Phantasmal Crime 43 - The Revenants of Two Bad Marriages

History Goes Bump: Ghost Tours For The Mind

Diane Student

Travel, History, Places & Travel, Paranormal, Haunted, Society & Culture, Ghosts

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1875, the Gring home would host the dead bodies of four members of the Bissinger family following a murder-suicide. A mother, Louisa Bissinger, took the lives of her children in retaliation for a wrong by the father. The tragic circumstances have left the ghosts of the family to haunt this area of Berks County in Pennsylvania. And then there was Ethel Major. Her husband was an angry man and their relationship had gone sour long ago. Rather than leave her husband, she decided to make the ultimate break. And for that, she paid with her life. It seems her spirit haunts the prison where she died. Join us as we share these tragic tales that have left revenants of two bad marriages.

Intro and Outro music: Bad Players - Licensed under a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-assignable, single-site, worldwide, royalty-free license agreement with Muse Music c/o Groove Studios.

The following music was also used:

Title: "Typical Horror Intro"
Artist: Tim Kulig (timkulig.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0997280/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Music: All The Lines (Instrumental) by Sascha Ende
Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/4926-all-the-lines-instrumental

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:15.0	True crime can be strangely fascinating.
0:18.1	This true crime is odd, macabre, and haunted. I'm Diane, your guide into the shadows. Welcome to
0:26.4	Phantasmal Crime. David Gring built a gristmill in Berks County in 1811. Today, that mill and
0:37.0	Gring's homestead are owned by Berks County and used as a visitor
0:40.2	center and offices. In 1875, the Gringholm would host the dead bodies of four members of the Bissinger
0:46.8	family following a murder suicide. A mother, Louisa Bissinger, took the lives of her children in
0:53.2	retaliation for a wrong by the father.
0:56.2	The tragic circumstances have left the ghosts of the family to haunt this area of Berks County in
1:00.6	Pennsylvania. And then there was Ethel Major, a woman an ocean away from Pennsylvania. She was not
1:08.0	happy in her marriage. Her husband was an angry man and their relationship had gone sour
1:12.6	long ago. Rather than leave her husband, she decided to make the ultimate break. And for that,
1:19.1	she paid with her life. She spent the end of her life at H.M. Prison Hall in Yorkshire, England.
1:25.2	And it would seem that her spirit has decided to stay at that prison in the afterlife.
1:29.4	Join us as we share these tragic tales that have left revenance of two bad marriages.
2:00.2	Music Ethel and Louisa came from two different countries and two different time periods, but they both had the same dissatisfaction in their marriages. For Louisa, rather than
2:02.5	murder her husband, she wanted to cause him as much pain as possible.
2:10.3	Philip Bissinger had been born in Germany in 1842. When he was three, his family immigrated to
2:16.2	America and settled in Baltimore. He made his way to
2:19.3	Berks County in Pennsylvania and in September 1861. He enlisted in Company G, Pennsylvania 79th Infantry
2:26.3	Regiment. Throughout the Civil War, he was promoted to Sergeant Major, and then First Lieutenant,
2:32.0	and then ending at full captain. So for the rest of his life,
	...

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