MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Legends of the Pet Cemetery (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
15 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What happened on the night of September 21, 2009?
Hello, fans of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. I'm here today to tell you all about what it actually means now that we've moved over to the SiriusXM family. Big picture, it means we are going to make more content for you. Right now, you get one YouTube video a week on Saturday.
Well, what we're going to do now is we're going to have the Saturday upload be the same, but then also the Mr. Ballin podcast. Well, we've begun already filming those episodes like a YouTube video. So that's a second piece of content every week.
Then there's two other shows that you guys don't even know about yet, which means on any given week, you could have up to four new video pieces of content on the Mr. Ballin channel. And also, all these pieces of content will double as podcasts as well. This new content schedule is going to start early next year.
Also, there's one other thing I want to clarify, which is the state of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Redacted. Those shows were created in collaboration with Wondery, but now we're partnered with Sirius, and so we're not going to be making any new episodes of either of those shows.
For now, if you want to hear my podcast episodes one week early and ad-free, make sure to subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Keep on the lookout for more announcements in the coming weeks. Thank you.
In the early morning hours of September 21st, 2009, a man was asleep in his bed in New Orleans when suddenly he heard the sound of metal clinking in the dark corner of his room. And so he sat up. The man's heart raced as he stared around the room looking for where the sound came from. And then suddenly he saw it. There was a figure in his room standing right there, staring at him.
And then the figure began to move towards him. And as it moved closer, the clinking sound he was hearing got louder. The man realized this person, this figure, was wrapped in all these heavy metal chains. And suddenly, the man understood. What he was seeing was a ghost. And this man knew exactly who had murdered them.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right show because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please take pictures of the Follow Button's brand new car and list it for sale online. Okay, let's get into today's story.
In the early afternoon on April 13th, 1985, 60-year-old Dorothy Thompson walked into a bank in St. Bernard, Louisiana. Her hip was really bothering her, so she was moving slowly, but at the same time, she was also trying extra hard not to limp or seem unsteady. She knew the people in her small town liked to gossip about her, and so she didn't want to give them anything new to talk about.
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Chapter 2: Who was Dorothy Thompson and what was her background?
And while she was all, you know, medicated and groggy, the Nodiers convinced her to sell them her land for basically nothing. But when Dorothy realized what had happened, she made the Nodiers move out and then got a lawyer to overturn the deal that she had signed. And so since last year, Dorothy, along with the Nodiers, had been in this horrible legal fight over this land.
And she knew, you know, the Nodiers, Brandon, and Bonnie were furious at her. And on top of that, Brandon, who was this huge loudmouth, just would not stop talking about this dispute. Not only was he talking about it in public, but he also kept contacting Dorothy to sort of talk her into dropping the suit altogether. But Dorothy was not about to drop this issue.
I mean, this cemetery and the land had belonged to her mother, and now it was hers. Like, it mattered to her. She's not just going to give it up. And so now, sitting in the passenger seat of the car, Dorothy watched as Kenny turned off the highway and eventually pulled into her driveway, which was quite long and wound through some thick woods. Because remember, she lives on the cemetery.
It's sort of secluded from society. And as the pair drove along this driveway and got closer and closer to her home, eventually she could finally see some of the tombstones up ahead. This cemetery was enormous, and basically any kind of animal you could imagine was buried here.
Some of the graves were just engraved stone slabs, but others were pretty extravagant, including one human-sized Buddhist statue of somebody's pet cat. Kenny finally pulled up in front of the house and got out to help Dorothy carry in the groceries. And when he was done, Dorothy handed over the cash that she owed him and said she would call him when she had more work.
Then she watched as Kenny got back in his car and drove off back down the driveway. Around 9 p.m. that night, Dorothy poured herself a healthy glass of wine and went to her bedroom to turn on the TV. She'd spent the evening going through some bills and taking calls from cemetery clients, so by now she was exhausted.
But as soon as she got into bed, she heard a phone ring on the other side of the house. Dorothy groaned and took her wine with her as she shuffled down the hallway to the kitchen to answer the call. And when she answered it, she heard her friend's voice, a woman named Patricia Newman.
So Patricia was about half Dorothy's age, and the two of them had been introduced by a mutual friend three years earlier. Patricia had started out as more of a caretaker for Dorothy. since Patricia had experience working with the elderly. But they'd gotten along really well and became quite close to the point where they had sort of a mother-daughter type of relationship.
And since Patricia only lived about 10 minutes away, Dorothy did depend on her pretty much daily for things like supervising her medication and driving her to appointments. In many ways, you know, Patricia was like the one person outside of the hired help that she did spend a lot of time with. And so that's actually why Patricia was calling now.
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Chapter 3: What led to Dorothy Thompson's mysterious disappearance?
And so now she needed them to do a full search of Dorothy's house and her grounds to make sure Dorothy really wasn't somewhere on this property. Vallelongo and Strada assured her that they would do that. But first they needed her to start from the beginning and tell them about the last time she saw or spoke to Dorothy.
Patricia seemed pretty irritated by this and said she had already told the officers everything she had known, both on the phone call and then previously with those other officers who had done the welfare check. Like, can we please just get into the search? But Vallelongo insisted and said, look, I don't fully know the whole story, so please, like, give me some information.
And so begrudgingly, she would tell Vallelonga what she knew. Basically that she had called her friend on the 13th at night to ask if Dorothy would need a ride to the pharmacy the next day. She had said yes. And then the next day comes around and Patricia calls her friend to confirm she's going to swing by and pick her up that morning. But Dorothy doesn't answer.
And so eventually Patricia goes to the house. Dorothy apparently isn't there. She knocks on the door. Dorothy doesn't come out. It just seemed off. And so Patricia calls the police. They show up. They find the back door is unlocked but jammed. They force it open. They go inside. And, you know, nothing's disturbed. And Dorothy is just missing. And there was no rhyme or reason to it.
And so now Patricia was convinced that something bad had happened to Dorothy. And she really was hoping that they could help her. Falolongo nodded and then asked Patricia if maybe Dorothy had friends or family that she might have just gone to stay with. But Patricia immediately shook her head and said no. Dorothy was pretty much alone in the world and almost never left her house.
And she didn't have a car because she didn't drive. Also, Patricia said she had already called around and nobody had seen her. Friends, family, no one. And then at this point, Patricia was very clear. She told the officers that she believed the only reason Dorothy would have left her house that day or that night before was if somebody else had forced her to. Vallelongo shot Strada a look.
He didn't doubt that Patricia was worried about her friend, but they need to look around before they jump to any conclusions here. So he asked Patricia if she could show them the unlocked door and they would begin their investigation. Moments later, Vallelongo stepped into the home through that back entrance, followed by Strada and Patricia.
As he walked around the house, he saw that, like Patricia had said, you know, it was very neat and tidy. There really was no sign of anything that had gone wrong inside the house. No sign of a struggle or a fall of some kind. It was just like the house was left exactly as is.
That sort of contradicted Patricia's theory that, you know, the only way Dorothy would have left the house was if she had been forced, suggesting some form of a struggle. But at the same time, you know, what Patricia was saying about Dorothy is that she was kind of frail.
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Chapter 4: What were the initial reactions from the police regarding Dorothy's case?
And from his point of view, he thought, you know, Dorothy viewed them as sort of like family. And that's also why he said he believed she was selling them her land at such a low rate. It was like a family discount. He said it just sort of seemed like she really wanted them to have her property. And it was actually Brandon and his wife that had sort of insisted on paying for it.
Brandon said, you know, everything about this transaction had really been fine and above board. Until... Patricia Newman got involved. Brandon seemed very frustrated as he began to explain how he didn't really know what had happened, but Patricia somehow got into Dorothy's head and convinced her that he and his wife Bonnie had somehow taken advantage of Dorothy.
And Brandon's saying like that didn't happen. That's not how this went. Brandon said, you know, as far as he was concerned, it actually seemed like Patricia was the one who was taking advantage of Dorothy. And then he said there were actually all these times when apparently Patricia was staying with Dorothy.
And at some point they would get into some kind of fight and like Patricia would get mad at Dorothy. And Dorothy would flee her own house and run to the Nodier's house, like for protection, for safe haven. They said that was fairly common. Like Patricia was this awful person that, you know, Dorothy had to flee from. As Vallelongo heard this, he kind of didn't know what to think.
I mean, you know, Brandon could be lying to him, but truthfully, Brandon seemed very convincing. And also, you know, Brandon just didn't really seem smart enough to be a master manipulator here.
In fact, if anything, Brandon seemed kind of dense and it was hard to believe he could engineer this murder without leaving behind any evidence or witnesses and then also concoct this sort of brilliant story about how Patricia really was the one behind this whole thing. But Brandon's wife, Bonnie, was a suspect too.
And it was possible that, you know, she was the ringleader and Brandon had just sort of followed along. They were divorced now, but if they were wrapped up in this lawsuit with Dorothy together, it was possible they could have, you know, come together and joined forces to take care of the problem, i.e. get rid of Dorothy.
All that's to say, Vallelongo was not going to eliminate Brandon as a suspect just yet, but he needed more evidence before he could connect him to the crime. So ultimately, he told Brandon he could leave and that he would be in touch. And then Vallelongo watched as Brandon and his lawyer stood up and filed out of the room.
It was sort of funny in a dark way that just a few days ago, Vallelongo couldn't see any reason why anybody would want to kill Dorothy. And now it was like everybody in Dorothy's life, Elkin, Patricia, and now the Nodiers, wanted Dorothy's money and so really would benefit if she went away. And so now he just had to figure out who wanted Dorothy gone the most.
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