Episode 375:

Please Withhold

The Tragic Murder of Author Helen Bailey

Karen

James Leininger, the “Reincarnated WWII Pilot”

Georgia

Episode 375: Please Withhold

This week, Karen and Georgia cover the tragic murder of author Helen Bailey and the story of the “reincarnated WWII pilot” James Leininger.

The Tragic Murder of Author Helen Bailey

The Tragic Murder of Author Helen Bailey Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Stefanie Akkerman on Unsplash

Other Images:

1. Helen Bailey (Alamy)

2. Diane Stewart

"...Ms Bailey was enjoying success as a children's author, having written more than 20 books, including the popular Electra Brown series.

A lover of cooking, Arsenal FC and her Dachshund Boris, the Northumberland-born writer lived with her husband John Sinfield in Highgate, north London. The pair had been together for 22 years, and married for 15.

In February 2011, during a holiday to Barbados, her world was turned upside down when Mr Sinfield got caught in a rip current in the sea and drowned.

Ms Bailey was, in her own words, "a wife at breakfast, but a widow by lunch".

The aftermath saw her start a blog, Planet Grief. The posts shine with wit, humour, honesty and authenticity as she recounts moments from her life as a widow.

She describes releasing memorial balloons on Hampstead Heath; buying a single Scotch egg in the deli she used to frequent with her husband; coping with Christmas and the loss of the festive traditions she used to enjoy as a couple.

And she describes meeting Ian Stewart.

"I'm on a Facebook bereavement page, piddling around," she wrote in one post. "A photo comes up. I am surprised to see it because I know the man in the photo.

"I keep wondering where we met, wracking my grieving brain.

"As it turned out, we had never met, but the man was Gorgeous Grey-Haired Widower, a man who from the moment we first met, I felt as if I had known for my entire life."

Ms Bailey went on to date GGHW, as she referred to him in her blog, and they later bought a house in Royston, Hertfordshire, moving in together along with his two sons.

They were planning to marry and were arranging a wedding at nearby Brocket Hall.

But in April last year, she was reported missing; a disappearance friends and family said was completely out of character..."

Source: “Helen Bailey: A life shaped by death” by Jodie Halford (BBC News) 2017

James Leininger, the “Reincarnated WWII Pilot”

James Leininger, the “Reincarnated WWII Pilot” Notes:

Other Images:

1. James Leininger as a child

2. James Huston Jr., fighter pilot

"James Leininger has had a love for aviation since the age of two years old, but his passion for aeroplanes took a turn after he experienced a shocking nightmare one evening in 2002.

The young boy woke up screaming after he experienced a plane crash in his sleep, where he was shot down by a plane with a red sun on it — a Japanese plane.

The child's family was then convinced he had been reincarnated after he started experiencing dreams and memories of being Lieutenant James McCready Huston.

Lieutenant Huston was a World War II fighter pilot from Pennsylvania who had been killed in Iwo Jima, Japan, over 50 years before James was born.

According to James' mother, Andrea, he would scream at the top of his lungs "Aeroplane crash, on fire, can’t get out, help," as he kicked and pointed to the ceiling during his sleep.

On another occasion, James told his parents, who reportedly had no knowledge of aeroplanes, that he had flown a plane called the Corsair from a boat called the Natoma during the Second World War.

This comment led James' father, Bruce, to do some research and he later discovered that there had been a small escort carrier called the Natoma Bay.

This aeroplane took part in the Battle of Iwo Jima, and its pilot was Lieutenant Huston who sadly died in the carrier after it was hit in the engine by a Japanese aircraft on March 3, 1945.

After Bruce concluded his research on the fighter pilot, he and his wife wrote a letter to Lieutenant Huston's sister, Anne Barron, about their little boy and she believed that young James was a reincarnation of her brother..."

Source: “Boy who wakes up screaming about a WW2 plane crash thinks he has been reincarnated” by Charlotte Hawes (Mirror)