Hi everyone! Thanks for bearing with me over the short summer break! It's good to be back and I've got a cracking episode to launch into the second half of the season. This one has it all, ghosts, murder... well alright, it's got ghosts and murder, but that's not bad! It is a darker one and has some fairly brutal murdery bits, but I don't think it's especially worse than what we've seen before. Little heads up though. I hope you enjoy! In the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, lies a 281 acre wooded parkland area known as Arnold’s Arboretum. A beautiful botanical garden and research institution planted in naturalistic style, its serene park walks bely a history before its life as the arboretum, where dark events in its past stained the ground and transformed a popular picnic spot into an ugly memorial that few wished to visit. Several years later, these events in Boston found themselves tied into a story of a murderer that the contemporary press called “The most monstrous and inhuman criminal of modern times - or indeed any time,” though despite their shocking nature, they have somehow become largely forgotten, if not for a bizarre report of a ghost sighting that keeps the linked cases alive, sparking the public imagination.


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SOURCES
 


Brent, Henry Johnson (1868) Was it a Ghost? The murders in Bussey's wood. An extraordinary narrative. Loring, USA.
 


Bangor Daily Whig & Courier (1865) A Terrible Tragedy In Roxbury. Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, Tuesday, 20 June 1865, p.3. USA
 


New York Daily Herald (1865) Horrible Tragedy In Roxbury. New York Daily Herald, Tuesday, 20 June 1865, p.8. USA
 


Hartford Courant (1865) Horrible Murder And Outrage. Hartford Courant, Tuesday, 20 June 1865, p.2. USA
 


The Burlington Free Press (1865) Tragedy In Roxbury. The Burlington Free Press, Wednesday, 21 June 1865, p.2. USA
 


The Enterprise & Vermonter (1865) Horrid Murder At West Roxbury, Mass. The Enterprise & Vermonter, Friday, 23 June 1865, p.2. USA
 


The Indianapolis Star (1865) The Roxbury Tragedy. The Indianapolis Star, Monday, 26 June 1865, p.2. USA
 


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Boston Evening Transcript (1865) Reward. Boston Evening Transcript, Wednesday, 28 June 1865, p.3. USA
 


The Buffalo Commercial (1865) Arrest Of The Supposed Murderer Of The Joyce Children. The Buffalo Commercial, Wednesday, 12 July 1865, p.2. USA
 


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Brown, Janice (2004) Early History of Town of Strafford, Strafford County, New Hampshire. USA.
 


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Schecter, Harold (2012) Psycho USA, Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of. Ballantine Books, USA.
 


Boston Evening Transcript (1872) A Young Girl Outraged And Murdered By Her Uncle. Boston Evening Transcript, Monday, 04 November 1872, p.1. USA
 


The Boston Globe (1872) The Northwood Tragedy. The Boston Globe, Friday, 08 November 18