The Dead Files (2011) s03e11 Episode Script

Blood in the Bordello - Columbus, Ohio

You hear that? He's stalking them.
My wife was assaulted here.
It hurts.
I felt this push.
Looks like a scratch mark.
Really dangerous situation.
Within two minutes he's dead on the street.
I see a lot of brains.
Holy [Bleep.]
.
She was tried for first-degree murder.
She's, like, trying to reach out.
There's something very bad here.
They're being watched.
My name is Amy Allan.
This thing likes death.
I see dead people.
This thing is, like, a monster.
I speak to dead people And he's pissed off now.
And they speak to me.
His head was cracked.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
This guy was murdered.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective.
I cannot help you unless I know the whole story.
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
You saw her? It's my job to reveal them.
Why would you stay here? But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
Stop it.
We uncover if it's safe for you to stay I want to know the truth.
I want to know what's happening.
Or time to get out.
I told you there were ghosts in this house.
Amy and I conduct our investigations separately.
I interview witnesses, local experts, and dig into the history of the location.
At the end we reveal our findings to the clients and each other for the first time.
I'm in Columbus, Ohio.
We've been called in by this guy named Harold.
He owns a restaurant with his wife in town, and he says there's violent spirits attacking his wife and his employees.
I'm hoping Amy and I can straighten this out.
Before Amy enters a location.
I clear the area of anything that could influence her findings.
This restaurant has a lot of photographs and historical items.
So it's important that I cover or remove them before Amy begins her walk.
There's too much going on.
I saw this dead lady who's depressed, and I saw things moving.
I saw a chair move.
Oh, okay.
[Bleep.]
.
There's a lot of sadness.
I don't like it back here.
There's something very bad up here.
So, Harold, you sounded really concerned on the phone.
What's going on? My wife and I just bought the restaurant.
And recently employees have started reporting seeing apparitions Seeing things moving around on their own.
And the breaking point was when my wife was assaulted here.
Assaulted? In what way? She was pushed.
- Did she get hurt? - Fortunately, she's okay.
But it it rattled her a little.
That's gotta be a little bit tough on you.
This is difficult.
There's something here attacking my wife, and I feel helpless.
What do you think's going on here? I'm not sure, but it seems to be primarily targeting women.
We've seen a pattern, and more women seem to be affected by this.
- And it's a concern.
- Ah.
You hear that? Stomping up and down.
And it's him.
I think it's a shadow man.
Shadow people are evil entities.
No one knows where they come from, but they are very dangerous.
He attaches to people.
He's been here before.
And he wants everyone out.
Steve, I brought you back here, because this is where the staff, keeps the ghost log.
They began to have so many incidents, that nine months ago I asked them to start documenting their experiences.
You've got a lot of entries here.
Yeah.
My first experience came when we opened the bar.
I was standing under the bar here, and as I stood and talked to staff in anticipation of our first customers.
One of the pictures Fell off of the wall and hit me squarely on the head.
- It came crashing down.
- Did you get hurt? I definitely felt it.
Did you notice if it had been loose or anything like that? We had gone through quite an extensive renovation here over the previous four months.
During the renovation, nothing had happened.
If it was gonna come down, it would've come - Maybe.
- It would've come down.
Harold, I gotta ask you, what would you do if Amy told you you gotta get out? I hope that's not the answer.
We have everything tied up in this restaurant.
So there's this one guy, and he doesn't like to be here.
He's very annoyed about the shadow man, who he cannot stand at all.
And he [Bleep.]
throws a fit about it.
I have a weird feeling that maybe they knew each other in life.
This is, like, a long-standing feud.
- Between the shadow man and this man? - Yes.
[Bleep.]
Gonna go down.
Like, he's had it.
This angry guy is screaming to me about how he hates the shadow man.
I think they're in an ugly fight, and the living are caught in the middle of it.
This guy, how does he feel about the living? He's very, very, very annoyed and frustrated with them because they won't listen to him.
Is he gonna do something? Well, that's what he's threatening.
He'll, like, try to throw something.
He wants the living to get rid of all of the dead except for him.
Because they annoy him.
- Your husband Harold called us in.
- Mm hmm.
You've got some things going on here.
Why don't you tell me about that? Since we've been in here, a lot of our trusted employees, um, have started to complain about things.
- And we don't have answers.
- Okay.
- What do you know about the building? - This building is is 200 years old.
And we know stories about the history of this place, but we don't know what's true.
Some of the things I've heard is, you know, I know this are used to be a Native American burial ground.
Going way back before this building was here.
And, um, this was around during The Civil War, so this was actually a bar that Union soldiers would visit.
- Way back in the 1860s.
- Wow, okay, so there's a lot here.
So, Elizabeth, I spoke to your husband.
He's a little concerned about what happened to you.
Yes.
- You got pushed? - Yes.
- Can you show me how - Absolutely.
What did you do? I mean, were you just walking in here? Essentially I was walking in.
- Our kitchen's back behind here.
- Right.
I had two managers that were in the office right about where you were.
Was this door open? Yeah, the door was open, and, uh, I got to about right here.
And I felt this push, uh, on my back.
I basically fell forward, like, onto my forearms.
It was scary.
I just was this really violent push to the ground.
When I looked up and looked at my managers, they were like, "did somebody push you?" - It it was really weird.
- And nobody was in the hallway? Nobody was in the hallway.
We checked.
There was no trip hazard anywhere.
And it it happened so quickly.
It was just it was very strange.
Okay.
So can you tell me more about this guy here? He doesn't like the shadow guy, because he thinks that he owns the joint.
What's he doing? He tries to hit people in the back, but right here.
Like, he's trying to get them, like, right here.
Like, he's trying to touch them or push them or punch them.
Oh, he's pissed now.
Like, he's trying to touch them or push them or punch them.
He's had it.
He does want these people gone.
You know, he [Bleep.]
hates everybody.
So, Caeleigh, I was talking to Harold and Elizabeth, and they told me some of the employees here are having issues.
Have you had any experiences? I've seen things out of the corner of my eye.
Like what? Like a taller, shadowy figure of a man in a white shirt.
Could you see details of his face or anything? No.
But the feeling that I get is, like, I'm being watched while I'm working.
- Are you uncomfortable working here? - I am.
I am.
- Okay.
- Definitely startled.
My heart starts beating, and I start getting too anxious to work.
But as soon as my anxiety level goes up, so do Paranormal things in the kitchen.
The shadow man he doesn't like the living people.
He says they're just as bad as the dead people.
Can you describe him? I have to look into the shadows.
I can't really see its face.
He's wearing black suspenders with metal hooks and a white shirt.
His shirt is weird.
It doesn't have a collar or anything, just a button there.
The shadow man, he does follow people.
He's, like, stalking them.
He would like them to die.
When I was working last Friday, and I walked away for a little while, and I came back in, and the middle burner was on.
Is there a problem with the stove? No.
I mean, I'm a cook.
I don't leave burners on.
And there was no one around that could have turned it on.
But luckily I caught it and turned it off.
That could be potentially a really dangerous situation.
Yes.
I saw a male and a female.
That he really hates a lot.
What does he do or want to do with them? Oh, well, one of 'em he wants to kill, I think in his dream land burn them.
So, Brenda, I was talking to people that work downstairs.
And, uh, they're having some pretty strange things happen.
Now you work up here in these offices up top here.
Right.
Right.
Okay, now I'm trying to find out, did you ever experience anything? I feel like there's a man who's very, very bad.
I feel like he can effect people's moods to where somebody who's generally a nice person, may not be for a second.
Like they deviate from their personality for a minute.
So I know what you're sensing, but have you actually ever seen anything? No.
I've never seen anything.
But I was downstairs in the conference room finishing up some paperwork.
And all of a sudden I could feel, like, a burn on my arm.
And when I pulled up my sleeve, you can see the scar on my arm.
But it went from here all the way to here.
But now the scar's about like that.
Looks like scratch marks.
So how long ago did that happen to you? Approximately six weeks ago.
- And the scar's still like that? - Yes.
- Holy [Bleep.]
.
- What? There's something very bad.
I'm trying to get into his head.
And he doesn't like that.
As soon as I try to connect with the shadow man, I realize he isn't one at all.
He's been projecting himself this way to scare the living.
So this man isn't actually a shadow person? No, he's a dead Person.
But he looks like a shadow person.
That's how people see him is like a shadow person, but he's not.
He likes to pound on the stairs.
He likes to stand right by people.
He will squeeze them.
Like, it feels like your muscle is, like, going in a spasm.
But it's but it's not.
It's like you feel his pressure.
So is there anything else that you feel or see up here? There's a young girl.
I feel like she's, like, trying to get my attention.
It's almost like you can hear her, and she's, like, really sad.
But I feel like she died a very tragic, sad death.
Three years ago, I would have never considered a witness's feelings to carry much weight.
But working with Amy has really changed my mind about what people can sense But not actually see.
You seem to know a lot about this girl.
Physically and emotionally without even seeing her.
How do you explain that? Maybe she senses that I would understand how she feels.
Maybe she knows that about me.
There's quite a few of 'em he's got trapped up in there.
A few of what? People.
They're all crying in the corner.
He says, "don't pay attention to the [Bleep.]
crying in the [Bleep.]
corner".
The witnesses I've talked to told me a lot of legends about the jury room.
So I'm meeting with a local historian in front of the restaurant.
Who promises to separate fact from fiction.
Nellie, is it true that this entire area was an Indian burial ground? That's true, actually, a couple thousand years ago, there were Hopewell Indians living in this area.
And there was a 40-foot-tall Indian burial ground right on this site.
Okay, so what happened to the mound? In the 1820s the settlers dug it all up.
They took all the clay from the outer layer of it, including the bones.
Ground that up and made it into bricks, which they ended up using as part of the original Ohio State House.
So they used the remains Of these Indians in the building materials.
Yes, incredibly disrespectful.
I see that there are things coming up from the ground.
Just dark things coming up from the ground, from the floor.
There's these men that are coming up from the floor.
They're trying to come up from the floor.
Shadow man comes down here, and he likes it down here.
He, like, feeds off it.
He likes it.
He likes it a lot.
I feel like Someone's strangling me.
Do you have any idea who's doing that? I think that's the shadow man.
He's better at being physical.
He's, uh, like, he gets, uh, his energy down here or something.
It hurts.
And this guy will not [Bleep.]
stop.
The real history of this place didn't really start until 1831, when the Courthouse was built here, right where we're standing.
That's the whole reason why the jury room was built.
You know, to accommodate the needs of the, lawyers and judges and people who come to the trials.
Okay, so the Courthouse was first, and then the jury room was built.
Now was it always a tavern? Oh, it's always been a tavern, although there were some other businesses going on.
It had been used off and on as an inn.
And in the 1850s it was also used as a bordello.
- Really? - Oh, yeah.
The building originally looked quite different.
As you can see in this picture of it from By the time this picture was taken, fire had taken out the entire third floor.
- And what year did that happen? - Eighteen eighty five.
Okay.
And that's not even the last of it.
Then they had a huge flood in 1913 that was just, the most grisly thing I've ever heard of in Columbus history.
So where'd the flood come from? Flood came through a few days of very, very heavy rains and then a levee breaking.
Close to 100 people died.
Thousands of people were left homeless.
Wow.
- Are you okay? - Yes.
What's wrong? There's these men that are, like, swimming through the floor.
It's like swimming, like, they're swimming.
Like I don't understand.
It's like this woman's getting, like, drowned.
She's, like, drowning.
She's like And her hand's up, and she's, like, trying to reach out.
And and she's being sucked into the floor.
And she's screaming.
There's so much pain.
After meeting with Nellie, I wanted to see what other information I could find out about the jury room.
And the fact that it was once used as a bordello.
Is something definitely worth looking into.
Digging through the archives, I came across an article that took this case in a direction I wasn't expecting.
It turns out a prostitute named Frances Miller, was arrested for murdering a man in the exact location I'm investigating.
This murder is my first major lead in this case.
So I've tracked down a local historian, who's asked me to meet her in Columbus's oldest cemetery.
She says she has something to show me.
So this article I read about this murder - It says it took place in a bordello.
- Mm hmm.
And it's in the same property I'm investigating.
Does that sound accurate to you? Oh, very accurate because whatever the tavern or saloon was at that location.
Didn't necessarily mean that there wasn't another business going on, like a bordello in the basement or the upstairs, and that would have been pretty common.
So now why did you bring me to the cemetery? There's something I wanted to show you that I think pertains, - to what you're investigating.
- Okay.
This is the family plot of the murder victim.
Well, the night of the murder, can you take me through what happened? It's the end of March, 1859.
They've been drinking way too much, and they're gonna go off to the bordello.
Which one of them, the victim, knows very well.
In fact, he knows it so well that he has this little euphemism for it.
He calls it his "farm".
But he's definitely gonna get his way into the bordello, even though it's past midnight.
And you have these intoxicated young men who think they're gonna get in, especially one who knows it very well, and he's insistent.
So it's not unusual to think that she has to take the matter into her own hands.
Pick up a gun, and scare him off at least.
He turns away.
He turns back, and she shoots him.
And within two minutes he's dead on the street.
People are yelling.
There's blood on the floor.
By touching the blood I can see on the floor, I'm able to pick up on the strong residual energy of what happened here.
Why is there blood on the floor? Oh, because there was this murder.
Uh, I think it's a male.
He's slumped over.
He said that people put themselves in stupid situations, and they deserve what they get.
He's like, "well, now you've got blood on your hands, too, [Bleep.]
".
I now know that a prostitute named Frances Miller shot and killed a man, inside the restaurant I'm investigating.
But I need to know what happened when she went to trial.
So I'm meeting with a local author who can tell me all about it.
This Frances Miller trial, uh, what can you tell me about it? Well, uh, I can tell you that it started in the Mayor's court.
Lorenzo English.
He was Mayor of Columbus.
And he presided in Mayor's court over the witness testimony.
So he was the Mayor and presided over court? That's correct.
Lorenzo English was very, very strict.
And a very, very religious man.
Uh, revered in the community, but he really didn't have a lot of, uh, personal friends.
I need to return to the attic, to see if I can figure out who this dead man really is.
Who's been projecting himself to me as a shadowy figure.
He has Dark hair.
He's really pretty powerful.
Always business, business, business.
Religious man, very.
Oh, I'm just getting bits and pieces.
Huh? He doesn't want me to get into his mind.
What happened with the trial? The Mayor's court took down all of the testimony.
And then transferred it to the common police court.
Okay.
The Judge that presided over Frances Miller's case, in the common police court was James L.
Bates.
Okay, what kind of guy was he? Well, he was very, very revered also within the community, but he also was said to be very kind-hearted.
What was her defense in the case? Well, her defense is that Paulus was banging down the door.
And threatened to kick it down and enter her bordello establishment.
Okay.
She, uh, felt like she had to defend herself.
All right, so her claim was self-defense to shoot the guy.
And what winded up happening? Well, uh, she was tried for first-degree murder.
And, um, she was convicted of manslaughter.
And sentenced to 11 years in prison.
It's my belief that Mayor Lorenzo English, would have really thrown the book at this woman.
So, Tom, after the trial she's sentenced to 11 years.
What happened? When she got out, she basically got out a broken women.
She she basically lost everything.
She lost her business, her house, everything.
Somebody's saying, "and they deserve to be punished".
"Because" "They were all" Uh "Evil".
"Uh, doing very bad things".
"Uh, like, against, uh, God".
"And so they deserve to be punished".
Who's telling you this? Uh, the dead guy.
Is he, like, the the threat? Yeah, I mean, he can hurt you.
He hurt me.
Yeah.
I think he can do that to others.
Yeah.
Do you think he wants to kill the living here? Yes.
During my walk I encountered an angry entity, who projected himself as a shadow man.
I'm meeting with a sketch artist to illustrate my violent encounter with him.
He'd probably be about 6'3".
You can see, like, his arms and, like, the deltoid and the bicep.
His hand's down, touching the ground, just like this.
Okay.
How's the environment in the rest of the room? There's bricks on the floor.
And there's a water heater.
Amy, is this what you saw? Now that our investigations are complete.
We're hoping our findings will help Harold and Elizabeth save their restaurant.
I also asked Brenda to be here, because I know she needs answers.
This is Harold and Elizabeth.
They bought the place a few years ago, and they've had trouble ever since.
Employees are frightened by what's happening here.
And they can't afford to close the doors, so they're looking for answers and some help.
This is Brenda.
Now Brenda works up on the top floor here.
And she had a pretty frightening incident happen to her.
That being said, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
The first person that I encountered was a very, very sad, lost woman.
To me she looked like a mother.
She was hysterical, um, crying.
There's a sense of loss there.
Wow.
Brenda, tell Amy about that particular feeling you get.
I sense her.
I don't see her.
She's just very sad, and she died a very tragic death.
Well, there is one woman that comes to mind, and her story is very sad.
Back in the 1850s there was a bordello run out of the building.
Wow.
The woman that ran the bordello here, her name was Frances Miller.
She was in her 40s.
On the night of March 31st, early in the morning hours, 1859.
She shot and killed a young man.
Who was attempting to get into the bordello.
She didn't want him in there.
An argument ensued.
She shoots and kills him.
Here's the article about it.
She was claiming self-defense, but they didn't buy it.
She was sentenced to 11 years, came out, and her life was basically destroyed.
I saw a Murder.
Of a man, and he was slumped over.
Um, there was blood everywhere.
And I heard, "now you've got blood on your hands, [Bleep.]
".
Could that sad woman you encountered be Frances Miller? Yes, I think it's very likely.
But she didn't die here.
Does that matter? No.
The dead often return to the place that was most important to them in life.
And this woman has done just that.
Okay, so the next conscious entity that encountered.
Uh, was actually here in the bar area.
And it's this male.
He's in his 20s.
He is a braggart.
He He hates the depressed woman.
I saw him coughing up blood.
Well, it sounds like the guy that Frances Miller murdered.
He was 26 years old.
His name was Paulus Ruprecht.
By all accounts, this guy was a real jerk, because he used to call the bordello His "farm".
You know, like, treating the women like they were animals.
Now do you think that this angry guy here could be this guy Paulus? I don't know.
Maybe.
But the angry man I encountered, he also has an issue with the living.
Because he wants the place to for himself.
And he's getting really frustrated.
And he wants to, like, throw things around.
Right now I know that he can touch and push.
He wouldn't, like, leave me alone.
Elizabeth, tell Amy what happened.
Back towards that office I was actually pushed pretty pretty violently.
Definitely a forceful push.
Oh, my.
Tell her what happened the day you opened.
I was meeting with the staff near the bar.
And a Picture came off the wall and hit me on the head.
Yeah.
He's, like, at the end of his rope with the other dead people here.
- Will this guy get worse? - Oh, yeah.
He wants to trash the place.
So the next entity I don't like this.
Up in the attic, um I see this shadow person.
But I'm looking, I'm looking, and I see that there is It's actually a dead person.
Who is projecting that image around him.
The dead can sometimes take on the form of other entities.
Usually to hide who they really are or to scare those they dislike.
This one was doing both.
He is extremely angry, and he just hates everyone.
Brenda, do me a favor.
Explain that feeling you have.
Yeah, I just keep feeling very a negative man, and he affects people's moods.
And, um, he's just Hateful.
That's not good.
Once I got past seeing him as a shadow person.
I saw the way he was when he was alive.
He was an extremely powerful person.
He was very religious.
Um, he hated everything that was going on here.
He felt it was extremely sinful And that the people who were here were doing things against God.
There was a Mayor here, Lorenzo English.
He was very religious and rigid.
I mean, he was known as "The Hanging Judge".
He presided over the witness testimony for the initial arraignment for Frances Miller.
The case got moved to a different Judge.
It's his town.
He's the Mayor.
He's trying to clean it up.
And she commits a murder.
And he was pissed that it was such a lenient sentence.
Do you think the shadow being is this guy Lorenzo? - Yes, I do.
- Okay.
Yeah, I do.
When I was upstairs, what I was seeing was him on one side.
And then on the other side was that woman who was crying and screaming.
He says, "don't pay attention to the [Bleep.]
crying in the [Bleep.]
corner".
Why would he be here, though? He didn't get to do what he wanted to do to her in life.
The other problem with this man is that He wants this place destroyed.
He'd love to burn it.
Talking about fires, they have an employee here named Caeleigh.
She'll leave the stove burners off.
She'll come back, and the burner will be on.
It's happened a couple times.
She sees a shadow man at least twice a day while she's working.
Oh, my gosh.
So when I was in the basement, that's when the shadow man grabbed me on my neck and shoulder.
And it was extremely painful.
I feel like someone's strangling me.
This guy will not [Bleep.]
stop.
I was, um, finishing up some paperwork.
And all of a sudden I felt this, like, burn go down my arm.
And when I looked, it was completely inflamed, and I had a scratch down my arm.
Can you show her? She still has the scarring from it.
- Oh, my God.
- So what really happened to her then? - I think he probably did harm you.
- This guy? Yeah.
The main person I'm concerned about is the shadow man.
Because he has a male and a female that he's kind of set his sights on here.
There's a male that he wants to harm.
But there's a female that he wants to kill.
The main person I'm concerned about is the shadow man.
Though he hates all the living people, and all the dead people.
He has two people in mind.
There's a male that he wants to harm.
But there's a female that he wants to kill.
So I did something a little bit different with my sketch.
I sketched him attacking me.
- You mean you sketched yourself? - Yeah.
- You've never done that before.
- No.
Okay.
Take a look at this.
- He's grabbing at you.
- Yeah.
What I wanted to show is what he's capable of doing.
Like causing pain.
What he did to me.
Just I don't know what to say.
What I saw, what I could make out of him wasn't very clear.
So, Elizabeth, what's going through your mind right now? I'm really concerned that this entity wants to hurt my staff.
Well, the thing is I don't know who the male is that he wants to harm.
But the female that he wants to kill She's petite, thin, short brown hair.
You just described the girl Caeleigh I interviewed, who sees the shadow guy, and the burners get put on.
That's her to a "T".
Okay.
I've seen things out of the corner of my eye.
- Like what? - Like a taller Shadowy figure of a man.
Do you know why he wants to harm her? It's just that's the person that he's kinda set his sights on.
And but it's not even harm.
Like, he wants to kill her.
If she gets out of this building, will he leave her alone? Yes, but it doesn't matter.
He'd move on to others.
He's not gonna be satisfied.
So basically what we have going on here is we have, a fragmented woman feeling that depression and loss, and she's broken.
- Who might be Frances.
- Frances Miller.
So part of her personality is stuck upstairs in the attic with the shadow man, who is really the Mayor.
And he's kind of got a fragment of her personality trapped there.
Then we have the male who is the braggart.
Who has become frustrated and unhappy, because he doesn't like the dead that are here.
To him they're causing ruckus and chaos, and he wants this place for himself.
Well, obviously this is a dire situation you guys are in.
But is there any way that Harold and Elizabeth can Save the restaurant and save lives? So for that critical question, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
I was initially concerned about the shadow man.
Because he does have a lot of power.
But when I really sat down and thought about it, he's just a dead guy, and I'm not gonna take the image that he's projecting, as anything more than just that a projection.
So in that case, taking care of dead people is a lot easier, than if it had been a shadow person or some kind of evil entity.
With him, his main weakness is his religion.
Using the religion is bringing in a man of the cloth, to do a blessing of the entire location.
That's going to keep him out.
Once you do this, there will be no dead that can enter this place.
And no dead that remain.
Just because I am slightly worried about him, we're going to see how things go.
If things are still happening Then we might have to go for an exorcism.
It's almost empowering to feel that - we can kick these guys out.
- Mm hmm.
I feel good that we can, uh, protect our staff, and we can send everyone on their way.
And and you guys are definitely gonna do this? - Yeah.
Oh, yes.
- Okay.
Now are you gonna be a little afraid to go upstairs to your office tomorrow? I'm a little creeped out, but I'm prepared.
And there's light at the end of the tunnel here.
Yeah, absolutely.
I really hope Elizabeth and Harold follow my advice, and rid their restaurant of the entities that inhabit it.
If they don't, I fear not only for their safety, but their employees and customers as well.

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