Can A Man Give Away His Head?

Podcast: Southern Ghost Stories · Southern Ghost Stories

Opublikowano: 2026-09-30

In this bizarre chapter of nineteenth-century medical history, host Allen Sircy uncovers the macabre battle over the severed skull of Dr. William Byrd Powell, a prominent eclectic physician and devoted phrenologist who spent his life mapping human character through bone. Convinced his own cranium was the ultimate scientific specimen, Powell legally bequeathed his head to his favored student, pioneering female physician Dr. Temperance Kinsey, and her skull-collecting doctor husband, Adolphus Keckeler. Following an open-air decapitation on the grounds of Linden Grove Cemetery in Covington, Kentucky, the severed head was spirited across the river to Ohio, igniting a fierce courtroom war...