{"id":3868,"date":"2024-05-27T23:49:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T11:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.walkingtheshadowlands.com\/?p=3868"},"modified":"2024-11-18T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T10:00:00","slug":"belly-of-the-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkingtheshadowlands.com\/?p=3868","title":{"rendered":"Belly of the Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Episode 141: Belly Of The Beast
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Due to unforeseen circumstances, this week’s episode couldn’t be edited in time. Instead, we’re revisiting one of our scariest interviews. Join us as we delve into the chilling story of a family tormented by an evil entity for years, leading to the tragic deaths of two family members. Originally aired in May 2021, this episode, “Belly of the Beast,” remains one of our most haunting tales. We’ll be back on track next episode. Don’t miss this spine-tingling replay!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello everyone and welcome to season seven of the Walking the Shadowlands podcast. For those of you who have been following my social media posts on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and my Facebook page, you already have an idea of what this episode is all about. But, before I get into that, I just want to say how wonderful it is to be back with you all. It\u2019s been an absolute struggle for me to get this episode edited, stitched together, and transcribed for you all.<\/p>\n

In case you are a first time listener, I had an accident some weeks ago, and I broke my arm in two places, at my wrist and at my elbow, plus, I tore the rotator cuff in my shoulder of the same arm \u2013 hey, if you\u2019re going to do something, then do a good job of it right? So, it\u2019s taken me around six weeks to edit this episode for you all. Typing with one hand and editing audio, is tricky. But, here we finally are. So thank you all for your patience and kind wishes. I\u2019m doing fine now and beginning to type with two hands. I\u2019m having physical therapy at my local hospital to regain flexion in that arm and doing really well. But that\u2019s enough of me.<\/p>\n

For the next two episodes, I have some very special guests, who have been so patient and understanding with me. I actually interviewed them before Christmas, but due to all sorts of circumstances, not only my accident. I haven\u2019t been able to air their episodes until now. And it\u2019s in two parts, because I interviewed all surviving members of this family, except for one brother and that really was all about timing and availability, not because he didn\u2019t want to talk.<\/p>\n

In this first episode I talk with author and playwright Sean Paul Murphy, who was my initial contact, because of his book Chapel Street, and the real-life haunting experiences that prompted the writing of his fictional account of them. It was he who suggested his family might be interested in also sharing their experiences as well. And that is how this two part episode came about.<\/p>\n

This family\u2019s experiences living in an actively haunted home, were both in parts terrifying, and tragic as two family members died, perhaps as a result of what they experienced in the hauntings, compounded with other personal issues they were experiencing. A brother and a sister. And here is a trigger warning for some of you, during our conversations we will talk about the suicides of Laura and Mark. And how the family feels the hauntings and terrors they experienced in the house, at least in part, possibly lead to their deaths.<\/p>\n

These experiences are so traumatizing to the family, that all these years later, some of them are still dealing with residual fear and trauma from the hauntings in the home. As I said previously, I spoke with all surviving family members, barring the other brother. However, because of the trauma and fear left behind, Sean\u2019s sister and one niece agreed to talk with me and allowed me to use their words, but they themselves did not want to be in the show. I fully, and absolutely respect their wishes. So their recollections are voiced by myself, identifying who is speaking. You may want to leave the lights on for these episodes, and without any further ado, are you willing to walk with me into this part of the shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Let\u2019s begin.<\/p>\n

Clara, Sean, Jeanie & Marion<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Can you please tell my audience, particularly for those in the Southern Hemisphere where I live, who may not have heard of you, what you do? A little bit about your background? And how this all came about?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> OK, well, my name is Sean Paul Murphy, I am a writer and editor and a producer, and I’ve written 14 produced, feature films. Mainly in the faith based genre. I’ve written two books. The first was a memoir called <\/em>The Promise, or The Pros and Cons of Talking with God<\/em><\/a> and which was published by Touch Point Press, in I think two thousand-sixteen maybe or two. I can’t remember the year. And I recently put out of a horror novel called <\/em>Chapel Street<\/em><\/a><\/span>, and that’s the story of a young man battling a demonic entity, that has driven members of his family to suicide for generations.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And although the book is fictional, it was inspired by actual events that my family, that my family experienced. In fact, the book was actually inspired by my very mother. We grew, we moved into a, an actively – I hate to use the word haunted because it always says ghosts, but we were probably in what it was, a demonically possessed house in nineteen-seventy-four when I was very young. And our family maintained ownership of the house until about two thousand and sixteen. And over that time there was a lot of activity. And two of my siblings took their own lives. And other members of my family attempted and, or had events that would have been misconstrued as suicide, if they had played out to their conclusion.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And about two years ago, I guess it was, my mother asked me if I thought that the entity in the house was responsible, at least in part, for the death of my sister Laurie and my brother Mark. And I wrote Chapel Street, to sort of examine that question myself, because there’s something I think it’s, it’s something I had always considered. And I think it’s something that other people in the family considered as well. So, my mother inspired the book and, and it’s funny because, our family never discussed the haunting, essentially. \u00a0Except for a very brief period when it was very active, in the mid to late eighties. And we never discussed it for a couple reasons. Maybe you can ask me why later? But, you know, after I wrote the rough draft of my book, I gave it to my young, my surviving sister. I had three brothers and two sisters. \u00a0And she read it, and she thought – \u00a0she called me over and said she thought the book was a cartoon version of the<\/span> <\/em>actual events, and she didn’t mean that in a derogatory way. What she meant was that it was, it was our actual events, but highly exaggerated. At the end, the book is really exaggerated. Nothing like that really happened. But most stuff that happened in the book was based on something. And the people were based on real people.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And that’s when my sister, who never really wanted to discuss it, said we should start having family meetings to discuss the actual haunting. Because, you know, it’s you know, we’ve been out of the house for sixteen years. And it was about time that we actually discussed it. And I started doing a series of interviews with my siblings. It’s, I\u2019m twenty-three blogs into it, on my blog, you know? <\/em>Sean Paul Murphyville<\/em><\/a><\/span> .blogspot. com. It’s mainly interviews with people who had experienced a haunting. And it’s really the blogs are intended to be a three-part series.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

The first part is about the actual history, the house, the actual haunting itself. The second-part is going to deal with my the deaths of <\/em>my siblings. And the third-part is going to be like analysis. And I’m hoping to get some expert opinions, like from I’m hoping to get like religious people with experience in exorcism and demonic possession, the hauntings. Secular, like paranormal investigators to look at it, and answer was, was this entity responsible? And I know we didn’t do the right things with it, would you say that’s true, Mother?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> \u00a0I don’t think.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Correct. I don\u2019t think we were knowledgeable enough. I think at this point in time, had it happened now, I think we would have been more knowledgeable of what kind of help we could have seeked. \u00a0And we just weren\u2019t, I guess this wasn\u2019t as popular back then, or spoken about as much. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> So essentially I’m trying to do is like a best case, you know, best practices type of thing. It’s like if you find yourself in the same position we’re in, don’t do what we did. In fact, a number of people ask me, am I planning to write a book about the actual haunting? And I always say, I don’t think I am because I don’t like how it ended. I like books with a happy ending. In the end, two of us are dead and we just ran away. So, you know, it isn’t like \u2013 it’s hard to paint what we had as a win. You know, our experiences.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, right.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Before we go any further, Clara I’d like to say to both of you, but Clara as a mum, I just cannot begin to imagine the pain of losing two children, and losing two children in that manner. So, I’m so very, very sorry for your loss.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Thank you<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Very, very sorry.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yes. It\u2019s a small club that I belong to.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah. And I can see, I can see that, that pain is still there. \u00a0It\u2019s a pain that will never go away. I know. I know.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> yeah<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> In their physical form, we miss them being here with us, but I think they are in a good place and I think they keep an eye on us, and . . . <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I can, oh gosh, I should have brought some tissues in, absolutely, absolutely right.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Although I’m sad about it. I don’t have a problem.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah. Yeah, I totally understand. \u00a0When you first saw the house Clara, when you first moved into this house, did you have any feelings about it? Because you\u2019re quite a sensitive woman and you do get strong, intuitive feelings. Did this, did it feel uncomfortable or out of place or anything like it?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> No, it was very dark inside. The outside of the house was absolutely beautiful. I remember, I was very active in the church and in the school. And one of the women who was –\u00a0 I was like a lunch mother and I wanted to gather lunch. Mother said, oh, there’s a house. We had to move from the house that we were in. My mother and my stepfather owned that house and they wanted to sell the house. So we were told we should, you know, we had to be out. So one of the women said to me, oh, there’s a house on my street that the woman just died in, and they’re going to sell the house. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And when I saw the house, it was. It was just a beautiful house, it was unlike any other house in all that area. It was it was just gorgeous. It had a big oak trees around and it had a large front porch going around inside. It had, it was just gorgeous. It had oak trees down to one side. And it had a holly tree that was four stories tall on the other side. It had a lot of land.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It was just a gorgeous house and it was very dark inside though.\u00a0 It, was like there wasn’t a lot there was never a lot of light, and especially on the first floor was always dark. But I did not have any bad feeling about it. I don’t know, I guess I just wasn’t sensitive to it. In fact, I’ve always loved that house. I even hated the – even with all that went on, I hated to leave it. The house itself.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So maybe Clara, we could start to talk about the experiences in your house. When you first got the house, because this really started with you, didn’t it?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yes, it did. Actually, I don’t know if it started with me. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> I think it might have been Laurie, wasn\u2019t it?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> No, what I mean is at, first my daughter, Laura, the one who committed suicide. I remember right after we moved in there, she was out the back yard and the house in the back was almost three stories out of the ground. So, the second story \u2013 That was the basement, the first story. \u00a0The second story had a sun porch, and she came in and said there was a lady on the sun porch.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And so I think she was. I said, oh, that was probably the woman who passed away in the house before we got it. \u00a0It was an estate sale. And her name was Mayford, and I said, oh, that was probably Mrs. Mayford. And so, I assumed – See, I’ve always had some psychic ability, let me say. \u00a0And I’ve always believed in spirits and such, and so I just assumed that Mrs Mayford was there to check us out. After all, we were in her house, you know? I think she was probably the first one that mentioned it. \u00a0And after that, there were little things. It fooled with us. But, there were different things that would occur and at first you didn’t really know what was happening, because, a lot of it was very subtle. And I remember my daughter Jeanie, who at the time – how old was Jeanie Sean? She was about nine?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> Yeah, about nine years old, I would guess, when she moved in.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Jeanie: <\/strong>So when we moved into the house, I was nine years old. When we saw this house, it was spectacular. I mean, I couldn’t believe we were moving into this house, this beautiful stained glass, that had a double staircase. It was like \u2013 what we had moved from a tiny little place. And my sister and I since at the old house we were in what was pretty much a closet, didn’t even have a door on it. We got the big room. And it had like what we called the sun porch off of it. And it was like really super cool until, well, I guess from the beginning. I don’t know if everyone did, but I certainly felt \u00a0kind of immediately that the closet that my sister and I had, it was a big, long closet. It’s like when you open the door, it also went in deep that way with a rack hanging all the way across. It, it never felt good. It was always like it was too black, like how could it be that dark?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And the other thing about it, which was really cool it first was that it had evidently been another room. So that, between my room and the bathroom, which was behind us, there was even a window in the middle, like they had put a wall down in the middle of the window. So it had been one. And there was also a linen closet that you got to through the hallway that was probably all that one room. So at first we thought it was kind of cool, because you could kind of peek through the window, peek through the window, like in here, people in the bathroom, you know, when you’re nine years old. And if you went out on the sun porch, if you opened up the shutters, it was an actual window. You could see both closets.<\/em> And you knew if you opened the door to go out into the hallway. That like it would be like really super cold and it would be in – and the bathroom was right across to you, but it would be almost like it was like all these different conversations going on that you couldn’t quite hear that was just like so much going on and it was so cold.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

She had a well, I don’t know – one of the girls had a party and there were a bunch of girls there for it. And my daughter Laurie said, Mom, Mom, you have to come upstairs and see this. And it was up in their bedroom. They shared a bedroom. \u00a0And the girls would take their fingers, their fingers and go like this, and Jeanie actually raised up. I mean, they weren’t touching her. She raised up off the floor. And it really scared the heck out of me and I thought, this isn’t, this isn’t normal! <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Were they doing that light as a feather thing, or were they actually touching her, and she was rising up?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> They were not touching her.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

They were not touching her?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> No.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanie:<\/strong> . . . then I kind of became a hit with the middle school set because at all the pyjama parties, I could do levitation, I could make things disappear. I sort of felt like, you know, middle school girls with pyjama parties, they’re all having seances, or looking in the mirror \u2013 and people would like I don’t know what they saw, but I’d be like playing along and kind of like. Feeling my neck, feeling my groove, yeah, and like they were just like there screaming, that they were seeing things in the mirror, like that kind of thing.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean: <\/strong><\/span>They started as light as a feather, but in the end they weren\u2019t touching her.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Right, wow! That must have been absolutely terrifying for you to see that?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It was for me. I said, don’t ever do that again. You know, I was shaken by it. I mean, I had never seen anything like that. And it was pretty scary thing. One thing, you could never keep light bulbs in that house. You could change a light bulb and the next week it would be out, you know. \u00a0There was a lot of things that happened. I had a vanity table in my bedroom and I always kept my hairbrush there. You could brush your hair, put the hairbrush, you know, I would go to bed, get up in the morning, go to brush my hair, my hair brush would be gone<\/em>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> That was me, just kidding. It wasn\u2019t me.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Well, you look like you could use one! And you could look everywhere and it would be gone for days. Or earrings, or your watch, different things. They would just completely vanish. And then at some point in time, they would show right back up where you had left them. There\u2019s a very \u2013 there\u2019s was just so much that went on in that house.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> I think Jeanie actually had the first – \u00a0She had a very, from the very beginning, a very intense experience with it. \u00a0Like communicating with her, sort of like offering her, like, psychic powers, you know?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Jeanie:<\/strong> The thing in the closet, I felt like it was targeting me and it like wanted to be my friend and it was horrifying, but it, it also to me, like it had, like, the mind game. So I was feeling like I became like super psychic, you know what I mean? Like, so there were some other higher thing there. And what was interesting is that during the day you would completely forget about it. Right. But then, like at night when it was happening, and you’d be like, oh my God, yes, I remember this, how could I forget this?<\/em>\u00a0 <\/span>I think I was having conversations with it. It was like, I think that it was, \u00a0like I was a vulnerable youth, and I think it kind of like made me feel like I was special and I had special gifts.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> And one thing that really surprised me, \u00a0I’ve heard my mother’s stories about, you know, like seeing her, you know, her psychic things when she would talk about things in our youth and all. But what I didn’t realize is that, you know, Jeannie, you know, it seems to be like down the maternal line. Jeannie had a lot of experiences. Her daughter Marion had a lot of experiences, Natalia. Now, it seems like the females in our family all had very intense experiences. And my niece, Marion, who didn’t live in the house, feels that she was offered the same kind of deal that the entity offered her mother. You know, it’s sort of like, do you like, do you like what you could do now, what you can learn, what you can experience? You know, there can be a lot more, you know.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Marion:<\/strong> I had a similar thing, an external like, do you want more? That sort of thing<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanie: <\/strong>Yeah, it was like that too, how you said it, do you want more?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> And, you know, so among, amongst the women, there was a lot, there was a lot of this kind of psychic activity. I will say that I did not experience it. Knowingly experience anything in that house, until the escalation. And I say it’s an escalation. But, other people were experiencing things right from the beginning. But there was this incident – and then I have also in my research discovered there was an incident where my mother and a friend of hers wanted to communicate. Her friend Ted, wanted to communicate with one of Ted’s deceased aunts on a Ouija board. And brought it into our house. And at that time, the front, the front third floor bedroom across the hall from me was an empty room, and it was a quiet room. So they decided to have, you know, a Ouija board session in there. And after that Ouija board session, whatever was happening in that house was amped up one hundred percent. The thing is, Jeannie, I’ve heard from some of her friends used to do Ouija board things that some of her, you know, her sleepovers and all some of the you aren’t the first person. . .<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Clara:<\/strong> But, she always blamed me for having the Ouija board in the house.<\/em> And I didn’t know, until Sean started interviewing, that Jeannie actually had the Ouija board. \u00a0But, I think that I think it was there from the very beginning. When we were there, I know it was there, from that. The more I thought about it, from the \u2013 from us first moving in.<\/em> And, another thing with Sean, I remember asking him at some point when he was still living in the house if he was having any experiences<\/em>. <\/span>And he was like, no, I don’t know what you’re talking about, you know?\u00a0 Well it, until it seemed it came to a point where I had it cast out of the house a couple of times. And every time it came back, it came back more.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

It was a strange experience, in that, it seemed like it wasn’t always there. It seemed like the house would be nice and calm for a while and then it\u2019d be one thing after another, after another, you know? And then it would go away. And I think, pretty much , that whole area had some kind of, other houses in that neighbourhood had experiences also. Cause, I remember one time, the little kid that lived next door came over and was\u00a0in my son John, my youngest son\u2019s, bedroom, when a black thing walked across the mirror. And the boy next door said, oh, so you have it too? And we had . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Apparently the mother of – \u00a0it probably was longer than that, but apparently, I heard that the mother of the boy next door, her mother was like, into witchcraft and a Ouija board stuff too. And I’ve been learning, because as, as I’ve been publishing these blogs, people in the neighbourhood who live near us, were relaying, telling us stories about what happened at other houses and places. <\/em>It definitely seems, in my opinion, whatever lived in our house, lived in at least the four other houses. \u00a0Lived in up to four other houses, at the top of the hill, it seemed like. I’m just guessing, but, it was definitely the one next to us. But I also believe it was in the next two. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And just to clarify a little bit, this may be why I didn’t experience anything initially, was, at first \u2013 and on the second floor of our house, there are three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor of the house on St. Helen’s avenue, there are three.\u00a0 And the master bedroom goes out to the sun porch where my sister first saw, whatever she saw. And there’s, there are closets. There are three closets. One is a linen closet. You can enter from the hallway. \u00a0And then, there’s a closet from the master bedroom, and a closet from the bathroom. And these closets were all joined. But if you actually look at the room and you look at how the closet was assembled, that was once a room, and not three closets. It was once a small room.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> It even had a window in it, to the outside.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> Who would put a window in a closet and then put a wall down the middle of the window? So, there was definitely a room there. Now what? And this is another thing I’ve learned through the interviews. There seemed to be an entity that lived in that closet.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Yes.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And that would usually materialize. And a lot of people have seen it and seen it was, it was active and malevolent. \u00a0But it would normally appear as a black shape<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Like a shadow person.<\/p>\n

Sean: <\/strong>A darker than dark shape. Sometimes it would have red eyes, sometimes it wouldn’t, but it would also materialize. Other people would see it as a – \u00a0some of the same people saw it as a shape, would also see it as a shadow thing, like a shadow man<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanie: <\/strong>So the first thing that happened to me. Well, the mind games, but the first thing I saw, I was lying in my bed and the closet was to my left and the door into the hallway was over that way. Well, coming up from the door in the hallway. I could see it come and it rocked and rose, and then it just like, it looks like a big black cloak like you see in the movies, they have Dracula with a cloak. That’s what it looks like.\u00a0 So I felt that come over and then just like very close to me. And it was just it was just black and I remember being like, petrified!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It was darker than dark. And it was just so solid black and it was enormous. It was tall! It was tall!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Right, right. Shadow people are actually not that uncommon. I’ve seen one myself. And my very first episode of the podcast was on shadow people. So if you want to go and listen to that Clara, it talks about that, and they are blacker than black. They are blacker than black. \u00a0You can see them in the darkest room, they\u2019re so black.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> We played musical bedrooms a lot in that house.<\/em> When we first moved in the master bedroom, actually Sean\u2019s calling that the master bedroom, cause, it was the largest bedroom in the house. My daughter\u2019s both shared that room as children, you know, and I – My husband and I actually had the smallest bedroom which was in the front of the house.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> That one had the least activity. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, interesting.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> There was, that was not a comfortable room. There were certain rooms that actually \u00a0–\u00a0 well none of the rooms when you got down to it. The house was a beautiful little house. The house itself, I think Tom is talking about the sensitivity of the women too. You kn,ow now, I was struck by lightning when I was little, and I think that’s when I got really.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Wow. Oh, that’s right. I remember reading about that in the blog. You had a ring on didn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> That’s right.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

That’s right. You were very, very fortunate. \u00a0But anyway, you can’t like – \u00a0I guess, I guess as a mum, as mums, we tend to blame ourselves for things that we actually don’t have any control over. So and as a mum, you would have been really busy in the house with the kids, so you would have missed things that you . . . Yeah<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> So, I think a lot of that is, you know, there were – \u00a0I had six children, of course, the youngest was just a baby while I got pregnant when we moved into the house. But, you know, and the front door was never locked. And the kids all had friends. And there was just so many people in the house at any given time that you heard strange noises, or whatever, you just go upstairs or there must be somebody in the other room, you know, and it really, I think didn’t become apparent to me, right away? You questioned yourself in the <\/em>beginning of \u2013 did I really see that? You know? Something out of the corner of your eye. The dog would watch something go by, you know? It just started getting to be more and more and it started to get – not to be nice. Sean was talking about the closet upstairs. It was odd that – \u00a0you would go in the bathroom. And I always felt like something was watching you from my closet . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Everybody said that, even guests.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Everybody, yes. You would be in there and the closet door would open. And there was no reason for that door to open. The door had a door knob, you know, locked. By the bedroom closet, the closet in the bedroom, you can never keep that door closed. Like during the night you would hear it click open and that’s when the black thing would come out, you know.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeanie:<\/strong> I would, I would see it frequently. And the thing is, like it was almost like every time I felt like I would forget it, like I would block it out. Yeah. And then like suddenly I find myself like alone in my room at night. And I’d be like, oh, my God. It’s here, I mean, and then it <\/em>was like all through the house, I mean.\u00a0 The house during the day, with the light, it was so lovely. But I remember so much of my youth being like, there being like so many like, shadows in the house. And if you were, if I was upstairs. On my own, I would always turn the music on, I’d be like dancing to try to forget it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Marion:<\/strong> My experience with the house usually was more psychological in terms of well, I would \u2013 I mean, I would hear things like I constantly hear the furniture moving upstairs or people walking around. It’s just like always constantly, constant in the background. Like constantly kind of hearing, like talking and that kind of stuff. But then it was draughty and you always kind of felt like it was all the shadows were, I don’t know?<\/em> When I was really little the place wasn’t that bad. It was just once I got older is when it started getting taking on creepiness to it because like we would go over there a lot but and like me and Natalie would be playing and hanging out on the landing and stuff like that, but then it kind of like turned when I got older, that it got creepier, like you kind of like look in the mirror from the landing and, I don’t know, just something kind of off about it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Now Mother, did that black\u00a0thing ever get into the bed with you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Something would get into bed with me. I don’t know if it was that thing or not. See! It used to do different things to different people.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Hmm, yeah. Of course!<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It’s like it chose – \u00a0The women, I think it became more physical with, then it did with a lot, then it did with the men. But you could be in bed and you would feel something sit. Have you ever like, been in bed and like your husband or whoever comes and sits on the bed.? You feel that mattress move? That happened just about every night! Sometimes it would hold you down in the bed. You couldn’t scream, you couldn’t move. You were like paralysed. And my son John experienced that. We discussed that. My son John and I, of course, John at that time was a teenager. So, I mean, and he wasn’t even born when we moved into that house. I mean, while right between, you know, before we started discussing stuff like that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah. I do want to say that I tracked all the owners, everybody who lived in that house. And my brother John was the first infant in the, child in the house, the first family that lived there from nineteen-fifteen to like nineteen-twenty-seven. When they moved in, they had an eleven year old child. \u00a0Like the family that moved in in nineteen-twenty- seven that had it until nineteen-seventy- four, when we got it. They were all adults. It was, it was a husband and you know I would say the mother but she’s the stepmother.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But she was the sister of the children’s, she was the aunt of the children who became a stepmother, two boys and a girl. And that said, there were no children in that house. I was curious if that small room was intended to be a nursery? My mother doesn’t think so, but I think maybe it was. But, you know, so but I’ll tell you, one of the reasons I decided to write the blogs was, at this meeting my sister had, she brought my brother John over. And John tells the story in one of the interviews, but he added something at the end of what <\/em>he told, when he told it to me in person first, that he \u2013 is that he was up in the room where the Ouija board incident was. Which we started calling either the hell room, or the hell hole, you know. And when you start calling a room, the hell \u00a0room there\u2019s usually a reason it\u2019s called the hell room.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah. Good reason\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> But he was up there and there was this window in the middle of the room. \u00a0And there were these mirrors and there were pictures hanging on. And he said he was looking at the pictures and something came up behind him. He didn’t see it literally picked him up and threw him against a wall, lifted him off the ground. And he said, had I been a few inches over, I would have gone right through that window. And he goes, and everybody would have thought it was suicide. Because, I was at the age when people kill themselves.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So that’s when it made me think that’s what made me think, really tie in with my brother and my sister. Jeannie had a suicide event. And, you know, I don’t know, maybe I’m jumping ahead. But I had this \u2013 in Chapel Street, the hero of the block finds himself out on his balcony every night, ready to jump off the ten storey balcony. You know, he\u2019s like having these \u2013 because, of some visions he’s having. He doesn’t realise he’s out there. But, I don’t know what year it was. \u00a0I probably if I had to my notes, because the thing is, when we did, there’s nobody was writing anything down.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Right! Of course!<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It took a long time to build what I call it, the master timeline of like, the events. And in the recap, the events were kind of in the right order. But, when it got really bad with me, you know, after the Ouija board event. Then you know, the height of it for me was, I woke up from – \u00a0I can’t tell you for sure whether it was three nights in a row or five nights in a row. But I woke up crawling out of this third storey, back window of the house. Now there was like a slightly flat roof on the sun porch out there. But the drop off were back of our house was very steep.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Very steep, close to four stories. Yes.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It was probably close to four stories. And there was a patio and like a metal stairs down from the porch there. So falling off that roof would almost definitely been fatal. For three nights in a row, I woke up literally climbing out. \u00a0Because, my knee would hit the wood window frame, or my head, would hit the top of the window. And it must have been it must have been the summer or spring, because, the windows were open. And when I would wake up, it was three o’clock in the morning. \u00a0And that’s why I knew how I knew this wasn’t sleepwalking, because it happened at the same time of the night. And that was the culmination of a lot of small events. But at that point, I realised that whatever was in this house wanted me to die. Or, he wanted me to kill myself.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I had a similar incident also. I was driving across. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Chesapeake Bay? There’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge, that’s three miles long. And I was in my car by myself and I was going to the from the western towards the Eastern Shore. And all of a sudden, I had no breaks and I could not stop the car, you know. I finally got, by the time, I got after I was really afraid there’s was nothing I could do. I didn’t know what to do. And I got I went to a gas once I got off the bridge. It seemed like my brakes came back and I stopped at a, yeah, service station and said, would you please check my brakes?, I just I have no brakes on the bridge and they’re like, you checked? Honey, your brakes are fine. But I had I mean, my foot went down to the floor with the brake. There was no, no brake, which was this I it looked like a suicide also. Yeah.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> Was this after Laurie died, or before Laurie died?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> That was before Laurie died. Around that time, around that time.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And this entity would follow. That was one of the reasons we didn’t talk about it, because, we felt if you talked about it<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You would attract it?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> and people had the experience, if they talked about it, it would show up. That’s one of the reasons why even after we left the house, we didn’t talk about it, you know, but . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> \u00a0I, I think the scariest room in the house was indeed the hellhole. There were two closets up there that. They basically \u2013 one was like a crawl space. That was another place you couldn’t keep that door closed either. Doors in that house would not stay closed. And then there was a closet that, it was short, like, I’m short, I’m four eleven and I could walk in and nobody else could. For a while I had my sewing room up there and It was very scary. \u00a0For a while, even I slept up there.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Briefly.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Very briefly, because, some of the horrible things happened to me in that room. When my bed was there, there was the small closet. The closet I could walk into was at the foot of my bed. And this ball of fire came out of it and made a woosh! And it was a ball <\/em>of fire. And it just kept going faster and faster. And it came right at me. Well I ran. I ran out of there screaming! And then another night it was a cat. It was this big black cat that was standing on me going [hissing] like that. And I \u2013 Sean was sleeping in the other room and I’m screaming. You went in that room was like going into \u2013 It was like there was no sound penetrated it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> A lot of people reported that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It was so bad, \u00a0I had a pillow in my hand, clutching the pillow running out of there. And I still had, in my hand, indentations from my fingernails. Because, I was clutching my hands and I was saying Sean! Did you hear me? Did you hear me scream? He was like you were screaming?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Now, the entity in the house \u2013 You know,<\/em> I came into this interview with a certain perspective based on my theological understanding. And as I take the blinders off and just take everything that people are saying and not trying to put it in a box. But one thing I would have said when I lived there, that it was just one entity in the house. However, as a result of these interviews, it seemed like there were at least two distinct creatures in the house. The one was the one that normally took the form of the shadow person on the second floor, and that was malevolent.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But the other one that lived, it seemed to live in a stand up closet on the third floor, in the hell room, manifested itself in an entirely different ways. \u00a0Like this cat- like creature my mother saw. My sister saw that event, you know, right, right near the beginning, too. And that’s why her and her husband left the house. You know, they were there. You know, they moved on to the second floor for a little while, but they left. Because, they saw a cat like, creature with red eyes, come out of that closet.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I never knew that. I never knew that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanie: <\/strong><\/span>Yeah, I was twenty, twenty-one when. And my husband Marion\u2019s father], and I, were up then in the upper room, up in what we affectionately call the hell hole, the house, right. And we were sleeping in the bed and we literally we literally saw a black. Like leopard, like cat that had red eyes and it came out of a closet and literally came up to us and I knew it wanted my baby. And we ran the hell out of it.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> The thing on the second floor never materialized in that way. So that’s why it makes me think that there were, there were at least two entities in the house. Because, the one upstairs, as malevolent as the one on the first floor, on the second floor was. The one on the third floor was vicious. \u00a0Like, that\u2019s the one that picked my brother up and threw him against the wall. That’s the one that was driving me out onto – out of my window in the middle of the night, you know.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And my mother said earlier that sometimes it would seem like it would disappear. I’m not sure it ever did? But cause, what it seemed to, particularly at the height, it would bother one person. And you could usually tell who it was, because, they would be sleeping in the living room on the first floor, you know, the next morning. Because they would be driven \u2013 it seemed, content to drive you out of the <\/em>bedroom. But, rarely were there events that were witnessed by multiple people at the same time. Cause, this thing seemed intent somehow. On a, I think a bringing on a spirit of darkness and depression on us. But also isolating us, you know, because it seemed like it would attack one of us. And since no one else would ever hear it or see it. Like, is this just me? You know, it was only because this thing happened \u2013 \u00a0approached my sister, the cat-like creature on the third floor. That she finally came down and said something seriously wrong in this house. There was something in this house, you know. And she was pregnant at the time and she didn\u2019t want to bring up her daughter, she didn\u2019t want to have a baby in that house. So she left.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jeanie: \u00a0<\/strong><\/span>So, you know, I had that. It was very \u2013 I was very glad when I moved out, but I found that the psychic things continued very much and now, actually, I’m pretty afraid of it. I associated with the evil thing that was in that house. And that’s all I want to talk about.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I had asked the priest about it and he didn’t really believe in it, so he kind of brushed me off. But there was another priest there and he said, you do not, it\u2019s not \u2013 He said, what you have is a demon. And he said, I’m, I’m afraid to deal with it because of his age and different questions \u2013 \u00a0and what he gave me reasons why he wouldn\u2019t. But, he did tell me certain things that I could do, and I did them. And it did leave at one point. Actually, it left at several.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Did someone invite it back in?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I had gone to a psychic and she told me what to do. She said, you got \u2013 She said, you’re sleeping in third floor, she said. Well, I had a crucifix in every room, over every doorway. \u00a0But, she told me to put this crucifix, that when the light would shine through the window, it would shine onto the crucifix, to have the bible there. But the salt go round and prayed and told me what to say, and put salt in a corner and on the windowsills. And I did all that stuff and it left. It was gone.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Well, then a few days later, my son John had these two friends who practically lived at my house. \u00a0I\u2019d fed them and they\u2019d stay, well, we had so many people in and out of that house. But, Joe and Jeff pretty much lived at my house. Their mother had something wrong with her. I don\u2019t know. And the parents were divorced and they were living on top of a studio, a karate studio. Anyway, they pretty much lived at my house. <\/em>The thing I had gotten rid of it. And \u2013 John was my son, John was, I think, in the senior year of high school at the time? And Jeff. I heard Jeff hollered up. He was outside and he said. Mrs. Murphy, is John home? \u00a0Now, I’m on the third floor and I really can’t see who\u2019s at the door, but I know his voice. He\u2019s been in my house for the last five years, or whatever. But, if I look out, what I see is a roof over top of the porch. I said, he’s not here right now, Jeff. But you can come in, in his room and wait for him. Mrs. Murphy, is John home? I said no Jeff, he\u2019s not home, but you can come in his room and wait for him. Mrs. Murphy, is John home? I\u2019m like Jeff, no he\u2019s not home. But you can come in and wait for him! \u00a0And the door open, I could hear him walking, I heard him walking up the steps to my son’s room. I’m on the third floor. I heard him coming up to the third floor. There was a platform, he stopped at the third floor and he said Clara. And I realized I had invited the demon back into my house!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh No!<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I went screaming out of there. I just got my car keys and I just left. I was just \u2013 I had invited it back in. And it would do that with voices that would take different people’s voices.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, of course.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> And it would \u2013 I remember one, after my daughter died, my granddaughter, her daughter came to live with me and I thought her father was going to also. And we were putting an addition in, we didn\u2019t have enough room, anyway. I had gone to a class, a sewing class, and I left a note for the fellows who were doing the work, construction work. Like I say, the door’s always open anyway. I left a note saying, I’m not home. This is where I am \u00a0if you need to call me, you know, this is where I\u2018m at.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So, I came home around three o\u2019clock and they were still there<\/em>. I was like, oh, you know, what’s going on? Whatever. And they were like. I said, I said something about just getting home and they go, what do you mean you just got home? We heard you talking to your <\/em>dog up in your room, all day. I\u2019m like no, I haven’t been here all day. But I would do that with different people. It would do \u2013 It would do different voices, \u00a0people’s voices. \u00a0But the thing that was \u00ad\u2013 another that was very scary was it knew our name’s. You know, so I mean, it knew Jeff. It knew John. \u00a0It knew me. \u00a0It knew, probably all of us.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It knew Natalie because here’s, here’s this \u2013 You know, Natalie said, once she moved back in when she was a teenager, I mean, going to high school, it would say,<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Nat was not my daughter, Laurie\u2019s daughter.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, Laurie, who died, Natalie is Laurie\u2019s daughter<\/em>.<\/em> It would say like things \u2013 like she’d be in a room and you’d hear my mother saying Nat, what you doing? \u00a0Nat, what you’re doing? This or that, and would just be short comments. \u00a0It wouldn’t be like a conversation, but my mother wouldn’t be there! And it became a very interesting point. I think my mother had the answer. It’s sort of like when I was talking to Natalie about this. She goes, you know, if it really wanted to freak me out, it should have spoken to me in the voice of my mother, because, that would have really freaked me out.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And then I’m sitting there wondering, well, why didn’t it talk? Because it was it was malevolent. And I think my mother had the best answer, because, I would talk to my siblings about it and try to get their opinion on this. And I think my mother had the best opinion is that it would have given her way if it spoke in my sister’s voice, my dead sister’s voice, because it wanted to engage us, you know, and wanted to engage in conversation<\/em>. So it would it would do the voice of someone you knew could, you know, could be there. And I think I think that was it. I think it was just trying to, engage her in conversation. But she had some very frightening experiences in that house. So . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So \u2013 Sorry, so you\u2019ve got this entity who started showing himself as a shadow form first, initially? Correct? After, you had, you know, things missing, noises, which you could dismiss as being the kids, because there were so many. So, he started showing as a shadow. He mimicked people’s voices. He got physical with you. And also . . .<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Natalie said it would spoon with her in her bed.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yes. It did with me too! It did with me too. Probably did with all the women.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I would say so. And perhaps more. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Now it would feel \u2013 I could feel it, yeah.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> My late brother \u00ad\u2013 By the way, when I put out these on blogs, I get contacted by people who knew my siblings, my late siblings. And somebody contacted me and said that my brother said, he used to hear my mother talking up there. And my grandma and his grandmother talking, saying things when they weren’t there. My brother was having mental problems, but he said he could hear them. <\/em><\/span>They would be saying how they were going to commit him. You know, and my mother was not there and she would never . . .\u00a0<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> And I would never \u2013 I would never have said that anyway.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, no, I couldn’t imagine you saying that.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, he was<\/em> <\/span>hearing voices, too, but it could have been his psychosis. But IF he was the only one who ever heard a voice there. And, I know you were making a point, but I just want jump in with this voice thing. My father, who was always a sceptic, when we had our meetings about the house, he just looked at us like we were crazy. But at the end of his life, he was, he was very ill. And my niece was living there. And my mother was still there, and my youngest brother. And he would walk in the middle of the night, he was sick. He was living \u2013 essentially living on the first floor of the house.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

He would walk all the way up to the third floor in the middle of the night to the hell room and have conversations with something up there. And no, my niece would try to sneak up to hear, if like, something was answering him. But she, he would \u2013 he always heard her on the creaky steps and would say; Nat what are you doing? You know, so she never got to hear. But my father was a sceptic and this was another one of these things in these interviews that I had never heard, until I did these interviews. And I find that very disturbing, you know, that he was doing that.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I used to talk to it in the living room.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> At the Johnson\u2019s too.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> You \u00a0could try and you could never understand what it would say. It would respond to him, but you couldn’t understand what was being said. Also, another thing that, that it did \u2013 and it did it two times that I know of. \u00a0It may have done it more than that. My son John, the, his bedroom was above our living room downstairs. At one point we were downstairs in the living room with John and his friend Joe. And I don’t remember if your father is there or not? I think it was a football game on. And they were talking about football and all of a sudden it sounded like every, all the furniture upstairs moved. \u00a0And then when you \u2013 when they went up, you couldn’t get into the bedroom at all. Everything was pushed against the door.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> They had to climb out onto the porch roof.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> They had to go out on the roof and climb in through the window. And move the furniture, to get the door open!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Wow, so, so you had five basic things there. You had it mimicking your voices. You saw it as a shadowy figure. You \u2013 it played mind games with you all. It got physical with you all, and you’ve got poltergeist activity.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Yes.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

How did you cope?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Oh, at one time, after we had the new kitchen put in. I went down to the grocery store and I was gone probably a half hour., forty- five minutes, whatever. I came home, it was an electric stove. Every burner on that stove was lit up as high, turned up as high as it would go. And that if you put your hand on, next to the stove, the wood was so hot, it’s amazing that it didn\u2019t burn. And there was a<\/em> couple of times it turned the stove on. <\/em><\/span>One time I was up in my bedroom, I was work \u2013 \u00a0I had worked for a while and I got laid off or fired, I’m not sure. Anyway, I was given the opportunity to quit, which I did. And, I was in my \u2013 well it was either me, or the fellow who I hired to work with me. And I figured he had a family. We worked for an advertising agency, every time we’d lost a client.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Someone had to go.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Somebody had to leave. Anyway, from my bedroom, I had a nice rocking chair in my bedroom. And I used to \u2013 I could look out my bedroom door, that would never stay closed, that door, anyway. Into that bathroom, if the bathroom door was open. Which if no one was in there, you would leave it open. So you would know no one was in there.. And I was reading a book. And all of a sudden all of the water in the bathroom \u2013 \u00a0I could hear the water running. I went in and both faucets were turned on, \u00a0that you had to actually turn, they weren’t, you know, I went back in my room and did it again and then . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean do you remember when Debbie came down after Laura died? After my daughter died, my sister in law, Debbie, came down one day. And it was like two weeks after Laura died. And, she said, I thought maybe you’d be lonely, who\u2019s down here with you? Somebody was always in my house, I said, nobody’s here, I said. It’s just, just me today. And she said \u2013 and then with that, we heard somebody walking across the floor and go into the bathroom. And she said \u2013 we’re both looking up like this. And she said, You said nobody was here with you. I said, nobody is here with me. Do you want to go up and see who that is? She said, I think we should go shopping. I said, I do too. There was no one in the house with me.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> No matter what floor you were on, you could hear footsteps!<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I think you could hear. I think it could hear me, or hear us, and understand what we were saying.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, absolutely.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> I can I can vouch for that completely. You know, I was lucky. I was very religious and I prayed and prayed and God kept it out of my bedroom. But there always the dangers, particularly the curiosity of inviting it back in, you know, breaking that wall of protection. I remember one time nothing had happened in a while, at least to me. But stuff was always happening to somebody. I didn’t realize it at the time. I was sitting in my bedroom. The door was open. Across the hall was the hell room. And I’m like, there’s nothing here, because if it was here, it could turn on those lights. And it turned on the lights in the hell room! So it obviously heard me and it responded.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And, you know, my sister talked like \u2013 and my niece both talked about how it was, sort of like making offers to you. Now, this didn’t come in any words or something, but I definitely got the feeling like \u2013 Do you like that? \u00a0I\u2019ll see what else I can do. But at that time, I mean, I was like, I’m not going to communicate with it. I’m not going to give it, you know, more of a foothold, then it was stealing. But I used to hear footsteps. That’s how it first manifested itself to me. On the roof of, you know, because my bedroom was on the third floor. At first, I heard scurrying like squirrels or something, you know, which I could explain. But then like human footsteps. And there’s no way anyone could get on that roof. You know, that was a very high roof and a very dangerous roof to walk on.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And, you know, and so that’s \u00a0\u2013 and the funny thing is \u2013 \u00a0because it could definitely see me. Because I would be in my bedroom with my eyes closed. And whether it was the scurrying, or the footsteps, I would hear it. I’d be awake with my eyes – \u00a0as soon as I opened my eyes, it would stop. And as soon as I close my eyes again, it would continue. And it was after I could see, I could sense where it was moving around, you know, around, above me and all.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

So, but, if I opened my eyes it would stop. So it could definitely see me. It was definitely interacting with me, you know, as you know, as it did with the light, you know. So it, you know. Because this is something I would constantly in the interviews with my siblings and my mother and all, is try to discern in their deal \u2013 in their interactions with it, whether this was just a force or an intelligence. \u00a0Or whether they sensed a sense of personality with it. And also what I keep asking everyone, because early on when we would discuss it a little bit, people were \u2013 \u00a0I think some people thought it was like a human ghost. So I would, so I would constantly ask people, because I think my sister, my sister had seen it as in a female shape.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Oh interesting.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> So I would always but doing this interviews, I always ask people whether they felt it was male or female. And most people would say instinctively they would think it was male, but they didn’t ultimately, if they thought about it, it didn’t seem to have a sex. They just felt that it was male because it was large. But not because it had male characteristics, that it was large.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> And also, I think the things that it did. The way that it \u2013 some of the stuff it did seem more masculine, like a female would not do that.<\/em> <\/span>So it just seemed masculine, but it probably did not have a gender.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Which makes me think also, too, I’ve asked them and pretty much everyone’s under the opinion that, you know, this thing was not human. Was never human.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> That\u2019s right.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Now, \u00a0my niece Marion, who apparently is very gifted, you know, something I didn’t realize until we did these interviews. \u00a0But she felt that there were also human spirits. There may be prisoners or something other than that, in the house. But she thought that the entity, the main entity was very dominant, dominated anything in the house. So that was her opinion of that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> She did something very interesting one time. She was going to art school and one of her friends wanted to record the sound of someone walking up wooden steps, you know. And so she said, grandma can my friend and I come over and record \u2013 to make a recording of her walking up to your third floor. And I was like, sure go ahead. Come on up. So when I got there, I thought, well, you know, they had a recorder and when they got there. I said, well look, so I won’t disturb you. I’m going to go down to the grocery store. So anyway, I left and when I came back, she said when they put the recorder on, they got voices.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Marion: <\/strong>Yeah, I went to art school and my roommate wanted to do a sound project where she walked on wooden floors. She did sound files for it. And so I was like, well, I know a house that has that. But I also knew that when I went in there, I wasn’t going to ask. I wasn’t asking for anything. Like I went in there and I was just like, I’m not here for anything. I’m just here to get sound files and go walk around. But so we were walking on the floor. She was recording it and you could hear. But then we could both hear like this shuffling kind of like sheets rustling around us. And it was, it was a bad situation. We were like, OK, well, let’s leave. We’ll go listen, first, though, to make sure we got all the sounds. As when we are listening back it, we have all sounds, the right sound like the people like us walking on the floor. There’s like just something else about it that felt like an actual thing coming through it, the sound. And just it was it was hard to describe because we both were like looking at each other like what? We turned it off. But there wasn’t any other sound. It was just like it felt like, it’s really hard to describe.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And my niece, other niece, Natalie. Did an EVP up in the hell room.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> She did that after Marion said,<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> Yeah,<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> and then I think they heard me too. And she\u2019s like, Grandma, the minute you left, it was the minute you left! And Natalie, I used to have to drive her to school, which was quite a distance from our house. It was twenty five miles, I used to drive her to school in the morning. And she had to be there at seven fifteen in the morning, so . . . And the winter, you know, you get up. It’s dark. So I kind of like, was lying in bed while she used the bathroom and whatever, and got dressed. And then I would get up. And the one morning Sean was there. She was in the other bedroom, I was in the big bedroom she was in what was my son John’s bedroom, one time. And there was just banging on the door, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I’m like, Natalie! Natalie! please stop that! And she’s like, grandma it\u2019s not me doing that! And it was a sharpness with banging on the door to the third floor where \u2013 Sean, you were there, weren’t you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> Now, this was, I believe, my last day living at the house.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It was so scary, it was unbelievable. I mean, it was so loud.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> It was sort of like it’s goodbye to me. But my brother John and other people will tell you there were these other terrifying experiences. These bangings were rare, that it was stuff that people experience at once. After I had left was another big bang and apparently it was banging on all of the doors, on the, on the second floor at one time, you know, and my brother will tell you it was absolutely terrifying. And Natalie was still there.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> And this was during the day as well.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Apparently you were shouting to Natalie, don’t open the door. Don’t open the door, Mom, so . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Well, once you said it wasn’t her, I was like, why is she doing that? And she’s like, it\u2019s not me, grandma, it\u2019s not me. And I\u2019m like don\u2019t open the door! Don\u2019t open the door! So we did have some terrifying experiences in that house.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah. And it never scared you out of the house! That’s what amazes me, you stayed there.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Well, you know, people say that, why didn\u2019t you move? You can’t just pick up and move. I had, when I moved into that house I had five children. I was pregnant with the sixth child. And my husband, number one, was never home. And he didn\u2019t believe in any of that stuff to begin with.<\/em> <\/span>So where are you going to go? We borrowed money in order to put a down payment on that house. It isn\u2019t like, all right, well, we’ll just leave, you know? And he wouldn’t have left anyway. I mean, the house was actually \u2013 the house itself, was a charming house.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It’s a beautiful house.<\/span> <\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Beautiful. And I love that house, you know, the house itself, but, I would never go back in there.<\/em> Yeah. Sean was saying he was going to try and get at one point. In fact at one point it was it, it was, the fellow who lived in there after us, didn’t stay in there, very long. And he was trying to renovate it. And the neighbours said he got real old, real quick. And then he had he had an aneurysm or <\/em>something. My husband had an aneurysm in that house. He had an aneurysm in that house. And then the house was on auction.<\/em> John said he was going to buy it. I said, John, I will never visit you if you do.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, my mother sold the house. I think it was for, like., what was it? Two hundred-ninety-eight thousand dollars. And it went up for auction like a couple of years later, for ten thousand dollars. So the auction price, it stopped at one hundred. But the \u2013 \u00a0there when I told you was closets on the second floor, which was the center of the haunting. I thought he had been renovating the house and cause, the master bedroom, the walls were torn down to the slats. And also torn out where those closets were in the master bedroom. Now, I thought he had just renovating it and didn’t finish, you know? Which would explain also, why the price was so low. The master bed in these closets were torn out. <\/em><\/span>But, from what I later discovered, talking to the neighbours who had, you know, knew him. Is that he tore those \u2013 Those rooms had been renovated. He tore them down right before he left. He tore that, those walls down. So I don’t know why? I’ve reached out, I’ve talked to that guy’s daughter, who never \u2013 who was, who said she’s only been in that house twice. And, you know, I don’t think I put anything on the blog yet.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I haven’t given up hope on actually speaking to them, but, about what happened. But, I will be talking to some other people who knew him on the record. And talk about some of the talk about that, because that was really kind of disturbing to me. It indicates to me that whatever was there, was still there and playing on their minds as well. You know, I don’t want to be too judgmental because I don’t have the facts. But it seems behaviour consistent with what we experienced.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> The reason that I sold it to those people. Was I thought it was just a couple, an older couple, and I thought maybe it wouldn’t bother an older couple. I thought a lot of it had to do with there were so many young people ,that it was like getting energy from there being so many people in the house. And come to find out, oh, my grandchildren will love this, and I was like, oh god, no children!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, apparently the grandson, grandchildren moved in.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I went to the realtor, and said, do I have to say this house is haunted? She said not unless they asked. And I\u2019m, every time, every house I looked at after that, I asked when I went into the house, is this house haunted? Do you have any problems with ghosts? Although that was not a ghost. It was not a ghost!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> That was not! Although I will say, that when the house, when the house \u2013 Marianne, when the house went up for auction, I went, you know, I was one of many people looking at the house before the auction. And I would tell people that I was the previous, previous resident, and they would ask me about it. And I would tell them all, that this house is haunted and they would all be like, oh, that’s cool. And I’m like, no, it’s not cool. This is dangerously haunted.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I used to say, it\u2019s not Casper the friendly ghost!<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It was not Casper Friendly Ghost. And, I don’t think I, I know who lives there now. And I don’t know him personally, but, you know, I know. I have more information. I didn’t speak to them. You know, I don’t remember them at the auction, so I didn’t speak to them. So, I don’t know. I’m certainly not going to reach out to them and ask him if they’ve had any experiences during the covid<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Oh true!<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> lockdown. And we were talking with some people who were interested in trying to contact them and do some sort of activity at the house. To see if they would be willing to let, you know, some investigators in. But, once the investigators read the interviews, they were like, we don’t necessarily want to go in there unless we go in with, like, religious people. And also they were afraid that if whatever was in the house, if it wasn’t active, they would \u2013 they didn’t want to trigger it while another family was living in there.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Absolutely not.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> And that is also why I write quite a bit about the house. But I at no time give the actual address and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where it is. You know, in fact, somebody reached out to me on Facebook and said it’s the address of the house, this address. And it was somebody I didn’t know. And I’m like. How did how did you figure it out, because, well, you gave enough. I knew the neighbourhood and I went on Google Maps and I went up and down every street until I saw the house come out because the house. So they found it that way. But the address I gave at twenty one St Helens Avenue, is actually the real address of the house, when the house was built, they renamed the street. I don’t know when, sometime before nineteen-twenty-seven when it sold the second time and they changed the name, the numerical numbers. You know, the Baltimore City has a sort of a pattern with no streets and where they are.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And so, they changed the number and they changed the address. But you know, we have not talked to the current owners. I know people who know them. Now, I’ve asked around and I know people who know them, you know, and I don’t know if I will be talking because there is that danger often. But the more I get talking to people, the more it seems to me that we didn’t trigger it. We went into the family. We didn’t trigger this thing. And I think it was messing with the people after us. So my assumption is, it’s messing with the people that are there now. But whether \u2013 there was definitely an escalation in our house after contact, you know, after the Ouija board, that was absolutely.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And I actually suspect that when you used the Ouija board, it actually brought other spirit through as well.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah. That\u2019s my thought as well.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> We had prayed prior to that, \u00a0that, you know, no other spirits come through and all that stuff. But, it seemed like it mattered very much. But I want to say to the father bought the house. It was he and his wife. They worked in Washington. She worked in Washington, D.C.. And I believe he was in the process of retiring, I believe he had worked there also. And so I know, she didn’t live there very long and moved to Florida, whether they separated, I don\u2019t know?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> I don’t know. I think they’re still together.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, well, she’s still alive?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yes, they’re both still alive. OK, but I know she’s very private. I can’t get through to them. But I did I did talk to the daughter. She’s read the blogs or six or seven of them.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> So, it messed with your mind.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Definitely.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> The way that it did it, as we’ve been saying, was that it. Although there were six people, six different. Eight of us in that house, we didn’t \u2013 It seemed like it was \u2013 Each one of us had our own special little thing with it that we . . . You didn’t want to talk about it, but number one, is it just me? Am I making this up? Is it in my mind? Because, I think to the point \u2013 I always said it wanted my soul, is what I always felt. It wanted my soul. I mean, you just don’t go to your kids and say, hey you, have you? Yeah, there\u2019s something here that wants your soul? Is it in my mind?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> One of the nieces, I can\u2019t remember which one said that’s what she felt, too, and that it wanted her soul. It wanted it too<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you guys were constantly living under a state of oppression and terror, actually?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Definitely oppression, not always terror. And terror would be periodic, but oppression was always there.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I don’t think I ever got a good night’s sleep in that house. It’s was a rare thing to get a good night’s sleep, because it was like the witching hour, two am I would always wake.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course. Of course. And that’s when things would get more active. Yeah, absolutely. So, Sean, and I’m a bit hesitant to ask about you, sister and brother, because, I know it’s such a traumatic thing. And I understand if you don’t want to talk about it now.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> I’ll talk about anything.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And Clara, I’m not trying to sensationalize this, I want to understand what events lead up their suicide? And why do you think that it was the entity that caused it?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Well, let me, let me, let me jump in. Neither of them died in the house. My sister died at her house, which was probably about a mile away, a little less than a mile away. And my brother died. And she shot herself in the basement of her house. And my brother died <\/em>in Michigan, in Flint, Michigan. He was in a motel and he tried to hang himself in a motel, didn’t succeed, and apparently hung himself at a workplace, next door. In very public view, because I didn’t know we had relatives in Michigan, until I did the family tree. And I was talking to them and they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them. And then I mentioned how my brother died there. And they’re like, yeah, I remember that it was in the news, you know. So apparently, he hung himself in front of rush hour traffic. And I’m going to do that, I’m going to do the research on the death. But it’s like I don’t want to read. I don’t want to get the police report. I don\u2019t want to read that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I, I want to interrupt too Sean, with the, with Laura’s death, my uncle \u2013 We called him Uncle Buzzy. He was in Second World War and he took a Luger off of a German soldier that he killed. And at one point after he died, his brother \u2013 \u00a0they have two bachelor brothers, said to my daughter’s husband. Here, take this gun and, or do you want this gun? And I said, don’t give him that gun! If you give him that gun, somebody in that house will kill themself with it! And it ended \u2013 \u00a0and he took it. And it ended up it was my daughter who shot herself with it. And the funny thing was, I, I know she couldn’t \u00a0\u2013 she had difficulty pulling that trigger. She could never pull that trigger.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> I don\u2019t think she could cock it.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> He took it down to the shore, and he was trying to teach her how to use it. And she couldn’t use it anyway. Anyway<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> But there’s another factor to that too. Before her death, there was a guy in Hamilton called the Touching Bandit, and he was like, he was like a house breaker. And would touch the women while they were sleeping. And the night \u2013 and there was a night where he broke into my sister’s house. My sister, he didn’t touch her, because she was sleeping on the sofa and sort of woke up and then he just proceeded through the house. But, he had been in three other houses that same night<\/em>.<\/em> So when she called the police from there immediately, because they were on his trail and after \u2013 So that’s why she wanted to learn how to use the gun. Cause, you know, her husband . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Her husband worked night shift and he got off around midnight. Worked second shift, or third shift. I guess I have a second shift and she kind of fell asleep. She would wait up for him on the sofa and she would doze off watching television. And she said, I thought at first \u2013 she thought at first, it was her husband who came home and put his head on her lap. And then when she looked it was like, no one she knew. Yeah. So she screamed, Natalie, lock your door!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> The guy took off. Yeah. Here’s something here’s something weird. So they eventually catch this guy and it’s time for the trial. And they contact my brother-in-law about my sister. They wanted to talk to her to be a witness. And because, they were three people that night, three women. And he’s like, she died. What do you mean she died? She killed herself. One of the other women that there was in that house also killed herself. So, of the three women, two took their own lives before they caught this guy and brought him to trial.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So, but I’m not thinking that, like when I’m talking about whether, whether, whether this thing influenced us to kill people, to kill ourselves. I can only look at \u2013 I had a suicide attempt in that house too. Which was, I had sort of this emotional-spiritual collapse. There was a breakup with a girlfriend, and all. \u00a0I write about it in my first book. And the funny thing is, I never connected that with the entity in the house, because, at that time I wasn’t aware of it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Right, of course.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> But as I look at the behaviour \u2013 As I’m examining things, I’m like \u2013 And when I was writing my book and I got to my suicide attempt. I was objectively looking at my life at the time, and it wasn’t that dark, you know what I mean? I would eventually break up with this girl, but we were actually on the upswing at the time that I did this. And I’m thinking, you know, I couldn’t explain why I was in the emotional state I was in, and I really think that it was just that the influence of this thing.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Absolutely!<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And so I don’t think, I don’t think this thing went to my sister’s house and helped her pull the trigger. But what I think it left in a lot of us, that took years to get rid of, is this dark oppressiveness. That, you know, that we were prisoners of it, and I always call it \u2013 I think I mentioned one thing. If I was going to call this book anything, if I were to write a book about it, as I said, I don’t I don’t like the ending. I don’t think I will. I would call it The Haunting at Twenty One St Helens Avenue.<\/em> You know, the shadow \u2013 \u00a0living, living in the shadow of the beast. Because, in many ways we continued to, you know, even after we left, we continued to live, in this things shadow.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> But even it sounds like we \u2013 We had a happy house, didn\u2019t we Sean?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> As a family? Yeah.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> You know we all got along \u2013 your father never came home, but, it was probably for the best. But, I mean we all, we were a good family<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> You know, we had fun. We did our thing.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, we had fun. We did.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> I had an idyllic childhood, you know, so I can’t complain.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, right. And obviously, you were very strong family unit. Because, you stayed together. And despite all of this, despite the best efforts of these entities. That\u2019s got to say something about you holding the family together Clara. And the way you brought up your children. And as for your son and your daughter. You know, PTSD is not uncommon after experiences like this. And it could have been that, that guy that broke in was just enough to trigger, trigger it all for her again. And after all those experiences, back to her mind.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, well, I know Mark had mental problems, but was in and out of hospital, you know. So it’s funny because Mark was the quietest of all, but maybe it’s kind of a shock that he ended up with \u2013 I don’t know if it is ever strictly diagnosed or not as . . . He ended up in the . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> \u00a0And there are the laws in this country that prevent doctors from telling people what’s wrong with, you know, like family members. So we never got my brother’s diagnosis.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh what?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> But when it was good., he was very, very good. But when he went crazy, it was\u00a0 nuts . . . \u00a0I would call up the brothers and say it’s time for Mark to take a ride again. They\u2019d come down and tackle him and take him down to the psych ward. I know a couple of times he\u2019s asked me to take him, and I take him down. Mom, I’m going out again. Ok!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

OK, but, you know, at least he was cognizant enough to recognize, when he was going into a state where he needed help. So that\u2019s a really positive thing, Clara.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, he heard a lot of voices and things like that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> My mother could back me up on this. But if you were to read my book, Chapel Street, the hero talks with his dead brother. And the dead brother, Lenny, is very much based on<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Mark<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> my brother Mark. And the history of mental illness that the brother Lenny went through, and his attitudes about mental illness in hospitals. And why you get off your meds and things like that. You know, it’s all stuff my brother told me. Would you say Lenny is a lot like Mark?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Lenny is Mark, I mean, Lenny is Mark. He really captured him.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> But I will say one thing, the mother in that book is not based on my mother. She\u2019s based on other people\u2019s mother. \u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Sean usually kills the mother off in the first chapter!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As a result of all of these experiences and the pain, and the trauma that these have caused you, how do you feel now, Clara when you look back on those? And Sean, how do you feel?<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Well, hindsight is twenty-twenty you know, I don’t know that I would have done anything different because that’s where I was mentally, physically and. So I don’t know, I mean, yeah, I would like everything to be different. I would like never to have lived in that house if I had known what was going to happen. But, life goes on and you just have to live it, take it as it comes. You know? Make the best of it.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It’s hard losing children because it’s not supposed to be that way. And especially in the way that they went, and it makes \u2013 I don’t like to think about it, because, I think about the last. You concentrate on the end. And not all the good times that you had.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m so sorry.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I’m try \u2013 if I start thinking about that part, I usually try and think about something else, because, I don’t want to remember them in their agony. And I’m sure they both went through agony, and that’s not the way that they lived. And that’s not the way I want to remember them.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And that’s not how I would want you to meet them either. I can tell you that.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I wonder what would happen if they could see these shows where these people come back from the dead? I don’t know. <\/em><\/span>And I you know, I tried to think, \u00a0I think that was for both of them. I think that was their time to go. Yeah, I really do. I really think that was their time to go. And I think to teach a lesson. You know, my granddaughter grew up in a different life than she would have had , had her mother lived. And she’s a very strong person, you know, mentally. Don’t you think so, Sean?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yes. And she’s got two kids. She’s very happy<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, and she’s doing her nursing training. How wonderful is that? How wonderful is that?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah. So, I mean, it obviously had an effect. If you look at my book, you’ll see it’s a male. It’s. I feel guilt. You know, Laurie was like a shock, a shock in the dark when she died. You know, it was a total surprise. Later you can look back and you can think of some things, but it’s sort of like, there wasn’t enough warning, that you could ever have done anything. And if you look at my book, it’s definitely and the relationship between them, the main character, Rick, and his dead brother Lenny, you know, I am dealing with, you know, and one of the reasons I’m doing these blogs, I\u2019m dealing with some guilt. In the sense that, there may have been a spiritual aspect.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You know, Mark, we just sort of \u2013 Mark was a train going down the track. You know, I don’t think any of us suspected that, you know, he was going to live to be ninety, you know, because when he was going mad, he was going mad . Yeah, but, you know, I feel like there was if there was a spiritual aspect of this that we missed. Something related to the entity or something like that? That maybe we could have prayed about, or tried to exorcise, that we didn’t look into that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Marianne, I have, I have told this to Sean before. But before my daughter died, I was taking a shower one day. I twice, I have seen my guardian angel, spirit guide, whatever you \u2013 whatever you want to refer to it as. And it always comes to me before people<\/span> <\/em>die, that are very close to me. One was my grandmother, who pretty much raised me. And I was taking a shower. And this was a month or so before my daughter died. I did not see it, but it said to me, and I know its voice. It said to me. One of your children is going to die within the month. And I said, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. And then it said, and it’s not the only one. . .
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh Clara<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> So in a way, I had a preparation. The shock of it, I thought it would be Mark.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And me, and you thought me too, and Mark.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> And Laura would have been, and Laura would have been the last one, you know.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

How can you ever prepare yourself for something like that? You just can’t. You just can’t.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> That\u2019s why I say, I think it was their time to go. Otherwise, how would I have known? How would I have known? Why would he tell me?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Absolutely. And that’s what I tell. That’s what I tell to my people who, who are dealing with suicides. Look, don’t focus on how they went. It was their time to go. Or, if they hadn’t gone that way, they would have gone in some other manner.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> In fact, there was a text, Laura was \u2013 there was a bad ice storm right before she died. A horrible ice storm. And she had told me one of the women \u2013 She had just gotten a job selling clothing in this store. And she saw the other girl, who had started stealing. She said, should I tell the boss? I said, yes, I think you should. And she did and the cops came. And Laura left and was driving in a business \u2013 ice on the road and her car went. I think maybe even that was a suicide attempt. Sean, do you think so?<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> I think that probably was a suicide attempt.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> It went up off the beltway and went up into this tree, and got stuck in this tree. The car was all bent up and all.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> It should have been a fatal accident.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Yes, she should have died. She should have died then. And then when she went home, her husband started ragging about well he didn’t have car insurance and this and that. You don\u2019t think of me, whatever! Insurance offered a car. And that’s when she went down and shot herself.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong><\/span> It was Valentine’s Day.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> It was Valentine\u2019s Day. We brought her a dozen red roses, which ended up on her coffin.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Oh that\u2019s so sad. I’m so sorry. Honestly, my heart just breaks. As a mum is I, I just . . .\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Well, we all have lessons we have to learn.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Correct, correct. You’re right.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> I think at some point \u2013 I’m a believer that it might not be my first time around in this game, you know? And I believe that you say you will. I remember when I was growing up in Catholic schools, and the nuns would say when somebody, someone has a serious problem. And they were led into this room and there were all these different crosses on the wall. And you can pick, choose one, and they ended up always picking the one \u2013 that was my cross to bear, you know. I mean, we all have crosses we have to deal with it, you know? So I think. I dealt with it well, I mean. I took me like two weeks, I stayed in bed, and then one morning I just said. Are you’re going to get up. And live, are you just going to lay here and die and I decided it was going to get out the most.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Good for you Clara. Good for you. That\u2019s really . . .<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Mark died, he was out in Flint, Michigan, and it was a hurricane here. So it took us a long time to get his body back. And all that stuff, but . . . Mark we kind of ex \u2013 Mark like Sean said, he was a train wreck, we knew that . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, that’s probably true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> So it wasn’t a shock, I mean, it was a shock, and at the same time, it kind of half expected it to happen, you know,<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

At least you did have that bit of preparation. So it mitigated the shock a little bit. And that was incredibly kind of your guide to come and tell you that. So it wasn’t such a shock. Yeah, so you’re right, it was their time to go or he wouldn\u2019t have come and said anything to you. Absolutely correct. And Sean, how did you deal with it? How did you cope?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Well, I will say and it’s funny because I was mentioning this to my sister, like, two days ago, because we were talking about coming on this podcast. How when my brother, when Laurie died. Somebody suggested we see a grief counsellor, do you remember <\/em>this mom? You know, my brothers, my father took my two brothers in law and some of my uncles, they all went out. We went out to this grief counsellor and he’s and he’s like, I just want you to talk about your feelings. I can know you went on section and not a person. Not one of us said a single word. I hope you don’t remember. You don’t remember that you brought your aunt there. But I don’t know if you I don’t know who recommended we go out there. But everyone made the effort to go out, but not anyone said anything, you know, but, you know, it was, it was, it was a shock. I will say. I’ve never gotten over it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If you look at the my personal writings, you know, I’ve written a lot of commissioned screenplays and all. And you know, you will see this the same on the things I’m writing for myself, you’ll see this the theme of suicide quite a bit, you know, and even my next book, which will be light-hearted, some more light-hearted than my first two. And so I said what it’s about. And I said, well, it’s about death<\/em>. And a guy work in a mausoleum and suicide, you know, all my all my familiar themes, you know, and plus I had nearly killed myself.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So I deal with this. In a sense, Chapel Street, the fictional book, really kind of deals with my feelings about my brother Mark. And the last part of my book, The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking With God, my memoir. It goes from essentially my suicide attempt, through my sister’s death and how I dealt with that. So in a sense, my first book dealt with my sister’s attempt. And you know, and the effect and I think I’ve had a rare perspective that I’ve looked at suicide from both sides. I’ll send you my first book too I already sent, you know, you know, Chapel Street, you should already have it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And while you were talking to my mother, I sent it. \u00a0So I’ll send you the first one, too. And the funny thing is, is that I had mentioned earlier that my siblings, my \u2013 the females in my family, my mother, my sisters, at least my sister, Jeannie, my nieces, I think all of them, to some degree, had some sort of power of clairvoyance or great empathy, like that. And if you read my book, I had a similar thing. <\/em><\/span>I would receive what you call words of knowledge and prophecies, not like world prophecies, but things in my life, you know, and I was always ahead of the game.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

And it’s funny that I never associated that with anything paranormal. For me, it was strictly religious. But since I was experiencing some of the same things that my mother and my sister and my nieces experienced that. But, I looked at it from \u2013 but I had a different world view of looking at it. So these are all things that are, that I’m looking at now in a different way. But, you know, I look at these you know \u2013 sometimes I felt sorry for Mark. Because Laurie so destroyed the family when she died. And Mark was like an afterthought. Wouldn\u2019t you say that to a degree, Mom?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Yes. Yeah.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> You know, Laurie was, you know<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Laurie was a great shock. Laurie was, yeah.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> You know, I don’t think anyone, you know, I mean, not just our immediate family. I mean, you know, everyone in the circle was shocked, you know, in the wider family and everything, shocked about her death. And then Mark, and people were sad about that. But it’s sort of like, you know, you know, Mark well, you know, Mark died. I’m sorry to hear that, you know, but when Laurie died it was totally stunning. <\/em>And I really felt bad that when I finished my first book that I really didn’t talk about Mark\u2019s death. But in the narrative flow of my first book, my memoir, you know, Lori’s death loomed large in it, you know, because it was a resolution of another relationship. The central <\/em>relationship in my book, happened at my sister’s funeral. And essentially then I did just jump forward. I missed Mark. So writing about Chapel Street gave me an opportunity to kind of talk about my brother Mark and, you know, in a fictional way. But, it was a way that was very emotionally relevant to me to put it in.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> I think the reaction we had, I think, oh, I look at death in a different perspective. I think a lot of times, because of my religion. But I don\u2019t think death is the end.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

No, it isn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> So even, you know, and I know I’ll see her again. And, you know, I\u2019ll see Mark again. And my dogs! I\u2019ll take care of my dogs.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Well you know what Clara, on a lighter note, I in my last episode that’s currently, that was currently released when I’m doing you, it’s called Selling Dead People\u2019s Things. I interviewed this wonderful, wonderful chap in Chicago and we \u2013 he had this screen behind him. And I could see at the side, at the base of the screen, I could see the back of the room you know, like there was a gap. And we were just about finished our interview. When \u00a0I saw this dog go past and his tail wagging. And I said, oh, what sort of dog you have? He said dog? And I said, yeah I just saw a dog go past clear as! Clear as. And he said, I don’t have a dog. And I said, but I just saw a dog. A tan coloured dog with a fluffy tail. \u00a0He says, oh my God! That\u2019s Snookums! It\u2019s a dog that had died. So, just so you know, your animals are still around you. And they still love you.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> You know, people used to see a cat in my house. Remember Sean?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah. Other people saw a cat too. We never had a cat. And I\u2019m not talking about that big dangerous cat on the third floor.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> Yeah, we never had cats. They saw a regular kitty cat. Not my \u2013 not that horrible cat.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

You know what, I was going to mention it before about that, but shadow people can change shape and it’s not uncommon for them to appear as animals.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, so these are these are things like ones where we finish with everyone’s testimony, all the people who lived in the house, you know? I’m going to like, seek out people to, like, try to put the pieces together and explain it. You know, so it’ll be interesting to see and glad we have your insight. And hopefully, you know, I know this is a very popular podcast.<\/em> By the way. You know, I do a movie podcast called Yippy Ki Yay Mother Podcast. And a couple of us talk about movies, kind of a fun podcast. And they would kill me if I didn\u2019t mention it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, absolutely!<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Oh, I forgot. You know, I want to say your podcast is more popular than ours. So I’m hoping that maybe we will get the attention of some people here, who might be able to help us put the pieces together, once the research is done. But with covid, I was hoping to have everything done by now. But I like to do the interviews in person. I usually do them at my mother’s house, so she could throw in some questions, too.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> And so I’m behind way behind. I’m a year behind on where I hope to be, with actually researching the actual hunting. So afterwards, I’m really hoping to get some expert opinions so people won’t make the same mistakes we did. I think the key is to just get out.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If you can, if you can in situations like that with elementals, you can’t remove them. They were there before we were. They\u2019re going to be there after we\u2019re gone. The best in that situation, if it’s possible at all, is to move.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong><\/span> Right.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

But obviously, it’s not always possible, you know, because you sink your life savings and, you know, you’ve got bills and stuff and it’s just not realistic.<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> And I think we realized after a time that it was something that had been there prior to us. Prior to the house being there, I think. You know, it’s something \u2013 I think there was a portal there because I think different things came in at different times.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A lot of them \u2013 I\u2019ll bet, I\u2019ll bet your bottom dollars, that when that Ouija board was played there, it was never closed.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Yeah, probably not. Other people have used the word portal describing, I think. Other people I’ve interviewed, saying that they thought this was a portal. That house was a portal so . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

And having the Ouija board opens the portal even more, so . . .<\/p>\n

Clara:<\/strong> A lot of other things happen that off the top of my head.<\/em> You know, I just can’t remember a lot of things that happened to other people. Like, if we were saying. Some thing’s happened to my son, John, that didn’t happen to me. My brushes would disappear, but he would leave his room to go to the bathroom, and come back and his papers would be scattered all over the floor. Or different things, I mean, a lot of things happened, you know. I mean, the furniture moved around in this room.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> People would hear the furniture move more than they would see it. I remember another incident that we talked about, was John was living in the basement at that time. He sort of had like my brother Mark built an apartment in the basement with a separate entrance. And at one time, Nat only, I think that only Natalie and my mother were living upstairs on the second floor. They heard the furniture moving on the first floor and they went up to the stairs and like, John, what are you doing<\/em>? <\/em><\/span>And John heard the first floor furniture moving from the basement. And it’s like, I’m not doing anything. And they went down and nothing was moved.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n

But it’s like my nieces always say, and as I heard, it’s like no matter what floor you were on, you could always expect to hear footsteps, even if you’re on the third floor. Footsteps above, you know, there was always some sort of sense of, you know, not always, but it was not uncommon always to hear movement of certain sorts. People said they heard the furniture moving in there. My dad, when I left that third floor rear bedroom, nobody else lived in that room. And my nieces said they used to hear the furniture moving in there when there was no furniture in that room.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

So, I get the feeling Sean, that this project of yours actually is going to go on for a fair while. Collating, I kind of feel like when the time is right, it’s going to snowball a little bit and you\u2019ll get not only people from your home, but people from around your home, who’ve had experiences in these places around your home. That they’ll contact you as well. So, I actually feel that you’re creating a bit of a monster here for yourself. It’s going to get quite big. And, have you written a screenplay yet?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Well, I have a screenplay for Chapel Street. There’s already been some interest in the movie version of it. I really can’t talk about it now. But . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Of course.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> there’s interest in it. But, you know, nothing’s going to happen now. I have another film in preproduction where the money’s in place, but with covid, nothing’s happening. You know, it’s sort of like, you know, I’m actually writing a blog about writing a query letter for the Chapel Street movie because it’s like, hey, I got, there are people interested. So I’m not really thinking of actively querying it. But you always think about what to say. And there’s no point sending it out now anyway, because I don’t think for the next couple of months, you know, people are going to be really putting it out. There is stuff happening. There are people shooting movies and shooting TV shows. But there are so many restrictions that, you know . . .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Can you let my listeners know where they can reach you?<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> You know, it’s the best way to reach me. You can reach me all over. I’m very active on social media. I am at Sean Paul Murphy on Twitter. I think that’s also my handle. It’s Sean, S.e.a.n, Paul Murphy. That’s also my Instagram, Twitter, my Instagram on tag. And I’m also on Facebook. I\u2019m strangely, Sean Paul Murphy, I think there’s only two Sean\u2019s who use their full names on Facebook. I’m the fat one. And where else am I? Those are my main things are Facebook, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And also, you know, my blog. I have a blog<\/em> <\/span>called Sean Paul Murphyville blog at dot blogspot dot com. But if you just type Google, into Google, Sean, Paul Murphyville,<\/span> <\/em>you will get it. It’s all things Sean Paul Murphy. You know, probably too much Sean Paul Murphy for most people. But and if you’re there, you can look to the search engine for, you know, put in Twenty One St Helens. Twenty One St Helen\u2019s and you’ll get these stories about \u2013 I link to them a lot. Usually when I talk about Chapel Street, I’ll say it on the blog. I have the things underneath. Read about the haunting that inspired the book and I’ll have the blogs, you know the links to the blogs about the actual thing underneath.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s just been absolutely wonderful talking to you. I’ve really, really been quite moved by your stories and I’ve enjoyed listening to your experiences. Thank you so very much for your time today. I really loved having you and thank you for being so brave and sharing your pain.<\/p>\n

Sean:<\/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having us, I really appreciate it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div>

Be sure and join us next episode when I continue this family\u2019s journey, talking with Natalia and Sean, about Nat\u2019s experiences in this terrifying home, that she moved into after her mother, Laura\u2019s, death. And just a reminder, as I mentioned last season, these two episodes were recorded on my old iMac, before it died on me, so there is discrepancy in the parts of the audio, with some parts of the episode that were recorded after the interviews were completed.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy this podcast, so you don\u2019t on an episode, make sure you subscribe on your favourite podcasting platform. This podcast is available on all free, podcasting platforms, including iHEART radio and Pandora as well. Also, if you have Alexa, simply say these four words \u201cOpen Walking the Shadowlands\u2019 and Alexa will play our latest episode for you.<\/p>\n

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\nIf you don\u2019t have a smartphone, then you can listen to the episodes from the podcast website www.walkingtheshadowlands.com. For those hearing-impaired, there is a full written transcript of each episode on the website. So you don\u2019t miss out at all. Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell your workmates about our show! Encourage them to listen, and to subscribe also \u2013 the more the merrier!<\/p>\n<\/div>

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