Transcript of Strange Solutions (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE) New

Both of our stories today are about people who are just looking for a solution to their problems. However, the solutions they settle on and ultimately use wind up being the worst thing that ever happened to them. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload 2, 3, even 4 times every week. So if that's of interest to you, On the next freezing cold day, go ahead and spray down the Followbuttons' driveway with water, turning it into a skating rink. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called Locked In.

On March 15th, 2011, just after 1:00 PM, 16-year-old Marcus Freeman sat behind the wheel of his dad's pickup truck, belting out the lyrics to one of his favorite songs on the radio as he and his girlfriend Carly drove down a highway in North Port, Florida. The pair had just left the dentist where Marcus had just gotten some dental work done, and in fact, his jaw was, was pretty sore. But he was basically singing right now, as was Carly, in order to distract himself from the pain. And for the most part, this worked. But every time a song ended, it's like all he could think about was just how sore his jaw was.

But Marcus was not like your typical 16-year-old kid. You know, he was sort of accustomed to having discomfort in his life, both physical discomfort and mental discomfort. And he really worked hard to, to be someone who was able to push through discomfort, including things like jaw pain. So he was the quarterback of his varsity football team at his high school, Northport High. And over the last year, he'd really begun to focus on his, his physical fitness.

And so he'd begun doing these really difficult physical workouts that were sort of like, you know, vomit-inducing. And then also, you know, Marcus, he was for the most part pretty mentally well-adjusted. But, you know, nerves were definitely a thing. You know, he's the quarterback of the varsity high school team. He's only 16 years old.

And so, you know, nerves before games and just generally some level of anxiety sort of existed in his life. And so he would, you know, work with a counselor at his school to try to overcome those nerves and try to manage those feelings when he was about to perform. So a different type of pain, but nonetheless, it's like this was a kid who was very forward-leaning when it came to sort of dealing with pain and discomfort and managing it. And all this hard work that Marcus was doing to sort of become the strongest version of himself he could be appeared to be paying off because, you know, for example, the football team that he was the quarterback of, you know, historically for years they had been sort of terrible. But now, you know, under Marcus's leadership and, you know, him being the quarterback, they were now coming off one of their best seasons ever.

And actually it was not even just Marcus and the football team that appeared to be on the upswing these days. The whole school was. Northport High used to have terrible sports sort of across the board, and also low graduation rates and bad test scores. Like, this was not a high-performing school. But now it had, like, totally turned a corner.

Most of the sports programs beyond football were all improving, grades and test scores across the board were all improving, and also just students at the school just seemed happier and more well-adjusted. It was not just Marcus, it was like everybody. But there was a reason for this, and basically everybody who went to Northport knew what that reason was. There was one person to thank for this really positive change: Principal George Kenney. He'd been Northport's principal for a decade now, but in the last few years, he'd made some tweaks to the curriculum and put a ton more focus on individual student support.

And the result of all of this appeared to be, you know, Marcus and all of his classmates thriving. But right now, the pain in Marcus's jaw was really all he could think about, and it seemed to be getting more severe, and it was starting to actually make him feel sort of dizzy. But Marcus had been, you know, working on pain management, and he sort of had some tactics and techniques that he would use when, you know, pain got sort of overwhelming, whether it was physical pain in this case or mental anguish or whatever it was. Like, he was gonna employ the tactics and techniques that he had been working on. And so Marcus, as he's driving and, you know, Carly's singing next to him, he took a deep breath and tried to relax and just breathe and just think of anything else besides the pain.

Just put his mind somewhere else. This was actually literally what he did, you know, during football games when he'd be super exhausted and beat up, but, you know, he's the leader of the team, he's the quarterback. Like he has to find a way to push through that pain and keep going. And this is what he would do. He would do this mental exercise where he basically sort of let his mind drift away from the, the physical uncomfortability he was experiencing and just focus on other things.

And it was sort of like meditative, and it generally worked. But this time it just didn't appear to be working. His jaw pain, you know, kept on throbbing, and he, he couldn't stop thinking about it. And then soon it sort of felt like the pain was, was growing, like it was radiating up his cheek into his whole head, and it was like really becoming overwhelming. But he stayed focused.

He kept, you know, trying to allow his mind to sort of separate from the pain. And all of a sudden, that throbbing pain in his jaw stopped. Marcus relaxed because truly the pain was now gone. At the same time, Marcus was sort of going through this mental exercise, In the passenger seat, Carly was fiddling with the radio, trying to find another good song to sing along to. Carly loved being with Marcus, so much so that she'd just gone to the dentist with him just so they could spend more time together.

She felt like Marcus was super kind and he was funny, and when she was with him, they could just talk and laugh for, for hours, and it would just feel like a second. Except now, as Carly was still fiddling with the radio, she realized that Marcus was acting unusual. He was being really quiet. And actually, when she looked over at him and stared at him, she sort of gasped because Marcus appeared to have gone almost like completely rigid. His arms were sort of stuck out in front of him, like gripping the steering wheel, but in this weird stiff way.

And his hands, they were turning white from gripping the steering wheel as tightly as he could. And then also his head was sort of tilted back and his eyes actually were beginning to roll back into his head. And so when Carly saw that, that like literally his eyes were being taken off the road, she began screaming his name and snapping and clapping and being like, "Hey, what are you doing?" But Marcus didn't answer. He didn't even react. He just continued blazing along at nearly 100 miles an hour in this weird, like rigid state.

And so Carly, she really began to panic. She's screaming, she's grabbing Marcus, she's trying to like get him out of this trance he's in, but he just wouldn't move. He wouldn't look at her. It was like he was gone. And then Carly turned and looked out the windshield, and she screamed as the truck veered off the road and careened into a tree.

And for Carly, as soon as that happened, everything went black.

A few hours later, Carly opened her eyes, and her whole body ached, and her, her Her head pounded, and at first she really had no idea where she was. But then she heard beeping sounds, which were coming from these machines near her, and she looked around and saw the room she was in was very white, and she realized she was definitely in a hospital. And once she realized that, it was like the whole terrible ordeal came rushing back to her. She remembered Marcus and how strange he had looked, you know, rigid at the wheel, and then she remembered crashing and hitting that tree. And so as she's processing this horrible thing, A nurse came into the room and Carly immediately asked them, like, "¿Dónde está Marcus?" and "¿Cuándo podría hablar con Marcus?" But that's when she found out from the nurse that Marcus was dead.

Almost a month later, on April 8th, Carly was now out of the hospital, sitting in her Spanish class at Northport High School. And she was trying her best to pay attention to what the teacher was saying, but concentration was not something that came easily to Carly these days. Physically, she had healed from the accident, but emotionally, she had not. Marcus's death had truly devastated her, but perhaps the worst part of his death was there was just no good explanation for it. Like, why was he acting the way he was acting before they crashed?

What happened to him? Like, what was going on? And truly, at this point, it was still just a huge mystery to basically everyone. Now, the media had come out and said that what happened was Marcus simply lost control of his vehicle. But Karlie was right there with Marcus, and that did not seem like what happened.

Again, Marcus, like, went into this trance of sorts, and it was him being sort of locked in that position that ultimately caused the car to, at 100 miles an hour, veer off the road and crash. But, like, there was no weather, there were no obstacles in the road. It was like whatever caused Marcus to freeze up is what caused the crash, but it was like nobody was talking about it or nobody understood it. Now, there were some theories about maybe what could have caused Marcus to act that way. In particular, at the high school, at Northport High, people believed that, you know, maybe Marcus, when he was at the dentist, had gotten some kind of sedation that maybe he had had a bad reaction to, like a late-onset bad reaction while they were driving home, and, and that caused him to stiffen up.

Or maybe he had just had a, a random medical event that caused him to act that way. However, when his autopsy came out, it showed there had been no trace of drugs or any indication that Marcus had had anything like a seizure or a stroke or an aneurysm. So those theories were sort of pushed aside. But, you know, this tragedy was considered an accident, not any sort of foul play, and so the police were not investigating further. They basically were there on site, you know, they saw what happened, they documented it, but there was not like a deeper investigation happening here.

So for Carly, I mean, she knew that it was very possible that she and everyone else would really never get the answers that they were looking for here, that it would just be a mystery what happened to Marcus. So for Carly, it just was really difficult to sort of just go back to normal life, go back to school, and just be a kid again when there was this huge hole in her life that just felt like it was never going to be filled. But Carly was not the only one grieving here. Marcus had been incredibly popular at Northport High, and after their principal, Mr. Kenny, had notified the student body about his death, there had been a whirlwind of memorial services and student gatherings. And Mr. Kenny had made sure that counselors were brought into school to help kids process what had happened.

And so now, as Carly sat there in her Spanish class trying her best to concentrate, she suddenly heard the crackle of the school's announcement system kick on. And then she heard Mr. Kenny's voice, and he said he had something to tell them. And Carly could tell pretty much right away that whatever he was going to tell them was not going to be good news. Now, normally Mr. Kenny was a very enthusiastic and very sort of positive person, but right now his voice was very solemn, and there was a a slight tremor to it as he began to speak. And then at some point he kind of stopped himself and he cleared his throat and then he just said, "Another Northport student has just died." In the weeks following that announcement, Carly tried to wrap her head around how it was possible that two students had died at their school in two months.

Now, the second death was not similar to Marcus's death in terms of how they died. The second death was self-inflicted. But still, Northport, which was a small, tight-knit school, was not a place where young people just suddenly started dying. Like, this didn't happen. But then, just weeks later, in early May, Carly's confusion turned into outright disbelief when another Northport student died, also self-inflicted.

And this really sent Carly and the rest of the already very fragile student body at Northport into a state of shock. I mean, 2 students dying so close together was already so difficult to process, but 3 was, was unthinkable. And so now it was like the entire student body was on edge, like almost bracing for more awful news, like more deaths. It just almost felt inevitable. However, one night soon after the 3rd death, Carly was at her home in her room on her computer scrolling around on Facebook when she saw a post from another classmate.

And when she read what this person had written, which was very short, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of this sooner. This person's post pointed out that all three of these deaths had one thing in common. So many students and staff and parents at Northport High believed that the school's overall recent improvements in athletics and, and testing and general student satisfaction were all because of their principal, Mr. Kenny. Mr. Kenny was very student-focused, and he offered the kids at Northport a lot of individual attention. But he also had a secret.

So over the last 3 years, Mr. Kenny had been meeting with students and staff members to resolve various personal issues, like people's anxiety, or pain management, or mental health issues, test scores being better at concentrating, like he was there and working with people to try to sort of make them the best version of themselves. To do this, he put the students and the staff members under hypnosis. Mr. Kenny would invite sometimes as many as 2 students a day into his office for these private recorded hypnosis sessions, and he would do the same thing for teachers. He even sometimes brought entire school sports teams into his office, and he would hypnotize them before games to improve performance. But critically, Mr. Kenny not only performed the hypnotism himself, he also taught the students how to do it on themselves.

Mr. Kenny had only ever taken a brief course in hypnosis and certainly did not have a license to be, you know, using it to diagnose or resolve actual mental health issues or even physical issues. Like, he was not licensed to be doing this, But a lot of kids really responded to his sessions and reported improvements in their anxiety and their focus, and some athletes started excelling in their sports. But along with these good developments, there were some alarming side effects. Some Northport parents reported that their children began experiencing these strange personality changes, and they would have these, these blank stares on their faces after they had begun hypnosis with Mr. Kenny. Others said that after these sessions, their child became disoriented or started doing things they wouldn't normally do or began thinking about hurting themselves.

And so after the third student death, that Facebook post that Carly found had revealed that all three of those students had been repeatedly hypnotized by Mr. Kenny. Now, Mr. Kenny swore he was not the one responsible for these deaths. But he was charged with practicing therapeutic hypnosis without a license, and he did receive a year of probation. In addition, the Sarasota County School Board paid a total of $600,000 to the 3 victims' families. And as for Mr. Kenny, he has since retired from teaching.

Our second and final story today is called The Approach.

Shortly after 8 PM on October 9th, 1996, 31-year-old Anthony Irvin walked down a dark sidewalk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania towards a local grocery store. It was not that cold outside, but you know, it was kind of windy and it was dark. And you know, Anthony, he only had a light jacket on, and so he wasn't feeling that comfortable. And so he, he pulled his jacket tight around him as he walked. And as he was walking, you know, all he wanted to do was just go home where it was warm.

But he couldn't. He really needed money first. Once he had money, then he could go home. So Anthony had a pretty tough life, and for the most part, he really was just a, a career criminal. He had not had a regular job in a very long time, and instead, when he needed money, like tonight, he would steal from local businesses or he would mug people.

In the past 9 years, He'd been arrested 8 times for things like robbery and assault. And so for the most part, he was just a huge nuisance to the people in this neighborhood. Even if they felt bad for him, he was just a problem. But, you know, despite how often he committed crimes, his crimes were always relatively petty. And so he really didn't serve much time at all in prison.

He always ended up back out on the street and he always ended up continuing to, you know, be a problem. But tonight though, as Anthony walked down the road, he was not thinking about how his behavior impacted his neighbors. He was thinking about finding someplace or someone to rob. And tonight in particular, he thought, I'm gonna look for a person. I need a, I need a target.

And so he's walking down the road, and he actually began to get kind of worried because it seemed like it was, it it was quieter than usual out on the street, like there was nobody out here. And he started to worry that if he didn't find somebody soon, like, he was going to be out of luck. No money. But just then, right up ahead, a young man turned the corner and began walking up the sidewalk in Anthony's direction. He was sort of a smaller, younger-looking guy.

He appeared to be all alone. And right away, Anthony's like, "Oh my goodness, perfect. I have my mark. I'm gonna rob this guy." And so Anthony, he begins walking towards, you know, this, this unsuspecting young man. And as he got closer, Anthony realized he knew who this guy was.

This was Harry, his neighbor. And he's like, oh my gosh, perfect. Because I know Harry is super soft-spoken and gentle, like he's so calm. He's not going to do anything. Like, he's going to be so easy to rob.

Yeah, it's horrible to rob your neighbor. He's going to know I did it, but what's he going to do? So Anthony marches right up to Harry, and he stops right in front of him, blocking his path. And then Anthony delivers, you know, his classic mugging threat. A few minutes later, a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department named Perry Kelly drove his cruiser fast down a city street.

He'd been called to the area about a mugging, and he was hopeful he would get there in time to potentially catch the mugger, or at least see who they were or see where they went so that maybe he could catch them. And so Kelly, he turns the corner and he pulls up in front of the address where he's been told to go. As he's pulling up, he sees there are two men out on the sidewalk. One is lying motionless on the ground and the other is sitting on top of him. And Kelly's thinking, "Perfect, I have caught the mugger." Like, he's the one on top of the other.

I've caught him in the act. Great, I'm gonna jump out of the car and arrest this guy. But no. When Kelly got out of the car and learned what actually happened here, this became easily the strangest thing he had ever come across in his 25-year career. So when Anthony mugged people, what he would do is he would put his hand into his coat pocket and he would press his fingers forward like he had a gun in his pocket, and he would sort of aim his hand inside of his jacket towards the person he was mugging.

And he would say to them, as soon as he walked up to them, like, "Hey, I got a gun. Gimme all your money or I'm gonna shoot you." And they would often look down, they'd see what they thought was a gun in his jacket, although they couldn't be sure, and, you know, instead of questioning whether really Anthony had a gun or not, they would just hand over their money. Like, it wasn't worth it. "Here, take my money." Then Anthony would take their money and run off, right? So this worked most of the time.

And he's thinking, "Harry, here's my easy mark. This This young, meek kid, I'm gonna use the same thing on him, it's gonna be so easy. And so he walks up to Harry and literally stands in front of him and blocks his way, and Harry actually kinda walks into him and is like, "What's going on?" And Anthony, he delivers the line. He's got his hand in the pocket pretending he's got his gun, and he's like, "Hand over all your money or I'm gonna shoot." But Harry, whether or not he believed that Anthony had a gun or not, he actually had virtually no way of confirming it one way or another. Because Harry was actually blind.

And Anthony knew Harry was blind because they were neighbors. And that was a big reason why he thought this was gonna be so easy. I'm gonna rob the, the slight blind kid. That's what I'm gonna do. But what Anthony didn't realize is that in addition to being blind, Harry also happened to be a karate master and a master wrestler as well.

And so when Harry was suddenly being told, you know, "You're gonna get shot if you don't hand over your money," his instincts kicked in and he grabbed Anthony, flipped him over his shoulder, and slammed him into the ground and broke his neck and killed him. And then he sat on top of his body until police arrived. Harry was never charged in connection with Anthony's death since it was determined he acted in self-defense. And even though the media called him a hero for defending himself, Harry actually felt terrible that he had killed Anthony. He didn't mean to, he was just protecting himself, and so he called the whole thing a tragedy.

A quick note about our stories: they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

The Mr. Ballen Podcast: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. Story editing by Evan Allen.

Research and fact-checking by Shelley Xu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacascio and Cole Lacascio, Perry Kroll, and Jordan Stidham. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production coordination by Samantha Collins.

Production support by Antonio Manada and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner. Theme song called "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballen Podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballen Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballen YouTube channel that very same day.

And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballen. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support.

Until next time, see ya.