The Pandemonium Witches: Murders, Mystery, and Mayhem · TPW3MPodcast

S1.E111 - M is Also for Michigan: Haunted, Horrifying, and the Cannibalistic Great Lakes

·1 hr 46 min·5 clips

Mary Monco was decapitated by an elevator in 1914 - her headless spirit still crawls the 10th floor.

The Pandemonium Witches start in their usual spill of gift updates, medication checks, shopping complaints, and house chaos before they ever settle into the story. The room is loud from the start. Kat, Rachel, Em, and Meg keep the pace fast and loose, with side comments and corrections riding along beside the main thread. Then the conversation turns toward a Michigan stop that keeps getting called out as a favorite. The focus lands on the Doherty Hotel in Clare, Michigan. Opened in 1924 by the Doherty family in downtown Clare, it sits with a history that is more mobbed-up than quaint. During Prohibition, the place became a hub for mobsters, gamblers, bootleggers, and other women of the night. Secret card rooms and bootlegging activity helped turn it into a local legend. The episode connects that reputation to the Purple Gang, the Detroit criminal group that moved through the era's illegal trade. That link is part of why the hotel is framed as one of Michigan's most haunted locations. Staff reports of shadowy figures keep the story in ghost-story territory. Unexplained noises add to the glow. The hosts also keep the tone grounded in ordinary life, joking about shoes, socks, vacuuming, and all the little domestic irritations that never stay off mic. The chaos is not cleaned up. It is the point. The conversation moves with the same stop-start energy as the room itself. That looseness gives the history more personality than a polished travelogue would. At the same time, the episode still delivers the basic facts clearly enough to follow. It is a haunted-hotel stop with a strong local-history spine. The ending keeps the show's signature mix of affection, profanity, and listener-as-roommate energy intact.

As heard by us

A haunted Michigan hotel story carried by banter, personality, and a little patience.

Pandemonium Witches follows a sideways path through Michigan history, settling on the Doherty Hotel in Clare and the Prohibition-era criminal activity that made it notorious.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want Michigan hauntings with true-crime chaos and a very chatty room.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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