Hexes, Hair, and the Long Lost Friend — Walking Through the Hex Murder

Some stories demand more than just reading. They demand an hour or two by lantern-light, with a notebook and your boots on the cold floorboards of memory. The murder at Rehmeyer’s Hollow is one of those stories. Folklore and law collide. Magic and cold facts. Curses and courtrooms. This is that collision, laid out.

The Claim: Why They Went to the Hollow

One of the accused, John Blymire, claimed he and others were under a curse. Misfortune, fear, sickness — signs, he believed, that they had been “hexed.” He visited a woman known locally as the “River Witch,” who told him the curse came from Nelson Rehmeyer. The cure? A lock of hair or Rehmeyer’s copy of the old powwow book The Long Lost Friend. That was what would break the spell. That was the solution he believed in.

In his own testimony, Blymire said he entered the house not strictly to kill — but to get that hair or book. Not to steal cash, but to lift what he believed was a spiritual weight pressing on his life.

The Confession: Words Under Oath

Under questioning at trial, Blymire’s words were startling in their bluntness. When asked why he went to the house he said: “I went there to get a lock of hair, or the book called the Long Lost Friend.”

Pressed further on his motive, he answered plainly: “To break a ‘spell’ that Rehmeyer had put on me, and Curry, and the Hess family.”

Later, when asked whether killing Rehmeyer had broken the spell, his answer was stark: “Yes.” He said afterward that he could eat again. Sleep again. “The witches cannot bother me anymore.” Words like that may feel foreign now — but at that moment, in that hollow, they carried everything.

The Verdict: A Courtroom That Would Not See Magic

But the law does not parse spells. The court would not accept curses or powwow-logic as a motive. Instead, the case was framed as one of “robbery turned violent.” Many of the supernatural references — hair, book, hex, witchcraft — were quietly excluded from the official record.

When the defendants entered the courtroom, they stepped into a different reality. The one where intent is measured in legal terms, not in fear-fueled folk belief. The map of their motive was redrawn by judges and jurors so that magic became irrelevant. The crime became tidy. Legal. Murder. Nothing more, nothing less.

Two Worldviews — Overlapping, Clashing

What stands out hauntingly is the gap between two worldviews — the one held by the men who walked into Rehmeyer’s house, and the one defined by the courtroom in 1929. On one side: power in books, hair, curses, and hexes. On the other: statutes, verdicts, verdict forms, and prison terms. The two did not line up. They never did.

That clash leaves a scar in the historical record. Trajectories of belief and desperation get erased when they fail to conform to legal language. But perhaps what we carry forward is not the verdict. Perhaps it is the belief. The fear. The longing for relief from a curse no one but them could feel.

Why It Still Matters

• It shows a moment when folk belief — old, living, urgent — collided with modern legal judgement. It forces us to ask: what gets lost when official history refuses to record beliefs?
• It preserves a voice often silenced: a man who thought the world was full of unseen forces, and described them plainly under oath.
• It reminds us that history isn’t just facts and verdicts. It’s fear, faith, desperation, and the stories people tell to survive bad luck or broken lives.

A Closing Thought

Walking away from this story — from those old pages, that skinny courtroom, and the hollow that smells of dust and woodsmoke — you carry something lighter than a book, heavier than a verdict. You carry the memory of a world where belief was real, even when the world around you refused to see it.

If Rehmeyer’s Hollow still exists, if that house still stands, you could wander down a cold country road and listen for echoes. Maybe you’d feel, just under your skin, the bated breath of a man who thought he was cursed — and in the moment, believed murder might be his cure.

Further Reading & Sources

This post draws on reprinted 1929 trial testimony, court summaries, and modern historical analysis. Key sources include archived press excerpts and the preserved pamphlet-style record of the trial confession and verdict.

Published under a lantern light. Thoughts welcome in the comments.

I found several direct (or near-direct) quotes and confession-style statements attributed to John Blymire (and retellings of what the group claimed) — showing how the “hex/curse” motive was expressed. I also show how the legal record later largely ignored or suppressed those claims. As always: “what was said” vs. “what was accepted.”


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📜 What the Defendants (or Their Confessions / Associates) Claimed — Witchcraft, Curse & Hex Belief

According to accounts of the case, Blymire visited a woman known as Nellie Noll (the so-called “River Witch of Marietta”), who told him that the misfortunes he and two others suffered were the result of a curse laid by Nelson Rehmeyer.

The instructions allegedly given by Noll were: obtain Rehmeyer’s copy of the powwow book The Long Lost Friend or a lock of his hair — then burn the book or bury the hair “six feet underground” in order to “break the hex.”

As summarized in a pamphlet-style “powwow” record — apparently quoting from the trial testimony or confession — Blymire said:

> “I went there to get a lock of hair, or the book called the Long Lost Friend.”
“To break a ‘spell’ that Rehmeyer had put on me, and Curry, and the Hess family.”



When asked if killing Rehmeyer “broke the spell”, Blymire allegedly replied: “Yes.” He claimed afterward that he could now “eat, sleep and rest better,” and that the “witches cannot bother him anymore, nor can any ‘spell’ be again placed on him!”

Further narrative accounts state that the group truly believed they were victims of sustained bad luck — illness, failed crops, animal problems — and interpreted those as evidence of a curse, not just misfortune or coincidence.


So the motive as they framed it was spiritual/magical: fear of curses, belief in powwow traditions, desire to “undo” a hex by destroying or burying key magical items (book, hair), and they genuinely thought that killing the alleged witch would end the curse.


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⚖️ What the Court / Trial Record Accepted — Focus on Violence, Murder, Robbery; Magic Largely Ignored

During the trial for the murder of Nelson Rehmeyer, the prosecuting authorities — according to retrospective accounts — argued the motive was robbery, not witchcraft, even though the seized valuables were meager (the “robbers” reportedly took only a small amount, something like a few dollars), and the dramatic magical motive was evident in the confessions.

In court, whenever the defense attempted to present the “witchcraft / curse” narrative (via recollection of consultation with Noll or the group’s beliefs), those arguments were repeatedly rejected by the judge and district attorney.

According to one detailed post-trial excerpt (an archival-style document reproduced in a pamphlet), when Blymire was questioned on the stand, he was asked:

> “Why did you go to Rehmeyer’s house then, if not to kill him?”
He replied: “I went there to get a lock of hair, or the book called the Long Lost Friend.”



But even though he admitted the “spell” / “hex” as his motive — and explicitly stated he believed murder would break the spell — the court and record treated the crime as premeditated murder / robbery / violent assault, not as a “witchcraft-driven” or “hex-related” crime. The magical claims were effectively expunged from the official narrative.

The disparateness between confession and verdict – particularly the ignoring of the supernatural motive — suggests a clear judicial decision to treat the case within “rational / criminal” frameworks, rather than as a trial of occult crime.



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🔥 What This Tension Suggests — Magic, Law, and the Erasure of Belief

The defendants didn’t just mention magic in passing — they framed their entire motive around folk-magic logic: hexes, curse removal, magical items, ritualistic demands. Their confessions show a genuine belief in the supernatural.

But the court — representing mainstream legal and cultural norms — refused to legally recognize magic as motive or defense. Once behind the docket, everything became “robbery, assault, murder.” The “spell” story was legally irrelevant.

The result: the folkloric dimension was erased from official history. Newspapers and public records from the trial don’t center the witchcraft story; the judgment treats it as a plain crime, not spiritual warfare.



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🧾 What This Means for Researchers (Like You)

Any attempt to reconstruct “what really happened” must treat the “witchcraft motive” as authentic within the worldview of the accused — not as a retelling artifact, but as their own stated belief.

Legal records — trial transcripts, court dockets — will intentionally avoid or minimize the magical aspect. So to recover the belief-based motive, you must rely on confession-transcripts (if available), newspaper reportage of pre-trial statements, or secondary folklore-history sources.

Because those records were suppressed in court, there will always remain a gap — a tension between “what was said” & “what was judged.” This is not just a difference of opinion, but a deliberate exclusion by the judicial system of spiritual belief from material fact.



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Alternate History File — Hex Hollow (Nelson Rehmeyer), 1928

Reality is out of touch with me, actually.

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Driving the Mrs crazy doing Syney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre doing Christmas jokes.

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Underrated Skill: Sitting in silence without needing to fill it.

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It’s very sexy of you to stop hiding your light to satisfy the people who would rather stay in darkness.

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https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/illum4.html

A Hollow, a Book, and the Smell of Rain — On the Hex-House of Rehmeyer’s Hollow

There is a hollow in southern Pennsylvania — deep, wooded, secretive — where the shapes of hills cradle a story that smells of rainwater, eggs, whispered prayers, and old hurt. It is the story of the The Long Lost Friend, of faith-healing and folk magic, of suspicion and fear, and of a man named Nelson D. Rehmeyer whose death left a scar on the hollow that still echoes.

The Long Lost Friend was no tome of modern science or medicine. Compiled in the early 1800s by a German immigrant healer, it was a ragged collection of charms and cures: how to cure warts or snakebites, to protect cattle from witchcraft, to cast spells or hexes, to heal the sick — even animals — by what might seem like superstition, but was for believers a hand reaching through fear toward hope. (Haint.Blue)

Powwowing, Braucherei, and the Culture of Healing

For generations the people of the hollow practiced this folk-medicine tradition, known as powwowing or braucherei — not as a performance or spectacle, but as part of everyday life. Rainwater boiled with an egg, left by an anthill; whispered words, stitched in silence; charms carried close to the body. Remedies drawn from fear and faith, from desperation and tradition. (Haint.Blue)

To many outsiders, these practices seemed strange — arcane, even dangerous. To some, they were a comfort, a last hope for the sick, the poor, the bruised. Among the hollow’s folk, the powwow-doctor was not a curiosity but a quiet anchor. Nelson Rehmeyer was that anchor. As both farmer and healer, he treated neighbors and strangers alike; rumors say he asked for nothing or only the barest of thanks. (Haint.Blue)

Fear, Hexes, and the Night of Blood and Fire

But fear can twist faith into suspicion. Among those treated by Rehmeyer was a young man plagued by illness — what locals called “opnema,” a wasting sickness attributed to hexes. Over time his life unraveled: his children died, his job vanished, his mind frayed. Convinced he’d been cursed, he turned his fear outward. Along with two others, teenagers drawn in by ruin and superstition, he was told that the only cure was to destroy Rehmeyer’s book — or bury a lock of the healer’s hair deep into the earth. (Haint.Blue)

On the night of November 27, 1928 — Thanksgiving Eve, under the glow of a full moon — they walked into the hollow, ropes and plans in hand. When Rehmeyer refused their demand for the book, violence erupted. The old man was bound, bludgeoned, forced to the floor. Then they soaked him with oil, piled blankets and mattresses over him, set the house aflame, and fled. (Haint.Blue)

Their plan counted on fire to erase the crime. But fire, like faith, is fickle. The house didn’t burn down. The victim’s blood and burnt flesh doused the flames — a grotesque self-extinguishing. Days later a neighbor discovered the body. The trio was soon caught; in a trial that shocked newspapers across the country, they were convicted. (Haint.Blue)

Aftermath — Memory, Silence, and the Struggle for Legacy

In the wake of the murder, powwowing — once a quiet tradition of healing — became heated public scandal. The trial was sensational, headlines smeared superstition, and for many in Pennsylvania the once-normal ways of the hollow became a mark of shame. (Haint.Blue)

Years passed. The house fell silent. Woods reclaimed broken windows. Trees ascended through the floorboards. But the hollow remembers. A great-grandson of the murdered man, Rick Ebaugh, inherited the house. He carries with him not only the scars of history but a pocket watch said to have stopped at the exact minute of Rehmeyer’s death. He has tried to restore the house — to show the floor where blood once pooled, to set a glass over the charred hole in the wood so visitors can imagine what transpired. He plans to open the home to the public, to tell the story of healing that became hatred, of hope that turned to horror. (Haint.Blue)

But local officials denied his request to make the house a formal historical site. Some in the township would rather the story remain buried. The hollow seems to resist being exposed — as if the woods themselves sigh in relief when the past is left alone. (Haint.Blue)

The Hollow Whispers Still — and We Should Listen

I find myself drawn to this tale not only for its darkness, but for the fragile human threads it reveals. Faith healing, folk magic, community trust — these are not cartoon tropes of witches and curses, but real beliefs borne from real fear, hardship, longing. The rituals born of desperation — rainwater, eggs, anthills — feel like whispers of humanity trying to claw hope from the soil.

And then there is the murder: the conflation of fear and superstition, the turning of kindness into suspicion — a horror wrought not by demons, but by people. The hollow is not haunted by ghosts or curses, but by memory: what happens when trust becomes fear; when tradition becomes taboo; when a book meant to comfort becomes the spark of violence.

Perhaps that is the real magic. Not in spells or charms. But in memory, in the hollow’s silence, in the slow tellings of the old book, and the slow reckoning of history.

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Thanksgiving Day, 2025

In laws are out of town, just me and Mrs Bear and Pearl

Today’s supper is cottage pie, broccoli and asparagus.

Went into the day slowly, watched the 99th Annual Macy’s Day Parade, the Westminster Dog show,  and assorted holiday and Jane Austen-themed hallmark movies tonight.

While the cottage pie cooks, we are watching Pumpkin Everything.

Wandered through a full little Wednesday today, the kind that stitches itself together from small comforts and gentle surprises. We started out a bit early for my trim, so we ducked into Sunnyside Market, my first visit and a pleasant one. Picked up a snack and a hit of caffeine, the kind that makes the morning feel like it is stretching its arms before waking up. Bright shelves, friendly smells, a nice soft ease to the place.

Then on to @misfitbeautyclub, where Michaela worked her usual hair magic and gave me a stellar midi cut. There is always that moment after a fresh trim when the air feels lighter around your shoulders, like someone opened a window in your head. My lovely companion and I stepped back out into the day feeling reset.

We wandered over to the 16 West Marketplace next, where @roaflags_downtown waits like a pocket universe of tiny creativity. RoaFlags, the Roanoke Free Little Art Gallery, did not send any finished pieces home with us this time, although a few certainly tried to charm their way into our hands. Instead, we explored the little supply drawer. Picked up a bag marked “art this house” with a chunky extruded pentagon shape inside, like a Monopoly house that got promoted. Also brought along a “make a rustic ornament” kit, a slice of tree branch with bark still clinging and a small drilled hole for hanging. Both projects are waiting patiently for paint, imagination, and maybe a quiet evening soon. They might become keepsakes, or maybe we will return them to another little art gallery for someone else to discover.

Vintage Vault was calling next, as it always does. Collected a small stack of CDs, some destined to become holiday gifts and most to become the soundtrack of future back road explorations. The clatter of jewel cases always feels like flipping through little memory tiles. Found issue number 3 of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction as well. A time capsule from another hopeful timeline.

On the ride home, we opened one of the new CDs. Mary J. Blige’s Christmas album filled the car with warm vocals and early holiday glow. Perfect for a winding drive through late November Roanoke.

Now we are home, resting and letting the day settle. Pride and Prejudice is playing, all warmth and wit and familiar comfort. The kind of evening where the house feels like it is exhaling with us.

A haircut, a new coffee stop, tiny art treasures with potential, vintage finds, music for winter roads, Mary J. singing us home, and Austen closing out the night. A day of small delights, humming quietly, just right. 

#RoanokeVA #16WestMarketplace #SunnysideMarket #MisfitBeautyClub #VintageVaultRoanoke #FreeLittleArtGallery   #UnknownWorldsOfScienceFiction #CozyDay #WanderingWednesday #MaryJBligeChristmas #PrideAndPrejudice

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/drstrange3.html

Building a little tough screen prop that can run html for a Mother Box, designed to run as a phone “wallpaper” and part of a standalone esp32 “cheap yellow display” device in a case, that uses touch screen, and internal speakers.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/motherbox10.html

Core Functionality

* Kirby-Styled Interface (The Mother Box):

* The interface is a grid of 4×5 metal plates rendered on an HTML <canvas>.

* The entire design uses a bold, limited color palette (gold, red, black, white, magenta/cyan) with heavy outlines and deep shadows, mimicking the look of 1970s comic book printing. 

* The center four plates are replaced by a large, singular “Eye” component that tracks an imaginary, slow-moving target, simulating constant internal thought.

* Diverse Greebles and Tech (Visual Components):
* Each grid section randomly generates one of several distinct Kirby Tech patterns (or “greebles”) to maximize visual variety and complexity:
* Pipes: Horizontal gold tubes with simulated energy pulses flowing through them.
* Circuit: Black panels with angular, glowing lines of gold and cyan data flow.
* Vents: Blue vents with subtle energy (Krackle) escaping.
* Krackle Pit: A recessed area of raw, magenta energy densely packed with black “Kirby Krackle” dots.
* Machinery: Heavy, blocky clusters of gold and red industrial shapes.
* Logic Node: A central blue core with data lines radiating outwards to the corners.
* Energy Fins: Vertical gold fins with glowing energy pulsing between them.
* Omega Block: Large, complex black geometric glyphs, inspired by New Genesis architecture.

Audio System and Interaction:
   * Autonomous Hum: The box maintains a constant, low, throbbing sawtooth oscillator hum (using the Web Audio API) with a slight frequency modulation, suggesting deep, ongoing machine thought.
   * Manual Ping: The powerful “PING!” sound (a high-frequency sine bell tone) and the accompanying visual burst are only triggered by the user when they click or touch the screen.
* Autonomous Animation:
   * The machine operates on its own loop, periodically and randomly activating certain tech tiles (making them briefly pulse with light or energy) and making the central eye slowly scan across the screen, ensuring the box appears perpetually alive and thinking, even without user input.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/motherbox10.html

Out on the corner today, just past the hedges by the Firehouse Subs and the bank with the cold brick face, I had my first sighting of a Santa’s helper this season. Not the mall kind, not the glossy catalog kind, but the roadside variety, wind tousling the beard, boots planted on the curb like deep roots. A flash of red against the winter gray, waving at traffic as if every passing car needed a little nudge toward cheer.

His ride was propped beside him, a bright red bike decked out with its own tiny Santa hats, white beard beard and a flag fluttering like it had holiday opinions. I liked that. The whole scene felt like catching a glimpse of a migrating bird you only see once a year. Not quite Santa proper, but a field agent of joy, reporting in from across the median strip.

The Blue Ridge behind him was a smoky blur, trees bare, sky the color of unlit snow. Some folks in their cars probably thought they were just passing a bit of holiday whimsy. Me? I felt like I’d stumbled on the first sign that the season had officially woken up.

A small moment, waving arms and all, but enough to shift the day a little sideways into wonder.

#santaclaus #santashelper #randomjoy #roanokeva #tistheseason🎄

Today’s night critters – mouse, cat, skunk

Look out, Mouse! (Don’t worry, it was like 12 hours apart) skunk and cat about 2 hours apart.

#roanokeva #backyardzoo #mouse #cat #skunk

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/martiango.html

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/martiangoai.html

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/martiangoai2.html

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/martiangoai3.html

People buying elf on the shelf surveillance capitalism for your children meanwhile the welsh have a folk tradition of getting bullied by a horse skeleton until you share resources.

Bluesky trend translated to my blog