Lived Once, Buried Twice (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

In a chilling trio of true stories, MrBallen reveals how the line between life and death is often thinner than we imagine. The first tale centers on Alice Knott, a reclusive student whose death from gas poisoning was caused not by human malice but by her beloved parrot, Polly—whose habit of inhaling gas to get high led to a fatal buildup in her room. The second story follows obstetrician Linda Gowdy, whose premonition of dying in a car crash on a Caribbean cruise led her to cancel the trip—only to be murdered in her own car days later, a tragedy her boyfriend Tim Stryker would later be convicted of perjury over. The final and most haunting story is about John McCall, who buried his wife Marjorie after she died of fever, only to open his door days later and see her—alive, missing a finger, and covered in dirt—after grave robbers cut it off to steal her wedding ring. The shock of seeing her resurrected from the grave caused John to suffer a fatal heart attack. The episode closes with the real headstone at Shankill Cemetery: 'Lived Once, Buried Twice.' These stories expose the terrifying fragility of perception, the cost of misinterpretation, and how the truth—especially when it comes to death—can be both stranger and more brutal than fiction.