Listener discretion is advised.

True crime can be strangely fascinating.

This true crime is odd, macabre, and haunted. I'm Diane, your guide into the shadows.

Welcome to Fantasmal Crime. The Black Donnellys were an Irish family looking for a new start

across the Atlantic Ocean in the early 1840s.

James and Johanna Donnelly had lived in poverty and strife, and they hoped that Canada would

bring a new start for their little family. So they packed up what little they had, along with

their son James Jr., and migrated to Forest City, Canada, from temporary Ireland. They would find a new life

in this new world, but they would not gain it in the right way. They would take what was not theirs,

and this would lead to strife for their family. It would eventually lead to a lot of death as well.

And now Spirits Rome, the former Donnelly Homestead.

James found work in Canada, and Johanna gave birth to their second son, William, who was

nicknamed Clubfoot Will, because he was born with a Clubfoot. They were happy for a while,

but they really longed to have their own

land and their own farm. Around 1845, the Donnellys moved to Bidolph, Ontario, which was in the

Canadian wilderness. The only problem with this dream the Donnellys had was that they did not have

any money. The Canada land company owned the land here and they would lease

it out to farmers with the option to eventually buy the land. The Donnellys didn't have any money

to even lease a square foot of land. Many destitute families at that time would squat on land.

This means they illegally lived on a plot of land, and they claimed it as their own because they

live there. James chose an area where many Roman Catholics had settled that was called the Roman

line for that reason. The landlord was named John Grace, and he was absent. The lot was number 18,

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