True Crime: Hex Murders

Many of you have may have heard of the Nelson Rehmeyer murder that took place in 1928 because there was a documentary called Hex Hollow that came out back in 2015. But have you heard of the hex murder that took place in 1934? I hadn’t until I started going through old newspaper article and I found an entry from 1976. Today, we’re going to talk about both murders and their connection to a larger phenomenon of murders where the killers used the excuse of a hex for cold blooded murdered. The strangest part about this defense, it partially worked.

Before we talk about the cases, we have to go back in time 1820 when a man named Johann George Hohmann published a book called “Long Lost Friend” Hohmann had moved to Berks county in Pennsylvania in 1799, escaping religious persecution in Germany. The book contained incantations and spells that can be used to help both humans and animals. The “plain folk”—Amish, Dunkers, and Mennonites were open to powwowing, but some Lutherans and German Reformed church goers were also open to the information in “The Long Lost Friend.”

Want to know more? Head over to the Braylee Parkinson YouTube channel for the rest of the story: Hex Murders