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They came for a lock of hair to break a curse.
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They left a murdered man and a burning farmhouse. But
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the flames went out before the evidence disappeared. What convinced
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three people that this neighborhood simply had to be stopped?
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What you are about to hear is believed to be real.
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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is
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Terrifying and True.
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Tonight, in York County, Pennsylvania, a farmhouse has survived a
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fire that was meant to conceal a killing. It's Thanksgiving week, 1928.
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Inside lies Nelson Riemeyer, a farmer and folk healer, whose
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name will become inseparable from a story about witchcraft. Three
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people have attacked him. They came looking for a book,
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and a lock of his hair. Believing these things could
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free them from a curse, one of them, John Blymeyer,
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had known Remyer long before that night. On an earlier visit,
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Remyer had given him and a young companion a place
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to sleep. In the morning, he made them breakfast. They
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came back with help. The trials would expose... A terrible crime.
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The headlines would turn it into a spectacle, and somewhere
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between the testimony and the legend, the man who died
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would become harder to see. What happened in Hex Hollow
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asks us to look beyond the scorched floor and the
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supposed spellbook into a world where healing prayers and accusations
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of harmful magic could become... dangerously confused. Tonight, we follow
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the evidence behind the legend and the family voices trying
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to bring Nelson Remyer back into focus. So make sure
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you're subscribed as we tell that story tonight. Thanksgiving Day
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fell on a Thursday, November 29th, 1928. Around noon, concern
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settled over a farm in North Hopewell Township, roughly 15
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miles from York. Nelson Remyer's animals had not been properly attended.
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Their noise carried far enough that neighbors went to investigate.
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Oran's trial reconstruction names neighbor David Vanover as the man
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who entered around noon. Some later accounts instead name Oscar Glatfelter.
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They agree on what drew attention to the property. The
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ordinary rhythm of the farm had ceased. Inside the house,
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the kitchen had been scorched. Riemeyer lay face down on
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the floor. His ankles bound, his body and clothing badly burned.
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The fire had gone out before consuming the house. The
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room still held the story the killers had tried so
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hard to erase. Investigators recorded pieces of a broken chair,
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an oil burner, a flashlight, a metal halter snap, burning
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bedding material, and lengths of rope. Some of that rope
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would be connected to a 25-foot clothesline bought in York
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only days earlier. Medical witnesses described bruising, cuts, and a
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compound fracture of the skull, severe enough that it might
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have caused death. They also documented extensive burning. What the
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accessible medical record does not establish is whether Riemeyer was alive.
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when the fire was lit. The later claim that he
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was burned alive goes beyond what the evidence can prove.
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Years later, Jeanette Harvey, who had known Nelson as a girl,
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remembered how the news reached her.
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The lady across the street, she said, did you know
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that Nelson Raymar was killed?
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Nothing supernatural had protected the farmhouse. The attempted arson simply failed.
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But that failure changed everything. The burned floor, the ropes,
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the shattered furniture, and the body remained available to investigators.
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Whoever had done this had not made a victim disappear.
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They had left a room full of evidence. and a
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trial leading backward through two visits, one printed book, and
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a belief that Nelson Riemeyer was responsible for hardships he
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had never been proven to cause. Before the headlines converted
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him into the Witch of Hex Hollow, Nelson D. Riemeyer
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was a 60-year-old farmer. Patrick Donmire's research describes a modest
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45-acre property where Riemeyer raised potatoes, corn, apples, and chickens
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with comparatively little livestock. He was married to Alice Riemeyer
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and had children, although he and his family were living separately.
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Later scholarly accounts connect that arrangement in part to the
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stream of people who came seeking his help. But the
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surviving record does not tell us enough to turn a
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private family arrangement into either scandal or sentiment. Riemeyer was
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known as an outspoken man. Historian Owen Davies identifies him
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as an active socialist, a position that could make a
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person conspicuous in rural York County. He was also associated
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with Pennsylvania Dutch folk healing. Neighbors knew he practiced what
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English speakers called how-wow. Some apparently regarded him as helpful.
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Others considered him peculiar. Neither reputation proves anything about a curse.
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The most important documented fact about his relationship with the
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men who killed him is painfully simple. When two of
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them arrived at his house on their first visit... He
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accepted them as guests, allowed them to stay overnight, and
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made them food in the morning. To understand why they came,
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we have to separate a living tradition from the lurid
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category imposed upon it after the murder. Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow
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is also called Brauw Keraai. Its roots are primarily European
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and Pennsylvania German. and its customary purposes were healing, blessing,
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and protection. Practitioners used Christian prayers, passages of scripture, gestures,
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spoken or silent formulas, household objects, and knowledge passed through
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families or teachers. A person might seek help for bleeding, burns, fever, pain,
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a sick animal, or the fear that some harmful influence
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had settled over a home. In Shane Free's documentary, Hex Hollow,
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one practitioner explains the tradition this way.
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Powwow is Pennsylvania German folk healing. In itself, it is
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a very simple thing. It's what one of my teachers
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called act of prayer. Some people will call it magic,
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folk magic, and to a certain extent it does fall
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into that realm, but there are many practitioners who shun
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the word entirely.
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The English word powwow creates some confusion. It was borrowed
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from an Algonquin language used dismissively by English colonists for
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ritual practices they didn't understand and later attached to Pennsylvania
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German healing. Brauchairi itself is not an indigenous ceremonial powwow.
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The shared English label does not make the traditions the same.
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Pennsylvania Dutch is also broader than Amish. It refers to
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a diverse Pennsylvania German cultural population that has included Lutheran, Reformed, Moravian, Mennonite, Brethren, Amish,
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and Catholic communities. Treating all Pennsylvania Dutch people as one
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secluded religious group repeats the simplification that helped distort this
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case in 1929. Within the tradition, Braukeirai, often referred to
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beneficial or protective work. Hexairai usually carried the darker meaning
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of harmful magic or the accusation that someone had caused
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illness or misfortune. The vocabulary was never perfectly uniform. A
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healer could be asked to counteract a supposed hex without
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claiming to practice any harmful magic. That distinction is central
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in this topic. Rehmeyer's association with healing did not make
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him a person who placed curses. There's no reliable evidence
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that he hexed John Blymeyer, the Hess family, or anyone else.
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The accusation came from people trying to give their own
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suffering a human source. Printed books could accompany an oral practice,
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and none became more famous in Pennsylvania than Johann Georg
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Hohmann's The Long Lost Friend. First published in the United
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States in 1820 and issued in English by the mid-19th century,
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it gathered remedies, prayers, protections, and folk procedures for people
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and animals. It was sold commercially and circulated widely It
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was not a unique handwritten manuscript belonging only to Riemeyer,
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and it was not a satanic field manual. One famous
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protection promised that whoever carried the book would be, quote,
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safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible. Other entries
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addressed bleeding, burns, illness, livestock, and daily hazards in language
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saturated with Christian belief. A modern historian may call The
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Long Lost Friend a grimoire, a handbook of procedures intended
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to influence events through supernatural means. That useful scholarly category
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does not erase the book's local function as a practical
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collection of blessings and remedies, nor does it mean every
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owner believed every promise within. For Riemeyer, the book appears
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to have belonged to his practice. For John Blymeyer, it
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became something else. An object that seemed to concentrate both
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Riemeyer's supposed power and the possibility of escape from it.
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John Blymeyer's surname appears as B-L-Y-M-Y-E-R instead of B-L-Y-M-I-R-E through
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much of the court era record. On the witness stand,
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he gave his age as 33, although some newspapers called
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him 32. He had grown up close to powwow practice.
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His father, Immanuel Blymeyer, was remembered as a healer. and
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John had attempted some practice himself. He therefore did not
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approach Riemeyer's world as a complete outsider. He knew the
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language of cures, hexes, and countermeasures well enough to make
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it the framework through which he interpreted his own life.
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That life contained genuine hardship. Blymeyer had recurring physical complaints-
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difficulty settling in to work, and periods of acute psychological distress.
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His family endured the deaths of two children, and his
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marriage to Lily Bell Alloway deteriorated. In 1923, his father-in-law
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arranged for him to be evaluated through the York County Almshouse,
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and Blymeier was later committed to the Harrisburg State Hospital.
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A period description used the diagnosis, quote, hypochondriacal melancholia. That
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is historical language, not a diagnosis we would be able
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to safely translate into a modern condition. It came from
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an era with different institutions, categories, and standards of care.
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Blymeier later escaped during a baseball game and returned to York.
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His marriage ended in divorce. Mental distress did not make
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murder inevitable, and it does not remove the choices that followed.
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Many people endure illness, grief, and psychiatric crisis without harming anyone.
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What shaped this case was Blymeier's developing explanation for his suffering. Restlessness,
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failed work, family loss, and physical discomfort ceased to be
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separate events, he increasingly treated them as evidence of a
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single hostile act. During his trial, he reduced that belief
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to three words, quote, I was bewitched. Blymeier consulted practitioners,
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including Andrew Lenhart and Sam Schmuck. According to the trial-era account,
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They reinforced his conviction that a hex existed, but did
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not name the person responsible. Blymeier kept searching for a
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face to place behind the idea. Riemeyer was not a
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stranger to him. Blymeier testified that Riemeyer had treated him
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about a year earlier, and that he had once slept
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at Riemeyer's home. Later retellings moved that treatment into Blymeier's
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The trial-era version is a safer one. A prior healer-patient
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relationship had become, in Blymeier's mind, a relationship between persecutor
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and victim. The final identification was attributed to a woman
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near Marietta, Pennsylvania, whose name is one of the case's
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persistent problems. Contemporary newspapers called her Emma Knopp. Modern scholars
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often call her Emma Knapp. A near-contemporary trial reconstruction calls
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her Mrs. Knoll. The familiar name Nellie Knoll belongs securely
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to later retellings, not to a single consistent court-era identity.
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Rather than pretending the sources agree, it's more accurate to
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call her the Marietta Practitioner, Blymeier consulted. Blymeier testified that
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she used a dollar bill in a simple visual procedure.
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He stared at the portrait. The bill was removed from
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his palm, and he interpreted the lingering afterimage as the
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face of Nelson Riemeier. That testimony tells us what Blymeier experienced.
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It doesn't independently establish what the woman intended for him
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to see. and it certainly does not establish that Riemeyer
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had done anything to him. It supplied the name Blymeyer
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had been seeking desperately. Her supposed prescription changes depending on
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the source. In some trial-era testimony, Blymeyer needed a lock
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of Riemeyer's hair or Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend.
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Clayton Hess remembered an instruction to bury the hair six
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or eight feet underground. Other reports say eight feet. Later
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versions combine every element into a ritual checklist. Steal both
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hair and book, burn one, bury both, or destroy the book,
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bury the hair, and be sure to get it at
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the exact depth. The record does not justify that precision.
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What remains consistent is that Blymeyer believed physical objects connected
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to Remyer could break the curse. He did not pursue
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those objects alone. John Curry was 14 years old and
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frequently in Blymeyer's company. Later historians have described him as
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Blymeyer's young sidekick or protege. Wilbert Granville Hess was 18.
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the son of a York County family suffering its own
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run of illness, crop trouble, livestock losses, and stolen chickens.
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The Hesses believed their farm had been hexed and turned
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to Blymeyer for help. Wilbert, therefore, entered the plan through
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a family fear that Blymeyer was already validating. Curry and
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Hess were young and susceptible to an older man's certainty,
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but neither was an object without agency. Each took part
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in decisions that became progressively more deliberate and On Sunday,
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November 25th, Blymeyer met with members of the Hess family
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and outlined the effort to obtain something from Riemeyer. The
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following day, Monday, November 26th, Blymeyer and Curry bought approximately
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25 feet of cotton clothesline in York. They cut it
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into useful lengths. Clayton Hess then drove them toward Riemeyer
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Hollow and let them out near the woods. The rope
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was already with them. Whatever language they used for curse-breaking,
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they were preparing to restrain a man. At about 7.45
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that evening, Blymeier and Curry visited Alice Riemeier for roughly
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half an hour, then crossed the fields to Nelson's house.
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Nelson knew them and admitted them. They said they were visiting,
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and the encounter lasted late enough that he allowed them
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to remain overnight. The two slept in the kitchen. In
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the morning, Riemeyer prepared breakfast. They left without attacking him,
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without cutting his hair, and without taking the book. Bleimeyer
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later explained that they considered Riemeyer too strong for the
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two of them. Hospitality had given them access. Their own
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calculation postponed the assault. That first visit is sometimes presented
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as harmless reconnaissance that only later became violent. The rope
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makes the truth less comfortable. The possibility of binding Riemeyer
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00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:05.460
was already present, yet the men still had another chance
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00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:11.680
to stop. after leaving his breakfast table. Instead, Blymeier sought
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00:22:11.859 --> 00:22:18.200
additional strength. He brought 18-year-old Wilbert Hess into the return trip.
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00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:24.099
On Tuesday, November 27th, Clayton Hess again drove them toward
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00:22:24.140 --> 00:22:28.819
the hollow. The three completed the journey on foot. The
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00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:33.400
reliable record establishes the rope, but it does not establish
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00:22:33.460 --> 00:22:38.279
that they arrived carrying the collection of clubs, axes, or
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00:22:38.779 --> 00:22:45.660
occult equipment, added by later storytellers. Riemeyer admitted them again.
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00:22:46.509 --> 00:22:50.930
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's later account says the evening was
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00:22:51.049 --> 00:22:54.630
cold and that after letting the three into his kitchen,
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00:22:55.269 --> 00:23:00.569
he turned to tend the fire. Blymeyer's own testimony said
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00:23:00.650 --> 00:23:05.779
he asked for the long-lost friend. Other evidence led the
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00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:09.349
appellate court to conclude that no effort was made to
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00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:14.170
obtain Hare, and no particular search for the book occurred
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00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:21.549
before violence began. Those versions are not identical. They agree
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00:23:21.789 --> 00:23:27.349
on the decisive point. The visitors had planned to overpower him,
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00:23:27.529 --> 00:23:41.519
and within moments, the visit became an assault. The exact
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00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:48.680
choreography cannot be recovered cleanly because the defendants shifted responsibility
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00:23:49.259 --> 00:23:55.400
among themselves. Blymeier admitted using his fists and swinging a chair,
250
00:23:56.180 --> 00:24:01.009
although he said the chair missed Riemeier and broke. He
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00:24:01.069 --> 00:24:06.569
attributed blows with wood and kicking to Curry. Curry's alleged
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00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:11.829
written confession described striking Riemeier with a block of wood,
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00:24:12.410 --> 00:24:17.089
but the trial judge excluded that confession after questions about
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00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:22.029
how it had been obtained. Hess later argued that he
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00:24:22.130 --> 00:24:27.119
played the lesser role and acted under the domination of
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00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:34.660
the others. Physical evidence established a violent struggle, broken furniture, binding,
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00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:39.680
and a fractured skull. It did not assign every injury
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00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:45.410
to a particular hand. Riemeyer was beaten down and bound.
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00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:50.059
Rope was placed around his ankles, and evidence described a
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00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:55.660
rope halter or ligature around his neck. The men went
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00:24:55.740 --> 00:25:00.640
upstairs and searched. They did not obtain a lock of hair.
262
00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:07.170
They did not produce Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend afterwards.
263
00:25:08.029 --> 00:25:12.799
Blymeier later suggested that an object passed to Curry might
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00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:16.940
have been the book, but no book was recovered, and
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00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:22.480
the appellate account said the search was limited. The object
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00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.440
around which so much of the plan had formed remained
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00:25:26.539 --> 00:25:33.380
beyond their control. They did find money, about three dollars,
268
00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:37.920
and divided it. They poured water around the scene in
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00:25:37.940 --> 00:25:43.990
an apparent effort to remove fingerprints. Blymeier and Curry had
270
00:25:44.049 --> 00:25:51.329
worn gloves. Bedding or ticking was placed near or over Riemeier.
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00:25:52.170 --> 00:25:55.910
Oil from a lamp was poured and the material was ignited.
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00:25:56.690 --> 00:25:59.880
The Supreme Court later treated the purpose of the fire
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00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:04.619
as the destruction of the house and the evidence inside it.
274
00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:10.720
Some later accounts fold the burning into the curse-breaking ritual itself.
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00:26:11.559 --> 00:26:17.720
The surviving legal evidence more firmly supports concealment, although ritual
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00:26:17.819 --> 00:26:23.329
motive and practical cover-up may have overlapped in the defendant's thinking.
277
00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:28.849
The assault occurred on the night of Tuesday, November 27th.
278
00:26:29.569 --> 00:26:33.509
It may have continued after midnight into Wednesday, November 28th.
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00:26:34.910 --> 00:26:40.089
The accessible record does not fix a trustworthy minute. The
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00:26:40.150 --> 00:26:44.950
clock stopped at 12.01. The full moon overhead and the
281
00:26:45.029 --> 00:26:51.619
claim that this happened on Thanksgiving night belonged to later storytelling.
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00:26:52.619 --> 00:26:57.740
Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 29th, more than a day after
283
00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:02.589
the men had entered the farmhouse. Preserving that chronology, does
284
00:27:02.670 --> 00:27:06.769
not weaken the atmosphere of the case. It restores the
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00:27:06.849 --> 00:27:11.980
sequence the evidence actually supports. When the three men left,
286
00:27:12.339 --> 00:27:17.839
they believed the room would disappear in fire. Instead, the
287
00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:24.220
flames consumed material around Riemeyer and damaged the floor before
288
00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:29.130
going out. The men had neither the hair nor a
289
00:27:29.170 --> 00:27:34.019
confirmed copy of the book. What they carried away was
290
00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.500
a small amount of money and the knowledge of what
291
00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.740
they had done. What they left behind was enough to
292
00:27:42.809 --> 00:27:48.069
turn a missing routine on a farm into a homicide investigation.
293
00:27:49.089 --> 00:27:54.789
Alice Riemeyer gave authorities a direct starting point. Bleimeyer and
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00:27:54.869 --> 00:27:59.400
Curry had visited her before crossing to Nelson's house, and
295
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:03.579
she could identify them. The rope at the scene corresponded
296
00:28:03.630 --> 00:28:08.660
with clothesline purchased in York. The separate statements of the
297
00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:13.960
suspects supplied overlapping facts even as they contradicted one another
298
00:28:14.089 --> 00:28:19.710
about the violence. Within a short period, Blymeier, Curry, and
299
00:28:19.789 --> 00:28:26.569
Hess were in custody. Newspapers announced confessions almost immediately. although
300
00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:30.130
the courtroom later excluded at least one of the most
301
00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:37.230
important statements. That distinction became especially important for Curry. The
302
00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:42.680
prosecution possessed a written statement in which the 14-year-old reportedly
303
00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:47.900
admitting striking Remyer with wood. Judge Ray Sherwood excluded it
304
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:52.849
after testimony that Curry had been promised help. On the
305
00:28:52.900 --> 00:28:58.079
witness stand, Curry denied robbery as his purpose, but admitted
306
00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:00.839
that he had gone to obtain the lock of hair
307
00:29:01.660 --> 00:29:07.410
and to witness what he described as witchcraft. The jury
308
00:29:07.490 --> 00:29:12.730
therefore heard his participation in the plan without receiving every
309
00:29:13.029 --> 00:29:19.839
dramatic sentence printed outside the courtroom. The defendants demanded separate trials.
310
00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:24.299
That legal choice is the reason there was no single
311
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:30.380
hex murder trial, despite the phrase appearing in documentaries and
312
00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:38.529
later summaries. York County tried three people in three successive proceedings. Together,
313
00:29:38.609 --> 00:29:44.740
the trials occupied six consecutive court days in January of 1929.
314
00:29:44.740 --> 00:29:51.140
The legal question was not whether curses existed. It was
315
00:29:51.309 --> 00:29:55.710
what each defendant intended, what each had done, and what
316
00:29:55.809 --> 00:30:03.480
degree of murder the evidence proved. John Blymeyer's trial began Monday,
317
00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:09.849
January 7th. The Commonwealth had evidence of planning, the rope purchase,
318
00:30:10.130 --> 00:30:14.849
the first visit, the decision to recruit Hess, the return,
319
00:30:15.269 --> 00:30:19.470
the gloves, the search, the stolen money, and the attempted
320
00:30:19.549 --> 00:30:26.440
destruction of the scene. Prosecutors could argue premeditation and robbery,
321
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.849
even while the defense insisted that Blymeier's fixation on a
322
00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:36.900
hex was the true route into the crime. His lawyers
323
00:30:37.019 --> 00:30:43.440
raised insanity and presented his institutional history, long distress and
324
00:30:43.579 --> 00:30:49.750
consuming belief that Riemeier had bewitched him. The defense did
325
00:30:49.789 --> 00:30:54.930
not simply need to prove that Blymeier held an irrational belief.
326
00:30:55.670 --> 00:31:00.029
It had to persuade jurors that his mental condition met
327
00:31:00.069 --> 00:31:07.089
the legal standard for avoiding full criminal responsibility. The prosecution
328
00:31:07.269 --> 00:31:13.119
answered with his organized conduct. He had consulted people, selected
329
00:31:13.180 --> 00:31:18.680
a target, bought rope, tested access to the farmhouse, recruited help,
330
00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:23.789
returned with gloves, helped search the property, and participated in
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00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:29.700
efforts to remove fingerprints and burn the evidence. A jury
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00:31:29.819 --> 00:31:34.329
could regard these steps as proof that he understood both
333
00:31:34.420 --> 00:31:38.250
his goal and the criminal nature of the axe used
334
00:31:38.829 --> 00:31:43.609
to pursue it. The testimony about his condition may explain
335
00:31:43.730 --> 00:31:48.109
why the idea of a curse dominated him. It did
336
00:31:48.190 --> 00:31:53.619
not compel the jury to excuse murder. At 7.30 on
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00:31:53.640 --> 00:32:00.190
Wednesday evening, January 9th, the jury found Blymeier guilty of
338
00:32:00.309 --> 00:32:04.759
murder in the first degree and fixed the penalty at
339
00:32:04.890 --> 00:32:10.819
life imprisonment rather than death. The verdict rejected the insanity
340
00:32:10.859 --> 00:32:15.180
defense as a complete answer. It did not establish that
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00:32:15.339 --> 00:32:20.920
every prosecution theory was correct or that every confession detail
342
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:27.690
was reliable. It established that 12 jurors considered Blymeier legally
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00:32:27.809 --> 00:32:34.049
responsible for a deliberate killing. John Curry's trial began at 9.30
344
00:32:34.049 --> 00:32:40.769
the next morning. His age was impossible to ignore. He
345
00:32:40.809 --> 00:32:45.710
was 14, yet he faced an adult murder prosecution and
346
00:32:45.789 --> 00:32:52.839
the possibility of death or life imprisonment. His defense emphasized
347
00:32:52.900 --> 00:32:59.480
his youth, background, and impaired responsibility, while the Commonwealth placed
348
00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:04.759
him inside the planning before the second visit. Curry had
349
00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:09.069
gone with Blymeier to buy the rope. He had spent
350
00:33:09.089 --> 00:33:14.130
the night in Remyer's kitchen, left, returned with Hess, and
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00:33:14.210 --> 00:33:20.829
remained through the assault, search, theft, and fire. The excluded
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00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:25.309
confession prevented the prosecution from relying on one of its
353
00:33:25.750 --> 00:33:31.069
clearest claimed admissions, but it did not remove Curry's own
354
00:33:31.170 --> 00:33:37.450
testimony or the surrounding evidence. He acknowledged the supernatural purpose
355
00:33:37.509 --> 00:33:41.490
of the visit. The prosecution argued that a belief in
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00:33:41.559 --> 00:33:48.859
witchcraft did not cancel the preparation or participation. After deliberating
357
00:33:48.940 --> 00:33:55.490
for two hours and fifty minutes, the jury returned. at 1.42
358
00:33:55.490 --> 00:34:02.319
on Friday afternoon, January 11th. Curry was convicted of murder
359
00:34:02.990 --> 00:34:08.619
in the first degree. Like Blymeier, he received life imprisonment
360
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.300
rather than execution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed his conviction
361
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:21.250
in January of 1930, holding that the admissible evidence supported
362
00:34:21.750 --> 00:34:26.900
the verdict. Wilbert Hess went on trial immediately after Curry.
363
00:34:27.659 --> 00:34:32.739
His defense separated his responsibility from that of the other two.
364
00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:38.610
He denied delivering the fatal violence and portrayed himself as
365
00:34:38.750 --> 00:34:44.829
a younger participant pulled under the influence of Blymeier and Curry.
366
00:34:45.869 --> 00:34:50.469
Yet Hess had joined a planned return with Rope after
367
00:34:50.550 --> 00:34:56.219
Blymeier concluded another man was needed in order to subdue Riemeyer.
368
00:34:57.449 --> 00:35:01.269
The jury had to decide whether that made him equally
369
00:35:01.389 --> 00:35:07.449
responsible for a premeditated murder or guilty of a lesser degree.
370
00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:14.480
At 7.25 on Saturday evening, January 12th, Hess was found
371
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:18.900
guilty of murder in the second degree. He received a
372
00:35:18.980 --> 00:35:22.960
term of 10 to 20 years in The difference did
373
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.699
not declare him innocent of the killing. It showed that
374
00:35:27.820 --> 00:35:33.170
his jury distinguished his intent or role from the first-degree
375
00:35:33.250 --> 00:35:39.489
culpability assigned to Blymeier and Curry. Six days had produced
376
00:35:39.849 --> 00:35:45.719
three trials, two first-degree verdicts with life sentences, and one
377
00:35:45.860 --> 00:35:58.829
second-degree verdict with a lesser term. At least 100 Metropolitan
378
00:35:58.869 --> 00:36:04.349
reporters arrived for the proceedings. Judge Sherwood refused to turn
379
00:36:04.389 --> 00:36:09.809
the courtroom into a stage. No telegraph instruments allowed inside.
380
00:36:10.289 --> 00:36:16.679
No courtroom photography. No special performance for the press. Many
381
00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:21.320
reporters left before the week was over. Yet the restraint
382
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:26.239
inside the courtroom could not control the story. outside of it.
383
00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:33.360
Newspapers across the country had already discovered that witchcraft sold
384
00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:38.199
more papers than a careful account of motive, evidence, and
385
00:36:38.739 --> 00:36:45.809
Pennsylvania German folk religion. Headlines announced, quote, York's voodoo cult
386
00:36:46.289 --> 00:36:50.869
and declared, quote, York County held in grip of black
387
00:36:51.090 --> 00:36:56.449
art practices. Reports used witch doctors as though it were
388
00:36:56.530 --> 00:37:02.579
a neutral job description. One presentation placed the defendants beside
389
00:37:02.940 --> 00:37:07.420
occult symbols from the sixth and seventh books of Moses,
390
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:13.780
whether or not those images explained anything about Riemeyer's healing work.
391
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.599
A murder committed by three particular people became evidence against
392
00:37:21.059 --> 00:37:27.170
a region. The vocabulary invited readers to imagine a culturally
393
00:37:27.309 --> 00:37:34.730
primitive enclave surviving untouched inside modern America. The comparison to
394
00:37:35.190 --> 00:37:41.260
voodoo was not merely inaccurate. It drew upon racialized language
395
00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:47.940
long used to portray African and African diasporic religions as sinister.
396
00:37:49.179 --> 00:37:54.750
Journalists transferred that language to a largely white Pennsylvania German
397
00:37:54.829 --> 00:38:01.590
community because it supplied an instantly recognizable insult. In the process,
398
00:38:02.170 --> 00:38:07.880
they blurred Braucherei, the healing and protective tradition, with Hexerei,
399
00:38:08.519 --> 00:38:14.559
the feared practice of causing harm. Riemeyer's work as a
400
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:21.929
healer became Black Magick, while Blymeier's accusation was treated as
401
00:38:22.090 --> 00:38:26.489
proof of what Riemeier had been. This pressure did not
402
00:38:26.570 --> 00:38:31.750
begin with the murder. Protestant ministers had criticized powwow during
403
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:37.539
the 19th century. By the 20th, medical societies and public
404
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:45.380
officials challenged practitioners as superstitious, fraudulent, or illegally practicing medicine.
405
00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:52.170
Some criticism addressed legitimate questions about payment, delayed medical care,
406
00:38:52.329 --> 00:38:59.789
or exploitation. Much of it also carried cultural contempt. The
407
00:38:59.789 --> 00:39:05.030
1928 murder offered opponents a national spectacle through which a
408
00:39:05.219 --> 00:39:10.039
varied healing tradition could be judged by its most sensationally
409
00:39:10.139 --> 00:39:15.619
misrepresented case. The consequences were real. but should not be
410
00:39:15.739 --> 00:39:22.269
exaggerated into a clean extinction story. Publicity strengthened calls for
411
00:39:22.730 --> 00:39:30.750
investigation and regulation. Practitioners and families became more guarded. Knowledge
412
00:39:30.809 --> 00:39:36.469
that had once been discussed openly could retreat into private homes,
413
00:39:36.829 --> 00:39:45.190
family lines, and quiet consultations. Donmeier describes a silencing produced
414
00:39:45.269 --> 00:39:50.130
by the press, medical opposition, religious pressure, and fear of
415
00:39:50.699 --> 00:39:56.460
legal scrutiny. The murder contributed powerfully to that climate. It
416
00:39:56.500 --> 00:39:59.860
did not create every form of opposition, and it did
417
00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:05.760
not destroy powwow by itself. The tradition did survive. The
418
00:40:05.820 --> 00:40:11.090
press also changed the position of the victim. Nelson Riemeyer
419
00:40:11.590 --> 00:40:16.889
was no longer primarily the farmer whose animals had went unfed,
420
00:40:17.429 --> 00:40:21.530
the husband and father living apart from his family, the
421
00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:25.730
man who had welcomed two visitors and cooked their breakfast.
422
00:40:26.889 --> 00:40:32.349
He became the Hex Doctor, whose supposed powers made the
423
00:40:32.409 --> 00:40:39.090
story marketable. His unproven role as a cursor received more
424
00:40:39.170 --> 00:40:43.780
attention than the documented decisions of the men who bought rope,
425
00:40:44.340 --> 00:40:48.360
returned to his home, and set the room on fire.
426
00:40:49.909 --> 00:40:56.429
Sensation did not merely misdescribe a tradition, it displaced responsibility.
427
00:40:57.190 --> 00:41:01.030
The sentences did not end the story of the defendants.
428
00:41:02.380 --> 00:41:07.659
Curry's life sentence was commuted in the 1930s, and he
429
00:41:07.739 --> 00:41:12.840
and Hess were released in 1939 after roughly a decade
430
00:41:13.349 --> 00:41:19.869
in prison. Blymeier remained incarcerated much longer. His life sentence
431
00:41:19.929 --> 00:41:26.550
was commuted in 1953. Their later occupations and private lives
432
00:41:26.610 --> 00:41:32.320
have accumulated their own stories, some well-documented and some polished
433
00:41:32.420 --> 00:41:38.179
through repetition. They are important as legal aftermath, but they
434
00:41:38.219 --> 00:41:43.519
don't require us to convert the killers into redeemed protagonists
435
00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:48.090
or let their later years occupy more space than the
436
00:41:48.150 --> 00:41:54.269
life They ended. The mythology continued to expand. Arthur H.
437
00:41:54.349 --> 00:41:59.730
Lewis's 1969 book, Hex, brought the case to a wide
438
00:41:59.809 --> 00:42:05.730
popular audience through a highly dramatized narrative. It remains influential,
439
00:42:05.829 --> 00:42:11.659
but its dialogue, names, and reconstructed scenes cannot be treated
440
00:42:11.739 --> 00:42:16.639
as if they were a transcript. Later accounts popularized the
441
00:42:17.059 --> 00:42:22.880
mysterious woman as Nellie Knoll, although the court-era sources reviewed
442
00:42:22.940 --> 00:42:28.269
here do not securely establish that identity. A name repeated
443
00:42:28.329 --> 00:42:33.150
for decades can feel archival, even when the archival record
444
00:42:33.230 --> 00:42:40.650
remains divided. In 1988, Apprentice to Murder carried a transformed
445
00:42:40.820 --> 00:42:46.039
version to film. Its credits accurately said it was inspired
446
00:42:46.550 --> 00:42:51.050
by a true story. The production changed the principal names,
447
00:42:51.730 --> 00:42:57.429
created new character relationships, and supplied a fictional, dramatic ending.
448
00:42:58.230 --> 00:43:02.769
That is what historical fiction is permitted to do. The
449
00:43:02.829 --> 00:43:07.679
danger begins when the details created for narrative travel backward
450
00:43:07.739 --> 00:43:13.820
and become accepted as evidence about Nelson Riemeyer. The farmhouse
451
00:43:13.900 --> 00:43:20.159
acquired its own legends, A clock supposedly stopped at 12.01.
452
00:43:20.159 --> 00:43:26.079
The murder supposedly occurred beneath a full moon. Riemeyer supposedly
453
00:43:26.199 --> 00:43:32.659
moved or cried out within the flames. Apparitions appeared in
454
00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:37.400
later stories, and the house's survival became evidence that his
455
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:43.679
magic had defeated the fire. None of those claims is
456
00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:48.539
required to explain what happened, though. The clock and moon
457
00:43:48.639 --> 00:43:53.500
do not appear in the court-era evidence reviewed for this episode.
458
00:43:54.179 --> 00:43:58.960
The medical testimony does not establish consciousness during the burning.
459
00:43:59.659 --> 00:44:06.210
The house survived because an arson attempt failed. Over time, tours,
460
00:44:06.590 --> 00:44:12.730
autumn hayrides, and seasonal retellings drew the crime toward the
461
00:44:12.769 --> 00:44:20.289
Halloween season. The connection is... Understandable. A hollow, a scorched farmhouse,
462
00:44:20.809 --> 00:44:25.289
accusations of curses, and a book that promised protection from
463
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invisible enemies. But the calendar should remain honest. Blymeier, Curry,
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00:44:32.530 --> 00:44:37.159
and Hess went to the farm on November 27th, 1928.
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Neighbors found Riemeier on Thanksgiving Day, the 29th. Halloween entered later.
466
00:44:45.369 --> 00:44:50.489
when history became local folklore, and local folklore became an
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autumn attraction. The surviving farmhouse is private property and is
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00:44:56.320 --> 00:45:00.860
no longer open to the public. Its continued existence does
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00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:07.840
not invite trespassing, nighttime visits, or attempts to test a haunting.
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The historically meaningful place is already available in the record.
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A working farm disrupted because its owner was dead. A
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room preserved because the fire had failed, and a community
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forced to watch while national coverage turned one man's murder
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into a caricature of their culture. The evidence supports a
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conclusion more disturbing than any ghost story. John Blymeyer became
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00:45:41.510 --> 00:45:46.840
convinced that Nelson Remire had authored his suffering. He recruited
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two much younger companions, returned after a night of accepted hospitality,
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and converted that accusation into deliberate violence. No reliable evidence
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00:46:01.550 --> 00:46:05.960
shows that Remire cursed him. The men did not obtain
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his hair. They did not successfully take or destroy the book.
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They saw it. They did not burn away the crime.
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All three were convicted, though the law distinguished their degrees
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of guilt. The fire went out before it could erase
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the room. The book remained beyond the killer's hands. Beneath
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00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:34.360
nearly a century of headlines, the hardest thing to recover
486
00:46:34.840 --> 00:46:39.829
has never been a spell. It has been Nelson Remire.
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In the documentary, Nelson's great-grandson, Ricky Ebaugh, describes what that
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00:46:48.269 --> 00:46:51.610
reputation has meant for the family.
489
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How has it affected your life in any way? Have
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people looked on you with suspicion, thinking you're descendant of
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00:46:59.610 --> 00:47:01.000
a famous witch and hexer?
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00:47:01.039 --> 00:47:03.139
Not sure. The house, they think this is like an
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evil house. It's supposed to have, you know, bad things
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happen back here.
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People point at you and say... That's the great-grandson of
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the witch. Anybody give you any trouble?
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00:47:16.329 --> 00:47:19.130
The younger people, whoever approaches me with that and says,
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00:47:19.190 --> 00:47:24.550
you know, hex and witch, you know, evil, that's not,
499
00:47:25.269 --> 00:47:28.090
you know, try to explain that to people. It's not
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00:47:28.150 --> 00:47:30.809
like that. There's got to be a turning point somewhere here.
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00:47:31.210 --> 00:47:33.920
It has to start going, that they find out the
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00:47:33.960 --> 00:47:39.619
real truth as to say this evil, bad person made
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out to be from the night they murdered him. So
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it's got to happen in time here somewhere.
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00:47:49.610 --> 00:47:53.619
Terrifying and True is narrated by Enrique Couto. It's executive
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00:47:53.659 --> 00:47:58.219
produced by Rob Fields and bobbletopia.com and produced by Dan
507
00:47:58.260 --> 00:48:01.639
Wilder with original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you
508
00:48:01.699 --> 00:48:04.280
have a story you think we should cover on Terrifying
509
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:08.800
and True, send us an email at weeklyspooky at gmail.com.
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And if you want to support us for as little
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as $ 1 a month, go to weeklyspooky.com slash join. Your
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support for as little as $ 1 a month keeps the
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show going. And speaking of, I want to say an
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extra special thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters, folks
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who pay a little bit more to hear their name
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at the end of the show. And they are Johnny Nix,
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Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Eshkewi, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford,
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Karen Wemet, Jack Kerr, and Craig Cohen. Thank you all
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00:48:35.309 --> 00:48:37.750
so much, and thank you for listening. We'll see you
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00:48:37.809 --> 00:48:41.340
all right here next time on Terrifying and True.
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They came for a lock of hair to break a curse.
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They left a murdered man and a burning farmhouse. But
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the flames went out before the evidence disappeared. What convinced
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three people that this neighborhood simply had to be stopped?
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What you are about to hear is believed to be real.
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Based on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record, this is
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Terrifying and True.
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Tonight, in York County, Pennsylvania, a farmhouse has survived a
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fire that was meant to conceal a killing. It's Thanksgiving week, 1928.
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Inside lies Nelson Riemeyer, a farmer and folk healer, whose
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name will become inseparable from a story about witchcraft. Three
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people have attacked him. They came looking for a book,
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and a lock of his hair. Believing these things could
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free them from a curse, one of them, John Blymeyer,
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had known Remyer long before that night. On an earlier visit,
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Remyer had given him and a young companion a place
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to sleep. In the morning, he made them breakfast. They
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came back with help. The trials would expose... A terrible crime.
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The headlines would turn it into a spectacle, and somewhere
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between the testimony and the legend, the man who died
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would become harder to see. What happened in Hex Hollow
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asks us to look beyond the scorched floor and the
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supposed spellbook into a world where healing prayers and accusations
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of harmful magic could become... dangerously confused. Tonight, we follow
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the evidence behind the legend and the family voices trying
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to bring Nelson Remyer back into focus. So make sure
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you're subscribed as we tell that story tonight. Thanksgiving Day
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fell on a Thursday, November 29th, 1928. Around noon, concern
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settled over a farm in North Hopewell Township, roughly 15
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miles from York. Nelson Remyer's animals had not been properly attended.
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Their noise carried far enough that neighbors went to investigate.
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Oran's trial reconstruction names neighbor David Vanover as the man
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who entered around noon. Some later accounts instead name Oscar Glatfelter.
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They agree on what drew attention to the property. The
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ordinary rhythm of the farm had ceased. Inside the house,
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the kitchen had been scorched. Riemeyer lay face down on
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the floor. His ankles bound, his body and clothing badly burned.
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The fire had gone out before consuming the house. The
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room still held the story the killers had tried so
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hard to erase. Investigators recorded pieces of a broken chair,
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an oil burner, a flashlight, a metal halter snap, burning
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bedding material, and lengths of rope. Some of that rope
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would be connected to a 25-foot clothesline bought in York
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only days earlier. Medical witnesses described bruising, cuts, and a
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compound fracture of the skull, severe enough that it might
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have caused death. They also documented extensive burning. What the
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accessible medical record does not establish is whether Riemeyer was alive.
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when the fire was lit. The later claim that he
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was burned alive goes beyond what the evidence can prove.
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Years later, Jeanette Harvey, who had known Nelson as a girl,
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remembered how the news reached her.
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The lady across the street, she said, did you know
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that Nelson Raymar was killed?
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Nothing supernatural had protected the farmhouse. The attempted arson simply failed.
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But that failure changed everything. The burned floor, the ropes,
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the shattered furniture, and the body remained available to investigators.
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Whoever had done this had not made a victim disappear.
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They had left a room full of evidence. and a
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trial leading backward through two visits, one printed book, and
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a belief that Nelson Riemeyer was responsible for hardships he
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had never been proven to cause. Before the headlines converted
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him into the Witch of Hex Hollow, Nelson D. Riemeyer
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was a 60-year-old farmer. Patrick Donmire's research describes a modest
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45-acre property where Riemeyer raised potatoes, corn, apples, and chickens
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with comparatively little livestock. He was married to Alice Riemeyer
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and had children, although he and his family were living separately.
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Later scholarly accounts connect that arrangement in part to the
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stream of people who came seeking his help. But the
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surviving record does not tell us enough to turn a
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private family arrangement into either scandal or sentiment. Riemeyer was
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known as an outspoken man. Historian Owen Davies identifies him
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as an active socialist, a position that could make a
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person conspicuous in rural York County. He was also associated
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with Pennsylvania Dutch folk healing. Neighbors knew he practiced what
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English speakers called how-wow. Some apparently regarded him as helpful.
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Others considered him peculiar. Neither reputation proves anything about a curse.
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The most important documented fact about his relationship with the
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men who killed him is painfully simple. When two of
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them arrived at his house on their first visit... He
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accepted them as guests, allowed them to stay overnight, and
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made them food in the morning. To understand why they came,
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we have to separate a living tradition from the lurid
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category imposed upon it after the murder. Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow
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is also called Brauw Keraai. Its roots are primarily European
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and Pennsylvania German. and its customary purposes were healing, blessing,
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and protection. Practitioners used Christian prayers, passages of scripture, gestures,
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spoken or silent formulas, household objects, and knowledge passed through
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families or teachers. A person might seek help for bleeding, burns, fever, pain,
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a sick animal, or the fear that some harmful influence
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had settled over a home. In Shane Free's documentary, Hex Hollow,
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one practitioner explains the tradition this way.
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Powwow is Pennsylvania German folk healing. In itself, it is
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a very simple thing. It's what one of my teachers
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called act of prayer. Some people will call it magic,
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folk magic, and to a certain extent it does fall
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into that realm, but there are many practitioners who shun
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the word entirely.
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The English word powwow creates some confusion. It was borrowed
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from an Algonquin language used dismissively by English colonists for
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ritual practices they didn't understand and later attached to Pennsylvania
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German healing. Brauchairi itself is not an indigenous ceremonial powwow.
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The shared English label does not make the traditions the same.
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Pennsylvania Dutch is also broader than Amish. It refers to
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a diverse Pennsylvania German cultural population that has included Lutheran, Reformed, Moravian, Mennonite, Brethren, Amish,
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and Catholic communities. Treating all Pennsylvania Dutch people as one
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secluded religious group repeats the simplification that helped distort this
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case in 1929. Within the tradition, Braukeirai, often referred to
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beneficial or protective work. Hexairai usually carried the darker meaning
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of harmful magic or the accusation that someone had caused
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illness or misfortune. The vocabulary was never perfectly uniform. A
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healer could be asked to counteract a supposed hex without
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claiming to practice any harmful magic. That distinction is central
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in this topic. Rehmeyer's association with healing did not make
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him a person who placed curses. There's no reliable evidence
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00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:09.730
that he hexed John Blymeyer, the Hess family, or anyone else.
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The accusation came from people trying to give their own
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suffering a human source. Printed books could accompany an oral practice,
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and none became more famous in Pennsylvania than Johann Georg
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Hohmann's The Long Lost Friend. First published in the United
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States in 1820 and issued in English by the mid-19th century,
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it gathered remedies, prayers, protections, and folk procedures for people
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and animals. It was sold commercially and circulated widely It
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00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:54.139
was not a unique handwritten manuscript belonging only to Riemeyer,
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and it was not a satanic field manual. One famous
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protection promised that whoever carried the book would be, quote,
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safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible. Other entries
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addressed bleeding, burns, illness, livestock, and daily hazards in language
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saturated with Christian belief. A modern historian may call The
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00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:28.370
Long Lost Friend a grimoire, a handbook of procedures intended
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to influence events through supernatural means. That useful scholarly category
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does not erase the book's local function as a practical
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collection of blessings and remedies, nor does it mean every
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owner believed every promise within. For Riemeyer, the book appears
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to have belonged to his practice. For John Blymeyer, it
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became something else. An object that seemed to concentrate both
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Riemeyer's supposed power and the possibility of escape from it.
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John Blymeyer's surname appears as B-L-Y-M-Y-E-R instead of B-L-Y-M-I-R-E through
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much of the court era record. On the witness stand,
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he gave his age as 33, although some newspapers called
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him 32. He had grown up close to powwow practice.
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His father, Immanuel Blymeyer, was remembered as a healer. and
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John had attempted some practice himself. He therefore did not
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approach Riemeyer's world as a complete outsider. He knew the
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language of cures, hexes, and countermeasures well enough to make
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it the framework through which he interpreted his own life.
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That life contained genuine hardship. Blymeyer had recurring physical complaints-
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difficulty settling in to work, and periods of acute psychological distress.
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His family endured the deaths of two children, and his
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marriage to Lily Bell Alloway deteriorated. In 1923, his father-in-law
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arranged for him to be evaluated through the York County Almshouse,
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and Blymeier was later committed to the Harrisburg State Hospital.
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A period description used the diagnosis, quote, hypochondriacal melancholia. That
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is historical language, not a diagnosis we would be able
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to safely translate into a modern condition. It came from
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00:14:55.879 --> 00:15:01.519
an era with different institutions, categories, and standards of care.
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Blymeier later escaped during a baseball game and returned to York.
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His marriage ended in divorce. Mental distress did not make
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murder inevitable, and it does not remove the choices that followed.
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Many people endure illness, grief, and psychiatric crisis without harming anyone.
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What shaped this case was Blymeier's developing explanation for his suffering. Restlessness,
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failed work, family loss, and physical discomfort ceased to be
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separate events, he increasingly treated them as evidence of a
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single hostile act. During his trial, he reduced that belief
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to three words, quote, I was bewitched. Blymeier consulted practitioners,
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including Andrew Lenhart and Sam Schmuck. According to the trial-era account,
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They reinforced his conviction that a hex existed, but did
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not name the person responsible. Blymeier kept searching for a
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face to place behind the idea. Riemeyer was not a
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stranger to him. Blymeier testified that Riemeyer had treated him
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about a year earlier, and that he had once slept
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at Riemeyer's home. Later retellings moved that treatment into Blymeier's
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The trial-era version is a safer one. A prior healer-patient
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relationship had become, in Blymeier's mind, a relationship between persecutor
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and victim. The final identification was attributed to a woman
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near Marietta, Pennsylvania, whose name is one of the case's
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persistent problems. Contemporary newspapers called her Emma Knopp. Modern scholars
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often call her Emma Knapp. A near-contemporary trial reconstruction calls
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her Mrs. Knoll. The familiar name Nellie Knoll belongs securely
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to later retellings, not to a single consistent court-era identity.
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Rather than pretending the sources agree, it's more accurate to
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call her the Marietta Practitioner, Blymeier consulted. Blymeier testified that
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she used a dollar bill in a simple visual procedure.
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He stared at the portrait. The bill was removed from
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his palm, and he interpreted the lingering afterimage as the
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face of Nelson Riemeier. That testimony tells us what Blymeier experienced.
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It doesn't independently establish what the woman intended for him
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to see. and it certainly does not establish that Riemeyer
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had done anything to him. It supplied the name Blymeyer
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00:18:10.990 --> 00:18:18.369
had been seeking desperately. Her supposed prescription changes depending on
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00:18:18.430 --> 00:18:24.069
the source. In some trial-era testimony, Blymeyer needed a lock
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of Riemeyer's hair or Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend.
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Clayton Hess remembered an instruction to bury the hair six
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or eight feet underground. Other reports say eight feet. Later
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00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:46.660
versions combine every element into a ritual checklist. Steal both
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00:18:46.769 --> 00:18:51.630
hair and book, burn one, bury both, or destroy the book,
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bury the hair, and be sure to get it at
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the exact depth. The record does not justify that precision.
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00:19:00.430 --> 00:19:06.009
What remains consistent is that Blymeyer believed physical objects connected
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to Remyer could break the curse. He did not pursue
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00:19:10.069 --> 00:19:15.759
those objects alone. John Curry was 14 years old and
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00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:21.000
frequently in Blymeyer's company. Later historians have described him as
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Blymeyer's young sidekick or protege. Wilbert Granville Hess was 18.
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the son of a York County family suffering its own
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00:19:32.220 --> 00:19:38.099
run of illness, crop trouble, livestock losses, and stolen chickens.
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The Hesses believed their farm had been hexed and turned
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00:19:42.869 --> 00:19:48.509
to Blymeyer for help. Wilbert, therefore, entered the plan through
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00:19:48.529 --> 00:19:54.099
a family fear that Blymeyer was already validating. Curry and
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00:19:54.140 --> 00:19:58.619
Hess were young and susceptible to an older man's certainty,
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00:19:59.289 --> 00:20:04.329
but neither was an object without agency. Each took part
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00:20:04.430 --> 00:20:09.700
in decisions that became progressively more deliberate and On Sunday,
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November 25th, Blymeyer met with members of the Hess family
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00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:20.539
and outlined the effort to obtain something from Riemeyer. The
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00:20:20.599 --> 00:20:27.079
following day, Monday, November 26th, Blymeyer and Curry bought approximately
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00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:32.680
25 feet of cotton clothesline in York. They cut it
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00:20:32.769 --> 00:20:38.329
into useful lengths. Clayton Hess then drove them toward Riemeyer
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00:20:38.390 --> 00:20:43.109
Hollow and let them out near the woods. The rope
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00:20:43.210 --> 00:20:49.180
was already with them. Whatever language they used for curse-breaking,
218
00:20:49.779 --> 00:20:54.819
they were preparing to restrain a man. At about 7.45
219
00:20:54.819 --> 00:21:00.799
that evening, Blymeier and Curry visited Alice Riemeier for roughly
220
00:21:01.240 --> 00:21:06.019
half an hour, then crossed the fields to Nelson's house.
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00:21:06.920 --> 00:21:11.779
Nelson knew them and admitted them. They said they were visiting,
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00:21:12.380 --> 00:21:15.640
and the encounter lasted late enough that he allowed them
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00:21:15.769 --> 00:21:21.250
to remain overnight. The two slept in the kitchen. In
224
00:21:21.289 --> 00:21:26.589
the morning, Riemeyer prepared breakfast. They left without attacking him,
225
00:21:26.809 --> 00:21:32.519
without cutting his hair, and without taking the book. Bleimeyer
226
00:21:32.579 --> 00:21:37.039
later explained that they considered Riemeyer too strong for the
227
00:21:37.099 --> 00:21:41.759
two of them. Hospitality had given them access. Their own
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00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:48.299
calculation postponed the assault. That first visit is sometimes presented
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00:21:48.539 --> 00:21:54.420
as harmless reconnaissance that only later became violent. The rope
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00:21:54.579 --> 00:22:00.359
makes the truth less comfortable. The possibility of binding Riemeyer
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00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:05.460
was already present, yet the men still had another chance
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00:22:05.569 --> 00:22:11.680
to stop. after leaving his breakfast table. Instead, Blymeier sought
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00:22:11.859 --> 00:22:18.200
additional strength. He brought 18-year-old Wilbert Hess into the return trip.
234
00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:24.099
On Tuesday, November 27th, Clayton Hess again drove them toward
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00:22:24.140 --> 00:22:28.819
the hollow. The three completed the journey on foot. The
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00:22:28.859 --> 00:22:33.400
reliable record establishes the rope, but it does not establish
237
00:22:33.460 --> 00:22:38.279
that they arrived carrying the collection of clubs, axes, or
238
00:22:38.779 --> 00:22:45.660
occult equipment, added by later storytellers. Riemeyer admitted them again.
239
00:22:46.509 --> 00:22:50.930
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's later account says the evening was
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00:22:51.049 --> 00:22:54.630
cold and that after letting the three into his kitchen,
241
00:22:55.269 --> 00:23:00.569
he turned to tend the fire. Blymeyer's own testimony said
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00:23:00.650 --> 00:23:05.779
he asked for the long-lost friend. Other evidence led the
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00:23:05.859 --> 00:23:09.349
appellate court to conclude that no effort was made to
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00:23:09.420 --> 00:23:14.170
obtain Hare, and no particular search for the book occurred
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00:23:14.809 --> 00:23:21.549
before violence began. Those versions are not identical. They agree
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00:23:21.789 --> 00:23:27.349
on the decisive point. The visitors had planned to overpower him,
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00:23:27.529 --> 00:23:41.519
and within moments, the visit became an assault. The exact
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00:23:41.740 --> 00:23:48.680
choreography cannot be recovered cleanly because the defendants shifted responsibility
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00:23:49.259 --> 00:23:55.400
among themselves. Blymeier admitted using his fists and swinging a chair,
250
00:23:56.180 --> 00:24:01.009
although he said the chair missed Riemeier and broke. He
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00:24:01.069 --> 00:24:06.569
attributed blows with wood and kicking to Curry. Curry's alleged
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00:24:06.630 --> 00:24:11.829
written confession described striking Riemeier with a block of wood,
253
00:24:12.410 --> 00:24:17.089
but the trial judge excluded that confession after questions about
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00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:22.029
how it had been obtained. Hess later argued that he
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00:24:22.130 --> 00:24:27.119
played the lesser role and acted under the domination of
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00:24:27.180 --> 00:24:34.660
the others. Physical evidence established a violent struggle, broken furniture, binding,
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00:24:35.259 --> 00:24:39.680
and a fractured skull. It did not assign every injury
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00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:45.410
to a particular hand. Riemeyer was beaten down and bound.
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00:24:46.109 --> 00:24:50.059
Rope was placed around his ankles, and evidence described a
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00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:55.660
rope halter or ligature around his neck. The men went
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00:24:55.740 --> 00:25:00.640
upstairs and searched. They did not obtain a lock of hair.
262
00:25:01.700 --> 00:25:07.170
They did not produce Riemeyer's copy of the long-lost friend afterwards.
263
00:25:08.029 --> 00:25:12.799
Blymeier later suggested that an object passed to Curry might
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00:25:12.839 --> 00:25:16.940
have been the book, but no book was recovered, and
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00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:22.480
the appellate account said the search was limited. The object
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00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:26.440
around which so much of the plan had formed remained
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00:25:26.539 --> 00:25:33.380
beyond their control. They did find money, about three dollars,
268
00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:37.920
and divided it. They poured water around the scene in
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00:25:37.940 --> 00:25:43.990
an apparent effort to remove fingerprints. Blymeier and Curry had
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00:25:44.049 --> 00:25:51.329
worn gloves. Bedding or ticking was placed near or over Riemeier.
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00:25:52.170 --> 00:25:55.910
Oil from a lamp was poured and the material was ignited.
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00:25:56.690 --> 00:25:59.880
The Supreme Court later treated the purpose of the fire
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00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:04.619
as the destruction of the house and the evidence inside it.
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00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:10.720
Some later accounts fold the burning into the curse-breaking ritual itself.
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The surviving legal evidence more firmly supports concealment, although ritual
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00:26:17.819 --> 00:26:23.329
motive and practical cover-up may have overlapped in the defendant's thinking.
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00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:28.849
The assault occurred on the night of Tuesday, November 27th.
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00:26:29.569 --> 00:26:33.509
It may have continued after midnight into Wednesday, November 28th.
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00:26:34.910 --> 00:26:40.089
The accessible record does not fix a trustworthy minute. The
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00:26:40.150 --> 00:26:44.950
clock stopped at 12.01. The full moon overhead and the
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00:26:45.029 --> 00:26:51.619
claim that this happened on Thanksgiving night belonged to later storytelling.
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00:26:52.619 --> 00:26:57.740
Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 29th, more than a day after
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00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:02.589
the men had entered the farmhouse. Preserving that chronology, does
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00:27:02.670 --> 00:27:06.769
not weaken the atmosphere of the case. It restores the
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00:27:06.849 --> 00:27:11.980
sequence the evidence actually supports. When the three men left,
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00:27:12.339 --> 00:27:17.839
they believed the room would disappear in fire. Instead, the
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00:27:17.920 --> 00:27:24.220
flames consumed material around Riemeyer and damaged the floor before
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00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:29.130
going out. The men had neither the hair nor a
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00:27:29.170 --> 00:27:34.019
confirmed copy of the book. What they carried away was
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00:27:34.400 --> 00:27:38.500
a small amount of money and the knowledge of what
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00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:42.740
they had done. What they left behind was enough to
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00:27:42.809 --> 00:27:48.069
turn a missing routine on a farm into a homicide investigation.
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00:27:49.089 --> 00:27:54.789
Alice Riemeyer gave authorities a direct starting point. Bleimeyer and
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00:27:54.869 --> 00:27:59.400
Curry had visited her before crossing to Nelson's house, and
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00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:03.579
she could identify them. The rope at the scene corresponded
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00:28:03.630 --> 00:28:08.660
with clothesline purchased in York. The separate statements of the
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00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:13.960
suspects supplied overlapping facts even as they contradicted one another
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00:28:14.089 --> 00:28:19.710
about the violence. Within a short period, Blymeier, Curry, and
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00:28:19.789 --> 00:28:26.569
Hess were in custody. Newspapers announced confessions almost immediately. although
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00:28:26.640 --> 00:28:30.130
the courtroom later excluded at least one of the most
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00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:37.230
important statements. That distinction became especially important for Curry. The
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00:28:37.269 --> 00:28:42.680
prosecution possessed a written statement in which the 14-year-old reportedly
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00:28:42.740 --> 00:28:47.900
admitting striking Remyer with wood. Judge Ray Sherwood excluded it
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00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:52.849
after testimony that Curry had been promised help. On the
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00:28:52.900 --> 00:28:58.079
witness stand, Curry denied robbery as his purpose, but admitted
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00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:00.839
that he had gone to obtain the lock of hair
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00:29:01.660 --> 00:29:07.410
and to witness what he described as witchcraft. The jury
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00:29:07.490 --> 00:29:12.730
therefore heard his participation in the plan without receiving every
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00:29:13.029 --> 00:29:19.839
dramatic sentence printed outside the courtroom. The defendants demanded separate trials.
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00:29:20.599 --> 00:29:24.299
That legal choice is the reason there was no single
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00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:30.380
hex murder trial, despite the phrase appearing in documentaries and
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00:29:30.500 --> 00:29:38.529
later summaries. York County tried three people in three successive proceedings. Together,
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00:29:38.609 --> 00:29:44.740
the trials occupied six consecutive court days in January of 1929.
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00:29:44.740 --> 00:29:51.140
The legal question was not whether curses existed. It was
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00:29:51.309 --> 00:29:55.710
what each defendant intended, what each had done, and what
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00:29:55.809 --> 00:30:03.480
degree of murder the evidence proved. John Blymeyer's trial began Monday,
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00:30:03.559 --> 00:30:09.849
January 7th. The Commonwealth had evidence of planning, the rope purchase,
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00:30:10.130 --> 00:30:14.849
the first visit, the decision to recruit Hess, the return,
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00:30:15.269 --> 00:30:19.470
the gloves, the search, the stolen money, and the attempted
320
00:30:19.549 --> 00:30:26.440
destruction of the scene. Prosecutors could argue premeditation and robbery,
321
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:31.849
even while the defense insisted that Blymeier's fixation on a
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00:30:31.930 --> 00:30:36.900
hex was the true route into the crime. His lawyers
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00:30:37.019 --> 00:30:43.440
raised insanity and presented his institutional history, long distress and
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00:30:43.579 --> 00:30:49.750
consuming belief that Riemeier had bewitched him. The defense did
325
00:30:49.789 --> 00:30:54.930
not simply need to prove that Blymeier held an irrational belief.
326
00:30:55.670 --> 00:31:00.029
It had to persuade jurors that his mental condition met
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00:31:00.069 --> 00:31:07.089
the legal standard for avoiding full criminal responsibility. The prosecution
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00:31:07.269 --> 00:31:13.119
answered with his organized conduct. He had consulted people, selected
329
00:31:13.180 --> 00:31:18.680
a target, bought rope, tested access to the farmhouse, recruited help,
330
00:31:19.059 --> 00:31:23.789
returned with gloves, helped search the property, and participated in
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00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:29.700
efforts to remove fingerprints and burn the evidence. A jury
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00:31:29.819 --> 00:31:34.329
could regard these steps as proof that he understood both
333
00:31:34.420 --> 00:31:38.250
his goal and the criminal nature of the axe used
334
00:31:38.829 --> 00:31:43.609
to pursue it. The testimony about his condition may explain
335
00:31:43.730 --> 00:31:48.109
why the idea of a curse dominated him. It did
336
00:31:48.190 --> 00:31:53.619
not compel the jury to excuse murder. At 7.30 on
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00:31:53.640 --> 00:32:00.190
Wednesday evening, January 9th, the jury found Blymeier guilty of
338
00:32:00.309 --> 00:32:04.759
murder in the first degree and fixed the penalty at
339
00:32:04.890 --> 00:32:10.819
life imprisonment rather than death. The verdict rejected the insanity
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00:32:10.859 --> 00:32:15.180
defense as a complete answer. It did not establish that
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00:32:15.339 --> 00:32:20.920
every prosecution theory was correct or that every confession detail
342
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:27.690
was reliable. It established that 12 jurors considered Blymeier legally
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00:32:27.809 --> 00:32:34.049
responsible for a deliberate killing. John Curry's trial began at 9.30
344
00:32:34.049 --> 00:32:40.769
the next morning. His age was impossible to ignore. He
345
00:32:40.809 --> 00:32:45.710
was 14, yet he faced an adult murder prosecution and
346
00:32:45.789 --> 00:32:52.839
the possibility of death or life imprisonment. His defense emphasized
347
00:32:52.900 --> 00:32:59.480
his youth, background, and impaired responsibility, while the Commonwealth placed
348
00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:04.759
him inside the planning before the second visit. Curry had
349
00:33:04.839 --> 00:33:09.069
gone with Blymeier to buy the rope. He had spent
350
00:33:09.089 --> 00:33:14.130
the night in Remyer's kitchen, left, returned with Hess, and
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00:33:14.210 --> 00:33:20.829
remained through the assault, search, theft, and fire. The excluded
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00:33:20.910 --> 00:33:25.309
confession prevented the prosecution from relying on one of its
353
00:33:25.750 --> 00:33:31.069
clearest claimed admissions, but it did not remove Curry's own
354
00:33:31.170 --> 00:33:37.450
testimony or the surrounding evidence. He acknowledged the supernatural purpose
355
00:33:37.509 --> 00:33:41.490
of the visit. The prosecution argued that a belief in
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00:33:41.559 --> 00:33:48.859
witchcraft did not cancel the preparation or participation. After deliberating
357
00:33:48.940 --> 00:33:55.490
for two hours and fifty minutes, the jury returned. at 1.42
358
00:33:55.490 --> 00:34:02.319
on Friday afternoon, January 11th. Curry was convicted of murder
359
00:34:02.990 --> 00:34:08.619
in the first degree. Like Blymeier, he received life imprisonment
360
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:15.300
rather than execution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed his conviction
361
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:21.250
in January of 1930, holding that the admissible evidence supported
362
00:34:21.750 --> 00:34:26.900
the verdict. Wilbert Hess went on trial immediately after Curry.
363
00:34:27.659 --> 00:34:32.739
His defense separated his responsibility from that of the other two.
364
00:34:33.519 --> 00:34:38.610
He denied delivering the fatal violence and portrayed himself as
365
00:34:38.750 --> 00:34:44.829
a younger participant pulled under the influence of Blymeier and Curry.
366
00:34:45.869 --> 00:34:50.469
Yet Hess had joined a planned return with Rope after
367
00:34:50.550 --> 00:34:56.219
Blymeier concluded another man was needed in order to subdue Riemeyer.
368
00:34:57.449 --> 00:35:01.269
The jury had to decide whether that made him equally
369
00:35:01.389 --> 00:35:07.449
responsible for a premeditated murder or guilty of a lesser degree.
370
00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:14.480
At 7.25 on Saturday evening, January 12th, Hess was found
371
00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:18.900
guilty of murder in the second degree. He received a
372
00:35:18.980 --> 00:35:22.960
term of 10 to 20 years in The difference did
373
00:35:23.079 --> 00:35:27.699
not declare him innocent of the killing. It showed that
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00:35:27.820 --> 00:35:33.170
his jury distinguished his intent or role from the first-degree
375
00:35:33.250 --> 00:35:39.489
culpability assigned to Blymeier and Curry. Six days had produced
376
00:35:39.849 --> 00:35:45.719
three trials, two first-degree verdicts with life sentences, and one
377
00:35:45.860 --> 00:35:58.829
second-degree verdict with a lesser term. At least 100 Metropolitan
378
00:35:58.869 --> 00:36:04.349
reporters arrived for the proceedings. Judge Sherwood refused to turn
379
00:36:04.389 --> 00:36:09.809
the courtroom into a stage. No telegraph instruments allowed inside.
380
00:36:10.289 --> 00:36:16.679
No courtroom photography. No special performance for the press. Many
381
00:36:16.780 --> 00:36:21.320
reporters left before the week was over. Yet the restraint
382
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:26.239
inside the courtroom could not control the story. outside of it.
383
00:36:27.380 --> 00:36:33.360
Newspapers across the country had already discovered that witchcraft sold
384
00:36:33.440 --> 00:36:38.199
more papers than a careful account of motive, evidence, and
385
00:36:38.739 --> 00:36:45.809
Pennsylvania German folk religion. Headlines announced, quote, York's voodoo cult
386
00:36:46.289 --> 00:36:50.869
and declared, quote, York County held in grip of black
387
00:36:51.090 --> 00:36:56.449
art practices. Reports used witch doctors as though it were
388
00:36:56.530 --> 00:37:02.579
a neutral job description. One presentation placed the defendants beside
389
00:37:02.940 --> 00:37:07.420
occult symbols from the sixth and seventh books of Moses,
390
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:13.780
whether or not those images explained anything about Riemeyer's healing work.
391
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.599
A murder committed by three particular people became evidence against
392
00:37:21.059 --> 00:37:27.170
a region. The vocabulary invited readers to imagine a culturally
393
00:37:27.309 --> 00:37:34.730
primitive enclave surviving untouched inside modern America. The comparison to
394
00:37:35.190 --> 00:37:41.260
voodoo was not merely inaccurate. It drew upon racialized language
395
00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:47.940
long used to portray African and African diasporic religions as sinister.
396
00:37:49.179 --> 00:37:54.750
Journalists transferred that language to a largely white Pennsylvania German
397
00:37:54.829 --> 00:38:01.590
community because it supplied an instantly recognizable insult. In the process,
398
00:38:02.170 --> 00:38:07.880
they blurred Braucherei, the healing and protective tradition, with Hexerei,
399
00:38:08.519 --> 00:38:14.559
the feared practice of causing harm. Riemeyer's work as a
400
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:21.929
healer became Black Magick, while Blymeier's accusation was treated as
401
00:38:22.090 --> 00:38:26.489
proof of what Riemeier had been. This pressure did not
402
00:38:26.570 --> 00:38:31.750
begin with the murder. Protestant ministers had criticized powwow during
403
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:37.539
the 19th century. By the 20th, medical societies and public
404
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:45.380
officials challenged practitioners as superstitious, fraudulent, or illegally practicing medicine.
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00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:52.170
Some criticism addressed legitimate questions about payment, delayed medical care,
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00:38:52.329 --> 00:38:59.789
or exploitation. Much of it also carried cultural contempt. The
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00:38:59.789 --> 00:39:05.030
1928 murder offered opponents a national spectacle through which a
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00:39:05.219 --> 00:39:10.039
varied healing tradition could be judged by its most sensationally
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00:39:10.139 --> 00:39:15.619
misrepresented case. The consequences were real. but should not be
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00:39:15.739 --> 00:39:22.269
exaggerated into a clean extinction story. Publicity strengthened calls for
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00:39:22.730 --> 00:39:30.750
investigation and regulation. Practitioners and families became more guarded. Knowledge
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00:39:30.809 --> 00:39:36.469
that had once been discussed openly could retreat into private homes,
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00:39:36.829 --> 00:39:45.190
family lines, and quiet consultations. Donmeier describes a silencing produced
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00:39:45.269 --> 00:39:50.130
by the press, medical opposition, religious pressure, and fear of
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00:39:50.699 --> 00:39:56.460
legal scrutiny. The murder contributed powerfully to that climate. It
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00:39:56.500 --> 00:39:59.860
did not create every form of opposition, and it did
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00:39:59.920 --> 00:40:05.760
not destroy powwow by itself. The tradition did survive. The
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00:40:05.820 --> 00:40:11.090
press also changed the position of the victim. Nelson Riemeyer
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00:40:11.590 --> 00:40:16.889
was no longer primarily the farmer whose animals had went unfed,
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00:40:17.429 --> 00:40:21.530
the husband and father living apart from his family, the
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00:40:21.550 --> 00:40:25.730
man who had welcomed two visitors and cooked their breakfast.
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00:40:26.889 --> 00:40:32.349
He became the Hex Doctor, whose supposed powers made the
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00:40:32.409 --> 00:40:39.090
story marketable. His unproven role as a cursor received more
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00:40:39.170 --> 00:40:43.780
attention than the documented decisions of the men who bought rope,
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00:40:44.340 --> 00:40:48.360
returned to his home, and set the room on fire.
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00:40:49.909 --> 00:40:56.429
Sensation did not merely misdescribe a tradition, it displaced responsibility.
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00:40:57.190 --> 00:41:01.030
The sentences did not end the story of the defendants.
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00:41:02.380 --> 00:41:07.659
Curry's life sentence was commuted in the 1930s, and he
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00:41:07.739 --> 00:41:12.840
and Hess were released in 1939 after roughly a decade
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00:41:13.349 --> 00:41:19.869
in prison. Blymeier remained incarcerated much longer. His life sentence
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00:41:19.929 --> 00:41:26.550
was commuted in 1953. Their later occupations and private lives
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00:41:26.610 --> 00:41:32.320
have accumulated their own stories, some well-documented and some polished
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00:41:32.420 --> 00:41:38.179
through repetition. They are important as legal aftermath, but they
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00:41:38.219 --> 00:41:43.519
don't require us to convert the killers into redeemed protagonists
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00:41:43.760 --> 00:41:48.090
or let their later years occupy more space than the
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00:41:48.150 --> 00:41:54.269
life They ended. The mythology continued to expand. Arthur H.
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00:41:54.349 --> 00:41:59.730
Lewis's 1969 book, Hex, brought the case to a wide
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00:41:59.809 --> 00:42:05.730
popular audience through a highly dramatized narrative. It remains influential,
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00:42:05.829 --> 00:42:11.659
but its dialogue, names, and reconstructed scenes cannot be treated
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00:42:11.739 --> 00:42:16.639
as if they were a transcript. Later accounts popularized the
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00:42:17.059 --> 00:42:22.880
mysterious woman as Nellie Knoll, although the court-era sources reviewed
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00:42:22.940 --> 00:42:28.269
here do not securely establish that identity. A name repeated
443
00:42:28.329 --> 00:42:33.150
for decades can feel archival, even when the archival record
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00:42:33.230 --> 00:42:40.650
remains divided. In 1988, Apprentice to Murder carried a transformed
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00:42:40.820 --> 00:42:46.039
version to film. Its credits accurately said it was inspired
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00:42:46.550 --> 00:42:51.050
by a true story. The production changed the principal names,
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00:42:51.730 --> 00:42:57.429
created new character relationships, and supplied a fictional, dramatic ending.
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00:42:58.230 --> 00:43:02.769
That is what historical fiction is permitted to do. The
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00:43:02.829 --> 00:43:07.679
danger begins when the details created for narrative travel backward
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00:43:07.739 --> 00:43:13.820
and become accepted as evidence about Nelson Riemeyer. The farmhouse
451
00:43:13.900 --> 00:43:20.159
acquired its own legends, A clock supposedly stopped at 12.01.
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00:43:20.159 --> 00:43:26.079
The murder supposedly occurred beneath a full moon. Riemeyer supposedly
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00:43:26.199 --> 00:43:32.659
moved or cried out within the flames. Apparitions appeared in
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00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:37.400
later stories, and the house's survival became evidence that his
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00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:43.679
magic had defeated the fire. None of those claims is
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00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:48.539
required to explain what happened, though. The clock and moon
457
00:43:48.639 --> 00:43:53.500
do not appear in the court-era evidence reviewed for this episode.
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00:43:54.179 --> 00:43:58.960
The medical testimony does not establish consciousness during the burning.
459
00:43:59.659 --> 00:44:06.210
The house survived because an arson attempt failed. Over time, tours,
460
00:44:06.590 --> 00:44:12.730
autumn hayrides, and seasonal retellings drew the crime toward the
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00:44:12.769 --> 00:44:20.289
Halloween season. The connection is... Understandable. A hollow, a scorched farmhouse,
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00:44:20.809 --> 00:44:25.289
accusations of curses, and a book that promised protection from
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00:44:25.869 --> 00:44:32.469
invisible enemies. But the calendar should remain honest. Blymeier, Curry,
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00:44:32.530 --> 00:44:37.159
and Hess went to the farm on November 27th, 1928.
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00:44:37.159 --> 00:44:44.739
Neighbors found Riemeier on Thanksgiving Day, the 29th. Halloween entered later.
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00:44:45.369 --> 00:44:50.489
when history became local folklore, and local folklore became an
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00:44:50.730 --> 00:44:56.260
autumn attraction. The surviving farmhouse is private property and is
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00:44:56.320 --> 00:45:00.860
no longer open to the public. Its continued existence does
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00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:07.840
not invite trespassing, nighttime visits, or attempts to test a haunting.
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00:45:08.829 --> 00:45:13.369
The historically meaningful place is already available in the record.
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00:45:14.210 --> 00:45:19.579
A working farm disrupted because its owner was dead. A
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00:45:19.659 --> 00:45:23.860
room preserved because the fire had failed, and a community
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00:45:24.300 --> 00:45:28.820
forced to watch while national coverage turned one man's murder
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00:45:29.480 --> 00:45:34.769
into a caricature of their culture. The evidence supports a
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00:45:34.869 --> 00:45:41.409
conclusion more disturbing than any ghost story. John Blymeyer became
476
00:45:41.510 --> 00:45:46.840
convinced that Nelson Remire had authored his suffering. He recruited
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00:45:46.980 --> 00:45:53.590
two much younger companions, returned after a night of accepted hospitality,
478
00:45:54.349 --> 00:46:01.429
and converted that accusation into deliberate violence. No reliable evidence
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00:46:01.550 --> 00:46:05.960
shows that Remire cursed him. The men did not obtain
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00:46:06.039 --> 00:46:10.179
his hair. They did not successfully take or destroy the book.
481
00:46:10.719 --> 00:46:14.469
They saw it. They did not burn away the crime.
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00:46:15.230 --> 00:46:19.429
All three were convicted, though the law distinguished their degrees
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00:46:19.489 --> 00:46:24.099
of guilt. The fire went out before it could erase
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00:46:24.760 --> 00:46:30.219
the room. The book remained beyond the killer's hands. Beneath
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00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:34.360
nearly a century of headlines, the hardest thing to recover
486
00:46:34.840 --> 00:46:39.829
has never been a spell. It has been Nelson Remire.
487
00:46:41.170 --> 00:46:47.869
In the documentary, Nelson's great-grandson, Ricky Ebaugh, describes what that
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00:46:48.269 --> 00:46:51.610
reputation has meant for the family.
489
00:46:52.469 --> 00:46:56.070
How has it affected your life in any way? Have
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00:46:56.150 --> 00:46:59.550
people looked on you with suspicion, thinking you're descendant of
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00:46:59.610 --> 00:47:01.000
a famous witch and hexer?
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00:47:01.039 --> 00:47:03.139
Not sure. The house, they think this is like an
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00:47:03.199 --> 00:47:06.300
evil house. It's supposed to have, you know, bad things
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00:47:06.340 --> 00:47:08.300
happen back here.
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00:47:08.840 --> 00:47:12.440
People point at you and say... That's the great-grandson of
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00:47:12.460 --> 00:47:15.639
the witch. Anybody give you any trouble?
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00:47:16.329 --> 00:47:19.130
The younger people, whoever approaches me with that and says,
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00:47:19.190 --> 00:47:24.550
you know, hex and witch, you know, evil, that's not,
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00:47:25.269 --> 00:47:28.090
you know, try to explain that to people. It's not
500
00:47:28.150 --> 00:47:30.809
like that. There's got to be a turning point somewhere here.
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00:47:31.210 --> 00:47:33.920
It has to start going, that they find out the
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00:47:33.960 --> 00:47:39.619
real truth as to say this evil, bad person made
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00:47:39.699 --> 00:47:42.739
out to be from the night they murdered him. So
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00:47:42.860 --> 00:47:45.210
it's got to happen in time here somewhere.
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00:47:49.610 --> 00:47:53.619
Terrifying and True is narrated by Enrique Couto. It's executive
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00:47:53.659 --> 00:47:58.219
produced by Rob Fields and bobbletopia.com and produced by Dan
507
00:47:58.260 --> 00:48:01.639
Wilder with original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you
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00:48:01.699 --> 00:48:04.280
have a story you think we should cover on Terrifying
509
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:08.800
and True, send us an email at weeklyspooky at gmail.com.
510
00:48:09.019 --> 00:48:10.440
And if you want to support us for as little
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as $ 1 a month, go to weeklyspooky.com slash join. Your
512
00:48:14.420 --> 00:48:16.780
support for as little as $ 1 a month keeps the
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show going. And speaking of, I want to say an
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00:48:19.099 --> 00:48:22.559
extra special thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters, folks
515
00:48:22.579 --> 00:48:24.300
who pay a little bit more to hear their name
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at the end of the show. And they are Johnny Nix,
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00:48:27.070 --> 00:48:32.030
Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Eshkewi, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford,
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00:48:32.110 --> 00:48:35.230
Karen Wemet, Jack Kerr, and Craig Cohen. Thank you all
519
00:48:35.309 --> 00:48:37.750
so much, and thank you for listening. We'll see you
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00:48:37.809 --> 00:48:41.340
all right here next time on Terrifying and True.
