Badger Bizarre
It runs a 165 miles from Portage to Green Bay, and for over 300 years, it has never stopped collecting the dead. War. Fire. Disease. Explosions. Murder. And beneath all of it — the stories that won't die: A king once ordered a genocide to control it. A mill worker ran into a fire he couldn't survive to save it. A drowned chief who still wanders a cemetery in full dress. A boat that killed 9 people still missing in the mud a century and a half later. And of a corridor of water that has learned exactly how to keep its secrets, and only give up what it wants. This episode, we...
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In the summer of 1994 in Baraboo, a fourteen-year-old boy named Chris Steiner went to bed early on the night of July 3rd, anxious for the upcoming July 4th Holiday. By morning he was gone. A week later, his body was pulled from the Wisconsin River. The cause of death: accidental drowning. Case closed. But the bones told a different story — one that authorities in Columbia County apparently never wanted to hear. It would take another missing child, another house, and forty-three hours of unimaginable horror before anyone was forced to listen. Scott and Mickey discuss the case of the...
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On a quiet spring morning in La Crosse, a twenty-year-old woman was suddenly gone — dead of a heroin overdose in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. What followed was a legal case that almost never happens: two men charged not with drug delivery, but with homicide. At the center of it all is a law named for a basketball star who died nearly a quarter century earlier — a law that has since sent hundreds of people to prison across Wisconsin, and that raises questions we still don't have clear answers to. Who is responsible when addiction ends in death? Where does love...
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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 headines 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...
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On December 10th, 1967, a crowd was gathering outside of The Factory in Madison, as Otis Redding was scheduled to play 2 shows there that evening. The Factory was a newer venue in Madison, and Otis Redding was one of the fastest growing musical acts in the world, just coming off his renowned performance at the Monterey Pop Festival earlier in the year. Otis never played that night, and the tragedy of why will forever hover over the city of Madison like a shadow, also launching Otis into immortality. Scott and Mickey discuss what happened in Madison over Lake Monona, Otis' personal...
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In June of 2007, police in Portage, WI were following-up on a tip regarding a missing persons case from Florida, when they found a literal "House of Horrors" in a local rental property. The sheer amount of abuse and torture, ultimately culminating in murder, created headlines nationwide, and led to numerous states reviewing and ovverhauling state laws in regards to foster care and oversite. Although bodies buried in the back yard and tortured children locked in closets sounds like fodder for horror films, this was realty for a house in Portage. The investigation which unfolded, uncovered...
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A collection of our conversations with others at the Great Lakes Paranormal Conference this past September. Interviews include owners of the Humbird Hotel Bar & Grill, Ghosts & Us, and 'friends of the show', Katie Skuban and Pat Haberman. The opening banter includes initial thoughts on the current happenings in the continuing saga of Morgan Geyser. Sit back and enjoy the conversations, here, on Episode 59 of Badger Bizarre, "The 3rd Annual Halloween (Thanksgiving..?) ParaShare." Please visit our sponsor: Email us: ...
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Pirates are not usually associated with the Great Lakes, as most folklore and real historical seafaring adventures took place on the southern high seas, such as The Bahamas or the Carribean. That does not mean, however, that pirates did not exist in the Great Lakes region, because they most certatainly did. The most famous of which was "Roaring" Dan Seavey, whose playground was Lake Michigan and the port cities around her. Although not having a peg leg, a hook for a hand, or likely burying any treasure, Dan Seavey's escapades on and around the lake repeatedly led to the...
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In July of 1971, an unkown, incoherent teenager was found outside of St George Catholic Church in the town of Wilson in Sheboygan County. Presenting as conscious, but non-responsive when authorities were called, an investigation quickly began into his identity, and turned into one of the darkest days in Sheboygan's storied history. 5 lifeless bodies were found throughout the city, another previous death by alleged suicide was called into question, and Sheboygan was never again the same. Scott and Mickey discuss this case, its legacy, and the attempts of some to get a...
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In July of 2021, Bart and Krista Halderson, of suburban Dane County, were said to have gone up north to their cabin in Langlade County to celebrate the July 4th Holiday with friends. After days of no contact with their family back home in Windsor, WI, they were reported missing by their 23-year-old son, Chandler. When they were finally found by police, the shock and awe of what happened to Bart and Krista still has not worn off the small, tight-knit community north of Madison, as the story horrified the state and left a nation in disbelief. Scott and Mickey discuss the...
info_outlineIt runs a 165 miles from Portage to Green Bay, and for over 300 years, it has never stopped collecting the dead.
War. Fire. Disease. Explosions. Murder. And beneath all of it — the stories that won't die:
A king once ordered a genocide to control it. A mill worker ran into a fire he couldn't survive to save it. A drowned chief who still wanders a cemetery in full dress. A boat that killed 9 people still missing in the mud a century and a half later. And of a corridor of water that has learned exactly how to keep its secrets, and only give up what it wants.
This episode, we follow the Fox River mile by mile. Through war, through fire, through true crime cases that never got a real ending, and the ghosts people swear are still walking its banks because of it.
The Fox River gave this valley its life. Scott and Mickey discuss some of what it took as well.
Hear the stories you likely have never been told about a beloved Wisconsin waterway, on Episode 65 of Badger Bizarre, "The Fox River: Corridor of Death."
Email us: badgerbizarre@outlook.com
Opening Trailer:
Ed Gein Sound Byte : "Hard Copy" - Paramount Domestic/CBS Televsion
Frank Lloyd Wright and Jeffery Dahmer Sound Byte - WISN 12 News - Milwaukee, WI
Jeffery Dahmer Quotes: "Inside Edition" - King World/CBS Television/CBS Media
Attribution for Music:
Trailer: Composer: Adam Phillip Zwirchmayr https://www.pond5.com/
Intro: https://pixabay.com/
Outro: Composer: Viacheslav Sarancha https://www.pond5.com/
Attribution for logo design:
<a href="https://www.freeiconspng.com/img/47851">Red Claw Scratch Photo</a>
Sources:
Appleton Post-Crescent - Archives
Edmunds, R David - "The Fox Wars; The Meskwaki Challenge to New France"
Green Bay Press Gazatte - Archives
Oshkosh Northwestern - Archives
Portage Daily Register - Archives
Ripon Commonwealth Press - Archives
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