Hold My Sweet Tea

Where True Crime collides with chilling ghost stories and Southern folklore. Join us, sip sweet tea, and uncover shocking tales of murder, mystery, and the supernatural, all with a healthy dose of Southern charm and a touch of sass!

Hold My Sweet Tea is a history podcast hosted by Pearl & Holly, with 148 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Pearl & Holly hosts Hold My Sweet Tea, a history show with 148 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #137

  Ep. 137-UPDATE The House on Chew Avenue: What Investigators Found Next

  Sep 28, 202646 minS1

  Send us Fan Mail One minute you think you’re looking at a disturbing collection of staged horror content, and the next you’re staring at evidence investigators believe may capture real violence. We’re back with major updates on the Philadelphia investigation tied to Eugene Horsch and the house on West Chew Avenue, and the story has changed fast since we last talked about that shocking “5% reviewed” number. Authorities now say they’re sorting through more than one million digital files, with roughly 58 different people appearing in the material reviewed so far, and seven missing women connected to the larger timeline. We walk through what police have publicly said, what remains unproven, and why the focus is increasingly shifting toward Eugene’s father, Raymond Charles Horsch (R.C.). Investigators describe a recording they believe shows R.C. restraining a woman, placing a zip tie around her neck, and tightening it until she becomes unconscious. The woman is believed to be Nicole Fussaro, missing since 2018, but we also underline the reality of an active investigation: no remains have been recovered, and detectives still have to separate staged “performance” from potential documentation of homicide. We also dig into the basement urns, the unsettling reporting around a cremation review, the resurfaced 2009 case involving allegations of child luring that was later vacated and expunged, and a second property in Chalfont with old photos that raise new questions. If you care about true crime done carefully, digital evidence analysis, and how investigators verify the truth when a suspect blurs reality on purpose, this update is essential. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show and join the conversation.

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  Episode #12

  STAD Ep. 12 The Hills Have Eyes and We Have Regrets!

  Sep 24, 202625 minS2

  Send us Fan Mail The darkest woods are the ones that feel empty until they don’t. We share a listener submission from Rachel about a late October backpacking trip in the Appalachian Mountains near the West Virginia and Virginia border, where a simple choice to camp off trail by an unmarked logging road turns into a night of slow footsteps, silence that presses in, and something dragging along the side of the tent like fingers on fabric. Rachel and her boyfriend think they’re prepared: maps, emergency supplies, water filtration, first aid, bear spray and a handgun. But preparation doesn’t erase risk when the threat might be human. By morning they find boot prints near their tent, and the second night gets worse: whispering outside the tent, multiple voices, a zipper moving on a backpack, and then lantern like lights shifting between the trees. When Matt says, “We’re leaving,” they do the only thing that makes sense, they abandon gear and hike out in the middle of the night, listening to sounds behind them and realizing they’re being followed. At dawn they face a silent man on the trail, and later an older couple delivers a warning that reframes everything: you don’t want to be back near those logging roads after dark, because people live back in the hollers and they don’t like visitors. We also swap our own camping stories and the rules we live by now, like sticking to established campsites and not advertising where we are. If you’ve got a story you want us to read, send it in, then subscribe, share with a friend who camps, and leave a review so more listeners can find Sweet Tea After Dark.

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  Episode #136

  Ep. 136-America's Most Haunted Hotel: The Historic Crescent Hotel

  Sep 21, 202632 minS1

  Send us Fan Mail A resort town built on “healing springs” sounds like the safest kind of escape, until a smooth-talking promoter shows up with a miracle cure and a talent for making people believe. We head to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and follow the strange, infuriating story of the Crescent Hotel, a limestone landmark that starts as a luxury resort, shifts into a school, and then becomes the stage for one of the most brazen medical scams in American history. We dig into Norman Baker’s rise, from hustles and inventions to the raw power of early radio marketing, where confidence could pass for credibility. He publicly attacks mainstream medicine, sells an unproven cancer cure to desperate patients, and wraps the whole thing in glossy mailers and bold promises. It’s a sharp look at medical misinformation, health fraud, and why “alternative cure” marketing works so well when people are scared and out of options. Then we trace what happens after the con collapses: the mail fraud conviction, the lasting damage, and how tragedy turns into haunted hotel lore. We talk about the basement morgue, the eerie discovery of hundreds of buried bottles on the property, and the reported paranormal hotspots that keep ghost hunters booking rooms today. If you’re into true crime history, haunted places, and the psychology of scams, this one hits all three. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves spooky history, and leave us a review with the one question we should tackle next.

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  Episode #135

  Ep. 135- Forty Years Without a Name: The Donnell Bluain Cold Case

  Sep 14, 202635 minS1

  Send us Fan Mail Windows cracked open on a hot Louisiana night shouldn’t turn into a life sentence of fear, but that’s exactly what happened in Jefferson Parish in 1986. We walk through a tight cluster of home invasion sexual assaults in Metairie and River Ridge where the details kept repeating: a masked intruder, entry through a window, a screwdriver or knife, and women attacked where they should have felt safest. One deputy even came within seconds of catching him, and then the crimes abruptly stopped, leaving survivors without answers and a community on edge. What makes this case so important for anyone who follows true crime, cold cases, and forensic science is the long game of evidence. Investigators in 1986 collected biological material and other crime scene traces without having the DNA technology we rely on today. Decades later, that same preserved evidence produced a DNA profile, went into CODIS, and finally returned a name: Donnell Bluane, a man who had already been convicted and sentenced to life in Georgia for rape, burglary, and other violent offenses. We also dig into the chilling similarities between the Louisiana attacks and the later Georgia cases, plus the additional corroboration that helped confirm the connection. We end with the courtroom outcome, what the jury heard, and why proper storage and renewed cold case work can change everything, even 40 years later. If you care about survivor-centered justice and how real investigations actually get solved, hit play, share this with a friend, and leave us a review so more people can find the show. What part of the timeline made your stomach drop? SOURCES & FURTHER READING Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office After JPSO Cold Case Investigation, Donnell Bluain Convicted of Raping Six Women in 1986 September 3, 2026 https://www.jpda.us/after-jpso-cold-case-investigation-donnell-bluain-convicted-of-raping-six-women-in-1986/ Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office Official JPSO website and public archives https://www.jpso.com/ WDSU News JPSO Cold Case Detectives Reexamining an Investigation Into a Series of Rapes Dating Back 38 Years March 21, 2024 https://www.wdsu.com/article/jpso-cold-case-detectives-reexamining-an-investigation-into-a-series-of-rapes-dating-back-38-years/60255879 Court of Appeals of Georgia Bluain v. State, 242 Ga. App. 125, 529 S.E.2d 155 (2000) January 31, 2000 https://law.justia.com/cases/georgia/court-of-appeals/2000/a99a1740.html FBI — Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) Background information on the national DNA database system used by law enforcement https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/dna-fingerprint-act-of-2005-expungement-policy/codis-and-ndis-fact-sheet

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  Episode #11

  STAD Ep.11-Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers, Bestie

  Sep 10, 202620 minS2

  Send us Fan Mail !!VOTING ENDS SEPTEMBER 13th!! www.225ama.com/vote Please vote for: Pat-e Ian Webster Katt Jarrett Gustafson Ian & Pat-e Ian & Jarrett Orphan Annie Thank you so much for all of our nominations and thank you for your continued support! He’s standing under a dead oak tree at 1:30 in the morning, thumb out in a Louisiana downpour and somehow he isn’t wet. That single detail flips a normal drive into a full-body warning, and our listener-submitted story doesn’t let up from there. We read an anonymous hitchhiking encounter from “Anne,” who stops for a pale, silent stranger in a black coat and learns too late that his destination is Miller’s Crossing, a neighborhood that’s been abandoned for years. As the miles roll by, the conversation turns uncanny, especially when he answers a simple question with “Only since 1987.” Then the car itself joins the haunting: the radio erupts into static, a woman’s voice pleads for help, and the hitchhiker’s ice-cold hand clamps down with a whispered command not to listen. What follows hits every sweet spot for fans of paranormal podcasts, ghost stories, and creepy urban legends: a back seat that turns soaking wet, a bridge that should have collapsed decades ago, and a missing woman’s face you recognize from the news. After the story, we zoom out into the real world and talk about the scary gray area of helping strangers, how fast a “do the right thing” moment can turn dangerous, and what safer options can look like when your gut is screaming. If you love true scary stories and listener submissions, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with a friend who drives at night, and leave us a review so more spooky people can find us. What would you have done at that passenger door?

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