A lonely girl in red haunts the place of her death. The grave of a Charleston socialite draws favors for help from a witch. A young West Virginia woman’s ghost testifies at her own murder trial.

Five tales from the Gothic South, some true and some perhaps not, with a single thread running through: independent-minded woman who died before their time and became Southern legends in the afterlife.

In this episode:

• The true tale of missing Florida housewife Nellie VanZant Olford who some say reappeared to lead authorities to her corpse
• The South Carolina story of young, impetuous Eliza Huger who, after death, became known as the Witch Queen of Clemson
• The legendary Yazoo Witch, a Mississippi malcontent who leveled an entire town with one fiery curse
• The story of Margaret Transom, a young college student who took her own life and refused to leave as Alabama’s infamous Red Lady of Huntingdon College
• The true tale of Elva Zona Heaster, a new bride murdered by her husband and whose mother claimed returned to testify at his trial as the Greenbrier Ghost

Each of these five women led ordinary lives that gave way to extraordinary, and often chilling, afterlives in Southern Gothic folklore.

Music courtesy of Geoff Harvey, Pixabay.