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As a teenager, Brian and his friends had not much to do growing up in

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the city. Brian was a quiet, rural, bright Colorado, but one place he had always wanted to

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explore was a place called Riverdale Road. The allure of Riverdale Road is that it's

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unnaturally dark at night. The road itself twists and turns around a dense thicket of ominously

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tall trees. It's a hotbed of urban legends. Throughout high school, he had heard plenty

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of stories about the woman in the white dress hitchhiking on the side of the road. Red-Eye

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children appearing out of nowhere or cultic rites conducted late at night. He had also

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heard about the gates of hell. He was drawn to this last urban legend the most because the

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backstory seemed more plausible. He had heard of mansionies to stand there and for reasons that

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still remain unknown. The owner had set fire to the house in a fit of madness, while his wife

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and children were still inside. Now they said all that remained of that one-time handsome mansion

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was a set of iron gates leading to nothing more than a dirt lot and a burnt tree stump.

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The legend he'd heard was that those iron gates or what remains of them

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lead straight to hell. He didn't really believe that, but it sounded like an

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eerie place to spend an evening. So one night his girlfriend and two friends piled inside of

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his car and headed up there just after dark. Scutted by old leafless trees in late fall,

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the road was anything but welcoming. After a while, cruising Riverdale Road looking for the iron gates,

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he ended up getting off on a very hilly dirt road. After a walk, sure enough, he found some very

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old looking gates. He hopped them over and found what looked like black and dashed dirt.

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Signs that a large fire had happened there once upon a time, but that was it. Finding little else

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to inspect, they gave each other a few jump scares and laughed, but did little more than jostle and

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poke fun at each other. At about an hour or so of being around the grounds, they hopped into the car,

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headed back home, ready to call it a night. It wasn't until he dropped his friends off and

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finally his girlfriend that he realized she was missing her necklace. She figured she must have

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dropped it somewhere when they were exploring past the gates. She explained that necklace had

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belonged to her grandmother and if her mother found out she had lost it, she'd be furious.

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She was just about past her curfew and so she begged him to go back and look for it.

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So he hit her back. There, alone, hoping to find the necklace and bring it back to her.

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He agreed to go back after all Riverdale Road had been a letdown and he wondered what's the worst

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that could happen. He had already seen all there was to see, or at least he thought he did. He

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drove back to Riverdale Road after midnight and this time alone at Weary when he got there the

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grounds looked different. He swallowed hard and reasoned that it was after all a moonless night

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in well past midnight. The road was deserted, no one around for miles. There'd be no one around to

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help him if he got into any trouble. He pressed on anyway, a bang struck at the pit of his stomach

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just as he heard a rustling in the weeds behind him. When he turned and cast his flashlight,

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he saw a little more than tall wild grass. He built up his resolve. He'd already come this far

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and all he needed to do was look for the shimmer of a gold necklace somewhere in the ashen grounds,

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find it and leave. Casting the beam of his flashlight erratically, he wasn't finding anything but bare

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earth. He felt a sudden urge to turn back. He'd tell his girlfriend that he had looked everywhere

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but hadn't found her necklace. She'd be upset, sure, but she'd get over it and things would be

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back to normal in no time. As quickly as that thought had come, the beam of his flashlight

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struck something atop a small mound of dirt. It was a pale ivory white and he knelt down to get a

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closer look. Poking it with the flashlight, he realized it was a bone. He'd seen animal bones

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before and this did not look like any heat seen. Long and chipped, it looked like a leg bone, a huge

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a human leg bone. At that moment, he heard movement behind him again. The bulb of his

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flashlight suddenly dimmed and then went out as if the battery had drained in only seconds.

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He caught the silhouette of a figure some 30 pages away. It was creeping toward him. He froze.

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Fear paralyzed but curious too. Half of him seeking to confirm the details of something grotesque,

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stalking him. Snapping out of his terrifying reverie, he tapped his flashlight frantically.

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To his relief, it came back on. He flashed the light beam right ahead but it illuminated nothing.

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In disbelief, he opened and shut his eyes quickly and then he saw before him the pale

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disfigured face of a stringy-haired woman. Her eyes were hollow and menacing. Her mouth was a

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gait and through it, he heard a guttural sound. It was her voice and she said only, leave.

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His reflexes kicked in and new life sprung into his legs. He ran so fast, never looking back

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and resolved never to return to the haunted grounds of Riverdale Road.

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We're back on the case here at the Phenomena Case Files podcast and this time,

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we're zeroing in on an urban tale from right around the Denver Metro area. You've just heard

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the opener and it illustrates one variant of a common theme. It usually goes like this in so

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many of the accounts I've reviewed preparing for this episode. One after another, the iterations

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of this urban legend. It's about brushing up against the unknown, the dark, peril, and maybe death.

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But somehow just evading danger and living to tell the tale. I never found one in which someone

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may be part of a couple or group venturing into these grounds actually dying or vanishing and

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the survivors living to share the story. The takeaway seems to be this and that is,

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it's a warning. It's meant as a warning. It's don't go to where there's danger. Stay in the safe

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area. Don't go out past, I don't know, curfew or midnight. Don't delve in things that are

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secretive and toxic and represent scary spooky things to you. So the inside of this, if you

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break down some of the tropes or some of the things that happen in that opener and in this story,

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which is usually young people or somebody venturing into where they're maybe not supposed to go to

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innocently try to get a kick out of it and brush up against something that ends up being way, way

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more dangerous and going over their heads. And that is that, well, one of the things I wondered

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about is why towards the end would a ghostly apparition, after going through all the motions

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and the buildup of scaring this kid, what would it say, leave? What would it warn? Stay away in that

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scary voice and give him all that time to escape if it's trying to really cause harm in some way?

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Wouldn't this make the ghost a rather benign figure despite her grotesque appearance? Was this the

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ghost of Wolpert's housewife? The man that went mad and burned the house? Then again, in many cases,

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it appears that ghosts are territorial. They want to be left alone. In their haunted grounds,

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they don't like intrusions, loud noises or alterations to the landscape. Ghosts, according to

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many paranormal investigators, are like the prickly old man in the neighborhood chasing trespassers

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away with a scow and a raised fist. Many cultures, whether by design or happenstance, tend to leave

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certain grounds apart as no-go zones, as sacred grounds, as fenced off cemeteries. There are even

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stories about families who upon discovering the poltergeist, learn to get along with it and just

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accept it as part of the house. They'll say it came with the house. In fact, I just saw somebody

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famous, although not famous to me, pretty much say she bought a house and it came with a ghost.

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So it's something that is a bit of a cultural phenomenon. So shouldn't we let some boundaries

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exist between figments of the afterlife and this life? Then again, one might argue that this world

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is for the living and so we go on taking down old trees and uprooting wild grass, paving roads

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and breaking the ground for new housing developments, virtually endlessly. So let's talk about some of

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the urban legends of Riverdale Road. Listen to this from hauntedplaces.org. The 11-mile stretch

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of winding Riverdale Road between Thornton and Brydon is, according to the local tales, haunted by

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almost every form of supernatural being imaginable. A ghostly white lady, a phantom jogger, demons,

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talking animals, Native American burrow of ground curses, devil worshipers, witch hangings, and even

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the gates of hell. The road signs are said to have spatters and handprints of blood made by the ghost

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of a little boy who was killed here as he was walking to school. Spirits are said to roam here

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in animal form. A coyote is a friendly spirit while a gray fox is evil. One story is of a man who

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murdered his family in their house along this road, then set it afire. There was an old mansion that

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burned down the 1864 Wolbert Mansion, which had been a private home. A cowboy inn, a gambling bar,

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a brothel, and a ranch for racehorses. In another source, this one from local news,

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similarly lists some of the same phenomena. I quote,

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Riverdale Road has a history of alleged hauntings and urban legends. From the existence of the literal

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gates of hell to the story of a man who lost his mind and burned his entire mansion while his family

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slept inside. The road is also home to so-called joggers hill, where a ghost is rumored to have

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followed cars or to follow them regularly and tap on their sides. Other urban legends,

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involved a phantom Camaro and the vision of bodies hanging from trees during the full moon.

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According to a local television story aired in 2019 titled, Is One of the Most Haunted Roads in the

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Country in Thornton? I'll add that in some of my research on anecdotal accounts, there was also

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mention of a hellhound or hellhounds roaming late at night, whose menacing growls and barks could

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be heard in the moonlight shadows of the tall cottonwood patches that skirt the winding turns

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of Riverdale Road. I'll share my initial impressions of when I first visited, and I'll tell you this

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doesn't look like a mountain road skirted by dense woods. Okay, so this is in the Denver Metro area,

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in the Denver Metro area in pretty flat earth, and if you're not from around here and you've never

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been to Colorado, you might think of mountains or just sprouting everywhere, well not in the front

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range obviously, otherwise we just couldn't get around, couldn't build cities. So it's not something

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like an eerie woods, such as you find in out east, say Appalachia. I've been out there and those are

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indeed some scary woods. I like that, maybe because I have an appreciation for the dark atmospheric

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effect that must have scared the wits out of the earliest explorers, and many might say they still

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do. So how did this fairly unassuming section of the northern Denver Metro area become the epicenter

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of reported high strangeness? And let me tell you, even though the primary sources for this episode

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are thin, at least when I set out to do the research, there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence.

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Whereas other phenomena and legends I researched offer the benefit of a lot of literature ranging

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from in-depth articles, curated paranormal blogs, interviews, archives of newspaper features,

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and volumes of books. Riverdale presented more of a challenge. Its stories more localized across,

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handed down tales and first-hand experiences to some questionable, if fun blogs, and of course

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ubiquitous YouTube spooky videos shot in low light or with sepia colored filter that's supposed to

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make things look old-timey or dreamy. Anyway, I like that about this case file because in that sense

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it's fresh and calls for any paranormal investigator delving into it to put together the sources of

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information about this Riverdale phenomena into as coherent as possible synthesis of

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perspective, research, and anecdotal evidence. Even before I sat down to make this show, I still

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came across people who grew up around here and who share their own personal stories. Normally these

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were very brief and most often amounted to sensations, a fear, being watched, of an urgency, to flee even

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despite no obvious signs. It was more as if they picked up on the aggregate of subtly

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skew signs and literally some commented that in the signage along this road it can look as if smeared

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by some unknown and old dried-up goo just like that blurb I read at the outset. And I can tell

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there is a dilapidated atmosphere in the old houses and shacks that look abandoned along some parts

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despite the boom in housing developments that actually make this part of the metro area quite

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expensive nowadays. Still others shared stories we could call them legends that have been passed

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down to them about this area detailing one after another paranormal event along Riverdale Road.

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Yes this patch of about 11 miles of road is replete with tales of supernatural activity.

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Some researchers might point out that in itself is a feature that eats into the credibility of

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Riverdale roads as a genuine place where all this paranormal phenomena is going on.

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Put simply it's hard enough to come across one source of supernatural activity say the ghostly

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lady in white hitchhiking down the road let alone all sorts of other high strangeness events.

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This perspective makes sense and beckons that sound a dodge that extraordinary claims require

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extraordinary evidence. By the way the lady in white is itself a notable American ghost story,

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more famous in the Chicago area where more sightings have been spotted than anywhere else.

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That is not to say that there can't be more than one ghostly lady in white or does the same ghost

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travel to other highways. Could this story have popped up here in Colorado as some midwestern

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transplants made their way to Colorado bringing their ghost stories with them? These are just

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shots in the dark but the questions that arise do give us pause.

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Any rate other paranormal investigators might counter that this counter-intuitive nature

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of a haunted grounds, a site of unusually high spikes of supernatural activity, do have

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some sort of paranormal gravitational pull as it were potentially attracting a host of seemingly

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unrelated otherworldly entities. Weird begets weirder. So back to the story.

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If any of this is true, how and when did this area become this dense paranormal vortex?

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Well it might have started with the Wolford Mansion. Considered a mansion at the time

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described in January 1975 by Dr. Hugo Rodig, former director of the University of Colorado Museum

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from 1939 to 1971, Dr. Rodig had submitted a national register of historic places nomination form for

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9190 Riverdale Road. His application form, preserved by the Colorado Office of Archeology

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and Historic Preservation acronym OAHP, describes the home's physical appearance and its history.

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Attributing the building to an early Colorado settler named David Wolford.

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Two-story and attic brick house built about 1864, fine-looking structure with dignity

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in a favorable position beside a through drive backed by Platte River banks and flood plain.

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The Wolpards were typical of the hordes of people coming west to make their fortunes

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in gold and silver like many other organots making their way west. Wolford found his true fortune

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in agriculture and permanent settlement. Looking at some old photographs compiled by Kitty Rudolph,

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an archivist and contributor to the Denver Public Library, special collections and archives.

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In black and white photographs the house looks like a nine-room two-story brick rectangular

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building with tall windows on both levels and a prominent triangular feature atop.

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Reminds me of a bit of those big east coast townhomes except this is a freestanding structure with no

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other building attached, no garage, and it's sitting on not 150 acres of land.

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There is a barn and brick chicken house on the plot of land which burned down two.

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I found no photograph of the iron gates or how close the chicken house was to the main house,

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but no make no mistake this house looks nothing like a farmhouse. In his application to decimate

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the house as a historical place of interest Dr. Rode goes on, the house is a mansion in a strict

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sense in that it was a better house than that which most people were building in that time.

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Considering when it was built and who built it, it would be one of the most interesting houses in

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Colorado. I tend to agree this would have been a good solid home for an upper income family,

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but nothing compared to what we would think of as the new money built mansions of say St. Louis

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or farther out east. Now let's see this part of Dr. Rode's application statement.

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There is a history in human interest rumors alone. It has been said that the mansion was a

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drover's inn for cowboys, a gambling den in the 1920s, a house of prostitution,

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and a racehorse ranch. It is said one owner became drunk and lost the mansion in a card game,

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and there have also been rumors of murder occurring on the land,

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and because the house has somehow been involved with every aspect of Colorado history,

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ranging from the Indians to the hippies, it is of great historical significance.

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Did you notice there's a lot to digest here? The house's story is linked to quite a variety

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of colorful events passing from the original builder and owner to tenants and new owners.

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There is quite a nugget surreptitiously listed here too, a murder occurring on the land.

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Could this be the source of the stories about ghostly apparitions, sounds of boot heels to the

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present day, and when there is no one around? Then who knows what kind of fused, perdition,

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human suffering, all bad juju stemming from its brothel and house of gambling days.

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This is what happens when you investigate local legends and the paranormal. At first,

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there is only that surface of fightful vignette accounts, but then as you dig deeper, you find

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hints. Hints could point to something, some original source of contention, of trauma,

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the kind of thing or string of highly charged events that lead to unusually terrifying conditions.

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This is the stuff of hauntings. And first, digging through a potential research

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clues, I had the impression that the legend of the man who went insane in an individual rage

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set fire to his house with his wife and children in it. So who was this man, Wolford? David H.

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Wolford was born in Ohio in 1883. As a young man, he traveled to Iowa and Illinois for brief stays

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at both places. In 1859, he began moving west with a gold rush. He followed the Santa Fe Trail

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to New Mexico, then back upwards Pykes Peak, probably the Colorado Springs area,

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included in a party of 16 men, Wolford then traveled to North Park, North of Denver,

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to the Fair Play Breckenrich area seeking gold. While there, the party got involved with Indians

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and then separated. When David Wolford came to Denver, he built a Clayton block on Larimer

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Larimer Street in downtown Denver. He followed the Platte River North nine miles and on a piece of

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land he patented in the late 1850s, he built a house in 1864. David Wolford acquired property

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on patent from the US government September 1, 1869, and was recorded January 21, 1870.

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His land told 145 acres on both the east and west sides of Riverdale Road. The land parcel is legally

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described as south one half northwest one fourth except road of the southwest one fourth except

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parcels, roads, rivers, and public service right of way of section 19, T25, R67W. So there you go,

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simple as that, try putting that in your GPS. Anyway, back to Rotarix, back to Rotix description.

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The street address is 9190 Riverdale Road. Oh, and here I just want to briefly caution anyone

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interested to please restrain from visiting this address unannounced. This, the original

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mansion burned to the fire and a new house was built but it's not built right over where the old

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one was. Remember this was a 150 acre plot of land. So over here it says 145 and I heard 150.

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The both numbers kind of get thrown in there so somewhere in between there is the real amount.

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But in fact to find the exact location where the old mansion sat you'd have to scour over

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over old county land use and property records which probably haven't even been digitized.

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I've been to the area to visit and the house that now sits there is rather nice resembling

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something like a Spanish style house at least to me. It's definitely nice and big and right next

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to what is now a big open space plot of land cared for and designated by the city for recreational use.

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I gotta tell you though, even if you knew nothing about the lore of this place,

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it still looks like a pretty somber creepy place with gigantic leafless cotton trees.

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It was fall when I visited. Anyway, if you have any interest please remember to be respectful

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of private property and never ever trespass. So back to Kappauf, Dr. Rodig's brief account

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written some 50 years ago, he goes on to say that David Wilpert was married in 1864 to

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Catherine Henderson of whose family the town of Henderson is named. They had a son, David, and

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two daughters Lucille and Mary. One of the daughters and the son were deaf mutes. Mr. Wilpert

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was a celebrated agricultureist in his lifetime. The Wilpert's lived in the mansion for about

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50 years. David Wilpert died October 21st in 1909 and is buried at Riverside Cemetery.

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So there you have it. Right at the end, this family, the original inhabitants of Wilpert House

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lived peacefully. The couple stayed married for over four decades. David Wilpert was buried and

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looking through findagrave.com, I wasn't able to find the exact plot or any record of it.

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But the burial is corroborated by this and other historical documents according to the same website

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findagrave.com. I discovered that Riverside Cemetery is also known as Pioneer Cemetery.

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Throughout the course of an investigation involving very old burials, you find that a lot of things

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can happen to a burial site as a dick gets piled on. In extreme cases, and especially as cities grow

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and real estate prices rise, cemeteries get dug out and the buried, re-buried elsewhere so someone

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can build something else. A little side-stip, that's what actually happened in a popular park here

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in the Denver Metro area, Washington Park or Cheesman Park. It used to be a poppers grave

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lot and until it got plowed over and this is a whole discover but the businessmen contracted to

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rebury the dead didn't do that in many cases, leaving the corpses right where they lay into

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present day. And yeah, not surprisingly, this park is also said to be haunted. We've covered quite

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a bit in a short time as we dove headfirst into the high strange vortex of Riverdale Road.

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So let's take a small pause and I'd like you to listen to a brief message on how you can dig

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00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:15,360
into more narrative, more interesting scenarios and support this show along the way. One man's

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00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:22,480
solitary mission into the mysteries becomes an obsession. Coming this fall, Phenomena,

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00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:28,240
a new novel by Robert Cavalier, puts you in the shoes of Julian Carr, a crime reporter turned

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paranormal investigator who almost loses everything that once mattered to him in his search for the

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truth in what could be his one last case. Published by the Wildman's Press,

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00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:50,400
stay tuned for release news on PhenomenaCaseFiles.com and on eggs at Phenomena X-Files and for

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00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:57,280
advanced copies at Amazon and Kindle. To wrap up this part of the Wohlberg House, it was fascinating

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to ponder the history of this house in one snapshot, namely the country's transfer of land

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record in one neat table spanning from January 1870 to January 2nd, 1975. I found this sort of

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archival information. I'm looking at a nice, like I said, a nice table. It's got all the years from

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1870 over the 1975 listed and it's quite a simple thing to talk about, but you think about that's

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the whole history of this house from the beginning to its end. All these lives that stayed there and

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all the things that they must have seen, all the seasons that they experienced, the history that

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it witnessed. You might not know, as I'll mention this later, but this date, the state of Colorado,

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is pretty new. It was founded in 1876, so this house actually precedes the state as a

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state foundation. Pretty amazing stuff if you start to think about it. Recently, there was a movie

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based on a graphic novel that I had heard about and I even added it to my wish. It's one of those

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things that you do and you really don't even act on it. I ever buy it, but it's called Here.

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It's an interesting angle in terms of, I believe the graphic novel I took a preview of it, it's just

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different or maybe the same frame or so of this house across decades and across different families

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and just the things that happen there. If you were a piece of furniture that was somehow sentry

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and observant and you could just watch all these developments go and go and go, it's kind of how

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I think about what a ghost-like experience might be to be something tethered to, almost possessed

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by, say, the house or possessing the house without knowing it, but unable to move and tethering and

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just observing, observing, observing, observing, observing and even having a sense of time just

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jumping forward. Maybe something happened then, 10 years later, there's something else and not

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really gathering it with any degree of high sentience. It's interesting, it's a movie also

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that just got adapted out of that by, not by, but it's with Tom Hanks and I haven't seen him in a

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long time. I'm sure that it will be interesting and good. I still don't know if I'd like to see a

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home movie that just takes place in one shot. I get very claustrophobic when it's just kind of

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like a play-form and like, ah, can we go somewhere? Can we get out of this room? I wouldn't want to be

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haunted or hunt a ghost, really, if that's the deal. If that probably is nothing but the main

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reasons. So back, sorry for the tangent, but back to the house. It did stay in the name of the

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Wolffords and passed down to what must have been a daughter named Catherine Henderson,

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Wolpert. So she didn't hyphenate the name, but it's sort of mentioned there right in the deep

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records as both these names. So Henderson's interesting because it's a little town about,

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ah, 20 something, 30 miles from here. It's not much to look at. I think it's a claim to fame for

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me at least. It's on the way to something else and I think a sanctuary zoo. But it's interesting

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that there's a history there and then now I kind of can tie these real people to this tragic house.

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So it was in her name until 1913. Until it goes to Charles Faden in the same year, 1937.

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I'm sorry. Until it goes to Charles Weisser or Weisser. It looks very German. A lot of Germans

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started to immigrate in the late 1800s, 1900s, particularly to Colorado. So we've got a lot

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of German population. But from here, from there, the house changes ownership two more times in

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1918, in 1937. Notable dates, a little bit 1913. I like dates like World War history

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right one year before World War I. And 1918 is just about the time that we enter the war,

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for the first war, the Great War as it was called. Not thinking there was going to be a second one

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to it. But yes, so in 1918, then 1937 is Antebellum, if you could call that or interbellum, more like

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it right before the next war until it goes to Charles Faden in the same year. So 1937 is a big

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year for this house. It sort of gives you a real kind of a little snapshot of what was going on with

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this house that likely was towards its downfall, towards the very last that it could give. And

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maybe there were some speculators and just getting passed on for a quick profit or maybe someone

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bought it, worse news that you can get as you buy a house. And then it turns out that, well,

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maybe it doesn't have ghost or whether it does, it doesn't, but the plumbing is terrible,

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or the water is not going to come on, or the roof, or if you own a home, it is a little bit

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scary. Although things in back then probably no insurance and not even now, right? Insurance is

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out the window from a lot of regions of the United States. So it finally goes, it stays in this

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fadening for a long, well, yeah, a long time until around 1969. So 1937 to 1969, stays in this

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Baden family or Baden. I'm not sure, also looks a little German, Baden, Baden. And then it goes

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into the very last owner, Joseph V. Famularo, very Italian sounding, who owned it for about

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only six years until January 2nd, 1975. So what happened in 1975? At around 1 a.m. on November 28,

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1975, a home located at 9190 Riverdale Road, namely the Wolford House, became engulfed in flames.

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The two-story brick home believed to have been built in the 1860s was severely damaged. On December

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4th, the Denver Post reported, the flames Friday left only remains of walls of the main building,

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plus a small structure in the rear. No fatalities or injuries were reported as the home had not

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been inhabited at the time of the fire, according to the forgotten past of Adams County, volume one.

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And boy, volume two, you should read, it's really good. Okay, I'm making fun of it a little bit.

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I'm sorry about that. I got a little bit loopy because I've gone into so many records and

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arcane things, so forgive me for that one. But anyway, it goes on to say that there was good

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reason for this, that there were no fatalities or injuries reported. Of course, that's a monumental

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thing, because now we know that in 1995, nothing really happened. In May 1975, when the chicken

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house burned down, the fire department came in, extinguished the fire and put in a report to

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county health authorities stating that the house was a fire hazard and a danger to the community.

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The health department got blessed them, ordered the owner to dismiss the tenants.

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When they moved, heavy vandalism started. Hmm, I wonder if any squatters moved in and created

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the fire. Total speculation, but I need something in the stories and given me very much. Like I said,

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you bump into these, these hints and these intervals and you have to almost read between

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the lines, but of course you don't want to conjecture in such a way that you're just

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confabulating things and creating fiction and, you know, there's a distinction between those two.

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I love fiction, I write fiction, but when I want to get my history, I want to make sure that I

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understand the context. So what happened? Just a few months prior in January 1975, interestingly,

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or well tragically, Dr. Hugo Rodick had submitted a national register of historic places nomination

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form for 9190 Riverdale Road. Okay, so we got to say just wow, there was a tragedy. This poor

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doctor Hugo Rodick didn't get to have this place registered in some historical archive.

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You know, who knows how many hours the reviewer doctor put in, you know, put all that together,

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you know, the writing of it, the application, the pictures and the descriptions of

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any of those back in the days of the typewriters and carbon copy triplicates, if you please.

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Ah, apologies again for the fit of sarcasm, but as I said, this is what can happen when you go

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down the paranormal rabbit hole. You end up whether you want to or not trying to explain one mystery

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with yet another mystery. So what happened to that crazed man? I picture some wild-eyed Jack

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Nicholson and Stanley Kubrick's, the shining chasing his demure wife and children with an axe

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and tabooed a torch to set fire to the house and trap them all ablaze in a fire death trap while

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he somehow slips away, never to be seen or heard of again. Uh, when that didn't really happen,

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now did it or did it? Well, apparently not. According to history, I doubt very much that by 1975

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such huge details would have been omitted. I mean, I doubt that they would have been omitted in 1875.

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Things were of great note, you know, people had to get their gossip, they had to get their news,

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you know, if something, oh, you know what we heard about the, the Wilpert fire and the guzzle crazy and

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and it all or is a damn shame. I don't know. I mean, who would know this? Who would have witnessed

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that? I don't know that I got to the root of of this legend or in fact, maybe I did. And this is

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where it sort of just ends in terms of that. But I have something interesting to sort of

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tease you with and he'll comment more maybe towards the end. And it's about that premise

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that I started out with not just my premise, but I derived it from what I heard from what I listened

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from what I imagine. Obviously, somebody mentions, oh, man, I think I heard about that whole house.

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I think there was an old house in those haunted grounds, you know, it burned down. It was a crazy

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man burn his family. And he just started to think, okay, so I want to know as an investigator or

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anybody delves into this, if you're kind of a guy that or a person that delves into these kinds of

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things, he just wants to go down the rabbit hole, you want to know what is what is the frame the

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historical frame around all of this and what's the relevance and can you find something more can

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you get out of a nugget of truth in the the premise being okay, so if there was a real family and a

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real man and they burned in this fire and I found some newspaper clippings and all this other stuff.

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Whoa, decades later, I'm still getting we're still getting stories of apparitions of a haunted woman

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and dressed in white and she's disfigured or she's not disfigured and what about the children then

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they become ghost poor little things and on and on and on and on. So no, there isn't that connection.

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But I want to stop teasing you and say, does there have to be. See, we started with a premise and

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it's interesting. And that not only was it our premise, my premise here. It was like I said,

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derived from what I read most of the things, you know, that were either trying to get into the story

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or even debunking the story, you just won't. You can't debunk these kinds of things because the

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stories are based on what people experience without any connection to the historical facts.

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So it's not trying to cheat and say, well, if there wasn't a dead person here that died in

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these tragic circumstances, there couldn't have been a ghost. But in a way, yes, I'm saying that

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because I'm saying kind of the inversion of that because you don't really need that. Maybe that's

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not the ghost. Maybe that's something else or maybe that's a completely different trick,

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a completely different kind of apparition, a completely entity. Did you ever think about that?

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Probably not until now. I thought I told myself. So it's not that I'm trying to go in a loop and

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trying to really make this fit and this these stories have to be real. They don't have to be

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they don't have to be real, but they do have a real effect. And one after another person has

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come forward and I've spoken with some to about their experiences. And even I will share that I

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felt a weird feeling without knowing any of these details. I really didn't. I just thought, oh,

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yes, Riverdale Road supposed to weird things. So maybe it didn't know a little bit. But I felt

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it is genuinely somewhat creepy. It has a thing I'll get into a little bit later. And the whole

381
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:35,280
notion of a family killer, it's just horrendous. In a way, I'm glad that it didn't that I couldn't

382
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:41,520
find anything about it. It's just so heart wrenching. You have to ask yourself what drives that kind

383
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:51,280
of person, a family killer, a person that typically it's a man. But regardless of the

384
00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:56,000
accounted for historical evidence that we know about, you know, a tale of insanity, grief,

385
00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:01,280
evil somehow got woven into the legend of Riverdale Road. But we couldn't find any solid

386
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:07,520
corroboration. So what's going on with these 1970s newspaper reporters? Why didn't they dig up

387
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:13,840
into this rumors of a murdered doctor? Reference the good doctor, right? I mean, at least that's

388
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:17,520
something I know that there's something there's prostitution and there's gambling and there's

389
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:24,800
probably fights and maybe a shootout or something, you know, something Wild West. But no, none of that.

390
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:33,360
It just kind of I have to maybe dig even deeper. I don't know how at this point. But I'll see

391
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:41,200
what I can come up with for the moment. It just is a mystery of kind of a door shut on that for

392
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:48,720
the moment. But back to this psychology of family kids reminds me of something else, the rehatch

393
00:45:48,720 --> 00:45:55,920
of unsolved mysteries that came on Newflix on Netflix. Hey, Newflix, that's a good name. Hey,

394
00:45:55,920 --> 00:46:02,320
Newflix, I'm gonna steal that name. Copyright, Newflix. No, Netflix in season one, Netflix in

395
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:08,880
season one had this one story about and just check it out and you'll see I don't want to spoil too

396
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:18,720
much of it. But this basically one about a man who kills his family. He never is seen or heard of

397
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:23,280
again. I mean, it's the complete perfect crime.

398
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:31,760
Horrendous situation. And you just it's, you know, what could be more haunting than that for

399
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:40,720
relatives that survive for the community? You know, it doesn't even me as a stranger, I feel

400
00:46:40,720 --> 00:46:46,480
something for for that. You know, just totally innocent people always thought about the guys

401
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:50,640
like that. And I my knee jerk reaction was like, why don't you just, you know, you can just be a

402
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:55,440
deadbeat dad and just leave. I mean, that's better than killing us all. What are you doing?

403
00:46:55,440 --> 00:47:02,320
But that's not the way the psychology works. And of course, I'm not a psychologist. No,

404
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:09,040
do I play one on TV? But from what I dug into, and I think the show goes into it, but I'm not

405
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:15,200
100%. I might have gone on my own investigation on that when I saw that. And according to

406
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:20,320
psychologists and clinicians, there is a kind of a personality profile for the kind of person,

407
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:27,200
usually a man, as I said before, who tends to take these drastic steps to end his own family.

408
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:36,400
And this kind of act tends to take, tends to be tethered or linked to a person, a kind of person

409
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:42,320
that is so, you know, inconscrutable, you know, you really don't know what what they're up to.

410
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:50,880
And they play a very kind of like all is good type of person, you know, like that guy that's always

411
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:56,560
just, hey, neighbor, how do you do it? Yeah, you know, kind of Midwestern type person,

412
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:03,440
that everything's just a facade, you know, poser. But if you dig into them or more, if you could,

413
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:08,480
you then realize that they, you know, all the while they were boiling with all kinds of emotions

414
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:18,960
and thoughts and created this just perpetrated this protracted preplanned brutality. But to those

415
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:26,880
who study this and earn those PhDs, the phenomenon is rooted in a breakdown in what has to mean in

416
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:34,000
in a person who has to maintain the appearance of success. And that's kind of it in an actual,

417
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:40,560
the kind of family who gets laid off from his six figured banker job. But months afterwards,

418
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:46,800
still gets ready in the morning because his wife pretends to go to work. It's the kind of individual

419
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:53,760
who after building a house of card and cards and lies, finally has to come to terms with the whole

420
00:48:53,760 --> 00:49:01,120
pretense collapsing. You can't come to term with this. And the weight of his lies is complex,

421
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:09,600
so complex, and so protracted over even, you know, months and months, maybe even a year or I don't

422
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:16,000
know how long can go like, like that, eventually reality has to, it has to hit. And it becomes

423
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:23,680
that becomes just strangely intermingled or tied to their self esteem, their sense of worth, their

424
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:32,960
reason for existing for being. And most strange of all is that there's an emotional bind to

425
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:41,280
his family. I want to say his because really don't have any examples of women doing this. I mean,

426
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:48,880
possible and but it's at least the cases that we have have been predominantly male unfortunately.

427
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:58,080
And he just cannot abide the kind of person leaving the family behind. It's too much of a loose end.

428
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:03,680
And so he schemes to send them all to the afterlife in short order while he hightails it,

429
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:09,840
I guess he just kind of runs off. And that's how it goes. Obviously this reeks of a tragic and

430
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:20,560
profound psychotic breakdown in metaphoric and perhaps real terms true descent into hell.

431
00:50:39,840 --> 00:51:08,800
You'll find Sage in Apple books or Amazon and Barnes and Novel.

432
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:15,200
Check out Sage and other titles. You can also go to phenomenoncasefiles.com.

433
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:25,440
Back to the case and back to the big picture of Riverdale Road. There is a strange correlation

434
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:32,400
here a high incident of fatal car crashes. This is corroborated by above normal statistics for

435
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:40,160
serial serious and fatal crashes when compared to the rest of the state. Speaking to that a little

436
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:46,320
or actually directly Sheriff Barnes interviewed in the same Denver nine local news feature aired

437
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:55,040
in 2019 said at night, it can be treacherous to drive with numerous curves and few street lights.

438
00:51:55,040 --> 00:52:01,920
Barnes said there have been 33 property damage and injury accidents on Riverdale Road in 2019.

439
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:08,720
There have also been numerous fatal crashes in recent memory according to Barnes who has

440
00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:18,720
been 30 years with Thornton police. And I quote him now. There have been several fatal crashes on

441
00:52:18,720 --> 00:52:24,400
the roadway during my tenure here basically due to its winding nature and excessive speed

442
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:34,400
these drivers attempt on the roadway. Barnes said then the TV spot switched to a paranormal

443
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:40,880
I don't know the enthusiasts I don't want to say investigator didn't get that sense from her

444
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:47,760
and her last name Smith and she said that she doesn't know too much about the urban legends.

445
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:51,200
So that gives me a hint that maybe she's not a paranormal investigator because that's one of

446
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:57,200
the first things you probably want to be acquainted with. She might be more of a sensitive I think

447
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:02,400
and maybe that's what she was. She wasn't introduced like that in the article or I miss something but

448
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:08,240
she's actually definitely has a feeling on this road. And she says if you stand in the right spot

449
00:53:08,240 --> 00:53:14,720
you experience these moments of dread. She said believe it or not Riverdale Road remains a source

450
00:53:14,720 --> 00:53:21,920
of fascination for ghost hunters. Smith's advice if you're doing your own investigation be careful

451
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:28,080
driving or walking on the road especially at night due to its winding nature and blind curves.

452
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:36,320
So very very good sound advice they're like how they sort of sort of like every time you get these

453
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:42,640
sheriffs and talk about any kind of the lore supernatural anything there was they always play

454
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:48,640
the the practical man you know well it's all this bad driving and you know guess what they're

455
00:53:48,640 --> 00:53:55,120
they're usually right. You can be really afraid of a lot of paranormal activity supernatural

456
00:53:55,120 --> 00:54:03,200
things scary things and really the banal truth of it all is that most people meet if they do meet

457
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:12,240
a terrible and it's you know on driving usually so watch out watch out don't be distracted it's

458
00:54:12,240 --> 00:54:17,440
very tempting to just kind of wag your finger like as a as an authority that like these guys

459
00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:24,720
and just at least leave a bit of a a bit of a of a warning and we should heed that warning.

460
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:30,800
I want to move a little bit to to a different part of Colorado that's

461
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:36,800
it I would say pretty far away from this but since we're already down in the rabbit hole

462
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:43,840
in Colorado I want to make a quick left turn to yet another road that while it doesn't intersect

463
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:49,600
with Riverdale Road it is thought of as one of the most haunted roads in Colorado. In fact

464
00:54:49,600 --> 00:55:02,000
County Line Road is often referred to as cursed as a cursed stretch and no more so than at Third Bridge.

465
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:08,400
County Line Road just out of the sprawling eastern Denver metro area follow the road east of Aurora

466
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:15,520
and you're on your way to the high plains all the way to a small town about 14 miles out named

467
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:21,840
Bennett. Just before you get to the town you're on an unpaid stretch and then an overpass over the

468
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:30,400
dried up Kiowa Creek. This overpass is also known as the Third Bridge. If Kiowa sounds to you like

469
00:55:30,400 --> 00:55:37,200
an American Indian word that's because it is. More than that this dried up creek is none other than

470
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:44,160
the side of the infamous Sand Creek Massacre. According to the National Park Service the morning

471
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:55,200
of November 29th 1864 and I want to stop right there before I go on because this is a factoid

472
00:55:55,920 --> 00:56:03,600
blurb it's true and yet to me this is a very impactful thing about the state a very shameful

473
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:12,080
thing about this territory this western land and this United States. There is a great deal of love

474
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:17,920
of course for many of the things that we've accomplished but I wonder how well do they

475
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:28,000
counterbalance against the things that we've done wrong and the decades that we spent romanticizing

476
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:33,760
the colonization of the west or the expansion the pioneering spirit and those are all good things.

477
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:40,560
If you are back in that time period you think you know you don't think in terms of imperialism and

478
00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:47,520
and you do think of the people that were here as just wasting the land you know they're just living

479
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:51,520
on it and they're moving around but they're not farming it they're not living like we are they're

480
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:57,360
not building houses they're not like Wolford you know and it's mansion that burned down later on.

481
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:04,800
So I want to I want people to think about the story if you're coming across this

482
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:12,800
you know it's a weird intersection I think but all these inlays in history are important

483
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:17,360
and they become part of the culture and even if you want to deny it and even if you don't know

484
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:25,520
anything about it they're there they happen they existed. So this goes like this the morning of

485
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:36,160
November 29th 1864 the chiefs blackheadl white antelope one eye yellow wolf big man bear man

486
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:44,160
war bonnet spotted crow bear robe and wolf gray and little bear were encamped by the big sandy

487
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:51,840
creek some 40 miles north of fort lion when colonel shivington endelments of the first call

488
00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:59,040
Colorado infantry regiment of volunteers USA and third regiment of Colorado calorie

489
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:05,120
volunteers US arrived just southwest of the Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment.

490
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:12,160
Colonel Shivington was never given orders to leave Denver and at around 630 the soldiers

491
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:20,160
would open fire amongst the lodges of the innocent and unaware of Arapaho and Cheyenne people.

492
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:27,120
Over the course of eight hours the American troops killed around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho

493
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:36,160
people composed mostly of women children and the elderly during the afternoon and following day

494
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:41,840
the soldiers wandered over the field committing atrocities on the dead before departing the scene

495
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:49,440
on December 1st. So I have to swallow hard there because my mouth is dry but it's also dry because

496
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:58,720
I'm it's stressful for me to read these things and be a matter of fact about it. Even after all

497
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:05,760
these years this is so hard to read. Now 1864 that was the same year that the old David Wolbert

498
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:13,280
builder of the Wolbert house was married incidentally just 12 years or so years before this

499
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:19,440
territory became the state of Colorado in 1876 and we call that blurb on Dr. Rodick's application

500
00:59:19,440 --> 00:59:25,360
about old Wolbert and his excursions to the mountain to make his fortune quote unquote with

501
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:32,240
a band of at least 16 other men in the Colorado mountains and having some run-ins with Indians.

502
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:42,800
How did old Wolbert make his fortune anyway? Is this all coincidence? Well yes most likely

503
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:49,280
but it does give us pause. Makes us wonder if there ever was a curse upon this land

504
00:59:50,400 --> 00:59:57,280
that could have been cast in the aftermath of one atrocity after another perpetrated against

505
00:59:57,280 --> 01:00:05,840
the peoples who roamed this land for over 30,000 years. If so this haunting has long arms

506
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:13,840
stretching all the way to the wretched modern day. It's said that at the third bridge on some nights

507
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:20,560
visitors to these haunted grounds still hear the sounds of screams the wail of women haunted

508
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:29,840
battle cries and drums as well as the occasional sighting of a ghost rider who can't seem to rest in peace.

509
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:48,800
My final and concluding thoughts on Riverdale Road and even this other road County Line 1

510
01:00:48,800 --> 01:00:57,520
and even the tale the legend whether true and apparently not much to back it historically at

511
01:00:57,520 --> 01:01:04,800
least not in this location is it's interesting to me the the link between grief and the link to

512
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:11,200
hauntings you know when we think of a tremendously traumatic thing happening happening to a person

513
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:21,600
such as losing their lives tragically and way before they should and there's a familiar trope

514
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:30,320
and if we speak of fiction we say trope but if we speak of of this as historians as

515
01:01:30,960 --> 01:01:37,760
folklorists as people investigating this as paranormal phenomena researchers we might call

516
01:01:37,760 --> 01:01:49,440
it patterns incidents we might call it a feature of of of a haunting so at any rate we go from

517
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:56,800
tragedy at least in this pattern here to myth creation which are the urban legends and then

518
01:01:58,640 --> 01:02:05,520
the ghosts tether to a part of this world somehow they can't move on because they're

519
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:16,240
trapped in this loop of pain and sorrow and and and and in between that it doesn't seem to dissipate

520
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:22,800
for at least a long time you know that's another thing I wonder how long will a place remain haunted

521
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:29,840
is it haunted forever is there a variation is there there's a scale strong or at some point

522
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:38,560
weaker or a bell curve kind of pattern where it just is a crescendo and then you know a peak and

523
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:46,160
then it falls down dissipates you know it makes me think of entropy does physics have anything to do

524
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:55,520
with the way that hauntings go do they start off strong and become less and less coherent and

525
01:02:55,520 --> 01:03:02,960
and finally vanish what drives it what energy is needed so thinking about physics the strange

526
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:06,000
thing or might seem a strange thing but that's one of the measurements that we have to

527
01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:11,600
to experience the world even the other worldly phenomena that we might encounter

528
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:20,160
but I want to I want to talk a little bit more I'm sort of going to mix this usually have an

529
01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:27,120
outro I put the music on and there's an outro section where I talk about things and encourage

530
01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:31,440
people to just kind of do it after the music because it'll be a little bit housekeeping a

531
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:38,800
little bit about what we're doing in the show it was a difficult 2024 2025 is a good reset it's

532
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:45,760
looking better we're moving forward with these kinds of stories and these kinds of features and

533
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:50,160
this podcast that's at the moment it in its infancy it's going to depend on you if you're

534
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:56,560
finding this at this moment and you want to reach out to me and you will have some stories to tell me

535
01:03:56,560 --> 01:04:01,360
or you want to be part of it somehow this is an exciting time for you so and the show notes I'll

536
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:07,520
have how to contact me which is basically at this point an email and I gave me instructions I think

537
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:11,760
later before another episode it's about putting something in the subject of glowing the phenomena

538
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:18,320
case files dot com with an X or something like that so I don't get a lot of a lot of basically

539
01:04:18,320 --> 01:04:27,920
just junk mail where we're headed in 2024 2025 is a variety of stories this is the main vein

540
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:38,080
as I've explained before of the of the show of the show episodes that focus on on phenomena really

541
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:48,000
on unexplained phenomena and this can be ranging from ghosts hauntings to UFOs to cryptids to

542
01:04:48,800 --> 01:04:55,680
any number of things and as a bonus here and there or maybe two times or maybe three at the most

543
01:04:56,240 --> 01:05:02,640
kind of a travel log experience where I go to to some place or to carry on an investigation this

544
01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:06,800
place is third bridge road gave me a little bit of pause because I thought that is a place that I

545
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:14,080
need to go and do an investigation and do some measurements and do some trying to do some

546
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:18,800
interviews and maybe even bring them into the show people are really a little bit shy when it

547
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:26,560
comes to them but I'll see how I can overcome that barrier so if you've listened this far it's

548
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:33,600
after the music and it's me talking about what's coming up next and thanking you for having listened

549
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:39,440
so far and for being patient with my learning curve I'm still gonna get better I promise

550
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:51,440
I work full time to know I'm I'm invested in what I do and I in my free time I do dedicate

551
01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:58,720
my time to to creating this show it is we call it a love of labor a labor of love

552
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:05,840
because it doesn't it's not I'm not doing it to try to one day throw a bunch of ads at you and all

553
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:14,960
that crap I hate those kinds of shows and or get up too much on a high horse of some kind and start

554
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:21,680
ranting about causes and things you know I want to just be in a kind of communion with all of you

555
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:27,120
and certain in the terms of we come together by listening to story the way we used to when we

556
01:06:27,120 --> 01:06:33,440
used to gather in a campfire and in your old grandfather or somebody would just tell you a

557
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:39,280
story just out of nowhere because the moon was right because the the fire was crackling because

558
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:47,280
it felt good and that was cold and dark and we can go back to that now and again hopefully in the

559
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:54,720
real sense but at least in this way in a digital sense so until next time we'll keep the fire here

560
01:06:54,720 --> 01:07:02,720
burning at the phenomena case files podcast and have a great night

561
01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:32,720
so

562
01:07:54,720 --> 01:08:02,720
so