstances: imagine going from haunting a beautiful old mansion to being stuck in a warehouse full of toys and screaming children.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The notoriety of the Sunnyvale Toys R Us continued throughout the 1980s, raising the interest of a variety of television crews. The 1985 report below saw parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach investigating the haunting claims which, by then, included sightings of a “wispy white figure” wandering the aisles. (Skip to 3:40 for an alleged photo of a ghost at the store, apparently taken via infrared light during a seance.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3QKKHtHHxo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sunnyvale Toys R Us was also featured in a January 1991 episode of \u003cem>Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories\u003c/em>, hosted by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13890009/watch-leonard-nimoy-scare-the-crap-out-of-america-over-the-y2k-bug\">Leonard Nimoy\u003c/a>. During the episode, current and former employees gathered at the store to compare stories and found they had a lot in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13890009']“One little teddy bear, instead of just falling down like it normally would, went out into an arc down to the floor,” reported Lillian “Putt” O’Brien. “So I said to the manager ‘Did that frighten you?’ And he said ‘It sure did, Putt!’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same show, a former manager named Cheryl Royce said that while she was in a bathroom stall, she heard the door next to her open, followed by the sound of water turning on at the sinks. Except, when she glanced through the gap in her own door, she realized that no one was there. Royce lasted just six more weeks in the job, steadfastly refusing to use the store restroom ever again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN5vEX3sYGU&t=54s\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the old Sunnyvale Toys R Us location is now an REI store. Reports of ghostly goings on since REI opened in 2021 have been almost nonexistent, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/REI/comments/1fyn02k/is_the_sunnyvale_rei_that_used_to_be_toys_r_us/\">Reddit threads continue\u003c/a> to inquire as to supernatural activity at the location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, one Reddit user, Artistic_Agency105, claimed that: “The only weird thing I’ve noticed is walkie talkies turn on randomly and the sensor at the front door has a mind of its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same thread, a user named mikemu chimed in: “I … talked to a green vest. He claims that since he started working there early on, he has felt someone walk past behind him at the front registers — when there wasn’t anybody that did. And that one of the doors just opened up in the back as if someone was walking through. … No recent occurrences though.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all honesty, when it comes to the Sunnyvale REI, most online users who’ve been there seem far less concerned with it being haunted than they are worried the store might be understaffed. (Oh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/rei-sunnyvale?start=40\">the Yelp page\u003c/a> …) With a history like this, it’s no wonder employees are hard to come by.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Any child of the 1980s knows that Toys R Us could be scary at the best of times. Row upon row of squished-up Cabbage Patch Kids faces. Talking Teddy Ruxpins with their backs made of machinery. The looming figure of creepy store mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. But one Toys R Us in Northern California had an extra-sinister reputation. It was the Sunnyvale location: a store that a multitude of employees, customers and even a famous psychic repeatedly asserted was haunted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the time the store opened at 130 El Camino Real in 1970, stories were rife that something was amiss within its walls. Folks told of lights and faucets turning on and off unassisted. There were tales that doors and toys had minds of their own. Shelves apparently fell down inexplicably and several female employees heard their names whispered in empty rooms. Reports of bangs and loud footsteps emerging from vacated parts of the store were also commonplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In 1979, the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> carried an article about the store’s unusual issues, featuring a Toys R Us employee named Margie Honey. Honey was deeply disturbed by a 3-foot-tall, jumpsuit-wearing doll with blonde hair that was, by design, supposed to talk. The \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>’s report stated that the doll had been returned to the store after a customer was unable to get it to make a sound. Honey, also unable to get the doll to function, accepted the return. It was only when she placed the doll inside a box that it began to cry out. Every time Honey opened the box, the noise stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After this happened a few times, it ceased to be funny,” Honey told the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>. “I began to feel that the doll had a will of its own. Finally I called a clerk and asked him to take the toy away. It cried all the way to the stockroom.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Honey was later plagued by bulletin boards swinging off the wall and stacks of papers falling to the floor, one sheet at a time, despite being nowhere near a breeze, a fan or a vent.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another witness featured in the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> was Charlie Brown (\u003cem>good grief!\u003c/em>), an employee who had a hard time locking up one night because every time he secured the doors, loud banging would erupt inside. After checking that no one was stuck in the building, Brown relocked the doors only for the banging to start again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One clerk named Regina Gibson felt unseen hands touching her hair while she was high up a ladder stocking shelves. Another clerk, Bill Peevan, found his meticulously arranged displays dismantled and reconfigured on the floor, even though no other coworkers were around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five years later, on Halloween 1984, the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> revisited the Sunnyvale Toys R Us, quoting an employee who said they were “spooked” by the store and that “crazy things do happen. I’ve seen something out of the corner of my eye a few times over the past three years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13976843\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13976843 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne.png\" alt=\"A white senior woman with short brown hair stands in front of a Toys ‘R’ Us store.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1358\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-800x543.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1020x693.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-160x109.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-768x521.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1536x1043.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/sylvia-Browne-1920x1304.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Who you gonna call?! If you’re the haunted Sunnyvale Toys R Us in 1991, you apparently call TV psychic Sylvia Browne. \u003ccite>(YouTube)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At some point, Toys R Us management was so flabbergasted by all of the strange goings on, they invited one of the most famous psychics in the country to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After spending some time in the store, Sylvia Browne claimed that the activity on the property was due to a man named John “Yonny” Johnson who had worked on the land in the late 1800s. Browne said that Johnson was employed on the ranch of Sunnyvale’s founder, Martin Murphy. According to lore, Johnson was desperately in unrequited love with Murphy’s daughter Elizabeth, who was engaged to another man. Johnson, the story goes, eventually bled to death on the property after a terrible accident with an axe, and never wound up winning the woman of his dreams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Murphy ranch’s lovely frame house stayed standing until 1961, when the state historical landmark was destroyed by a fire. Browne claimed that Johnson’s longing for Murphy’s daughter kept him trapped on the property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(You can’t really blame a spirit for acting up under the circumstances: imagine going from haunting a beautiful old mansion to being stuck in a warehouse full of toys and screaming children.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The notoriety of the Sunnyvale Toys R Us continued throughout the 1980s, raising the interest of a variety of television crews. The 1985 report below saw parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach investigating the haunting claims which, by then, included sightings of a “wispy white figure” wandering the aisles. (Skip to 3:40 for an alleged photo of a ghost at the store, apparently taken via infrared light during a seance.)\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/t3QKKHtHHxo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/t3QKKHtHHxo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The Sunnyvale Toys R Us was also featured in a January 1991 episode of \u003cem>Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories\u003c/em>, hosted by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13890009/watch-leonard-nimoy-scare-the-crap-out-of-america-over-the-y2k-bug\">Leonard Nimoy\u003c/a>. During the episode, current and former employees gathered at the store to compare stories and found they had a lot in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“One little teddy bear, instead of just falling down like it normally would, went out into an arc down to the floor,” reported Lillian “Putt” O’Brien. “So I said to the manager ‘Did that frighten you?’ And he said ‘It sure did, Putt!’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same show, a former manager named Cheryl Royce said that while she was in a bathroom stall, she heard the door next to her open, followed by the sound of water turning on at the sinks. Except, when she glanced through the gap in her own door, she realized that no one was there. Royce lasted just six more weeks in the job, steadfastly refusing to use the store restroom ever again.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/jN5vEX3sYGU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/jN5vEX3sYGU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Today, the old Sunnyvale Toys R Us location is now an REI store. Reports of ghostly goings on since REI opened in 2021 have been almost nonexistent, but \u003ca href=\"https://www.reddit.com/r/REI/comments/1fyn02k/is_the_sunnyvale_rei_that_used_to_be_toys_r_us/\">Reddit threads continue\u003c/a> to inquire as to supernatural activity at the location.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, one Reddit user, Artistic_Agency105, claimed that: “The only weird thing I’ve noticed is walkie talkies turn on randomly and the sensor at the front door has a mind of its own.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same thread, a user named mikemu chimed in: “I … talked to a green vest. He claims that since he started working there early on, he has felt someone walk past behind him at the front registers — when there wasn’t anybody that did. And that one of the doors just opened up in the back as if someone was walking through. … No recent occurrences though.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all honesty, when it comes to the Sunnyvale REI, most online users who’ve been there seem far less concerned with it being haunted than they are worried the store might be understaffed. (Oh, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/rei-sunnyvale?start=40\">the Yelp page\u003c/a> …) With a history like this, it’s no wonder employees are hard to come by.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-murders-history-lovers-happy-valentines-day-doomed",
"title": "Happy Valentine’s Day! 3 Pairs of Doomed Lovers From San Francisco History",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971513\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1893px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971513\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart.png\" alt=\"A painting depicting a heart stabbed horizontally through its center with a dagger. Above are two bleeding hands. Below are two bleeding feet.\" width=\"1893\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart.png 1893w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-800x845.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-1020x1078.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-160x169.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-768x811.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-1454x1536.png 1454w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1893px) 100vw, 1893px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Love: Not all it’s cracked up to be at the best of times. \u003ccite>(Stigmata of Christ, detail from the Waldburg prayer book, 1486)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we all know, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/20463/the-dark-and-twisted-history-of-valentines-day\">Valentine’s Day\u003c/a> is intrinsically designed to make single people feel bad about their lives. So, in the interests of bringing balance back to the world, here are some stories of lovers from Bay Area history that could make anyone swear off coupledom for life. Theirs are tales of passion, mayhem and — oh yes — a little bit of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/true-crime\">murder\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behold these messy lovebirds!\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Belle and Charles Cora (1850s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Adventurous couple Charles and Belle Cora found each other in New Orleans in 1848. He was a wealthy gambler and high roller. She was the daughter of a minister, hailed from Baltimore, and had fled to New Orleans after falling pregnant out of wedlock. After her baby died, Belle went to work for a local madam. When Charles saw and approached Belle for the very first time, she is said to have uttered the phrase, “It is destiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13893272']Together, the two briefly tried their luck in Sacramento before settling in San Francisco in 1849, where Belle ran a high-end brothel in what is now Chinatown. The duo stood out in the city as a handsome, if controversial, couple. In 1890, the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> recalled that Charles was instantly “struck by her beauty — she was a voluptuous creature.” Charles, a volunteer fireman, was a good match for Bella too. The same article described him as “always dressed neatly and well supplied with money. He had dark hair, dark mustache and dark eyes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble for these two began one Thursday night at \u003ca href=\"https://sanfranciscotheatres.blogspot.com/2018/01/maguires-opera-house.html\">Maguire’s Opera House\u003c/a>. A rule of the venue was that “the demi-monde” — any customers not of proper social standing — must only sit (according to a 1910 edition of the \u003cem>San Francisco Bulletin\u003c/em>) in “the parquet behind the dress circle, secluded in boxes.” When Belle and Charles sat in the dress circle, directly behind the wife of U.S. Marshal William H. Richardson, the lawman was incensed. Richardson loudly attempted to get the offending couple removed. When his request was denied, Richardson was left feeling both furious and publicly humiliated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following day, Charles and Richardson had a run-in at the Cosmopolitan Saloon on Montgomery and Clay (where the Transamerica Pyramid stands today) and harsh words were exchanged as Charles defended his wife. After yet another altercation on Saturday, Charles wound up shooting and killing Richardson in the street. Charles swore up and down that it was self-defense (and the position of a knife and gun next to Richardson seemed to confirm that). Regardless, Charles was arrested and put in jail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13959986']Belle tried desperately to get Charles released, paying a fortune to a prestigious lawyer known as Colonel D. D. Baker. It was all for naught. Belle soon heard that vigilantes planned to take Charles’ fate into their own hands. She rushed to Charles’ side, so the pair could be married by a Father Maraschi. Within an hour of the union, Charles — alongside another prisoner named James Casey — was taken away by vigilantes and hanged on Sacramento Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rumor has it that after Charles’ death, Belle was pressured to leave town by the same Vigilance Committee that had killed her husband. She refused to do so, dying in 1862 in the same house she had shared with Charles on Waverly Place (then known as Pike Street). Today, \u003ca href=\"https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7720349/charles-cora\">Belle and Charles are buried side-by-side in San Francisco\u003c/a>’s Mission Dolores cemetery.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Albert McVicar and Emma LeDoux (1900s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1745px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971095\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux.png\" alt=\"A turn of the century woman wearing elaborate hat, suit jacket and high necked white shirt stands before a blank wall with a number pinned to her front.\" width=\"1745\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux.png 1745w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-800x917.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-1020x1169.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-160x183.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-768x880.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-1340x1536.png 1340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1745px) 100vw, 1745px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emma LeDoux’s 1906 mugshot for … well, you’ll see. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emma and Albert met in Bisbee, Arizona, fell in love, relocated to San Francisco and … then it all went horribly wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite being described by Albert as “a lovely little woman” in letters to his family, Emma wasn’t exactly who she seemed. She had a taste for San Francisco’s nightlife and had already been married twice when Albert met her. Emma’s second husband William Williams died under mysterious circumstances that resulted in her receiving a sizable payout from his insurance company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13926069']Without divorcing Albert, Emma met and married another man (Eugene LeDoux), and Albert soon found himself on the receiving end of a murder plot. Emma lured Albert to a hotel room, spiked his whiskey with morphine and bundled his incapacitated body into a large trunk where he was left to suffocate. Emma intended to stick the trunk on a train, never to be seen again, though reports on her intended final destination are unclear. After being mislabeled, the trunk wound up stuck on a platform at Stockton’s Southern Pacific Railroad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suspicious railway employees called the cops after noticing the trunk’s weight, smell and the thunking noise it made every time they moved it. After police found Albert’s body inside, they quickly traced the trunk back to Emma, who was subsequently arrested in Antioch. “What kind of a woman is she?” Albert’s brother John asked the \u003cem>Stockton Evening and Sunday Record\u003c/em> on Mar. 31, 1906. “She must be a regular human tigress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emma’s trial for Albert’s murder created a huge scandal at the time and resulted in her being the first woman ever sentenced to death in California. In a final plot twist, however, Emma managed to escape her date with a San Quentin noose after a successful appeal to the Supreme Court. In the end, the murderess wound up getting paroled after serving just 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Jimmy Ferrozzo and Teresa Hill (1980s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971521\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971521\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-800x533.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1020x680.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-160x107.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-768x512.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1920x1280.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plaque hangs outside the Condor Club in San Francisco’s North Beach. \u003ccite>(Brittany Hosea-Small/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He was a burly and beloved North Beach bouncer. She was a 23-year-old dancer at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater, recently arrived in San Francisco from Seattle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Jimmy being 17 years her senior, Teresa was smitten with the door guy and, at midnight every night, after her shift at the O’Farrell, Teresa would rush to the Condor to close out Ferrozzo’s shift with him. On Nov. 23, 1983, the new couple stayed behind in the club after hours to have a private party of their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13953248']The following morning, at around 7 a.m., a janitor unlocked the Condor’s front door only to find a scene of horror. Teresa and Jimmy were pinned to the ceiling by the club’s famous hydraulic baby grand piano. (The piano was installed to dramatically lower North Beach’s first topless dancer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10755111/legendary-san-francisco-stripper-carol-doda-dies\">Carol Doda\u003c/a> from her dressing room upstairs onto the floor of the club.) Jimmy was dead from “compression asphyxia” and Teresa, still partially trapped underneath him, was alive but extremely distraught. It took more than three agonizing hours to free her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A homicide inspector on the scene, Whitey Gunther, told the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> that the switch that raised and lowered the piano could “easily be kicked” by Jimmy from his position on top of the piano. The paper also reported that “dancers at the club said the motorized lift was very slow and someone distracted could conceivably not notice the upward movement.” Gunther’s fellow inspector Marvin Dean also believed Ferrozzo’s death looked accidental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2024 documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953248/topless-at-the-condor-movie-review-carol-doda-documentary-north-beach-history\">Carol Doda: Topless at the Condor\u003c/a>\u003c/em> had other ideas, suggesting Jimmy’s death may have been a mob hit. No one will ever know for sure — Teresa told the SFPD she had been drinking too heavily to remember anything about the night her boyfriend died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! May those of you in couples live to see March.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Valentine’s Day is designed to make single people feel bad. Let’s revisit some relationships that went really wrong!",
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"title": "Tragic Love Stories From San Francisco History | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971513\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1893px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971513\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart.png\" alt=\"A painting depicting a heart stabbed horizontally through its center with a dagger. Above are two bleeding hands. Below are two bleeding feet.\" width=\"1893\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart.png 1893w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-800x845.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-1020x1078.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-160x169.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-768x811.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/heart-1454x1536.png 1454w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1893px) 100vw, 1893px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Love: Not all it’s cracked up to be at the best of times. \u003ccite>(Stigmata of Christ, detail from the Waldburg prayer book, 1486)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As we all know, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/20463/the-dark-and-twisted-history-of-valentines-day\">Valentine’s Day\u003c/a> is intrinsically designed to make single people feel bad about their lives. So, in the interests of bringing balance back to the world, here are some stories of lovers from Bay Area history that could make anyone swear off coupledom for life. Theirs are tales of passion, mayhem and — oh yes — a little bit of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/true-crime\">murder\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Behold these messy lovebirds!\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Belle and Charles Cora (1850s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Adventurous couple Charles and Belle Cora found each other in New Orleans in 1848. He was a wealthy gambler and high roller. She was the daughter of a minister, hailed from Baltimore, and had fled to New Orleans after falling pregnant out of wedlock. After her baby died, Belle went to work for a local madam. When Charles saw and approached Belle for the very first time, she is said to have uttered the phrase, “It is destiny.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Together, the two briefly tried their luck in Sacramento before settling in San Francisco in 1849, where Belle ran a high-end brothel in what is now Chinatown. The duo stood out in the city as a handsome, if controversial, couple. In 1890, the \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> recalled that Charles was instantly “struck by her beauty — she was a voluptuous creature.” Charles, a volunteer fireman, was a good match for Bella too. The same article described him as “always dressed neatly and well supplied with money. He had dark hair, dark mustache and dark eyes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble for these two began one Thursday night at \u003ca href=\"https://sanfranciscotheatres.blogspot.com/2018/01/maguires-opera-house.html\">Maguire’s Opera House\u003c/a>. A rule of the venue was that “the demi-monde” — any customers not of proper social standing — must only sit (according to a 1910 edition of the \u003cem>San Francisco Bulletin\u003c/em>) in “the parquet behind the dress circle, secluded in boxes.” When Belle and Charles sat in the dress circle, directly behind the wife of U.S. Marshal William H. Richardson, the lawman was incensed. Richardson loudly attempted to get the offending couple removed. When his request was denied, Richardson was left feeling both furious and publicly humiliated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The following day, Charles and Richardson had a run-in at the Cosmopolitan Saloon on Montgomery and Clay (where the Transamerica Pyramid stands today) and harsh words were exchanged as Charles defended his wife. After yet another altercation on Saturday, Charles wound up shooting and killing Richardson in the street. Charles swore up and down that it was self-defense (and the position of a knife and gun next to Richardson seemed to confirm that). Regardless, Charles was arrested and put in jail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Belle tried desperately to get Charles released, paying a fortune to a prestigious lawyer known as Colonel D. D. Baker. It was all for naught. Belle soon heard that vigilantes planned to take Charles’ fate into their own hands. She rushed to Charles’ side, so the pair could be married by a Father Maraschi. Within an hour of the union, Charles — alongside another prisoner named James Casey — was taken away by vigilantes and hanged on Sacramento Street.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rumor has it that after Charles’ death, Belle was pressured to leave town by the same Vigilance Committee that had killed her husband. She refused to do so, dying in 1862 in the same house she had shared with Charles on Waverly Place (then known as Pike Street). Today, \u003ca href=\"https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7720349/charles-cora\">Belle and Charles are buried side-by-side in San Francisco\u003c/a>’s Mission Dolores cemetery.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Albert McVicar and Emma LeDoux (1900s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971095\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1745px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971095\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux.png\" alt=\"A turn of the century woman wearing elaborate hat, suit jacket and high necked white shirt stands before a blank wall with a number pinned to her front.\" width=\"1745\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux.png 1745w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-800x917.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-1020x1169.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-160x183.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-768x880.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/emma-ledoux-1340x1536.png 1340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1745px) 100vw, 1745px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Emma LeDoux’s 1906 mugshot for … well, you’ll see. \u003ccite>(Public domain)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Emma and Albert met in Bisbee, Arizona, fell in love, relocated to San Francisco and … then it all went horribly wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite being described by Albert as “a lovely little woman” in letters to his family, Emma wasn’t exactly who she seemed. She had a taste for San Francisco’s nightlife and had already been married twice when Albert met her. Emma’s second husband William Williams died under mysterious circumstances that resulted in her receiving a sizable payout from his insurance company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Without divorcing Albert, Emma met and married another man (Eugene LeDoux), and Albert soon found himself on the receiving end of a murder plot. Emma lured Albert to a hotel room, spiked his whiskey with morphine and bundled his incapacitated body into a large trunk where he was left to suffocate. Emma intended to stick the trunk on a train, never to be seen again, though reports on her intended final destination are unclear. After being mislabeled, the trunk wound up stuck on a platform at Stockton’s Southern Pacific Railroad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Suspicious railway employees called the cops after noticing the trunk’s weight, smell and the thunking noise it made every time they moved it. After police found Albert’s body inside, they quickly traced the trunk back to Emma, who was subsequently arrested in Antioch. “What kind of a woman is she?” Albert’s brother John asked the \u003cem>Stockton Evening and Sunday Record\u003c/em> on Mar. 31, 1906. “She must be a regular human tigress.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emma’s trial for Albert’s murder created a huge scandal at the time and resulted in her being the first woman ever sentenced to death in California. In a final plot twist, however, Emma managed to escape her date with a San Quentin noose after a successful appeal to the Supreme Court. In the end, the murderess wound up getting paroled after serving just 10 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Jimmy Ferrozzo and Teresa Hill (1980s)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13971521\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13971521\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-800x533.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1020x680.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-160x107.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-768x512.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1536x1024.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/condor-1920x1280.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A plaque hangs outside the Condor Club in San Francisco’s North Beach. \u003ccite>(Brittany Hosea-Small/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He was a burly and beloved North Beach bouncer. She was a 23-year-old dancer at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell Theater, recently arrived in San Francisco from Seattle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite Jimmy being 17 years her senior, Teresa was smitten with the door guy and, at midnight every night, after her shift at the O’Farrell, Teresa would rush to the Condor to close out Ferrozzo’s shift with him. On Nov. 23, 1983, the new couple stayed behind in the club after hours to have a private party of their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The following morning, at around 7 a.m., a janitor unlocked the Condor’s front door only to find a scene of horror. Teresa and Jimmy were pinned to the ceiling by the club’s famous hydraulic baby grand piano. (The piano was installed to dramatically lower North Beach’s first topless dancer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10755111/legendary-san-francisco-stripper-carol-doda-dies\">Carol Doda\u003c/a> from her dressing room upstairs onto the floor of the club.) Jimmy was dead from “compression asphyxia” and Teresa, still partially trapped underneath him, was alive but extremely distraught. It took more than three agonizing hours to free her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A homicide inspector on the scene, Whitey Gunther, told the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em> that the switch that raised and lowered the piano could “easily be kicked” by Jimmy from his position on top of the piano. The paper also reported that “dancers at the club said the motorized lift was very slow and someone distracted could conceivably not notice the upward movement.” Gunther’s fellow inspector Marvin Dean also believed Ferrozzo’s death looked accidental.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2024 documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13953248/topless-at-the-condor-movie-review-carol-doda-documentary-north-beach-history\">Carol Doda: Topless at the Condor\u003c/a>\u003c/em> had other ideas, suggesting Jimmy’s death may have been a mob hit. No one will ever know for sure — Teresa told the SFPD she had been drinking too heavily to remember anything about the night her boyfriend died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! May those of you in couples live to see March.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-horror-movies-winchester-stigmata-peaches-christ-lost-boys-vampires",
"title": "7 (More) Bay Area Horror Movies For Your Halloween Viewing Pleasure",
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"content": "\u003cp>Back in 2021, I put together a handy little guide to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904911/bay-area-horror-movies\">seven Bay Area horror movies\u003c/a> perfect for all of your cozy, under-a-blanket, pumpkin spice-sipping October viewing needs. And yet! A bunch of you were not quite satisfied with the original list and, in the last few years, KQED has been bombarded with requests for us to list more scary celluloid moments from our locale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fine, fear enthusiasts. You win. Let’s do this! (\u003cem>Again.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>All About Evil (2010)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzKZ-KXLtak\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shot in and around San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://victoriatheatre.org/\">Victoria Theater\u003c/a>, \u003cem>All About Evil \u003c/em>was written and directed by Joshua Grannell, better known to most of us as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13933318/best-bay-area-halloween-events-2023-san-francisco-oakland-san-jose\">Peaches Christ\u003c/a>. Gloriously camp and terrifically twisted, this 2010 slasher has a plot that would make John Waters proud, gory murder scenes that are genuinely shocking, plus a passion for small movie theaters that is quintessentially Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natasha Lyonne is clearly having the time of her life in her starring role as a murderous movie-house owner. She’s in good company too. Mink Stole shows up, as does Elvira herself \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005308/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t8\">Cassandra Peterson\u003c/a>, in a deliciously low-key cameo. \u003cem>All About Evil\u003c/em> isn’t just perfect for Halloween, it should be required viewing for every movie lover in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘All About Evil’ is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Sacred Blood (2015)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIj7Qkr8WYU\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This movie has it all! Beautiful, territorial Chinatown vampires! Gun-toting European circus performers! Michael Madsen doing cop stuff! Dastardly flying poodles! Kato Kaelin! (Yes, \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kato_Kaelin\">\u003cem>that\u003c/em> Kato Kaelin\u003c/a>.) At its core though, Christopher Coppola’s creative goth horror is a love letter to late nights on the streets of San Francisco. It also absolutely revels in the sight of powerful women punishing misogynistic men. (Hooray!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If all that weren’t enough, \u003cem>Sacred Blood\u003c/em> offers a jaunt around some of the city’s oldest nightspots including \u003ca href=\"https://condorsf.com/\">the Condor\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/li-po-cocktail-lounge-san-francisco\">Li Po Lounge\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/edinburgh-castle-pub-san-francisco-2\">Edinburgh Castle\u003c/a>. Is \u003cem>Sacred Blood\u003c/em> a little slow in places? Sure! Still worth a watch, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Sacred Blood’ is streaming now on Pluto TV and Plex.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Twixt (2011)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7cQnOcU7I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Coppola’s uncle (some fellow named Francis Ford) made his own vampire thriller a few years back as well. Though, between the movie’s small town vibes, goofy characters and creepy undertones, it feels more like a David Lynch project than anything else. (And yes, it’s almost as difficult to follow.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13933318']Much of \u003cem>Twixt\u003c/em> was filmed on Coppola’s Napa County estate, as well as in small towns further north in Lake County. It stars Val Kilmer as a horror novelist who finds himself in Swann Valley, a place where he gets all his best ideas while sleeping. That’s in part because sleep allows him to sojourn with teenage vampires, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe and a bunch of dead children. Things get even creepier when he’s awake, though, thanks to a Ouija board-touting sheriff, a dead girl in the morgue, a Baudelaire-spouting emo kid and a clock tower with seven faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, yes — in case you were wondering — this one is more of a mood than a movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Twixt’ (AKA: ‘B’Twixt Now and Sunrise’) is available to rent on AppleTV+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Winchester (2018)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDVjX2OBrwc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look, we all know it’s preposterous for \u003cem>Winchester\u003c/em> to declare the San José mystery mansion as “the most haunted house in history,” but there’s something extraordinarily fun about seeing this sprawling but familiar tourist attraction captured on film. If you’ve never paid the Winchester Mystery House a visit in real life, you’ll also benefit from real architectural trivia that’s worked into the script. (If you’ve ever wanted to see Sarah Snook from \u003ca href=\"https://kqed.org/arts/13930048/succession-creator-on-finale-jesse-armstrong-shiv-tom-sarah-snook-kieran-culkin\">\u003cem>Succession\u003c/em>\u003c/a> sternly talking about hardwood parquet floors, this movie is for you!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though mostly hokey, there are a couple of good jump scares, a possessed white-eyed, red-headed child and Helen Mirren doing the most half-assed American accent in history. (Truly chilling.) Ah, just have fun with it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Winchester’ is streaming now on Freevee and Plex.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stigmata (1999)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwsTYQ26QDQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you think about Patricia Arquette in the ’90s, your mind probably goes straight to \u003cem>True Romance\u003c/em>. But if you want to see her being the most ’90s of all of the ’90s, do not skip \u003cem>Stigmata.\u003c/em> Leather pants! Belly piercings! Butterfly clips! Shiny Alanis Morissette shirts! It’s like a Delia’s catalog exploded all over this thing. (Which is, of course, a good thing.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plot goes like this: Arquette’s gal-about-town, Frankie, gets sent a cursed crucifix from her dumb-tourist mom in Brazil, and promptly starts bleeding all over the place and having visions of nails getting hammered into feet. Byrne’s priest investigator shows up to … look shocked and take photos of her, basically? If none of that holds any appeal, stay tuned for the scene where a bunch of priests wander around the Palace of Fine Arts and pretend it’s the Vatican. Hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Stigmata’ is streaming now on Roku, Hoopla, Tubi and Pluto TV.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Lost Boys (1987)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q786UsnOcsY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okay, so fine. This one isn’t technically set in the nine-county Bay Area region, and it wasn’t filmed here, either. But it’s close enough, dammit! All of the moody, teenage, bloodsucking action in this ’80s classic takes place in Santa Cruz instead. (“Santa Carla” if you’re Corey Haim in a shoulder-padded, hypercolor ensemble or Corey Feldman in a \u003cem>Rambo\u003c/em> headband.) The justification for including it in this list lies in the part where David (Keifer Sutherland, at his sauciest) explains that he and his merry band of hair metal vampires wouldn’t have a cave to live in (or presumably a pipe to hang upside from) if it wasn’t for the “big one hit[ting] San Francisco in 1906.” BOOM! That’ll do!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This movie is incredibly stupid and brilliant and everyone should watch it (again) immediately. Even if only to see Alex Winter’s crimped mullet hanging upside down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Lost Boys’ is available to rent on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Spectrum.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Dead Pit (1989)\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6V-tZn9VA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For over a century, the sprawling campus of grand white buildings at 4000 Lafayette St. in Santa Clara served as a mental health facility. The buildings started life in 1885 as “the Great Asylum for the Insane” and closed in 2011 as “\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnews_Developmental_Center\">Agnews Developmental Center\u003c/a>.” Five years before Green Day filmed the band’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY\">Basket Case\u003c/a>” video on location there, this schlocky, outdated horror ran amok with the buildings’ real-life history as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13904911']The story revolves around a young (and sometimes gratuitously disrobed) woman who finds herself locked up because of what appears to be trauma-induced amnesia. What she doesn’t know is that she’s locked in an institution that’s awash with zombies — creations of a diabolical, now-dead doctor who routinely performed experiments on the brains of living patients. It’s all in the worst possible taste, of course — which means some of you are sure to enjoy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Dead Pit’ is streaming on Apple TV+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Halloween, horror fans! (And please, don’t make me do this again next year.)\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Back in 2021, I put together a handy little guide to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13904911/bay-area-horror-movies\">seven Bay Area horror movies\u003c/a> perfect for all of your cozy, under-a-blanket, pumpkin spice-sipping October viewing needs. And yet! A bunch of you were not quite satisfied with the original list and, in the last few years, KQED has been bombarded with requests for us to list more scary celluloid moments from our locale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fine, fear enthusiasts. You win. Let’s do this! (\u003cem>Again.\u003c/em>)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>All About Evil (2010)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/FzKZ-KXLtak'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/FzKZ-KXLtak'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Shot in and around San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"https://victoriatheatre.org/\">Victoria Theater\u003c/a>, \u003cem>All About Evil \u003c/em>was written and directed by Joshua Grannell, better known to most of us as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13933318/best-bay-area-halloween-events-2023-san-francisco-oakland-san-jose\">Peaches Christ\u003c/a>. Gloriously camp and terrifically twisted, this 2010 slasher has a plot that would make John Waters proud, gory murder scenes that are genuinely shocking, plus a passion for small movie theaters that is quintessentially Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Natasha Lyonne is clearly having the time of her life in her starring role as a murderous movie-house owner. She’s in good company too. Mink Stole shows up, as does Elvira herself \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005308/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t8\">Cassandra Peterson\u003c/a>, in a deliciously low-key cameo. \u003cem>All About Evil\u003c/em> isn’t just perfect for Halloween, it should be required viewing for every movie lover in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘All About Evil’ is streaming on Shudder and AMC+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Sacred Blood (2015)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/HIj7Qkr8WYU'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/HIj7Qkr8WYU'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This movie has it all! Beautiful, territorial Chinatown vampires! Gun-toting European circus performers! Michael Madsen doing cop stuff! Dastardly flying poodles! Kato Kaelin! (Yes, \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kato_Kaelin\">\u003cem>that\u003c/em> Kato Kaelin\u003c/a>.) At its core though, Christopher Coppola’s creative goth horror is a love letter to late nights on the streets of San Francisco. It also absolutely revels in the sight of powerful women punishing misogynistic men. (Hooray!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If all that weren’t enough, \u003cem>Sacred Blood\u003c/em> offers a jaunt around some of the city’s oldest nightspots including \u003ca href=\"https://condorsf.com/\">the Condor\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/li-po-cocktail-lounge-san-francisco\">Li Po Lounge\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.yelp.com/biz/edinburgh-castle-pub-san-francisco-2\">Edinburgh Castle\u003c/a>. Is \u003cem>Sacred Blood\u003c/em> a little slow in places? Sure! Still worth a watch, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Sacred Blood’ is streaming now on Pluto TV and Plex.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Twixt (2011)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/xP7cQnOcU7I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/xP7cQnOcU7I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Christopher Coppola’s uncle (some fellow named Francis Ford) made his own vampire thriller a few years back as well. Though, between the movie’s small town vibes, goofy characters and creepy undertones, it feels more like a David Lynch project than anything else. (And yes, it’s almost as difficult to follow.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Much of \u003cem>Twixt\u003c/em> was filmed on Coppola’s Napa County estate, as well as in small towns further north in Lake County. It stars Val Kilmer as a horror novelist who finds himself in Swann Valley, a place where he gets all his best ideas while sleeping. That’s in part because sleep allows him to sojourn with teenage vampires, the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe and a bunch of dead children. Things get even creepier when he’s awake, though, thanks to a Ouija board-touting sheriff, a dead girl in the morgue, a Baudelaire-spouting emo kid and a clock tower with seven faces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, yes — in case you were wondering — this one is more of a mood than a movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Twixt’ (AKA: ‘B’Twixt Now and Sunrise’) is available to rent on AppleTV+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Winchester (2018)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/UDVjX2OBrwc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/UDVjX2OBrwc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Look, we all know it’s preposterous for \u003cem>Winchester\u003c/em> to declare the San José mystery mansion as “the most haunted house in history,” but there’s something extraordinarily fun about seeing this sprawling but familiar tourist attraction captured on film. If you’ve never paid the Winchester Mystery House a visit in real life, you’ll also benefit from real architectural trivia that’s worked into the script. (If you’ve ever wanted to see Sarah Snook from \u003ca href=\"https://kqed.org/arts/13930048/succession-creator-on-finale-jesse-armstrong-shiv-tom-sarah-snook-kieran-culkin\">\u003cem>Succession\u003c/em>\u003c/a> sternly talking about hardwood parquet floors, this movie is for you!)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though mostly hokey, there are a couple of good jump scares, a possessed white-eyed, red-headed child and Helen Mirren doing the most half-assed American accent in history. (Truly chilling.) Ah, just have fun with it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Winchester’ is streaming now on Freevee and Plex.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stigmata (1999)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/rwsTYQ26QDQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/rwsTYQ26QDQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>If you think about Patricia Arquette in the ’90s, your mind probably goes straight to \u003cem>True Romance\u003c/em>. But if you want to see her being the most ’90s of all of the ’90s, do not skip \u003cem>Stigmata.\u003c/em> Leather pants! Belly piercings! Butterfly clips! Shiny Alanis Morissette shirts! It’s like a Delia’s catalog exploded all over this thing. (Which is, of course, a good thing.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plot goes like this: Arquette’s gal-about-town, Frankie, gets sent a cursed crucifix from her dumb-tourist mom in Brazil, and promptly starts bleeding all over the place and having visions of nails getting hammered into feet. Byrne’s priest investigator shows up to … look shocked and take photos of her, basically? If none of that holds any appeal, stay tuned for the scene where a bunch of priests wander around the Palace of Fine Arts and pretend it’s the Vatican. Hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Stigmata’ is streaming now on Roku, Hoopla, Tubi and Pluto TV.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Lost Boys (1987)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Q786UsnOcsY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Q786UsnOcsY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Okay, so fine. This one isn’t technically set in the nine-county Bay Area region, and it wasn’t filmed here, either. But it’s close enough, dammit! All of the moody, teenage, bloodsucking action in this ’80s classic takes place in Santa Cruz instead. (“Santa Carla” if you’re Corey Haim in a shoulder-padded, hypercolor ensemble or Corey Feldman in a \u003cem>Rambo\u003c/em> headband.) The justification for including it in this list lies in the part where David (Keifer Sutherland, at his sauciest) explains that he and his merry band of hair metal vampires wouldn’t have a cave to live in (or presumably a pipe to hang upside from) if it wasn’t for the “big one hit[ting] San Francisco in 1906.” BOOM! That’ll do!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This movie is incredibly stupid and brilliant and everyone should watch it (again) immediately. Even if only to see Alex Winter’s crimped mullet hanging upside down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Lost Boys’ is available to rent on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Spectrum.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The Dead Pit (1989)\u003c/h2>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/QX6V-tZn9VA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/QX6V-tZn9VA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>For over a century, the sprawling campus of grand white buildings at 4000 Lafayette St. in Santa Clara served as a mental health facility. The buildings started life in 1885 as “the Great Asylum for the Insane” and closed in 2011 as “\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnews_Developmental_Center\">Agnews Developmental Center\u003c/a>.” Five years before Green Day filmed the band’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY\">Basket Case\u003c/a>” video on location there, this schlocky, outdated horror ran amok with the buildings’ real-life history as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The story revolves around a young (and sometimes gratuitously disrobed) woman who finds herself locked up because of what appears to be trauma-induced amnesia. What she doesn’t know is that she’s locked in an institution that’s awash with zombies — creations of a diabolical, now-dead doctor who routinely performed experiments on the brains of living patients. It’s all in the worst possible taste, of course — which means some of you are sure to enjoy it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Dead Pit’ is streaming on Apple TV+.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Halloween, horror fans! (And please, don’t make me do this again next year.)\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If your idea of a perfect Halloween is turning off all the lights, tucking yourself under a blanket, and snuggling up next to a bag of fun-size candy for a horror movie marathon, you’re not alone. It’s a strategy that effectively removes the pressure of coming up with a costume idea and picking a party to attend. But it does present one pretty major quandary: what the hell to watch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To aid you in this decision, we’ve come up with a list of classic horror movies—all filmed in the Bay Area, all available to stream or rent, and all liable to make your Halloween better.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Cujo\u003c/em> (1983)\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFUD8b-BZCc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An entire generation of ’80s kids is still walking around with a lifelong phobia of St. Bernards because of the sheer terror wrought by \u003cem>Cujo. \u003c/em>It’s a simple but disarmingly realistic concept: a large dog gets rabies from a bat bite and descends into madness, ambushing humans as he goes. One mother and son get caught in his proverbial crosshairs, trapped in their broken-down car with no escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmed in locations around the North Bay (Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Glenn Ellen and Mendocino), the movie was given a different (less bleak) ending than Stephen King’s original text. Despite this—and the fact that in some “attack” scenes the dog is transparently trying to cuddle screaming actors—\u003cem>Cujo\u003c/em> remains one of the better Stephen King movie adaptations. Dee Wallace’s performance will stay with you long after the credits roll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Cujo’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>It Came From Beneath the Sea\u003c/em> (1955)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEm1c-sBRfY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve ever wanted to see a giant radioactive octopus throwing its tentacles around downtown San Francisco, this is the film for you. Having had its habitat in the Philippines destroyed by thermonuclear tests, and after authorities repeatedly attempt to electrocute it, the poor, unfeasibly massive octopus arrives in the city and promptly goes berserk. It wrecks buildings! It squishes men! It squeezes the Ferry Building’s clock tower to death! It even wraps itself around the Golden Gate Bridge like it wants to make babies with it. Yes, it’s completely preposterous, but if you can’t watch a giant furious octopus suction-cupping bystanders to death on Halloween, when can you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘It Came From Beneath the Sea’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> (1976)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_6Fb5k2lo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its earliest stages, it’s tempting to view \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> as just another bog-standard haunted house movie. Don’t be fooled. By the time the story has spiraled to its (absolutely bananas) climax, you’ll realize the filmmakers have lulled you into a false sense of security on purpose, only to pull the antique rug out from under you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='pop_106535']Filmed in Oakland’s Dunsmuir House (a location with \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir_House\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a tragic real-life history\u003c/a>), the home here—like the one in Netflix’s \u003cem>Haunting of Hill House\u003c/em>—has a character and motivation all of its own. All of which is compounded by some spectacular over-acting by Oliver Reed, Karen Black and Bette Davis. The moral of the story? Don’t take on a summer rental if it comes with an old lady in the attic that you’re obliged to feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Burnt Offerings’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> (1979)\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIRVOepV9Ik\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reanimated corpses. Hell portals. Severed fingers that turn into insects. Flying silver spheres with spikes. Horny teens getting stabbed in cemeteries. Evil minions that may or may not have been inspired by \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> Jawas. Absolutely nothing about \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> makes any sense at all. (\u003cem>At all\u003c/em>!) But if you want to see Dunsmuir House again, while also feeling like you’ve taken strong hallucinogens, this is a good one to watch back-to-back with \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Phantasm’ is streaming now on Pluto TV, the Roku Channel and Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> (1963)\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLJtKlVVZw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s be real. If seagulls and their tiny evil faces decided tomorrow that humans needed to be eradicated, they could probably pull it off. Throw every other bird on Earth into the mix and, as one Bodega Bay bystander states in the middle of this Alfred Hitchcock classic, “Why, if that happened, we wouldn’t have a chance.” (It’s worth also keeping in mind that \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/12/07/this-hitchcock-movie-was-inspired-by-crab-toxin-frenzy-in-capitola/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> was inspired by a real-life event\u003c/a> in which a Northern California town was attacked en masse by seabirds, in 1961.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid=’arts_[aside postid='arts_13936524']‘]Witnessing San Francisco’s Melanie Daniels (charmingly played by Tippi Hedren) slowly devolve from a self-assured, independent practical joker to a traumatized shell is genuinely perturbing here. And not a little harrowing now that we know about \u003ca href=\"https://variety.com/2017/film/news/tippi-hedren-alfred-hitchcock-the-birds-sexual-harassment-1202637959/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hitchcock’s appalling treatment of Hedren\u003c/a> in real life. But the lure of \u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> remains (Bodega Bay continues to be a hotspot for Hitchcock tourists), as does the lore. Unsubstantiated rumors persist that the Bay Area’s crow population increased enormously after Hitchcock released the birds into the wild at the end of filming. Just pray they don’t turn on us one day…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Birds’ is streaming now on Netflix.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> (1980)\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUyunS1hGyQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> is the kind of unintentionally hilarious horror movie that is best watched in groups, with some sort of drinking game fashioned after it. Drink every time someone says “Mrs Kobritz”! Drink every time a dead body lands on Jamie Lee Curtis! Drink every time some idiot doesn’t notice there’s a rotting, hook-handed pirate ghost directly next to them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Primarily filmed in Point Reyes (with some Bodega Bay and L.A. thrown in), \u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> is a movie that came really close to making some salient points about the sins of our forefathers, only to sacrifice it all for plumes of dry ice and a hearty amount of face-stabbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Fog’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/em> (1978)\u003c/h4>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc_0dlmSq7I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did the disturbing \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1956 classic\u003c/a> \u003cem>need\u003c/em> a more high-tech do-over? Not really. But boy oh boy, did it get a good one. The casting for the 1978 remake was damn near perfect (hello, young Jeff Goldblum!), and paranoia and panic is so thoroughly seeped into every scene, you can’t help but feel completely immersed in the characters’ nightmare, as one-by-one they’re replaced with alien replicas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Invasion\u003c/em> is also that rare San Francisco movie that includes Things That Locals Like, including Sutro Tower, Bimbo’s, the Broadway tunnel, and even (\u003cem>gasp!\u003c/em>) the Tenderloin. Plus! It contains the Donald Sutherland scene—\u003ca href=\"https://tenor.com/view/donald-sutherland-pod-people-podpeople-body-gif-10811761\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">you already know the one\u003c/a>—that launched a thousand gifs. A true horror classic and a scary little love letter to San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime. (The 1956 original is also free on the Roku Channel, should you fancy a double feature.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Halloween, horror fans!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If your idea of a perfect Halloween is turning off all the lights, tucking yourself under a blanket, and snuggling up next to a bag of fun-size candy for a horror movie marathon, you’re not alone. It’s a strategy that effectively removes the pressure of coming up with a costume idea and picking a party to attend. But it does present one pretty major quandary: what the hell to watch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To aid you in this decision, we’ve come up with a list of classic horror movies—all filmed in the Bay Area, all available to stream or rent, and all liable to make your Halloween better.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Cujo\u003c/em> (1983)\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/vFUD8b-BZCc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/vFUD8b-BZCc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>An entire generation of ’80s kids is still walking around with a lifelong phobia of St. Bernards because of the sheer terror wrought by \u003cem>Cujo. \u003c/em>It’s a simple but disarmingly realistic concept: a large dog gets rabies from a bat bite and descends into madness, ambushing humans as he goes. One mother and son get caught in his proverbial crosshairs, trapped in their broken-down car with no escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Filmed in locations around the North Bay (Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Glenn Ellen and Mendocino), the movie was given a different (less bleak) ending than Stephen King’s original text. Despite this—and the fact that in some “attack” scenes the dog is transparently trying to cuddle screaming actors—\u003cem>Cujo\u003c/em> remains one of the better Stephen King movie adaptations. Dee Wallace’s performance will stay with you long after the credits roll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Cujo’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>It Came From Beneath the Sea\u003c/em> (1955)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/oEm1c-sBRfY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/oEm1c-sBRfY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>If you’ve ever wanted to see a giant radioactive octopus throwing its tentacles around downtown San Francisco, this is the film for you. Having had its habitat in the Philippines destroyed by thermonuclear tests, and after authorities repeatedly attempt to electrocute it, the poor, unfeasibly massive octopus arrives in the city and promptly goes berserk. It wrecks buildings! It squishes men! It squeezes the Ferry Building’s clock tower to death! It even wraps itself around the Golden Gate Bridge like it wants to make babies with it. Yes, it’s completely preposterous, but if you can’t watch a giant furious octopus suction-cupping bystanders to death on Halloween, when can you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘It Came From Beneath the Sea’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> (1976)\u003c/strong>\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Oo_6Fb5k2lo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Oo_6Fb5k2lo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In its earliest stages, it’s tempting to view \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em> as just another bog-standard haunted house movie. Don’t be fooled. By the time the story has spiraled to its (absolutely bananas) climax, you’ll realize the filmmakers have lulled you into a false sense of security on purpose, only to pull the antique rug out from under you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Filmed in Oakland’s Dunsmuir House (a location with \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsmuir_House\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a tragic real-life history\u003c/a>), the home here—like the one in Netflix’s \u003cem>Haunting of Hill House\u003c/em>—has a character and motivation all of its own. All of which is compounded by some spectacular over-acting by Oliver Reed, Karen Black and Bette Davis. The moral of the story? Don’t take on a summer rental if it comes with an old lady in the attic that you’re obliged to feed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Burnt Offerings’ is streaming now on Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> (1979)\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RIRVOepV9Ik'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RIRVOepV9Ik'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Reanimated corpses. Hell portals. Severed fingers that turn into insects. Flying silver spheres with spikes. Horny teens getting stabbed in cemeteries. Evil minions that may or may not have been inspired by \u003cem>Star Wars\u003c/em> Jawas. Absolutely nothing about \u003cem>Phantasm\u003c/em> makes any sense at all. (\u003cem>At all\u003c/em>!) But if you want to see Dunsmuir House again, while also feeling like you’ve taken strong hallucinogens, this is a good one to watch back-to-back with \u003cem>Burnt Offerings\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Phantasm’ is streaming now on Pluto TV, the Roku Channel and Tubi.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> (1963)\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/ydLJtKlVVZw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/ydLJtKlVVZw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Let’s be real. If seagulls and their tiny evil faces decided tomorrow that humans needed to be eradicated, they could probably pull it off. Throw every other bird on Earth into the mix and, as one Bodega Bay bystander states in the middle of this Alfred Hitchcock classic, “Why, if that happened, we wouldn’t have a chance.” (It’s worth also keeping in mind that \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/12/07/this-hitchcock-movie-was-inspired-by-crab-toxin-frenzy-in-capitola/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> was inspired by a real-life event\u003c/a> in which a Northern California town was attacked en masse by seabirds, in 1961.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>‘]Witnessing San Francisco’s Melanie Daniels (charmingly played by Tippi Hedren) slowly devolve from a self-assured, independent practical joker to a traumatized shell is genuinely perturbing here. And not a little harrowing now that we know about \u003ca href=\"https://variety.com/2017/film/news/tippi-hedren-alfred-hitchcock-the-birds-sexual-harassment-1202637959/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hitchcock’s appalling treatment of Hedren\u003c/a> in real life. But the lure of \u003cem>The Birds\u003c/em> remains (Bodega Bay continues to be a hotspot for Hitchcock tourists), as does the lore. Unsubstantiated rumors persist that the Bay Area’s crow population increased enormously after Hitchcock released the birds into the wild at the end of filming. Just pray they don’t turn on us one day…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Birds’ is streaming now on Netflix.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> (1980)\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/fUyunS1hGyQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/fUyunS1hGyQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> is the kind of unintentionally hilarious horror movie that is best watched in groups, with some sort of drinking game fashioned after it. Drink every time someone says “Mrs Kobritz”! Drink every time a dead body lands on Jamie Lee Curtis! Drink every time some idiot doesn’t notice there’s a rotting, hook-handed pirate ghost directly next to them?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Primarily filmed in Point Reyes (with some Bodega Bay and L.A. thrown in), \u003cem>The Fog\u003c/em> is a movie that came really close to making some salient points about the sins of our forefathers, only to sacrifice it all for plumes of dry ice and a hearty amount of face-stabbing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘The Fog’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch4>\u003cem>Invasion of the Body Snatchers\u003c/em> (1978)\u003c/h4>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/vc_0dlmSq7I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/vc_0dlmSq7I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Did the disturbing \u003ca href=\"https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049366/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">1956 classic\u003c/a> \u003cem>need\u003c/em> a more high-tech do-over? Not really. But boy oh boy, did it get a good one. The casting for the 1978 remake was damn near perfect (hello, young Jeff Goldblum!), and paranoia and panic is so thoroughly seeped into every scene, you can’t help but feel completely immersed in the characters’ nightmare, as one-by-one they’re replaced with alien replicas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Invasion\u003c/em> is also that rare San Francisco movie that includes Things That Locals Like, including Sutro Tower, Bimbo’s, the Broadway tunnel, and even (\u003cem>gasp!\u003c/em>) the Tenderloin. Plus! It contains the Donald Sutherland scene—\u003ca href=\"https://tenor.com/view/donald-sutherland-pod-people-podpeople-body-gif-10811761\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">you already know the one\u003c/a>—that launched a thousand gifs. A true horror classic and a scary little love letter to San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ is streaming now on Amazon Prime. (The 1956 original is also free on the Roku Channel, should you fancy a double feature.)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Halloween, horror fans!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In 1978, San Francisco was an anarchic place to be. A burgeoning punk rock scene was in the process of eviscerating the city’s reputation as a hippie haven. Civil rights campaigns raged all over: the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/black-panthers\">Black Panthers\u003c/a> were over a decade into their struggle, LGBTQ folks were \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11966077/inside-the-trial-that-overturned-californias-same-sex-marriage-ban-proposition-8-mike-johnson-lgbtq-rights\">at war with Anita Bryant\u003c/a>, and feminists were trying to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.againstviolence.art/take-back-the-night\">Take Back the Night\u003c/a>” outside of North Beach’s strip clubs. This most turbulent of years also culminated in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/118592/relatives-remember-jonestown-35-years-after-the-killings\">Jonestown Massacre\u003c/a> \u003cem>and\u003c/em> the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13953890']If there hadn’t been so much going on, it’s possible that one very strange turn of events might have stayed in the public consciousness for a bit longer. Because yes, it’s almost as bonkers as everything else that happened that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July 1978, nine years after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/zodiac-killer\">Zodiac Killer\u003c/a> first struck, one of the most prominent homicide cops working the case was suddenly removed from his post. By that time, Inspector David R. Toschi — who had been on the case since day one — is said to have interviewed 5,000 people and examined more than 2,000 suspects. So it’s probable that his sudden transfer from homicide to (in Toschi’s own words) “the pawnshop detail” was always going to make some headlines. The reason it blew up into a citywide reason to gossip was the person responsible for his demotion — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/111091/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tales-of-the-city-before-the-netflix-update\">\u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em>\u003c/a> author and jaunty man about San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/10814/armistead-maupin-on-saying-goodbye-to-san-francisco-and-tales-of-the-city\">Armistead Maupin\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13880964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13880964\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1296\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-800x518.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-768x498.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-1020x661.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-1920x1244.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Armistead Maupin, not causing any controversies. \u003ccite>(Christopher Turner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This whole thing started in August 1976 when Maupin consulted Toschi so he might better write the character of homicide detective Henry Tandy. Tandy was featured in Maupin’s \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> column and in the first \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> book that combined many of those stories. True to Maupin’s tendency to blend fiction and reality, Toschi was also written in as Tandy’s mentor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13833330']All very normal and fine so far? Well, yes, but not for long. According to Maupin, “within the [first] week” of Toschi’s name appearing in \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em>, the author received two fake fan letters that included praise for Toschi. Maupin clocked the notes as phony only some weeks later when even more arrived, at which point he suspected that Toschi was sending them himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maupin later stated that he regarded the letters “as a harmless, if somewhat reckless action on the part of a police officer.” He also told the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>: “I was extremely embarrassed for him. The letters were so transparent, so pathetic that I couldn’t bring myself to [confront] him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966328\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13966328 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a white shirt, bow tie and suspenders looks though a stack of paper files.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1192\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-800x477.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1020x608.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-160x95.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-768x458.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1536x915.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1920x1144.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Toschi in 1976, the same year he sent Armistead Maupin fan mail… in praise of himself. \u003ccite>(San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time he was sending the fake fan letters, Toschi was also sending Maupin some unusual packages, signed directly from himself. These included one containing a signed photograph of himself posing with \u003cem>The Streets of San Francisco\u003c/em> actor \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Malden\">Karl Malden\u003c/a> and another containing a felt wall calendar. (Herb Caen also reportedly received one of these calendars and, Maupin believes, phony fan mail from Toschi.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things escalated in April 1978 when, after a four-year period of silence from the Zodiac, a new letter purporting to be from the serial killer arrived at the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>’s offices. It read, in part:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>This is the Zodiac speaking I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here, I have always been here. That city pig toschi is good — but I am smarter and better he will get tired then leave me alone.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>After Maupin saw the letter, he began to suspect that Toschi might have faked it. For one, no prior Zodiac letters had ever mentioned any individual police officers before. In addition, Maupin thought that the tone, the “margin stops” and the shape of the Ds in the Zodiac letter looked similar to ones he saw in Toschi’s fabricated fan mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966330\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1669\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-800x668.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1020x851.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-160x134.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-768x641.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1536x1282.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1920x1602.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The final Zodiac letter from April 1978, that Armistead Maupin suspected Inspector David Toschi had forged.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maupin was concerned enough that he contacted Toschi’s superiors at the San Francisco Police Department; they immediately launched an investigation. Toschi publicly admitted to sending the fake fan letters to Maupin and was swiftly removed from the Zodiac case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a foolish thing to do,” he said at the time. “I am ashamed of it.” However, Toschi also denied meddling in the Zodiac case. He declared to the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>, “I wrote no Zodiac letter. I don’t need another letter. It only brings me tons of extra work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same interview, Toschi dismissed Maupin’s suspicions as a baseless publicity stunt timed specifically to coincide with the release of the first \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postid='arts_13904265']“Can a man be destroyed because of vague accusations about ‘tone’?” Toschi said. “You bet he can! The complaint signed by Maupin and his publicist [Kenneth Maley] says that I ‘may’ have forged the last … Zodiac letter. ‘May have forged.’ ‘Similarity of tone.’ Just this. No evidence … I’ll be exonerated eventually but my credibility has been smashed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked what the lowest point of the controversy had been for him, Toschi explained: “Someone from Internal Affairs asked me where I had been on the night that Zodiac murdered the cab driver Paul Stine. I told him — home in bed — but I got sick to my stomach. Apparently some reporter had asked the department: ‘Could Toschi be Zodiac?’ You’ll never know how that hurt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the suspicions placed on Toschi, he was eventually exonerated of forging the final Zodiac letter. He stayed with the SFPD until 1985, before taking on the role of director of security at both Union Square’s Pan Pacific Hotel and St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission. Toschi died in 2018 at the age of 86 but, as he predicted, the controversy about the final Zodiac letter never dissipated — and Toschi’s name is now synonymous with it. As the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> wrote on July 11, 1978: “It may just be that he is a man done in by his own admiration for newspaper stories that mentioned his name.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for Maupin, the controversy he started had zero effect on his career. As the years passed, Maupin’s association with the Zodiac case became a distant memory for almost everyone except true crime nerds. Maupin went on to release nine enormously popular \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> books over a span of 36 years. \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> was also turned into \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/tales.html\">a PBS series starring Laura Linney\u003c/a> in 1993 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80211563\">rebooted by Netflix\u003c/a> in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sadly for the former cop, the David Toschi and Henry Tandy characters never made an appearance in either screen adaptation.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In 1978, San Francisco was an anarchic place to be. A burgeoning punk rock scene was in the process of eviscerating the city’s reputation as a hippie haven. Civil rights campaigns raged all over: the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/black-panthers\">Black Panthers\u003c/a> were over a decade into their struggle, LGBTQ folks were \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11966077/inside-the-trial-that-overturned-californias-same-sex-marriage-ban-proposition-8-mike-johnson-lgbtq-rights\">at war with Anita Bryant\u003c/a>, and feminists were trying to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.againstviolence.art/take-back-the-night\">Take Back the Night\u003c/a>” outside of North Beach’s strip clubs. This most turbulent of years also culminated in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/118592/relatives-remember-jonestown-35-years-after-the-killings\">Jonestown Massacre\u003c/a> \u003cem>and\u003c/em> the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>If there hadn’t been so much going on, it’s possible that one very strange turn of events might have stayed in the public consciousness for a bit longer. Because yes, it’s almost as bonkers as everything else that happened that year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In July 1978, nine years after the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/tag/zodiac-killer\">Zodiac Killer\u003c/a> first struck, one of the most prominent homicide cops working the case was suddenly removed from his post. By that time, Inspector David R. Toschi — who had been on the case since day one — is said to have interviewed 5,000 people and examined more than 2,000 suspects. So it’s probable that his sudden transfer from homicide to (in Toschi’s own words) “the pawnshop detail” was always going to make some headlines. The reason it blew up into a citywide reason to gossip was the person responsible for his demotion — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/111091/everything-you-need-to-know-about-tales-of-the-city-before-the-netflix-update\">\u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em>\u003c/a> author and jaunty man about San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/pop/10814/armistead-maupin-on-saying-goodbye-to-san-francisco-and-tales-of-the-city\">Armistead Maupin\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13880964\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13880964\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1296\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-800x518.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-768x498.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-1020x661.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Armistead-Maupin-by-Christopher-Turner-1920x1244.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Armistead Maupin, not causing any controversies. \u003ccite>(Christopher Turner)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This whole thing started in August 1976 when Maupin consulted Toschi so he might better write the character of homicide detective Henry Tandy. Tandy was featured in Maupin’s \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle\u003c/em> column and in the first \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> book that combined many of those stories. True to Maupin’s tendency to blend fiction and reality, Toschi was also written in as Tandy’s mentor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>All very normal and fine so far? Well, yes, but not for long. According to Maupin, “within the [first] week” of Toschi’s name appearing in \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em>, the author received two fake fan letters that included praise for Toschi. Maupin clocked the notes as phony only some weeks later when even more arrived, at which point he suspected that Toschi was sending them himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maupin later stated that he regarded the letters “as a harmless, if somewhat reckless action on the part of a police officer.” He also told the \u003cem>San Francisco Examiner\u003c/em>: “I was extremely embarrassed for him. The letters were so transparent, so pathetic that I couldn’t bring myself to [confront] him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966328\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-13966328 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi.jpg\" alt=\"A man wearing a white shirt, bow tie and suspenders looks though a stack of paper files.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1192\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-800x477.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1020x608.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-160x95.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-768x458.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1536x915.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/David-Toschi-1920x1144.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Toschi in 1976, the same year he sent Armistead Maupin fan mail… in praise of himself. \u003ccite>(San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the same time he was sending the fake fan letters, Toschi was also sending Maupin some unusual packages, signed directly from himself. These included one containing a signed photograph of himself posing with \u003cem>The Streets of San Francisco\u003c/em> actor \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Malden\">Karl Malden\u003c/a> and another containing a felt wall calendar. (Herb Caen also reportedly received one of these calendars and, Maupin believes, phony fan mail from Toschi.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Things escalated in April 1978 when, after a four-year period of silence from the Zodiac, a new letter purporting to be from the serial killer arrived at the \u003cem>Chronicle\u003c/em>’s offices. It read, in part:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>This is the Zodiac speaking I am back with you. Tell herb caen I am here, I have always been here. That city pig toschi is good — but I am smarter and better he will get tired then leave me alone.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>After Maupin saw the letter, he began to suspect that Toschi might have faked it. For one, no prior Zodiac letters had ever mentioned any individual police officers before. In addition, Maupin thought that the tone, the “margin stops” and the shape of the Ds in the Zodiac letter looked similar to ones he saw in Toschi’s fabricated fan mail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13966330\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13966330\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1669\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78.png 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-800x668.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1020x851.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-160x134.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-768x641.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1536x1282.png 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/10/zodiac-78-1920x1602.png 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The final Zodiac letter from April 1978, that Armistead Maupin suspected Inspector David Toschi had forged.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Maupin was concerned enough that he contacted Toschi’s superiors at the San Francisco Police Department; they immediately launched an investigation. Toschi publicly admitted to sending the fake fan letters to Maupin and was swiftly removed from the Zodiac case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a foolish thing to do,” he said at the time. “I am ashamed of it.” However, Toschi also denied meddling in the Zodiac case. He declared to the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em>, “I wrote no Zodiac letter. I don’t need another letter. It only brings me tons of extra work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the same interview, Toschi dismissed Maupin’s suspicions as a baseless publicity stunt timed specifically to coincide with the release of the first \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Can a man be destroyed because of vague accusations about ‘tone’?” Toschi said. “You bet he can! The complaint signed by Maupin and his publicist [Kenneth Maley] says that I ‘may’ have forged the last … Zodiac letter. ‘May have forged.’ ‘Similarity of tone.’ Just this. No evidence … I’ll be exonerated eventually but my credibility has been smashed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked what the lowest point of the controversy had been for him, Toschi explained: “Someone from Internal Affairs asked me where I had been on the night that Zodiac murdered the cab driver Paul Stine. I told him — home in bed — but I got sick to my stomach. Apparently some reporter had asked the department: ‘Could Toschi be Zodiac?’ You’ll never know how that hurt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regardless of the suspicions placed on Toschi, he was eventually exonerated of forging the final Zodiac letter. He stayed with the SFPD until 1985, before taking on the role of director of security at both Union Square’s Pan Pacific Hotel and St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission. Toschi died in 2018 at the age of 86 but, as he predicted, the controversy about the final Zodiac letter never dissipated — and Toschi’s name is now synonymous with it. As the \u003cem>Examiner\u003c/em> wrote on July 11, 1978: “It may just be that he is a man done in by his own admiration for newspaper stories that mentioned his name.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for Maupin, the controversy he started had zero effect on his career. As the years passed, Maupin’s association with the Zodiac case became a distant memory for almost everyone except true crime nerds. Maupin went on to release nine enormously popular \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> books over a span of 36 years. \u003cem>Tales of the City\u003c/em> was also turned into \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/tales.html\">a PBS series starring Laura Linney\u003c/a> in 1993 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.netflix.com/title/80211563\">rebooted by Netflix\u003c/a> in 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sadly for the former cop, the David Toschi and Henry Tandy characters never made an appearance in either screen adaptation.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"masters-of-scale": {
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},
"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"on-the-media": {
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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},
"pbs-newshour": {
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},
"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
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},
"politicalbreakdown": {
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"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 5
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
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},
"radiolab": {
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