Small Town Whispers
Small Town Whispers is a storytelling podcast where history and the paranormal meet under the glow of the porchlight. Season One, Watseka Wonder, explores the chilling 19th-century case of possession and exorcism that haunted my hometown of Watseka, Illinois. I first discovered the story as a twelve-year-old when I read the book Watseka: America's Most Extraordinary Case of Possession and Exorcism by David St. Clair. Now, I return to share those haunting pages alongside small-town legends, ghost stories, and folklore submitted by listeners like you.
Episodes
10 episodes
Permanent Side Effects
A quiet Illinois morning shatters with a single scream, and an old question returns with new force: what do we do with the stories we can’t explain? We follow Mary Roff’s final turn as her father, Asa, rides a desperate circuit between Peoria’s...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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29:22
A Cup of Tea
The bells of Palm Sunday ring, the town pours into the street, and then the story slips sideways. Watseka, Illinois is celebrating the end of war, but behind the music and speeches, neighbors trade signatures under lamplight, a cruel nickname s...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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22:59
Dinner & a Séance Part 2
A quiet room, a held breath—and then a voice that isn’t quite Mary’s. What begins as a message for a granddaughter turns into a reckoning about shame, stolen money, and the cost of keeping family history locked away. The word protection lands l...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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26:11
Dinner & a Séance Part 1
The room goes still, the metronome ticks, and Mary begins a slow descent down an imagined staircase that somehow leads straight into the private histories of everyone at the table. What follows isn’t vagueness or guesswork; it’s a sequence of p...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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33:47
Ghost Horse
A girl wakes after five silent days with no memory and no weakness. A minister sits in her parlor and suggests a possibility more human than demonic: a spirit not gone far enough. When he conducts an experiment successfully right there in the h...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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25:50
Bloody Mary
Content Warning:This episode contains descriptions of self-harm, blood, graphic injury, violence, and strong language. Check the Chapters for details.Listener discretion is advised. The porchlight fli...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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24:49
Possession or Performance?
We trace Mary’s missing days at the Peoria Water Cure and the split between diagnosis and belief, then widen the lens to Wilmington’s haunted landmarks and why certain places feel charged. The thread is care: how families endure the unexplainab...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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20:15
Mary Mary, Quite Contrary
A teenager restrained in a windowless room, a doctor’s letter that reads like a warning, and a father who refuses to accept “coincidence” as an answer—this chapter of Small Town Whispers moves from the Roff family’s newfound prosperity to the m...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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25:43
There's Something About Mary
A quiet kitchen, a Sunday supper, and a six-year-old who suddenly sounds sixty-three. That’s where our journey takes a sharp turn, pulling us from small-town routine into a confrontation with the unexplainable. We trace Mary’s strange history f...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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19:59
Watseka: America's Most Extraordinary Case of Possession and Exorcism
Welcome to Small Town Whispers. In Episode 1, you are going to get to know your host a little bit better and understand why she wants to keep the history of Watseka, IL and the story of the Watseka Wonder alive. The Roff family was ...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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18:53