The Skeleton Key Chronicles is your source for creepy content, true crime, haunted history, customs & lore, missing persons and oddities.
The formality and haunting beauty of a funeral where a riderless horse, with the backwards facing boots in the stirrups, is being led along as part of the procession is always a striking image. I am often intrigued about the sources of these many traditions and find this one, in particular, very touching if not…
Sometimes when you frequent an establishment you can take its historical significance for granted. It is especially easy to do in a picturesque, small town with great architecture and an idyllic main street to enjoy. I am reminded of this when visiting The Golden Lamb. While I've not been recently, this place has been our…
Continue reading ➞ “OH MURDER, I AM SHOT!”: THE TRAGIC DEATH OF CLEMENT VALLANDIGHAM
Mercedes McCambridge was an Oscar winning actress of early radio, stage and later on in her career - film and television. The distinctive raspy voice that made her a star on the airwaves amazed audiences when she hit the big screen. Her ability to personalize a role and make it her own made the ordinary,…
Continue reading ➞ MERCEDES MCCAMBRIDGE: HELL BENT ON HONING HER CRAFT
“The Raven” was first published in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845, and would come to define the morbid brilliance of its author Edgar Allan Poe. You can read a bit about his inspiration for this work in 'The Philosophy of Composition', published in an 1846 edition of Graham's Magazine. There Poe…
Humans have lived among poisonous plants since the dawn of time. That doesn't mean we've adapted to this coexistence. From the poison hemlock that killed Socrates, to white snakeroot that was responsible for the death of Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, poisonous plants have been responsible for countless human deaths throughout history. To this day…
On this day back in 1989 Ted Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison. I lived in Tampa at the time and will not soon forget the media footage of countless revelers gathered across the street from the prison, holding signs, cheering and dancing. There was even an impromptu fireworks show. …
It was a cool, fall, Wednesday night around 9:30 p.m. on November 16th, 1966, when Linda Susan Pierson was last seen cruising along Fairfield Avenue in the passenger seat of a 1957 Chevrolet. She was totally unaware that in a matter of hours she would be brutally raped and murdered. Linda was just eighteen and…
Continue reading ➞ GIRL IN THE ’57 CHEVY: THE MURDER OF LINDA PIERSON
Kopi luwak is the world's most expensive coffee with prices coming in as high as $2600 a pound for wild collected beans. A cup of this joe can set you back 50 bucks here in the United States. It is made from partially digested coffee beans which have been eaten and later defecated by the…
We've all heard the expression, "I need that like a hole in the head." But did you know at one time in history a procedure that drilled a hole into one's head was relatively common. It's called a burr hole or trephination. A burr hole is created when an area is drilled or scraped through…
With Labor Day and National Beer Lover's Day being celebrated around the U.S. today, I'm sure many of you are relaxing by the pool, grilling some food and enjoying a cold one. How many of you are sipping your cold brew from a skull stein? Did you know that in the late 19th century skull…
Continue reading ➞ DRINK FROM THE SKULL OF YOUR ENEMY, KINDA SORTA
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