Invisible Intruder: The Chilling Tale of the Denver Spiderman

Here’s a good reminder to check every nook and cranny of your house tonight…

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SOURCES

https://www.newspapers.com/image/637464623/?terms=%22Theodore%20Edward%20Coneys%22%20&match=1

https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/denver/tale-denver-spider-man

https://www.newspapers.com/image/537370136/?terms=%22Theodore%20Edward%20Coneys%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/458742641/?terms=%22Theodore%20Edward%20Coneys%22&match=1

https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/coneys-theodore.htm

TRANSCRIPT

Phillip Peters had owned his home in Denver, Colorado since the late 1800’s. Which, in 1941 when our story starts, was a long time. You would think in almost 50 years of living in a place you would know it, like really really know it. Every nook and cranny, every shadow. 

But sometimes, when you’re so familiar with something, you almost stop seeing it. You don’t need to look at every square inch of your home to know what it looks like, so often you don’t. And because of that, you may  miss things. You might not see the dust that’s accumulated on the TV, you may miss that the water ring on your table is getting darker and darker over time. 

Even though you're not taking stock of these details every day, you may still be able to feel them. feel that something isn’t right, something is not how it used to be. And that’s what our story today is about. It’s about Philip, who had lived in his house for almost 50 years and could feel something was off, something was changing, but couldn’t quite see it. And ultimately, it’s about what was really hidden there. As always, listener discretion is advised. 

Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings and mysteries, I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore

We did it everyone, we’ve made it to october. Sure, it is always spooky season here at heart starts pounding, but now at least it feels like we can really indulge. 

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73 year old Phillip Peters was home by himself on October 17th, 1941. Normally, his wife would be home with him but she had recently broken her hip in a fall and was in the hospital rehabilitating. So for the last few months, it had just been Philip at home in his bungalow. 

It felt like the spirit of his wife was still in the house, he thought. Because, according to Philip, he didn’t always feel like he was alone. In the last few weeks, something about the way his homefelt had changed, but it was hard to describe. One thing he noticed was the house was making more noise. There were more bumps in the night and more creaking floorboards. But that could just be a side effect of the house aging. Both he and his home were getting older, and with that, it was harder and harder for him to take care of the place. So maybe what he was hearing was the foundation sinking into the earth over time.

But there was also the feeling of the house. Almost like someone was there. It was the same feeling he had when he knew his wife was in the other room even if she hadn’t said anything. It was only sometimes, and occasionally, he thought he caught something in the corner of his eye. Motion, just in his peripheral vision. But he had lived in the home with his wife for half a century. He probably was just so used to his wife being there his brain was filling in her absence. It was pretending she was there with him, maybe as a coping mechanism. 

He did really miss her while she was getting better, and his neighbors could tell. One of his neighbors had him over for dinner every night, just so he wouldn’t have to eat alone. And this night, october 17th, wasn’t going to be any different. 

But The time Philip said he’d come over for dinner arrives, and Philip doesn’t show. That’s very unlike him, but his neighbors give it a little more time and don’t really think much of it at first. But then it keeps getting later, and later, and soon its well past dinner time. The sun has fully set beyond the horizon, and the streetlights were on.

So the neighbor calls a few other people in the neighborhood and tells them what’s going on. Philip was supposed to come over for dinner tonight and he hasn’t showed, I’m worried something happened. can you come help me check on him? Soon, a small search party is formed and they head over to his home. 

The first thing they notice is that his car is in the driveway, some lights are on in the house, but every single door and window they try is locked. They think Philip must be inside, but they also breathe a little sigh of relief because it’s not like someone broke into his house or anything. 

One of the neighbors, a younger girl, goes around back and finds a screen on a window that’s a bit loose.  She’s able to force the window open and crawl inside.

The other neighbors are still outside the house, they hadn’t seen the young girl climb in. but they hear her. Just a few moments after she first crawled in, her piercing screams are heard echoing throughout the entire neighborhood. 

Inside, on the floor of his bedroom was Phillip. At first, the girl thought maybe he had passed out, or  had suffered a heart attack. But the full picture of what had happened came into frame as she stepped further into his room.

Phillip had been murdered. His head had been smashed in by blunt force trauma, and it was way overkill. Whoever had done this kept attacking after he had died. The blood from his head had spilled all around the room, but a trail of it also led out of the room towards the kitchen.

The girl ran to the front of the house, unlocking the front door and undoing the chain to let the other neighbors in. The house had been reinforced with locks, The Peters were really mindful about safety. 

The police arrived on the scene and did a thorough search of the house but didn’t find many clues. It didn’t appear that anyone had broken in, and it also didn’t appear that this was a robbery. Philip’s watch and a wad of cash was sitting on his dresser. Whoever did this wasn’t after his possessions, which only added to the mystery. From the way he was positioned, they figured that he may have not even seen who attacked him at all. 

There were two iron stove shakers in the kitchen. These looked like handles for a crank, were completely made of iron and weighed about 5 pounds each. One was covered in dust, and the other looked like it had just been washed clean. The kitchen also had a towel that was damp with fresh blood. It was decided that a bloodthirsty maniac must have somehow gotten into the house and killed Phillip with the shaker. But how this person got in, or who they were, remained a mystery. 

For the next few months, the house remained empty. Philip's wife wasn’t well enough to be released from the hospital just yet, so as the fall cooled off into the frozen colorado winter, the house remained in the condition it was in on the last day that Philip lived there.

Halloween came and the lights remained off. Costumed children walked past the home spreading rumors and scaring one another with what they believed happened.

A maniac snuck in and killed Mr. Peters, some would say. 

But some children had another theory. See, after the police left, the crime scene was cleaned, and the house was left abandoned, some children swore they saw a ghost in the house.

At first it was just a rumour. The ghost of Phillip still haunts the house, they’d say to scare each other. But then kids started swearing they saw it for themselves. If you peered in through a window, you may see a light turn on an off on it’s own. Kids also said they saw curtains gently flap in the windows, others claimed they saw a whole apparition float by on the first floor.

It became so persistent that kids stopped walking by the house at all costs. If they had to,  they’d cross the street when passing the home, afraid to get close enough to disturb the phantom they swore lurked on the other side of the curtain. 

Eventually, Mrs. Peters recovered and was moved back into the house in January of the following year. She needed help with things around the house. Her hip was still healing and her mobility was severely impaired, so a caregiver moved into the house with her.

It must have been weird for Mrs. Peters to move back into the house that her husband had just been so brutally killed in. The culprit still had not been caught, the police didn’t even know where to start with their investigation. 

It’s not like she had any other options, though. How was she going to move all of her things into a new home when she could hardly walk?

It also felt strange not having Philip around. The two had been married and lived in that house for nearly 50 years. And now here she was by herself, in the same way that Philip was there by himself when he was killed.  

But it didn’t take long for things to start feeling weird in another way. An almost indescribable way. Mrs. Peters was hard of hearing, but there were a few times she swore she heard her nurse in the other room, only to learn that she had left for the day. There were bumps in the night around the house beyond the sound of the foundation settling. 

And her nurse had been noticing things too. It would sound like Mrs. Peters had gotten out of bed and was in another room, but when the nurse went to go ask what she was doing, she wouldn't be there. It gave her the chills, and it started feeling like the house actually was haunted.

And then, one night, the nurse was getting ready to leave for the day. The sun had already set, and it was nearly pitch black outside when she was getting her things. The noises had been particularly bad that week, she swore there was scratching coming from inside the walls at times. 

As she gathering her belonging, she hears a noise coming from the back stairs.

 She debates whether or not she should investigate. Maybe it’s nothing, but she hears it again. 

Slowly, she makes her way over to the back stairs. Where the noise is coming from. She cant see anything at first, it’s too dark outside, but as she gets closer to the window, she sees  the shape of something, it looks human, 

There’s a boom.

But she doesn’t spend enough time looking at it to be sure, she runs off screaming. 

That was the last time that nurse ever stepped foot inside of that house. She quit the next day, convinced that a ghost really was haunting the place. 

Mrs. Peters was now on her own to look after herself, so a neighbor offered to help out when she could. Come over and cook meals. Clean up a little. Just some basic stuff until Mrs. Peters was fully healed. 

But the neighbor knew the nurse left because she thought there was a ghost. and that couldn’t be possible. one day  though she came by and thought she caught the glimpse of someone running up the stairs. That couldn’t have been mrs. peters. She was in no condition to run.  It looked like a skeletal man. That’s it, the neighbor decided, we’re getting you out of the house. 

And so The neighbor helped Mrs. Peters move in with her son. But she also called the police and told them what she saw. There’s someone in the house, I just know it. The cops offered to spend a few days staking out the place to see if they noticed anything strange.

So two officers were stationed outside of the house to just monitor and make sure everything was ok. And at first, it was. They didn’t see anything, and almost gave up on watching.

But then, a few days in, the postman comes to the Peters house to drop off mail. And as the mail delivery truck is approaching, one of the officers sees a curtain move inside. He gets the attention of the other officer, and when they both look back at the window, they see the skeletal face of a man, eyes sunken in and pallid skin. He’s just in the window for a moment before he disappears.

That was enough for them, so They barge into the house, guns drawn, using their shoulders to knock the door down. Police! Police! They shout. But no one is there. The two officers search through every room. Nothing. But then one of them hears noise upstairs, coming from the attic. They both run towards it, and as they get up there, one of them sees two bare feet sliding into a crawl space in the back corner of the attic, a small door closing behind them. One reached out to grab a leg before it disappeared behind the door, but tattered trousers ripped off into his hands.

When the two officers get the door open, what they see is the stuff of nightmares. 

Crammed into the crawl space, a space that was 36 inches high 40 inches wide, and 12 feet long, making it just a little larger than the size of a coffin, was a man. 

He looked to be about middle aged, with dirty hair and the sunken in eyes. He was emaciated, some reports claimed he was only 75 pounds when he was found despite being nearly 6 feet tall. 

The officers pulled him out of the space and took a look at the conditions he was living in. There were a few ratty blankets as well as empty jars of jam. In one of the corners there was a small electric toaster which it seemed he had been using for heat in the winter. Mostly though, the officers noticed the spiderwebs. There were thick webs and tons of spiders all throughout the crawl space. It seemed like the man had been living in a giant spiderweb. 

It was revealed that the mans name was Theodore Edward Coneys, and he was booked and brought down to the station. When he got there, he confessed that he had been living in the Peters crawl space for the last 9 months, and admitted to the murder of Phillip Peters. He was ready to tell his story. So who was Theodor Edward Coneys, and how did he get into the Peters crawl space? 

Coneys was born in 1882, and from an early age he was frail. His youth was plagued with poor health and doctors told him that he probably wouldn’t live to see his 18th birthday. Because of this, his mother was overly protective of him and made sure he didn’t engage in sports or other high risk activities. So Coneys dedicated his time to learning the mandolin, something he eventually became pretty good at. 

In 1899, he joined a mandolin club in Denver which was run by a man who had just gotten a job in a railroad office and was kind enough to let strangers come over to his home and practice the mandolin together. That man was Phillip Peters

Coneys played with the Mandolin club for a little while, but then moved out of Denver. He came back and reconnected with the Peters in 1910. Mostly, they were excited to see that the boy had lived years beyond what the doctors told him and seemed to be doing well. They were known to occasionally have dinner. 

What they may not have noticed, however, was Coneys was struggling internally. His mental health had been suffering since he was a child, and now he was getting an urge to go off the grid and never be seen again. He didn’t like the way people looked at him in public, he thought they were judging him for being odd looking and scrawny. He just never felt like he belonged. 

So in 1917 he moved out of Denver to New York to pursue a career as a salesman, but that didn’t go as planned. By 1929, Coneys had fully decided to give up trying to have a career and instead chose to live a transient life, sleeping wherever he could and surviving just on what he could scavenge.

In 1941, he made his way back to Denver, now a grown man. According to him, he had the thought of reaching out to the Peter’s as a friend but chose not too. Instead, he decided he was going to go to them to ask for money, or rob them, whichever was easier, but when he got to the house, no one was home.

He said he was able to crack a back window open and sneak inside without anyone noticing. From there, he wandered around the house and saw where they kept their money and valuables. Instead of taking them and leaving, though, he continued to wander around until he got to the attic.

That’s when he saw the small crawl space in the corner and decided that was his next move. 

For the next few weeks he lived up there and noticed that it was only Mr. Peters in the house. At first he kept his distance, only coming down at night to raid the fridge after he figured Philip had gone to bed. If there wasn’t enough in the Peter’s fridge, sometimes he’d leave the house to try the handles of the other neighbors which were usually unlocked. He’d then take whatever he could from inside a bring it back to his spiderweb, as he called it.

That was what he did to survive, and eventually, that became easy. So it became a kind of game to him. He’d come down when Philip was awake and he said he would shadow him around the house, following him as closely as possible without getting caught. 

Then what happened the night of October 17th, the police wondered.

Coneys explained that, on that particular evening, he heard Philip get up and leave the house to go to the neighbors for dinner. At least, he thought that was what he heard. Philip really had gone to his bedroom to take a quick nap. So Coneys came down to raid the fridge when all of a sudden, Philip was right there watching him eat a roast. Coneys believed, in that moment, that Philip was going to kill him if he didn’t kill philip himself, so he grabbed the shaker and attacked. Philip was able to crawl away back to his room when Coneys finished the job. After that, he ran back up and hid out in the crawl space. He was in there the first time the police investigated the house right after Philip’s body was found.

When the Peter's daughter in law hears this story, she doesn't believe it for a second. She had been over at their house the day before to help out and knew there was no roast in the fridge. She also didn’t believe that a 73 year old man who could hardly cook for himself was enough of a threat to Coneys that he felt the need to kill him. 

After that, Coneys remained in the house all winter while Mrs. Peters moved back into the house. The cold was the hardest to deal with, which is why he procured an electric toaster to keep him warm. At one point, he claimed that his feet completely froze and he couldn’t walk. For the next few days he was unable to come down to get food, so he just lay in the crawl space, wasting away until he regained feeling in his feet. 

The heat was almost worse though. The police noticed how stiflingly hot it was in the dead of summer when they found him. They couldn’t believe he made it through the winter let alone most of the summer in those conditions. 

When asked what he did all day while he was up there, he told them he had rigged up a small radio that he would listen to. Other than that he would just sit in silence and think, to weak to want to get up and do much more than that. 

In the end, he gave an official statement to police that was over 8,000 words. Part of it read,

“i have no living kin, no money, and no grudge against anyone in particular. I killed peters because he caught me robbing his icebox. I was looking for money i knew he had hidden in the house, but i did not torture him in an effort to make him show me the hiding place. He would have killed me had i not finished him. Even though i have changed since the old days, i was afraid he would remember me.”

When asked why killed Philip with such force, more than would be needed to incapacitate him and get away he said, 

“I don’t know why I hit so many times. I guess it was just the hatred I’d been storing up for years against everyone who had the things I’d always wanted and never could get”

That remained his official account of how things happened. He feared for his life and so he took Philip’s. He then lived in the house with Mrs. Peters for 7 months.

Coneys was sentenced to life in prison in 1942, and he died in prison on May 16th, 1967. He was remembered as Denver’s spiderman, a nod to the conditions he lived in. 

You may want to check your home tonight, the spaces you think you know by heart but havent looked at, I mean REALLY looked at, in ages. Because these spaces may have become so familiar that you miss the thing that’s off about them. Maybe it’s a few pieces of mail that moved, maybe it’s a few extra bites taken out of your leftovers. You never know what could really be there.

This has been heart starts pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore. Sound design and Mix by Peachtree Sound. Shout out to our new patrons who will be thanked in the monthly newsletter, which you can sign up for on our website.

Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Greyson Jernigan, the team at WME and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out Heart Starts Pounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.