Episode 392 - The Great Amherst Mystery | A True Poltergeist Horror Story
September 27, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn September 1878, in the small town of Amherst, Nova Scotia, 19-year-old Esther Cox went to bed and felt something crawling under her sheets. She assumed it was a mouse. The next night, a sewing box slid out from under the bed, lifted itself a foot off the floor, and dropped. Within days, Esther’s body began to swell violently in front of her family—her fingers, stomach, and legs ballooning, her hair standing on end, her face turning blood red. The room shook with knocking so loud it felt like the walls were closing in. Then, as everyone watched, letters carved themselves into the plaster: Esther Cox. You are mine to kill.
This is the Great Amherst Mystery, a poltergeist case from 1878 that is among the most heavily documented in history—hundreds of firsthand witnesses, a skeptical investigator who became a believer, and a young woman at the center of it all who endured years of physical attacks, fires, and stabbings by an unseen force.
The Haunting Begins
The Teed family cottage on Princess Street was unremarkable until September 4, 1878. Eight people lived in the small yellow house: shoemaker Daniel Teed, his wife Olive, their two young sons, Olive’s sisters Jenny (22) and Esther (19), their brother William, and Daniel’s brother John. The sisters shared a bedroom overlooking the street.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:52) **Introducing the Great Amherst Mystery** - The hosts express shock they've never heard of this case, promising a terrifying poltergeist story with documented physical attacks and a death threat written on the wall.
- 2 (03:05) **The Haunting Begins: September 1878** - The story starts in a small yellow cottage in Amherst, Nova Scotia, where 19-year-old Esther Cox first hears a rustling under her bed and feels something crawling in her sheets.
- 3 (04:02) **The First Major Attack: Swelling and the Wall Message** - Esther's body begins to swell painfully, her hair stands on end, loud knocking shakes the room, and a message is carved into the wall: "Esther Cox, you are mine to kill."
- 4 (06:23) **The Scope of the Poltergeist Activity** - The hosts summarize the year-long ordeal: the entity would throw knives, start fires, and follow Esther wherever she went, making this a heavily documented case with hundreds of witnesses.
- 5 (07:08) **An Under-Discussed Case** - The hosts note that despite being called Canada's most famous ghost story and one of the best-documented poltergeist cases, it remains relatively unknown outside of a few podcast episodes.
- 6 (09:11) **Walter Hubble: The Skeptic Who Came to Debunk** - The hosts introduce Walter Hubble, a 30-year-old actor who traveled to Amherst to prove the haunting was a hoax, but ended up becoming a believer and documenting the entire case.
- 7 (10:46) **The Setting: Amherst, Nova Scotia, 1878** - The story is set in a small, dusty village on the Bay of Fundy, in a quaint yellow cottage on Princess Street occupied by the Teed family and Esther Cox.
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Show Notes
An invisible force plunged a knife into Esther Cox’s back not once, but twice. And somehow, that was only one of the terrifying incidents surrounding the Great Amherst Mystery, a bizarre 1878 poltergeist case involving flying objects, unexplained fires, spirit communication, and an unseen entity seemingly determined to torment Esther.
We’re diving into one of the most heavily documented hauntings in history, including the skeptics and witnesses who saw the strange activity firsthand. But what exactly was following Esther, and why did the haunting refuse to leave her alone?
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New Episodes are released every Thursday and Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us!
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Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan. Original music by Arms Akimbo!
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