Recently, the nation turned its attention to Massachusetts and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, leading to serious discussion about mental health and the consequences of a mother's heinous actions.

However, in the spring of 1960, one mother from Pennsylvania left a nation asking the very same questions when she went on trial for taking the lives of her five children. This is the astonishing true story of Ruth Mae Urdanivia and her even more astonishing fate.

The strange but true story of Faustin Wirkus, a coal region breaker boy who found fame thousands of miles away from the anthracite fields as ruler of a Caribbean island.

Summer Break! Pennsylvania Oddities will return on September 1!

Born on Christmas Day of 1856 to George and Mary Brown, Mary E. Brown spent her youth in the Chester County Quaker community of Ercildoun, an important stop on the Underground Railroad and an early center of the American abolitionist movement. There she lived until the day she met a laborer named George Toogood and fell in love. They were soon married.

After being deserted by her husband, Mary settled in West Chester, operating a boardinghouse situated in Pyle's Alley. Known throughout town as Mamie Toogood, Mary was a jovial woman with a big heart who opened her home to any of the local black population who needed a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

Unfortunately for Mamie, her kindness began to attract the wrong sort of characters and gradually her reputation began to tarnish. And then, in February of 1906, there occurred an unfortunate event that forever altered her fortunes. This is the story of Mamie Toogood, a Foundational Black American woman who played a role in one of the strangest mysteries in West Chester history.