MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Stranger Than Fiction Vol. IX

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today’s podcast features 3 stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "The Oklahoma Problem" -- Woman discovers something buried in her past (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JPEtNglQ4o)#2 -- "The Dark Room" -- A man wakes up in total darkness with no memory of where he is, but his nightmare was just beginning (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7VtahvTLH4)#1 -- "Timothy Dexter" -- The most absurd rags to riches story ever... (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCvx4jikmsI)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today's podcast features three stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called

The Oklahoma Problem and it's about a woman who discovers something buried in her past. The second story you'll hear is called The Dark Room and it's about a man who wakes up in total darkness with no memory of where he is but then realizes his nightmare is only just beginning. memory of where he is, but then realizes his nightmare is only just beginning. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Timothy Dexter, and it's quite possibly the most absurd rags to riches story ever. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Amazon music follow buttons house and lightly toast all of their bread and then put it all back in the bag. Okay, let's get into our first story called the Oklahoma problem. In In the spring of 2021, 52-year-old Texas resident Karen Davis got married and then after the ceremony and after the honeymoon, she went through the process of changing her last name from Davis to McBride to match her husband's last name. After the change was done, the last step was to get a new driver's license with the new name on it. So Karen emailed the local DMV or Department of Motor Vehicles to set up a time for her

to come in and make the change to her license. But after she sent that email, the local DMV immediately emailed Karen back and they told her that they could not help her with this request until she resolved an issue. Now they didn't specify what this issue was however they very cryptically said it had something to do with the state of Oklahoma and then at the bottom of the email there was just a phone number they told her she needed to call in order to resolve this issue And so Karen's thinking okay, that's pretty weird, but I did used to live in Oklahoma So that probably has something to do with it

and so not thinking much of it she punched this number the DMV had given her into her phone and then she let it ring a Few moments later much to Karen's shock a woman from the Norman, Oklahoma District Attorney's Office picked up the phone and said, how can I help you? Karen immediately assumed that the DMV must have made a mistake, that maybe they were trying to give Karen some other number in Oklahoma because this was an Oklahoma problem and they had mistakenly given her the number to the DA's office. But since she had this woman on the phone, Karen told her, you know, hey, I was just trying to get a new license in Texas, they told me there was some sort of issue, it had

to do with me potentially living in Oklahoma, I don't know what it is, but this is the number they gave me, so I'm sure it's a mistake, but that's why I'm calling. The woman from the DA's office had no idea who Karen was, but after taking down Karen's information and looking on her computer, she discovered Karen's so-called Oklahoma problem. And after she explained to Karen what this enormous problem was, Karen literally couldn't believe it. But after this woman went over the details a few more times and really showed Karen that this Oklahoma problem was very, very real, suddenly everything in Karen's life made sense.

For the last 22 years, Karen, who was incredibly smart and friendly and polite and never had a problem with anyone, had an incredibly hard time getting a job. Even jobs that she was extremely qualified for, she would get turned down for for someone who was way less qualified. And then in the rare times that Karen did actually get hired, she would always get fired for no reason. And so Karen never understood why she was being treated this way until now.

It would turn out 22 years earlier, which is when Karen's hireability issues began, she lived in Norman, Oklahoma, which is where the DA's office was that she would end up calling 22 years later. And when she was living in Norman, she lived with a roommate, and this roommate was this nice young man who had a couple of young kids.

And one weekend, he went to the local movie store called Movie Place, and he rented the hit 90s movie, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, to watch with his kids. And after he was done watching this movie, he didn't return the VHS tape of Sabrina the Teenage Witch back to Movieplace. Now normally when this happened the movie store would just hit the card holder with lots of late fees which was actually great for the movie store they made lots and lots of money on individual people that just forgot to return their movies and if the card holder just continued to hold on to this

delinquent movie at some point the movie store would just hit them with a final fee that basically accounted for the total cost of the VHS tape that they had effectively stolen. And then at that point the matter was resolved. The cardholder owned the VHS tape whether they knew it or not, and the movie store simply moved on. But in this case, Movie Place in Norman, Oklahoma didn't think that was enough. And when Sabrina the Teenage Witch was not returned in a timely fashion, they pressed charges against the cardholder. And the cardholder was Karen Davis. The roommate had just borrowed her card. And somehow, these charges against Karen

were never brought up to Karen. She was never contacted by anyone, and so for 22 years, she was technically a wanted felon. Meaning, every time one of her employers, either during the interview process or after she was hired, when they would run a criminal background check on her it would pop up she was wanted for felony embezzlement and so this was

the reason she kept not getting jobs and kept getting fired from jobs. Since discovering these charges Karen worked with the Norman Oklahoma DA's office and got these charges dismissed. Carlos camejo woke up freezing cold and totally confused. It was September 6th, 2007, and all Carlos could remember was being on his motorcycle with the hot sun bearing down on him as he wound his way on his bike through the streets of La Victoria, which is a city in Venezuela. Carlos tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't, and then when he tried to move his body, he couldn't do that either. And so he began to panic because he's paralyzed,

but he told himself to calm down. If he couldn't move, at least he could think, he could try to process, you know, what's going on here. There has to be an explanation for it. And so Carlos, in total darkness and immobile, began going through over and over again this whole motorcycle trip, which was his last memory and he remembered that his friend had called him up and asked him to go out on this ride. Carlos used to go out all the time on his bike for fun with his friends and by himself but now that he was 33 years old and married he didn't have the time for it as much but the weather had been so beautiful that when his friend had called and asked to go out Carlos Carlos said, let's do it.

And so Carlos began going over in his head the route that they had taken through La Victoria and all he could remember was this long straightaway and then a right turn and then nothing. It was like after he made that turn, everything went blank. And as Carlos thought about how weird it was that 1. He was paralyzed and 2. He had no memory of what happened after he made that right turn, he started to realize that he felt something against his back. It was like there was a block underneath his back, kind of right between his shoulder blades,

propping his chest up, and he felt his arms kind of dangling down by the side. It was very uncomfortable. And as he laid in this totally awkward position, he began to hear somewhere out in the ether unfamiliar voices just kind of chatting and immediately Carlos is like, okay, someone's here to help me. I don't know what's wrong with me, but somebody's here. I'm going to be okay. And soon whoever was talking near Carlos had moved closer to him and actually Carlos began to realize that it was actually more than one person. It was at least two people talking back and forth but again Carlos can't open his eyes, he can't move, he can't communicate with these people, he

just knows they've come closer to him. And after these people had moved right up against Carlos, Carlos suddenly felt something metal pressing up against his chin. It was kind of sharp and it kind of hurt when it touched his chin. And Carlos wanted to scream out and tell them whatever they were doing to stop and at least tell him what was going on,

but Carlos couldn't make a sound. And then Carlos began to hear this kind of mechanical whirring sound like a machine starting up that was very close to where he was and suddenly Carlos began panicking like what's going on what are they doing to me and as Carlos's heart rate is starting to speed up one of the people who had moved near Carlos suddenly said oh my god that's impossible this can't be and then again Carlos felt more pain

in his chin and then the pain got dramatically worse. It went from just kind of like a poking feeling to something going into his chin, and he felt it moving underneath his skin like a knife cutting through him, and then whatever it was, it went out of his chin. And as this is happening, Carlos is trying so hard to just wake himself up and do something to tell these people to stop, but he just couldn't do it. And then again, he felt that sharp pain in his chin, another round of something going

into him, moving underneath his skin and then poking out again, and the pain became so blinding that suddenly Carlos was able to kind of break through this paralysis and his eyes shot open. And for a second all Carlos could see was like blinding lights, but then as things came into focus he saw there were two people, the people who had been speaking, wearing these huge goggles and face masks and one of them was holding a big needle with black thread attached to it and that thread was coming from Carlos's chin. They had been running that needle through his face, stitching his chin for some reason, but with no anesthetic.

And so as Carlos is staring up at these people in goggles, the people in goggles are looking down at Carlos and they're totally horrified and they just kind of begin backing up not really sure what to make of this. And then Carlos again kind of breaking through this weird paralysis he was under he was able to lift his head up and look down at his body and he saw to his horror that he was totally nude he was laying on a metal table and there was this Y drawn on his chest starting at his collarbones coming down right underneath his throat and then straight down across his chest, starting at his collarbones, coming down right underneath his throat and then straight down across his chest. And then after Carlos saw this Y on his naked body, he looked over at a tray that was right next to this metal table, near these two guys and goggles, who were now kind of backing

up, and he saw there was a whirring instrument on this table, and it was a circular blade, a saw. That was the sound he heard. And that's when Carlos figured it out. Earlier that day, when Carlos had been out riding his motorcycle with his friend, he had gone down that long straightaway in La Victoria. He had made a right turn and parked illegally right after this turn was this big truck.

Carlos didn't see it and at full speed, he impacted the truck he was thrown from his bike, smashed into the ground, horrific injuries. And when paramedics showed up, they pronounced him dead on the scene. And so he was moved from the scene of the accident to the morgue, and at the morgue, Carlos was stripped naked and put on this metal table, and they placed a block underneath his shoulders kind of propping his chest up, and they drew

a Y down the center of his chest for his autopsy. The two doctors that Carlos ultimately saw chatting and performing this autopsy were gonna follow that Y on his body with the circular saw. That's how they cut you open during an autopsy. But right before they were about to do that, the doctors noticed that Carlos was actively bleeding from his chin. And since he was supposed to be dead,

that didn't make any sense. And so that was why one of the doctors had said oh my goodness this can't be and so not really sure what to make of it they had just grabbed a needle and begun stitching his face together to stop the blood from going down his chest and then Carlos opened his eyes and it dawned on the two doctors that oh he's alive that's why he's still bleeding we should definitely take care of him now. But amazingly after Carlos came back from the dead he was simply moved into the hallway and left on this metal table and the doctors who were going to perform his autopsy just left the paper that said he needed an autopsy in his pocket just kind of showing that hey we were just following orders somebody told us to give you an autopsy this is not our fault and that's where Carlos stayed

until his wife showed up and found him in the hallway just laying there as if he was still just waiting for his autopsy. Carlos would suffer horrible injuries from the accident and serious emotional trauma from almost being cut open during this autopsy, but he would make a full recovery. The next and final story of today's episode is called Timothy Dexter. In the winter of 1748, Timothy Dexter was born in a town just north of Boston, Massachusetts called Malden. Despite being incredibly dim-witted, Timothy always believed he was going to strike it rich one day. But looking around at his family, who were a bunch of poor farm laborers, Timothy realized

he would need to make some big moves if he wanted that dream to become a reality. When he was just 8 years old, he decided he would make the first of his many big moves. And this move was to drop out of second grade and go to work on a farm and then on to a leather tannery. For years he worked hard earning more money than his family had ever made, but he knew this line of work was not going to make him rich. And so when he was 19 years old, he decided it was time to make yet another big move. He sold his best suit and used the money to relocate farther north to another Massachusetts

town called Newburyport. He believed with their booming economy he was bound to make some additional money there, and he was right, but his payday would not come from a higher paying job. When he arrived there, he met a lonely wealthy widow named Elizabeth Frothingham and he promptly married her, becoming rich overnight. After moving into her mansion and dubbing himself Lord Timothy Dexter, he suddenly felt lost. He had spent his entire life pursuing wealth and now that he suddenly had it, he didn't know what to do with it. And so he looked around Newburyport at the other rich people and saw what they were doing

and he found that many of them held political positions. And so Timothy decided he would run for office too. But unfortunately, the voters caught on to the fact that he was a second grade dropout who couldn't read or write or think critically so he didn't win the election. But instead of accepting his defeat, Timothy began petitioning the town to let him have his political office anyways. And the town said no, that's not how democracy works, but Timothy didn't really understand and he just continued to send these carefully outlined petitions explaining exactly why

they needed to appoint him. The town had to bring in experts that were able to decipher what he wrote because Timothy was deeply illiterate and his petitions were so riddled with spelling mistakes and were so confusing that at first glance it looked like it was written in a foreign language. After they deciphered them, they would immediately deny them, but Timothy just continued to send them. And so finally the town got so fed up with all of his petitions that they decided they would just give him a fake political title just to get him to stop and to low-key

humiliate him. They offered him the title of the Informer of Deer, and they told him his job was to look high and low all over Newburyport for any signs of deer activity. And the joke was, in Newburyport there are no deer. But Timothy did not find this humiliating, he did not see the joke in it, he took it very seriously and believed his petitions had worked. And so he took his political title and with great enthusiasm he got to work, spending all hours running all around the town carefully documenting all deer activity of which there was none. At the end of his term, Timothy felt like he had

accomplished a lot as the Informer of Deer and was ready to move on from political office, and so he turned in his official Informer of Deer logbook to the town and told them they should pass it along to the next Informer of Deer to get them up to speed. Unfortunately, when the town opened that logbook, they found it contained only crude pictures of deer and then illiterate ramblings about deer that were so difficult to decipher that even the experts weren't able to do it. And so the logbook was thrown away and the Informer of Deer position was never filled again. Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Bolland's

Medical Mysteries and Mr. Bolland's Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad-free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to Amazon.com slash ballin. That's Amazon.com slash B-A-L-L-E-N. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious. And if that's the case, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange Dark and

Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

Shortly after the American Revolutionary War broke out between the colonies in America and Great Britain, America began printing their own money to pay for their troops. But this money, called the Continental Dollar, it wasn't backed by silver or gold, it was just backed on the promise of future value if America won the war. That combined with over printing this money led to rampant inflation and very quickly the Continental Dollar was worthless. Some of the wealthy folk in Newburyport decided they would do the troops a favor who were now destitute because they held all of this worthless currency and these wealthy people

offered to buy all of their continental currency for a fraction of the price which was better than nothing. When Timothy saw all these rich people doing that, he quickly jumped on the trend. But he didn't view this as doing a favor for these troops that needed the money. He viewed this as a great investment opportunity. He believed America was going to win this war and that eventually this currency was going to have lots of value. And so he invested all of his savings into buying back the continental dollar.

When word spread that Timothy had made this terrible investment because at the time nobody was predicting this currency would have any worth really even if America won the war. When they found out that Timothy had made this ridiculous investment, his peers, the other wealthy folk in Newburyport, they were thrilled. They were so annoyed by Timothy and they didn't like the fact that he was kind of on their level because he had some money and so they were excited to see him go bankrupt. But sure enough at the end of the American Revolution when America won the war, Congress made good and backed the currency making Timothy one of the richest people in America overnight. Right away Timothy used his

second big windfall of cash to purchase the most luxurious mansion in the richest neighborhood in all of Newburyport. But beyond that purchase, he didn't really know what to do with all of this money. It was very overwhelming. And so after several weeks of deep introspection where he tried to figure out, you know, who he was now and what he wanted to be, it suddenly became clear to him. He needed to construct 40 wooden statues of random famous men on his front lawn. These statues included George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson, and of course himself. The inscription under his statue read, the first in the east, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western world.

After his sculptor was done, Timothy went out to inspect all 40 statues, and he discovered what he believed to be a huge discrepancy on one of them. Underneath Thomas Jefferson's replica, it said the author of the Declaration of Independence, which is accurate, but he told the sculptor that he was supposed to put down the author of the Constitution, and the sculptor very gently said, that's not right, it should be the Declaration of Independence. Timothy became irate, he was not having it, and so he ran into his mansion and came out with his oversized hunting rifle and began firing at the sculptor's feet until he made the change.

After Jefferson's title was fixed, Timothy noticed another discrepancy on another statue. He walked over to the George Washington replica and looked underneath it at the inscription which said George Washington. And Timothy just shook his head, got out a paintbrush, covered it up, and wrote one word, pit. Just. Pit. Because periodically, Timothy would confuse George Washington's name with pit, and nobody

could convince him otherwise. By now, the other wealthy folk in Newberryport had really grown to resent Timothy, and now he was just showing off his wealth with his totally ridiculous mansion and all of his statues, and so some of these aristocrats wanted to find a way to just ruin Timothy. And so knowing he was not a very bright man, they decided they would start giving him deliberately terrible investment tips. The first being that he should buy a whole bunch of warming pans and send them to the Caribbean.

A warming pan is like this big frying pan that you load up with hot coals and you slide under your bed to stay warm at night. This works really well in a cold environment like Newburyport but is completely worthless in a warm tropical environment like Newburyport but is completely worthless in a warm tropical environment like the Caribbean. But Timothy believed he was being given some great insider trading information and absolutely took this to the bank. And he went and bought two ships and he loaded them up with 40,000 of these huge warming pans and he fired them off to the Caribbean. And when they got there, the locals

didn't know what they were or what they were for, but they found these warming pans served as great ladles for molasses. And they all sold out for a huge profit. And so Timothy went to those aristocrats and he thanked them for their incredible investment tip. These rich people were furious that their plan had backfired and so they decided they would pitch him another even worse investment tip that was bound to ruin him. They told him, why don't you buy up a whole bunch of coal and send it to Newcastle, England. Newcastle being the coal capital of the world where there was so much coal there, there was actually an expression at the time, that's like sending coal to Newcastle, which meant you're doing

something completely pointless. But these fine rich folks had never done Timothy wrong, and so he took their advice and once again took it to the bank. He loaded up his ships with coal and he sent them off to Newcastle. And this would have ruined him had it not been for the coal workers strike that occurred right before his shipment arrived. And so when Timothy's coal arrived in the shores of Newcastle, there was a coal shortage and all of his coal sold out for another huge profit. And so once again, Timothy went back

to the aristocrats and said, thank you for the incredible advice. Now truly irate that their plan has backfired two times, these aristocrats got together and said, okay, we got to set him up for something that's going to make him fail. And so they pitched him one more terrible investment tip. This was, hey, Timothy, why don't you go buy all the whalebone you possibly can? Just hoard it, keep it in your house, because someday it's gonna get really valuable. At the time whalebone was extremely expensive and losing its value every single day. But again, Timothy thinks these people have never done me

wrong, I'm gonna do just that. And so he went out and he collected thousands of pounds of these rotting whale bones and made a huge stockpile in his basement. And shortly after he had built up this mountain of bone, over in France it became fashionable for men to wear corsets. And wouldn't you know it, these corsets were made out of whale bone. And so once again, Timothy's investment completely paid off. And so he tipped his hat for a third time to these rich folks that just keep making him

more and more money. After these three big investment wins, Timothy was very confident and he viewed himself as a shrewd investor. And so he began to believe that he could identify winning investments himself. And so the first to believe that he could identify winning investments himself. And so the first winning investment that he identified was to purchase all these stray cats in Newberryport that were lined up for euthanization.

Timothy figured these mangy sick feral animals would make great house pets in the Caribbean. And so he loaded them all onto his two ships, he fired them across the sea, and wouldn't you know it, they sold like hotcakes. Not because they were cute and cuddly, but because, unbeknownst to Timothy, the Caribbean had a huge rat infestation problem in their warehouses, and so his shipment of stray cats arrived at the perfect time. At some point, after all these successful investments, Timothy started to wonder about his legacy. How would people remember him after he was gone?

And so, there was only one way to find out. Timothy, very elaborately, faked his own death. And as he hid, watching his funeral, he noticed his wife, Elizabeth, his own death and as he hid watching his funeral he noticed his wife Elizabeth wasn't as sad as he thought she should be over the death of her husband and so he leapt out in front of the thousands of people that were there and he began beating his wife with his cane. After this Timothy decided he didn't really like his wife anymore and so he decided he would just tell people she was dead even though she was not dead. And so when people came to Timothy's mansion and they

saw his wife walking around clearly alive, Timothy would tell them, oh she's a ghost. And because at this point Timothy was so wealthy and so influential, people just kind of accepted this and began viewing Elizabeth as a ghost. Before Timothy's actual death, he penned an autobiography called A Pickle for the Knowing Ones, a title that to this day people still don't really understand. Inside the book were 24 pages of completely illiterate ramblings with absolutely zero punctuation. The book was so terrible that it actually sold out very quickly because people thought it was funny to buy this book.

After people criticized Timothy for not using any punctuation, Timothy printed a second edition where at the very end he included a single page with 13 lines of just random punctuation marks with a note at the bottom that said, go ahead and sprinkle these in as you see fit. In 1806, just a few years after publishing his book, Lord Timothy Dexter, the Informer of Deer, quietly passed away, this time for real. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bollin Podcast.

If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. There's this one of course, the Mr. Bollin Podcast, and there's Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, Redacted, and late nights with Nexpo. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music Download the Amazon Music app today and before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wonder.com

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