Sarah Nigbor

October means “spooky season” to me and I relish the Halloween celebrations, foggy mornings, cooler weather and all things pumpkin.

I also love all things Wisconsin, history and true crime, which is why I am hooked on the podcast “Badger Bizarre.” October is the perfect month to check it out.

I’m a big reader, but I spend many hours in the car driving to work commitments, kid activities and commuting, so I discovered podcasts as a way to battle the monotony of the highway.

“Badger Bizarre” is hosted by two Appleton-area residents, Scott Wittman and Mickey Sanders, who meticulously research Wisconsin true crime, unsolved mysteries, history, paranormal tales and bizarre happenings in the great Badger State. I cannot recommend them enough. They take great care with their research, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews and onsite visits, as well as combing archives, newspapers and books about their subject matter.

Wittman is also the author of two books, “Lost Fox Cities” and “Finding Dairyland: In Search of Wisconsin’s Vanishing Heritage.”

I was beyond thrilled when this fall, the duo covered a topic I suggested to them: Wisconsin’s Angel of Death, Charlotte Lamb. They contacted the Pierce County Historical Association and tracked down as many sources as they could for this crazy tale straight out of Trimbelle in the late 1800s. The PCHA covered Lamb’s story in their “Pierce County’s Dark Side” newsletter series. If you’re not a member of PCHA, I also highly recommend supporting their work and subscribing to their newsletter.

“Badger Bizarre” shares a synopsis of their Lamb episode: “During the Minnesota Sioux Uprising of 1862, which created a stream of settlers fleeing their homes to get out of the way of an advancing warpath, a young mother protecting her small children became a national hero; the poster child for a loving, devoted mother. 

“A decade later, now living in the western Wisconsin community of Trimbelle, in Pierce County, that same young mother, Charlotte Lamb, started making headlines of a different kind.  Her family, as well as others in close proximity to her, began turning up dead. Investigations into her past in Vermont, as well as her actions in Wisconsin over the previous 10 years, created shock and horror when the scope of her potential actions came into focus. 

Scott and Mickey discuss the case of Charlotte Lamb, a lesser-known name in our history, though just may have been the most evil of us all.”

Lamb was convicted of poisoning and killing four people, two of which were her own children. She is also suspected of poisoning her husband, who died of mysterious circumstances, and others, including a neighbor woman whose husband she wanted. I won’t spoil the story, but the podcast is definitely worth the listen.

The duo has also covered the Elmwood UFO sightings, another favorite episode of mine.

Some of my other favorites they’ve covered are:

• Stevie Ray Vaughn’s death in a helicopter crash in 1990 after performing at Wisconsin’s Alpine Valley Music Festival. Concert goers said Vaughn had a weird, glowing aura around him that night, almost like a premonition of his coming death.
• Nazianz, a Catholic community founded in 1854 in Manitowoc County by a German immigrant priest claiming to have mystical powers. The property eventually became a prep school, but that shut down in the 1980s. “Rumors of rogue priests, abusive nuns, suicides, and curses upon the village took hold, leading to trespassers and vandalism over the 40 years the property has been mostly abandoned, and ghost stories run rampant to this day,” their description reads.
• The story of Rosemary Kennedy, who lived out her days at a sanatorium after her father had her lobotomized at age 23. She was the sister of John F. Kennedy.
• The Reign of King Strang, which tells the strange story of James Jesse Strang, a man who claimed to be the rightful heir to the leader of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, founded a Mormon kingdom in southern Wisconsin called Voree and declared himself king and took over an island as his kingdom before he was brought down by the United States government.

If you’re looking for “spooky” or just plain fascinating stories, I encourage you to check them out. Their podcast can be found on iHeart Radio and other podcast streaming options.