The Dead Files (2011) s03e14 Episode Script

Burned Alive

So much has happened here.
I'm going through their deaths one, two, three, four.
I didn't even know if I was gonna live through it.
I could feel them touching.
She was pushed down the stairs.
It is an excruciating death.
- And they hung them.
- They hung them.
They're bent on revenge.
Is it dangerous? You get bad people in a bad place.
Bad things are gonna happen.
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 look for anything unusual about the history of the location.
At the end, we meet with our clients to reveal our findings.
I'm in downtown Seattle to meet a woman named Darcy.
She was a big-time skeptic of the paranormal.
Then she bought a restaurant.
Now she's seeing strange things, and she thinks it's making her physically sick.
She's afraid of losing her business, her health, and her sanity.
Hopefully, Amy and I can help her out.
Before Amy enters a location, I clear it of anything that could be leading information.
This restaurant has a lot of photographs and historical items.
So it's important I take my time to cover or remove them all.
Once I'm done Amy can begin her walk.
There's, like, too many people.
What's going on? I'm experiencing about 20 to 30 deaths.
And it's wreaking havoc on my body.
I have all these lives going through my mind.
There is some crazy [Bleep.]
.
Hey, Darcy.
You sounded really concerned on the phone.
Okay, what's going on? I just got this business a year and a half ago.
And I've had guests that believe they've been pushed down the stairs, guests that have seen apparitions.
I have seen apparitions.
I could go on and on.
Okay.
Is it affecting business? It is.
I have my entire life savings into this, not to mention blood, sweat, and tears.
And I just honestly need to do something about it, whatever it is.
Now, do you know any history about this building? It's the oldest restaurant in Seattle.
It was built in 1890, and this is approximately, a year after the great fire that completely devastated Seattle.
Okay well, how about previous owners, you ever talk to them? The only thing I really know is there were seven owners in the last eight years.
And I can't afford to be the eighth in nine years.
I can't do it.
A regular person who spends a lot of time here They're gonna see some [Bleep.]
.
They're gonna feel stuff.
They're gonna hear stuff.
If they're sensitive, they're gonna be messed up.
I can't remember the last place I've been, that's had this many conscious entities.
All of them are trying to talk to me, trying to share how they died at the same time.
But there's one who stands out from the rest.
Uh, there's a guy here.
He looks real bad.
Some of his face is missing.
He doesn't like to be interfered with.
His rules still apply.
And he likes to enforce them.
He makes me nervous.
He makes me feel agony.
Darcy, why'd you bring me to this spot? One night at closing, my manager was here, and we were arguing.
And it just got misty.
And I said, "Tony, turn around".
"Does it look misty to you over there?" And he goes, "yeah.
Let's go".
Like a fog? - Like fog.
- That's strange.
Anything else up here? One night I closed up, and the next morning all the wine was literally, thrown from this wine rack all the way across the floor and broken.
Every bottle? Every bottle.
And this was intact, this didn't fall down or anything? - No, it did not.
- Were you broken into? No.
This guy will not be quiet.
Well, I feel like if he's being in a particularly Angry mood, you'd feel him.
And he moves a lot of things all the time.
Like what? I don't know, just stuff around the bar.
It's weird, because he doesn't want to be here.
This isn't working for him.
Why'd you bring me down here? One of my guests came downstairs, a woman Maybe in her 50s.
When she got to the last step She says that she feels like she was pushed down the stairs from here.
Wow.
And a man was coming out of the bathroom and witnessed her, and he said she actually went forward from the top like she was pushed.
- Was she drunk? - Not at all.
Okay.
This guy whose face is missing He doesn't want us to invade his space.
What happens when someone does? He's, like, push, get the [Bleep.]
out of my way.
Is it dangerous? He will throw people down stairs.
Definitely wanted to throw me down the stairs.
I've had a number of customers that say that, they see a woman go into the bathroom and shut the door.
So they'll wait, wait, and then finally when it seems to have taken too long, they'll kind of push the door open.
And they go in and there's nobody there.
A lot of them will just ask for their check and leave.
Your employees, how do they feel about coming down here? They're uncomfortable.
You're having trouble keeping customers, obviously.
Your employees are a little freaked out.
I mean, how are you dealing with all of this? Not well.
I left here on a Friday night.
I was so sick, like, really, really sick.
So Monday morning I went to the doctor, and I had bacterial pneumonia in my right lung, which had got into my bloodstream.
I actually was in the hospital for five days in a row.
They can't figure out how I got that sick that fast when I'm healthy.
How serious did it get? You know, I didn't actually even know if I was gonna live through it.
It was as serious as it could be.
Okay.
There's this religious woman.
And she's, like, always praying.
I think that living people, they see her.
But, like, she's really a very dark Dark person.
I don't like her.
She creeps me out.
She's, uh, scary.
She like, picks people.
What do you mean? She picks the weak.
She picks the weak.
Uh, women.
Sickly people.
And then what does she do? I think she [Bleep.]
kills them.
This religious woman, she feels women are weak and the sickly.
What does she do? I think she [Bleep.]
kills them.
How does she do that? It's a touch.
They [Bleep.]
die.
Do you get a name on her? Mary.
So, Matt, how long you been working here? - About a year and a half now.
- Okay.
Do you ever work downstairs? I never work downstairs.
This is my first time down here in over a year.
Why don't you tell me what's going on? What have you experienced? I'd come down here, with a glass very similar to the one that's right here on the bar.
I put the glass down, just as you see now.
Okay.
I made my way around the back side of the bar here.
When I came back, I reached for my glass, and it slid about four feet, and all I saw was it, hitting the lip and going over the edge.
Hearing the actual smash.
And I mean, that sound is something that I'm not gonna forget for a long time.
Now, if walked away and I left you here, would you be freaking out? And it just took that one incident for you.
That's all it took.
Made me a believer.
Does it hurt you financially because you won't work downstairs? It would help if I was able to get down here and get some shifts.
Um, as long as things get straightened out first.
Well, hopefully we'll get some answers and, maybe Amy can come up with a solution and you can maybe start working down here.
Absolutely.
So, this is his space, so He's angry very, very angry.
He's throwing a fit.
And, you know, he moves a lot of things all the time.
He is not a happy camper.
The angry man and the religious woman, seem to be the most powerful entities in this building.
But there are dozens of other dead trying to get my attention.
And it's making me physically ill.
I'm experiencing a lot of other people's deaths.
- How many? - Probably about 20 or 30.
I'm going through their deaths.
One, two, three, four.
So Why do you think there's so many? Lots of Layers.
So much has happened.
So much has happened.
Dillon, have you ever experienced anything here? Yeah, I've actually got a gentlemen that has uh, showed himself to me here in the kitchen.
He's probably showed himself about a dozen times or so.
Okay, can you describe him? He's an older gentleman, about 5'8".
Wears a button-up shirt, double-breasted jacket.
Okay, would you say he's from a time period? I would say anywhere from late 1800s to early 1920s.
He's actually starting to follow me around now.
- You're kidding.
- No.
I feel like people could see him the angry man.
He's wearing, like, a dark, burgundy, button-down shirt.
And he's probably about your height.
He had to enforce his rules.
If somebody [Bleep.]
with him, he's the one who's gonna put a knife in their throat.
Yeah, he knows how to take care of himself.
Okay, Dillon, what happened in here? The bartender upstairs She comes downstairs to check what specials I'm gonna run for the day.
Seconds after she gets to the bottom of the stairs, bang! Bang! Bang! Came down the stairs after her.
Misses her by a couple feet.
If the spirit could push a garbage can down the stairs, who's to say it couldn't push a human down the stairs or, pick up a knife and throw it at you? I see these little creature things.
What are they, then? I don't I can't really tell because they're all Kind of messed-up-looking.
They, like, scurry on the floor.
Almost like crabs.
But they're black and they're kind of fast.
So, what do they do? They, like, stalk people.
I can feel them touching, grabbing.
Your whole body reacts, like, you get those chills.
Ugh.
- You all right? - One grabbed my leg.
That hurt.
There's these things.
Oof! They, like, stalk people.
And people do see them for sure.
What would that look like? They could look like little child-size mists.
Vengeful, little Nasty [Bleep.]
.
Darcy told me that her restaurant was built right after a devastating fire in the late 1800s.
I'm on my way to meet a local fire historian, who says it was part of one of the greatest disasters in Seattle's history.
The two-story wooden structure that originally was on that site, was burned during the great Seattle fire of June 6, 1889.
- How big of a fire was it? - It was a huge fire.
It burned almost the entire commercial district.
This is a picture taken of the aftermath of the fire.
Wow, it actually looks like a war zone.
Now, did anybody die in this fire? Yes.
A young boy died in the fire, and after the fire with these tall walls of brick, there was this one wall that came down and ended up killing a gentleman.
Were there any other fires in or around the Merchants Café? The only other one that I know of took place in 1885.
Within a block of the Merchants Café.
It was a huge fire where two people did lose their life.
Okay.
Before this building was here, there was another structure here that was smaller.
Awful things happened there.
I think it burned down a few times.
So, these floor things that's them? Yeah.
They died in a fire.
They're all burned.
They're all nasty.
It's bad.
These strange creatures keep communicating the word "fire" to me.
And they're really angry about it.
They were trapped or stuck, like they couldn't get out.
And they're very bent on revenge for what happened to them.
When they get to know the person that they're gonna mess with.
They learn everything about them.
They are stalkers, like, they hone in, and they're, like, preying on the weak.
And they'll go after that person.
Now that I know the structure I'm investigating burned to the ground.
I need to find out who rebuilt it.
A local historian has agreed to meet me downtown, and he says the Merchants Café has a very colorful past.
I understand the original building was burned down in 1889 during the fires.
How did it get rebuilt? It was rebuilt in 1890, as the four-story Victorian structure that you see today.
One of the first owners was a man named John Ossner, who opened the Merchants Exchange Saloon in the basement.
Okay, now, what did Ossner do with the place? Well, in the panic of 1893 when the economy was just devastated.
Ossner got desperate for revenue and decided that he would take what was now the basement and turn it into an illegal card room.
And then the upstairs hotel became a brothel.
Okay, so we had a gambling parlor, we had the bar, and a brothel.
That's right.
When I walked in, I saw this different There were people, lots and lots of people laughing and having a good time.
And there were prostitutes but dressed nice, like, old-fashioned.
Any idea when? There was really frickin' bad people.
Get bad people in a bad place, bad things are gonna happen.
So, did Ossner run it the entire time? No, in 1898, right after the gold rush, they sold a big portion of the business to a fellow named F.
X.
Schreiner.
Schreiner's wife, Mary, was not approving.
She was a very devout woman, had gone to convent school.
She definitely had an image to keep.
She died in 1905.
Now, do you know what she died of? She died of consumption, or what we call Tuberculosis today.
It came on rather suddenly.
He was heartbroken and went back to Germany for a period of time.
What happened to the business when Schreiner went back to Germany? The other partners brought in a new bartender by the name of Otto Hink.
What is he, a bodybuilder or something? He was a wrestler, actually, and he became the barkeeper.
So what else can you tell me about him? He had a wife and children in town, but he also had a habit of frequenting the brothels himself.
And so the party for him was over at age 42.
Because he had already contracted syphilis of the brain, and he began to have dementia.
He ended up being committed to various mental hospitals throughout the state, and lived in sanitariums for the rest of his life.
We have the certificate of death, and you see that he did not die until 1957.
At age 79.
It was a very long and excruciating death.
Mm.
He's very, very, very physical.
Like, I see iron fists ran this place with, like, an iron fist.
This angry man is in so much agony.
He keeps pulling me back to the upstairs bar to try and share his pain.
Something about a child or children.
And he wants to take care of them but can't.
Doesn't understand where they are.
He's, like, a pretty buff guy.
Like, he fought a lot.
He's angry, confused Hurt, and he Doesn't understand what's happening.
So far, I know that the Merchants Café was a brothel, and burned to the ground in a deadly fire.
But a place that old has to have more secrets.
So I'm at the library, seeing what else I can uncover.
Digging through the archives, I was shocked to discover not one, but two executions happened directly across the street, from the location I'm investigating.
I'm on my way to meet a Seattle cop, who studied the executions across the street from Merchants Café.
He says he's got information that will definitely help my case.
Jim, I read an article where it said in the late 1800s, there was a lynch mob that grabbed two guys.
And they hung them.
Uh, it looks like right across the street from a property I'm investigating.
That's correct.
On the 18th of January, 1882, two murder suspects were being arraigned.
They were alleged to have murdered a prominent businessman.
Uh, George Reynolds, the previous night.
At 9:30 in the morning, they were arraigned.
By 1:00, the Judge had determined there was enough evidence to commit them - To be held over for the grand jury.
- Okay.
At which point a lynch mob formed.
They overpowered the two police officers, took the two suspects down to Occidental Square.
Okay.
Here's a photograph of the sketch that was done at the time.
They put a rope around each one of their neck, and the crowd started pulling.
It was a particularly gruesome scene.
It was not actually a hanging.
It was a strangulation death.
The crowd would yank on these ropes so hard, that the suspects' heads would bounce off the beam.
And they would basically stay there until they had strangled to death.
It was a very painful, slow death.
It may have taken them up to five minutes or more to die.
We have these two guys who were murdered or something.
Or executed, I don't know.
They're [Bleep.]
criminals.
These guys, too.
I think they're [Bleep.]
criminals, too.
I think they're bad people.
All these people are not good.
And then I see, like, this guy tied up.
And then the other guy next to him, is like tied up, too, but he's just dead, dead.
Like, he's asleep dead.
Like a coma for a dead person, okay? So, I can't distinguish if cops killed him.
There's no justice.
I'm getting like, there's no justice.
Three people here, though.
There is three people.
Shortly after this happened, the crowd went down to the jail, broke down the door, overpowered the Sheriff.
And pulled out another suspect, who was waiting to be heard on charges of killing one of our police officers.
They dragged him down to the gallows.
The last thing he saw was the two corpses hanging, on the beam, faces blue, tongues swollen.
And he realized he would be the next to die.
Right before they hung him up, he said, "if you hang me, you're hanging an innocent man".
At which point, the crowd strung him up the same as they did the other two.
So, what's the story? Was he innocent? Was he you know? Well, based on our research, he very well may have been innocent.
The officer that he shot, was in plain clothes chasing him down the street with a gun.
He thought the officer may have been a robbery suspect, so he turned and fired his own gun, since many people carried their own pistols back then.
Before the officer died that night, he said that, the suspect may have not been aware that he was a police officer, and so he may have inadvertently been just defending himself.
- And they hung him.
- They hung him.
During my walk, I encountered dozens of dead people.
But the angry and confused man stood out above them all.
Some of his face is missing.
He had a hat and kind of rolls under.
There was, like, a scar here.
Mm-hmm.
And it's almost like A hole.
Did you get a feel that he's from the present time? Oh, no.
He's from way back.
Amy, is this who you saw? Yes.
Now that Amy and I are finished, with our investigations of Darcy's property.
We're ready to reveal what we've found.
Darcy bought this place about a year and a half ago.
She never believed in the paranormal at all.
Then she started working here.
She actually ran out of here three times, scared to death.
She's afraid of losing her employees.
She's losing business.
Matt works here.
Matt's so afraid to go downstairs, he's losing shifts.
It's one of these things that's eating at him.
So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy, and she's gonna tell us a little bit about her walk.
Well, the first thing that I The first thing that I really want to say is that, this is a very difficult walk.
Because there are a lot of dead.
Like 30 people.
It was pretty chaotic.
And so I went downstairs, saw these two men that were executed, and whoever killed them tortured them.
Like, they were tied up.
And the other thing that was really strange was I kept hearing somebody say "There was no justice".
And that it had something to do with the police.
I mean, she almost nailed this down to what really happened here.
Back in the late 1800s, there was two men that murdered a merchant.
They put him in jail, they got arraigned the next day, but a mob took over.
And they went and they grabbed these two guys, and literally about They made a makeshift gallows.
And they strung them up.
Now, these guys were not hung in the normal fashion.
Basically, they would pull them up.
Oh, my God.
They kept pulling them up till their heads hit the top.
So these guys were struggling.
Now, you see there's a third guy? This guy had been in jail for about a month for murdering a police officer.
So they went and got him, and they strung him up.
Thing is, he might've been an innocent man.
Wow.
First time I've ever heard of this.
It's pretty gruesome.
So, what else did you see on your walk? I felt like this was a really bad area at one time.
But I got in here, parties And dancing and uh Prostitutes.
What time period are you talking about? It was, like, the 1880s.
People were very well-dressed in here.
Well, during my research, I came across, a guy by the name of F.
X.
Schreiner who owned the place.
There's a picture of him this is F.
X.
Schreiner.
He ran downstairs as a gambling parlor.
Up here was the booze.
And then there was a brothel upstairs.
He had a lot of people coming through here, to indulge in seedy things that were going on.
Interesting.
How'd the rest of the walk go? So, I'm downstairs, and I'm by the bathrooms And this lady comes out.
She was really, really religious.
And uh, she's very solid.
Which means she has a lot of power.
I felt like people could see her.
I don't like her very much.
Her name is Mary.
She can make contact with people.
She'll just poke or tap.
And she goes after people who are weak.
Like older people, sick people, children, and especially women.
And when she touches people, it's like a death sentence.
Well, I don't want to die.
Why don't you tell Amy about, some of your customers and what they've seen down in the bathroom.
Four different times that I know of, people go downstairs and have seen a woman go in the bathroom, and there's nobody in the bathroom.
People have come upstairs after that and asked for their check and left.
Wow.
Now, you said her name was Mary? Yes.
The wife of F.
X.
Schreiner She was a very pious, religious woman Didn't like the fact that her husband was making money with prostitutes.
She wanted to be on the high end of society.
Her name was Mary.
This is a picture of her.
Do you think the woman you saw is this Mary Schreiner? Yes.
What else you wind up seeing on your walk? I was up here, and I met A really, really interesting guy behind the bar.
And he was very forceful.
Also very physical.
He probably ran this place and ran it with, like, an iron fist.
But he's very confused about what's happening.
It's really sad.
He also felt that he wanted to take care of a child His child but he can't.
Let me tell you about a guy named Otto Hink.
When Mary died, F.
X.
Schreiner decided to go back to Germany with his kids for a little while.
And Otto Hink took over running the place.
He was a wrestler.
Strong guy.
You know, he was the bouncer.
He was the bar guy.
You said he was confused, right? - Oh, yeah.
- Okay.
He liked to visit the brothel himself.
Apparently, he contracted syphilis of the brain.
So at a young age 42 he started going a little mental.
Wow.
He spent 37 years in mental asylums till he died, - at the age of 79.
- Oh, my gosh.
Are you kidding me? It's kind of like dementia.
He was obviously in no condition to take care of his kids.
He's very, very territorial.
Especially about the bar area, and back there.
He's very protective of his space.
And if you get in his way, he can push you out of the way.
Tell Amy what happened.
I went downstairs, and I put a glass on the bar, and the glass actually slid off, the opposite side of the bar and smashed on the ground.
One night, I closed, and the next morning, he opened, and every bottle of wine had been thrown out of the wine rack, and broken onto the floor with red wine running out the front door.
Wow.
Your chef, Dillon He's seen a guy Like 15 times downstairs.
Do you think the guy you saw is Otto Hink? I think it's very likely.
I did a sketch of this man.
Wow.
[Bleep.]
.
What's that? Do you think the guy you saw is Otto Hink? I think it's very likely.
[Bleep.]
.
What's that? What's with the face? It was an injury.
I don't know if he was shot, stabbed, cut.
I mean, it's definitely the same mouth.
Same nose.
I don't like him looking at me.
It's kind of creepy.
I don't like that at all.
In the basement, I saw these things.
They don't look like crabs, but they move like crabs.
They were people, and they died in a fire.
They were somehow kind of trapped.
They're very angry about that, and they're very bitter, and they want revenge.
The people who died in the fire are filled with so much hatred and vengeance.
That in death, they show themselves in disturbing ways.
If you were to see them, it would look like a child-sized black mist.
- You said they died in a fire.
- Yeah.
Back in 1889, there was the big fire here.
It was probably the worst fire in Seattle's history.
It's believed two people died in it.
And four years prior to this one, about a block away, another two men died in a fire.
Wow.
You said it was a mist, right? Uh-huh.
One night, I was arguing with the General Manager up here, and it just got misty.
Over in the corner, it was dark, like, where you could not see through it.
And then we ran out.
It's unusual what they can do.
They can make people sick.
They can make you feel like you're getting chills Nauseous And can't breathe.
and by the time I got home, I was so sick.
I went to the hospital and, I had pneumonia in my right lung.
Then the bacteria from my pneumonia had actually got into my bloodstream, and my blood was infected.
Oh, my gosh.
And I thought I was gonna die.
I was a mess.
A mess.
So, Darcy, you've seen the results of the investigation.
You obviously got more than you bargained for when you bought this place.
The big question is, is it safe for you, your employees to be here? To get that critical answer, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
It's not really safe for you to be here right now.
Definitely don't go in the basement.
There's things you can do For the lady.
The way to get rid of her is, to find a medium who has a background in counseling.
And who also hopefully is some type of healer.
If it goes well, it'll get to the point where she leaves.
If the medium isn't making any headway with her, then you're going to have to make her leave.
And that obviously involves a type of exorcism.
The other thing with that medium is for her to do a cleansing on you.
So that you won't get sick again.
As far as he's concerned I think he should stay.
When I first encountered the angry man, he was lashing out, and it made me really nervous.
But after a while, it became clear he was only trying to protect this location.
I know you don't want to hear that.
If we can play along well, then I'm okay with that.
So, what about those creatures? Uh For them, the way that they died was awful.
And there was no respect there.
I would like them to have a funeral service.
Followed by a blessing.
So, if they get this funeral service done, will this move these creatures on? Well, it's part of the process.
So, the funeral and then the blessing.
And that will help to move them on.
Who do you think made Darcy sick, then? I think it's the woman in black downstairs.
I think it was her.
What kind of a risk are we talking about with her, if she doesn't listen to you? Well, she'd kill her.
Darcy, it sounds like we got here just in time.
That's a lot to lay on you guys in one night.
What are you gonna do? We're gonna do it.
We have nothing to lose.
You have everything to gain, actually.
Gain your health back.
Hopefully, business will be better.
I really care about Darcy's business, as well as her well-being.
So I'll do everything I can to make sure that her business is successful.
I really hope Darcy follows my advice.
This way, all the entities in her restaurant will be able to move on.
If she doesn't, I fear not only for her safety, but her employees' and customers', as well.

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