Bizarre Buffet Podcast
On October 24, 1988, in Greenfield, MA, Mark Branch actualized the urban legend of a small-town killer. Inspired by Jason Voorhees of the Friday The 13th film franchise, this story is the epitome of bizarre.
Listen To ” The Friday The 13th Killer ” Below !
Find Your Preferred Streaming Platform Here !
Watch ” The Friday The 13th Killer” On YouTube !
Find Bizarre Buffet Online
Support Bizarre Buffet On Patreon
Follow Bizarre Buffet On Instagram
Like Bizarre Buffet On Facebook
Subscribe To Bizarre Buffet On YouTube
Follow The Host’s Of Bizarre Buffet
Follow Marc Bluestein On Instagram
Follow Jen Wilson On Instagram
Follow Mark Tauriello On Instagram
Episode Credits
Hosted by Mark Tauriello, Jen Wilson, & Marc Bluestein.
Original episode / story concept by Mark Tauriello.
Episode Art by Mark Tauriello.
Show Notes by Mark Tauriello.
Audio / Visual production by Marc Bluestein.
Show Notes
The Friday the 13th Killer: Mark Branch
Question: What horror villain would you be most afraid to encounter ?
This story Is quite strange. We have a psychic, a set of twins, murder, and Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th.
The murderer: Mark Branch
Not a lot of information out there about this buuuut..
Mark Branch was a 19 year old from Greenfield Mass. Greenfield is a small town population of 19,000.
He had a history of emotional trouble starting at an early age… but there is no official diagnosis.
He was a student for a short time at New Salem Academy ands dropped out to get care at McClain hospital.
His parents Betty and Richard didn’t speak much to the public about him or the murder her committed.
He was socially awkward leaning towards aggressive.
People who knew him mentioned that he was bullied a lot because he was socially awkward and loved horror movies.
He allegedly would speak about his fantasies of killing somebody and always stressed that he had a curiosity about killing people.
Nobody really took it seriously..
When he was in high school one Halloween he hid in the bushes while wearing a Jason mask and waited with a knife. He popped out of the bushes as a girl was passed by and chased after her. He tripped and fell and she got away. He later told his friend and stated that had he not tripped, he would have killed her.
He also used to keep files on certain students in his school to which he would call and leave death threats. He also put a scaffold through an image of one of the students and put it in her locker.
Mark also would write letters to certain girls about how he would murder them.
*He was eventually pulled out of the school.
His parents did try to get him help. He went to public school then to a private alternative school and then went into programs for emotionally disturbed teens/ children./
But the most identifiable trait about him was his obsession for horror movies. When he was 18 he worked at a local grocery store and then would work occasionally at a local video rental store called Video Expo 1.
Allegedly one of the former employees did mention that he always rented horror films, stating that he claimed “ the gorier the better” .
Apparently his bedroom was full of horror memorabilia, replicas, 100s of horror magazines, and he had a collection of Jason hockey masks! VERY COOL!!!!
SHARON AND CHERYL GREGORY
Sharon and Cheryl were twin sisters who knew Mark. Since they were from the same community and had similar circles of friends, they were both some what acquainted with Mark.
At the time before Sharon’s murder on October 24th, she was a psychology major at a local college. Sharon had always felt that there was something “off” about her acquaintance Mark and was somewhat fascinated by him.
As a result, she wrote a psychological profile on him which she shared with him.
This gets murky, but allegedly afterward he had wanted this profile, and would do anything in order to be in possession of it which would include murder.
On October 24th he drove to her families home on Greenfield dressed in a Jason Vorhees costume at 12 noon.
Once there he chased Sharon up the stairs and into her bathroom. Once he got to her her brutally stabbed her to death. She was stabbed in the head, abdomen, and chest. Her throat was slashed as well. The weapon was not found at the scene but it was clearly a knife. The blood was also in the hallway and on the steps.
The police chief of 25 years said it was the grossest killing of his time.
The bathroom was splattered with blood and her twin sister, Cheryl, was the one who found her body.
Cheryl immediately informed the police that it must have been Mark Branch. Before her sister Sharon was murder, Sharon told Cheryl that Mark creeped her out by how he would stare at her.
Police went to Marks home, but he was not there. His mother did speak to them and mentioned he was gone since the morning.
His mother let the police search his bedroom where they found his collection of horror memorabilia where they immediately played the “satanic panic” card and blamed it on the horror movies……
After this his friends did speak about their concerns that he might end up going on a Jason Vorhees killing spree, which spread fear not just in the town, but the entire tri state area. Everyone in a Halloween costume could potentially be him.
People were calling the police left and right anytime they would see someone in a costume and or hockey mask.
The town pretty much cancelled Halloween for they were afraid he was going to take a page from the Halloween franchise and start killing people on Halloween. Chaos!
In the search for Mark, they found his car the day after the murder, 13 miles outside of greenfield. It was parked near the woods and they found blood in the car matching the blood of Sharon ( So now we have DNA evidence and he isn’t being accused of murder JUST BECAUSE he liked horror movies)
JOHN MONTY THE PSYCHIC:
Originally a house painter, he realized in his life that he was a “psychic”
- I don’t really believe in psychics FYI… or at least for CSI and in this case the investigators pulled him into this because they still could not find Mark after doing “”thurough”” searches in the woods via search teams and helicoptors. What are your thoughts on this??
In the past he had some success in his psychic work. In March of 1981, he predicted on a radio show that Ragan would be shot by end of March but will survive. He said he would be shot on the left aide of his body after a speech in Washington
(Could just be a real good educated guess…)
He was Shot March 30th (By John Hinkley Jr) who was trying to shoot Regan to impress Jodi Foster…. LESBIAN He was obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver.
HES BARKING UP THE WRONG LESBIAN
In November of 2021 Jodi Foster was asked by the Holly Wood Observer if she was impressed by John Hinckleys attempt to assassinate Ronald Ragen and her response was “ truth be told I was a little impressed” LOL
But Regan was shot and the bullet his his left lung, quite similar to the prediction of John Monty.. (you could probably do an entire episode of John Monty and all of his predictions which also includes OJ Simpson)
Oh Well Regan was a shit.
John has also been wrong too about some of his predictions .
So John gets called in for the case, and he was local.
They gave him a photo of Sharon and nothing else. Upon looking at the photo he said he felt violence (safe bet considering a homicide detective is giving you a photo of a girl….lets be real here)
This is where it gets weird…
John the psychic said he kept hearing the word JASON
He said he got flashes of confusing images, but knew where they needed to go…
He takes the investingators to the same area where Marks car was found and walks them into the forest where they come across this abandoned slaughterhouse.
They go inside to the slaughterhouse and they found drawings on the walls of a man wearing a mask murdering a woman on a set of stairs (Just like the Sharon Gregory murder) and under the picture was “ A death by intention”
There was also CRYSTAL LAKE and JASON LIVES spray painted on the wall..but take that with a grain of salt. It could have been a hang out for teens who put that shit there…OR maybe it could have been done by Mark. IMO I think the drawing of the staircase murder was,.
There was also other horror movie stuff spray painted like FREDDY LIVES.
- did John know it was there all along???
After this discovery they did another search of the forest but found nothing.
This added to the fear and frenzy of the town + adding to the satanic panic agenda.
From this frenzy came Vigilantes, where local hunters would go out “hunting” for Mark…. IMO I don’t thin k they were restoring justice if thats the case… I feel like they were looking for a reason to inflict violence on another person while being deemed as heroes.
It would probably be like the equivalent of Trump people today.
So…stay the fuck in your lane.
John Monty comes back to the police and said..
“I know where Mark Branch is. I had a vision of him hanging him self from a tree in that forest”
Nov 29 1988 , A hunter named Kevin Purrington was out hunting dear, he came across a decomposing body hanging from a tree..
The man was hanging by boot laces and a belt while wearing jeans, combat boots,
(Cause of death was intentional hanging, and that he most likely hung him self the same day he killed Sharon on Oct 24)
In a reddit thread I read that he was also wearing a hockey mask.. but I have not seen anything in any articles stating that. However, there is some speculation that he did not commit suicide but that this was done by angry vigilantes. I am leaning more toward suicide simply because of the proximity to where his body was and we all know that law enforcement isn’t always good at their jobs.
Autopsy report was that it was a suicide.
What I find odd about this is how its multilayered and the grand slam on bizarre. I don’t blame the movies for this, but I blame mental illness and the system continuing to fail.
I too am obsessed with horror for Marc and I have dozens of framed horror movie posters, and I have a tattoo of a Freddy glove. Growing up in catholic school I was always targeted by teachers, nuns, priests and students as the next Columbine simply bc I loved horror.
I think this case is so odd bc it involves a questionable psychic, twins, murder, a slaughterhouse with weird imagery, and a fake Jason Vorhees ( It should be noted that in Friday the 13th Part 5, the hockey masked killer wasn’t Jason, but a man seeking revenge but using the Jason mythology as an outlet to kill). I feel like this unfortunate story also fueled the satanic panics agenda, ultimately putting blinders on peoples abilities to look at scientific facts that this was a result of mental illness and not horror movies.
Friday The 13th Killer
