Case 4: Private Abandoned Home in Leesville

This case could not be more stereotypical if you tried at first glance. A creepy old abandoned home that was the site of a violent death is the stuff of many local urban legends, and our town was no exception. However, as with many urban legends, details get exaggerated over time, and facts get lost. We, however, were determined to find out the truth.

The house, built in 1910, has been unoccupied since 1997, and has been largely falling apart since. If you go by urban legends, someone who lived in the house was once part of a Satanic cult who sacrificed several people in the home, including a woman from Leesville whose body was dumped in a creek behind the house in 1957. The house itself is therefore cursed, and anyone who tries to live in it will be forced out or die after a few years at most.

Of course, this so-called “Satanic cult” never actually existed, although there is some truth to the legends, and the truth is perhaps sadder. In 1957, a 17-year-old girl from Leesville, who happened to be the girlfriend of the 19-year-old son of the homeowners at the time, was beaten to death in the home while the homeowners were away and the only occupant was their son, after which her body was dumped by the creek. After it was found, he was arrested and put in jail awaiting trial, but he committed suicide just before it was to begin. An autopsy of the girl found that she was pregnant, and it is speculated he either intentionally killed her or accidentally killed her while trying to induce some kind of abortion, with the motive being to avoid a teenage pregnancy and not bring shame upon the family in either case.

The house passed through a few more people after that before being abandoned in 1997. Ever since, it has been trespassed on by many local youths looking to get a scare or two, with a few unfortunately vandalizing some parts of the house, although thankfully the problem is not massive and there are many rooms that are not totally ruined. Me and the others have heard plenty of stories from other kids in school, ranging from people just walking through and getting a bit creeped out to people alleging to have seen ghosts. We, however, were to be the first people to actually try to document what was going on inside.

…

On the night of March 10, me, Jared, and Marie entered the house by ourselves. Ashley was busy with an event for the school choir, and Yukiko was out with some of her other friends. The house was small enough that we could reasonably cover the entirety of it with three people, so it was no big deal. Aside from this, we also debuted a new tool we pooled money together to buy: An electromagnetic field meter, or EMF meter, which would be indispensable for our investigations going forward

For those who do not understand, ghosts and other supernatural entities can affect the electromagnetic fields around them, and this can be picked up with an EMF meter. Of course, the presence of other electronics will also set it off, but there are a few meters out there that can differentiate the source of readings or at least reduce the readings from normal everyday items. Tonight would be the first test of this new meter, and this would be the perfect place for it since all electricity and water was shut off to the house a while ago.

As we unpacked on the floor of what used to be the living room, we took note of the decrepit state of the house, in particular how many of the windows were boarded up and almost all the wallpaper was torn off. “Man,” I remarked to the others as Jared began to record on a video camera. “You couldn’t have a more perfect setting for a haunt.”

“You got that right,” Marie replied as she pulled out the EMF meter. “This place already gives me the creeps, and I don’t even sense any spirits here yet.”

I then pulled out two DVRs from our bag, telling Marie and Jared, “I’m gonna leave one running in the fireplace down here, and I’ll carry the other one with me so we can do sessions elsewhere in the house.”

Jared looked around the house with a flashlight, our only source of light for the building, and remarked, “Dude, this place is filthy. There’s cobwebs and shit all over.”

Marie then turned on the EMF meter, and as soon as she did, we all felt the room get colder. “I felt a chill, guys.”

“Me too,” I remarked as I turned on the first DVR and set it in the fireplace.

“I got something on the meter too,” she then said as she turned the meter towards us. “Look at this.” The EMF meter was spiking up and down repeatedly, and as it did, the room slowly got colder and colder. “I feel like there’s someone here now.” As soon as she said that, the DVR in the fireplace captured a male voice that none of us heard: ‘Here… I am here…’

“I’ll start taking pictures,” I said as I grabbed a photo camera.

“Take them over there.” Marie pointed to what used to be the kitchen area of the house. “I think something’s over there. I can feel it.”

Following her instructions, I took about ten photos of the kitchen area as I slowly made my way to it. Once I was inside, I noticed that this room in particular was the coldest, and my breath was visible and I exhaled, something that was not the case in the living room. “Hey guys, my breath is visible in the kitchen!”

“Let’s head in,” Jared said as he and Marie grabbed the bag and the EMF meter and headed into the kitchen with me. No sooner had they both entered did a door slam shut upstairs, frightening all of us. “Holy shit!”

Marie exclaimed in fright, “What the Hell was that?!”

“Someone slammed a door shut upstairs,” I said as I looked up at the ceiling. I called out to whoever could be doing that, “Hey, are you slamming the doors shut up there?! Can you come down and see us?!”

We waited for about a minute to see if whoever was upstairs would respond, but after nothing happened, we all took a deep breath to calm ourselves down. “There’s a few people here with us,” Marie remarked. “I can feel it. It isn’t just one ghost.”

“Let’s head upstairs then. We’ll probably find whoever did that.”

As we all went upstairs to see what had happened earlier, the DVR in the fireplace captured another disembodied voice that, again, we had not heard at the time. This time, it captured an indistinct voice laughing in the room. Perhaps this was a sign of things to come when we began investigating the upstairs of the house.

…

We spent over thirty minutes upstairs trying to find any evidence of the paranormal with no luck. For a while, we began to think that whoever had been making noise had simply vanished, almost as if they were taunting us by the lack of their presence. However, that would change when we began to conduct an EVP session in what used to be a bedroom after I had taken a few photos.

I held up the DVR as Marie began to ask questions and Jared continued to film us. I remarked to the duo, “Let’s see if this will lure them out.”

“Not every location can be a winner,” Marie pointed out. “You said that yourself, after all.”

“Yeah, but we got a lot of activity beforehand, and it’d be odd if it just all stopped so early.”

“Fair enough.” Marie then turned on her EMF meter and began to ask questions to begin the session. “So, is there anyone here with us in this room? Can you tell us your name?” Pause. “Did you live here?” Pause. “Did you pass away in this house?” Pause. “How do you feel about people breaking into your house and the rumors about it?”

In response to the last question, we all heard a disturbing snarl from the hallway and turned to see if perhaps an animal had crawled in. I whispered to the others, “What the Hell?”

“I heard a growl,” Jared replied as he walked out into the hallway, finding nothing. “I don’t see anything here.”

“Did it sound like an animal?”

“That wasn’t an animal, Takeo,” Marie replied to me. “I can feel someone here… Someone who’s very angry.” As Jared returned to the room, Marie began to ask more questions. “Why are you angry? Is it because of what happened to you when you lived here? Is it because of people entering your home?” She then looked down at her EMF meter and noticed it was picking up rather high readings. “Guys, the meter’s shooting up pretty high.” She moved the meter away from the DVR and Jared’s video camera, but the readings only slightly decreased.

We all then heard what sounded like knocking within the walls, causing us all to freeze in place and go silent. Whatever was within the walls was rather loudly knocking on them, and unless there was a living person stuck inside them, there was no doubt in our minds this was paranormal. The fear in the air was palpable as the knocking continued, going on for over half a minute but feeling like an eternity. When it was finally over, my eyes were wide with horror. “What the fuck was that?”

“We need to get out of this room,” Marie instructed. “Now.” Heeding her advice, we all left the room, but just as Jared was about to leave last, he felt something grab him by the collar on his coat and pull him back, causing him to scream and drop the camera. Marie quickly picked up the camera with one arm and grabbed him with her other arm. “Jared?!”

“Holy shit!” Jared was completely pale as he was pulled out of the room by Marie.

Confused and frightened, I yelled, “What just happened?!”

“Dude, I got fucking pulled by something,” Jared explained to us while taking several deep breaths and trying to calm himself down. “Something grabbed me and pulled me back into that God damn room!” He then took the camera back from Marie. “Jesus Christ… I’m shaking, man.”

“There’s someone else in there,” Marie said as she looked into the room with an expression of true fear. “They… Oh my God…” She then grabbed both of us by our hands and told us, “We need to go! Now!” She did not tell us what she saw, but from the look on her face, we knew it was nothing good.

As we ran down the stairs, we heard the door to the bedroom slam shut, causing us to run faster as I yelled, “Go! Go! Go!” Then, as we reached the door of the stairs, a piece of wood flew right at us from within the darkness, nearly hitting me in the head as I screamed. “Get out! Get the Hell out! Hurry!” At this point, we decided to suspend the investigation and flee from the house, having realized that whatever was inside was willing to cause physical harm to us. However, in our panic, we had forgotten the DVR we had left in the fireplace.

When we made it outside, Marie slammed the door to the house shut before we jumped in Jared’s pickup truck. Before we could speed off, however, whoever was attacking us apparently had one last trick up their sleeve, because as Marie flung the rear door open to climb in, she felt a hand grab her arm and pull it, causing her to almost lose her balance and let out a scream in fright before she jumped in and slammed the door shut. “Drive! It followed us!” We then sped away, trying to make as much distance between that house and us.

…

A few hours later, after we had realized we had left the other DVR in the fireplace, Jared volunteered to go back and grab it, with Ashley joining him. The following events are based on their recollections as well as video footage from Jared.

When the two of them walked into the house, Ashley and Jared were talking about what had transpired, with Ashley in disbelief at what had happened to us as she walked over to the fireplace and picked up the DVR, finding it to still be running. However, just as she picked it up, they heard footsteps from above, followed by what sounded like crying. It was at this point that Jared turned his camera back on, capturing the crying sound from the second floor.

“Holy shit,” Ashley remarked to him. “They aren’t done with us, huh?”

“I hope that’s not the same ghost from before,” Jared replied.

Curious, Ashley called up to the second floor, “Who’s up there? Are you alright?” As soon as she did, the crying stopped. For a few seconds, it remained silent.

Then, several loud bangs were heard from a room upstairs, followed by what sounded like a woman screaming very loudly. Jared yelled out, “Screw this shit! We gotta go!”

“Right behind you!” As the screaming continued, Ashley and Jared ran from the house and back into Jared’s truck, speeding off. Whatever other evidence we may have captured had any of us stayed was simply not worth getting potentially assaulted by a ghost, and we had all the proof we needed to determine this house was one to stay far away from.

…

After that crazy night, we began to review the evidence we had captured. First, I reviewed the photos taken during the investigation, and in the kitchen, two stood out to me. Both showed a black shadow figure standing off to the side in a doorway to another room in the back of the house, with the second photo showing the shadow figure beginning to move towards the camera. I had not seen this figure when I took the photo, although the temperature did begin to drop dramatically when I took them.

The next photo that stood out was taken upstairs before everything, to put it mildly, went to Hell. The photo was of a boarded-up window in the old bedroom, which seemed to have a very haunting image of a face with no eyes and a wide open mouth. There was no glass in the window at all for anything to reflect off of, and the face did not resemble any of us. As with before, I had not seen this face when I took the photo.

Then, we reviewed the EVP session Marie had conducted. In response to Marie asking for a name, a low-pitched male voice was heard saying ‘no,’ after which the same voice replied to the question about whether or not he lived in the house with, ‘yes.’ In response to the question about people breaking into the house, a different voice, that of a young woman, replied back with a chilling message: ‘Help me.’ Finally, in response to Marie asking if the spirits were angry due to people entering the home, both voices spoke up, with the male voice saying, ‘Get out,’ and the female voice saying ‘No.’

While this session was disturbing enough as it is, what was captured on the fireplace DVR while we were gone is perhaps the scariest EVP we had recorded up to that point. What should have been about four hours of silence was interrupted about five minutes after we left when the DVR picked up the same deep male voice from upstairs laughing in the house for a good ten seconds straight. After this, there was silence again until about an hour after we left, when a completely different male voice, one that was more raspy and whispery, was heard saying, ‘The demon…’ Right after this, the sound of a door opening and closing was heard, followed by footsteps that went up the stairs and then stopped. Two and a half hours after we left, the deep male voice from before was heard saying, ‘They left… Haha…’

Finally, what was captured just a few minutes before Ashley and Jared arrived to pick the DVR up chilled us all to the bone. The second male voice first said in a whisper, ‘I did it. I killed her.’ This was followed by the first male voice saying, ‘You did.’ Was this a confession by the killer from years prior to another spirit?

Marie told us during the review of our evidence that while there were at least three human spirits inside the home, there was one that definitely was not, and she feared that this spirit was in fact demonic. Upon hearing the two male voices, she confirmed that the deeper male voice belonged to the spirit that was potentially a demon and was definitely never human.

After this, we made the determination to never set foot inside the house again. As I said earlier, any potential evidence inside was simply not worth the risk of getting hurt, or even potentially getting a spirit attachment.