The Dead Files (2011) s07e02 Episode Script
Deranged - Falconer, NY English
AMY: Something kills people here.
Lots of pain.
This isn't normal.
There's something going on.
Really strong.
Something's grabbing my arm and hurting me.
And then, she's screaming.
He was classified as insane.
This is not good.
They're being tortured.
Something bad's going to happen.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's panic.
And it's almost like a butchering.
I see dead people.
They all died horribly.
I speak to dead people.
Get out of here.
And they speak to me.
Vicious.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
It doesn't matter where you are.
I'll find you.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide detective.
This guy's a real piece of work.
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I feel like I live in a house of Hell.
It's my job to reveal them.
This is not good.
But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
I want my life back.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay - Is he trying to kill her? - [Sobs.]
Or time to get out.
Oh, my god.
This is going to kill us.
STEVE: I'm in the small town of Falconer, New York.
It's about an hour south of Buffalo.
I received a call from a woman named Sheila.
She said there's something very wrong in her new home.
The activity is nonstop, and it's violent.
Everybody in the house is living in fear.
But Sheila says her 14-year-old daughter is getting the worst of it.
She says she may be in grave danger.
MATTHEW: Before Amy arrives, I look for anything that might influence her findings.
Once all the family photos and personal items are covered or removed, the location will be ready for tonight's walk.
AMY: Oh, boy.
I'm getting lots of anger and drugs.
Someone is sick.
MATTHEW: Currently? It feels like it.
Lots of pain.
[bleep.]
Ugh, this person is a disaster.
STEVE: Sheila, when we spoke on the phone, I know you were upset, and it sounds like you've got a problem here.
Tell me a little bit about what's going on.
It seems like something is targeting my daughter.
It's very hard for her to be here.
She doesn't want to be here.
There's nothing I can do to protect her 'cause I don't know what's going on.
I mean, she's having experiences every day.
She's having a lot of stomach issues, and the doctors can't find anything wrong with her.
At one point, she had bruises on her hand that looked like somebody grabbed her.
And that was really what prompted me to try and find somebody to help us.
So, who exactly is living in the house? That's my husband, George.
- This is my daughter, Sara.
- Sara? And that's my 15-year-old son, Nathan.
Okay.
We've all had experiences.
Okay.
There's all kinds of noises in the house.
We have a lot things that just come up missing.
My back has been worse than it's ever been.
Now, what kind of back pain are you talking about? Severe, stabbing pain, where sometimes it takes your breath away.
And now it's to the point where, you know, I'm going to different doctors, having injections, and taking medication just so that I can basically do what I need to do.
This isn't normal.
There's something going on.
AMY: A lot of pain, a lot of pain, physical pain.
Somebody is [bleep.]
in a lot of [bleep.]
pain.
It's really bad back pain, like super [bleep.]
bad.
First, I have no idea how anybody [bleep.]
lives here.
I don't know how they sleep.
I don't know how they eat.
I don't know how they can leave.
And just the physical pain that I feel that they're dealing with is ridiculous.
STEVE: So, Sheila, why did you bring me outside? I see somebody walking up the steps.
And there's a couch right in there where I sit at night, and I'm thinking somebody's coming to the door.
So, I'll get up and answer, you know, go to the door, and there's nobody there.
Can you make out any features at all, like a face or anything.
No, it kind of happens really quick, but it looks more like a shadowy figure.
Okay, so, have you ever seen this figure anyplace else? Yes, inside the house.
Okay, show me.
SHEILA: I was sitting on that same couch, and I heard footsteps coming down these stairs, so I was looking to see who it was, and I never heard the door open, but, all of a sudden, I saw that same shadowy figure, like, look around the corner at me and then came right back towards this direction.
All right, so, you come to investigate, and you're sure there was nobody down here? I'm positive.
Okay, did you hear it go back up the steps? No, I did not.
- Okay.
- [Hinges squeak.]
And you definitely hear the door.
I got no explanation for it other than what you're telling me.
What do you really hoping for us to do for you? Well, I'm hoping to be able to find out whatever it is that's hurting Sara.
Just show us how or tell us how we can get rid of it so that we can have an everyday life, she can stay here without having to worry about being alone.
I don't know what else I can do.
Okay.
AMY: [Groans.]
There's, like, this guy.
He's super-religious like super-religious.
Wow.
He wants everyone in this home to leave because they are unclean.
So, you know, he's haunting the [bleep.]
out of them.
MATTHEW: What does he do? He acts like a ghost.
Out of here, he will stomp.
Like, he'll [Stomps, grumbles.]
He gives no privacy and lets it be known there's no privacy.
So, Sara, I was talking to Mom earlier about the stuff that's going on here.
And the reason I took this case is because of you and what she said you're going through.
She mentioned some physical problems.
What's happening? Ever since we moved into this house, I've had really bad stomach pains that feel like someone's stabbing me all the time, and I've gone to like 10 doctors about it, and none of them can figure out what's wrong.
Is that the only physical thing you're having, I mean? I'll wake up at night, and I'll be getting scratched, and even the whole family, like, says that it's centered around me.
These scratches that you're getting, I mean, how bad are we talking about? What are they looking like? They'll go away within three or four days, but I've had some that have scarred over.
So I've had some bleeding.
Where do you generally get these scratches? On my thigh and my lower back.
You have cats here.
Yeah.
Are we pretty sure it's not that? Yeah, 'cause I had them before the cats were here.
Before the cats.
Anything else physical happening to you? I've gotten bruises on my arm.
What kind of bruises? Like, something's grabbing my arm and hurting me.
It looked like four fingers going across, and they were really big, like, probably two times the size of my hand.
- So, like a man's hands.
- Yes.
The religious guy, he prefers a particular woman here.
I see him looming over her.
He can make physical contact.
Like, he just grabbed my head.
He was making it known that he can touch me, and it felt like a tingling where his fingers would be, like down into my brain even.
He gets super-big, smothering, you know, trying to smother.
Pressure, panic.
The way that he smothers people is he sticks his fingers in their mouth and down their He makes people choke.
He's like, "This is chaos, "and they need to fix it and take care of it and accept Jesus Christ," into, you know, their lives.
Okay.
Things going on all the time.
They're being tortured.
So, George, I was talking to Sheila, and you guys are practically newlyweds, right? Yes.
But it seems like you can't even enjoy it.
No.
And I know you must be concerned for Sara, as well.
Being the stepdad, it's my job to protect the family, and it just freaks me out that I can't prevent what's happening to her.
Do you ever experience anything? On two occasions, something was on the porch, so got the flashlight, and I took off toward the garage, and whatever it was went into the garage.
Everything that was in its way was pushed aside.
It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up because if I can't catch and if I can't see it and if I can't stop it, how can I stop it from coming into the house? So, George, with all this stuff going on in the house, have you tried any kind of get help here or anything like that? One afternoon, somebody stopped by the house, and I'm like, "Excuse me.
Can I help you? Do you have the right house?" And he says, "Yeah, I'm from your wife's church.
" He was wearing the old-style, black-rimmed hat Okay.
And a full-length black jacket.
Like an old preacher type of thing? Yes, exactly like an old preacher, like from the early 1900s maybe.
So, he comes in, and he checks out the house, and he starts to make for the door.
I'm like, "Oh, hey, wait a minute.
You got anything to tell us?" And he just looks at me dead in the face and says, "I can't help you.
" Did you tell your wife what happened? Yes, I did.
As soon as she came home, I told her.
I said, "Hey, your friend from the church came.
" And she says, "What friend?" I would say that this is not a very good area in the house.
This religious guy, he doesn't like it up here, either.
It makes him agitated.
He thinks that there is something evil here.
This is not good.
From his religious perspective, it's, you know, some kind of demon or something.
Something kills people here.
STEVE: So, when I was talking to Mom, she mentioned that everybody's having experiences in the house, and I was wondering about you.
I used to sleep in this bed right here and had a laptop there.
I would watch stuff before I went to sleep.
And I used to see eyes peering at me through this door leading into the bathroom.
Describe what it looked like.
It kind of just looked like just two sets of balls that were red, that were right next to each other.
Are you sure it's not something you're looking at on your laptop that's screwing your eyes up? No, 'cause, I mean, I'm trying to comprehend what's going on and find a way to just prove that it's not, you know, paranormal.
Right, and you're not coming up with any answers? I haven't come up with anything other than Yeah, nothing.
Okay, so, is there anything else going on? Well, I have a few items go missing for months at a time that I've know I placed somewhere.
What kind of stuff? It's been water bottles, keys, a belt one time.
It's not there when you check, and then you come back, and it's in the spot.
Like, you know it was there before, but you couldn't find it.
Are you having trouble going to bed at night or sleeping? Yeah, sometimes.
I've always had feeling that somebody's watched me from that corner ever since we moved in.
AMY: [bleep.]
God.
It gets even worse in here.
There's something here that I'm missing.
And I'm gonna tell you that it can [bleep.]
jump people, get inside of people's bodies.
I don't think it's this religious guy.
It feels feminine.
This person's good.
They're [bleep.]
good.
Really strong.
She knows how to [bleep.]
hide.
She knows that I They're dangerous when they can [bleep.]
dangerous.
She makes people sick.
This is way deliberate, way intentional.
Definitely.
And she messed people up.
STEVE: Sheila and George didn't know anything about the history of their property, so I made few calls.
Turns out one of the original owners had real bad go of things.
I'm heading over to meet with a local historian who says this story is filled with heartbreak, insanity, and death.
STEVE: What can you tell me about the Southland family? Jon and his wife, Jane, purchased the property in 1869.
They had 75 acres of land, and he was a farmer.
I have an 1881 atlas of Chautauqua County which shows the property, the 75 acres.
Okay, Now, on the phone, you said things were tough for this family.
What did you mean by that? In 1880, John and his wife were out one morning - for a ride in their carriage.
- Okay.
And something spooked the horses, and they veered very hard, and it caused the carriage to topple over.
Jonathan apparently hit his head.
He managed to hold on to the reins, but he was dragged behind the horses.
He managed to control them, and he hitched them to a post and went back to aid his wife and dropped dead.
Wow.
He must have had some hit to the head.
So, I would assume that Jane got the property then once he passed.
No, at that time period, a woman didn't automatically inherit her husband's full estate because there were children.
- Okay.
- They had two grown sons.
Martin was 31, and Charles was 25.
And they were the ones who inherited the farm.
And so, what happens? In 1883, Martin was committed to a mental institution in Buffalo.
What was his issue? His commitment was for religious excitement.
What does that mean? In the mid to late 1800s, people were being exposed to spiritualism and Mormonism and other new beliefs.
Perhaps his family was concerned about that.
Geez.
He was classified as insane.
AMY: This guy I met earlier, he speaks funny.
He does.
He speaks strange.
MATTHEW: How? Like old-fashioned.
This creepy religious guy is suddenly opening up to me, and I'm seeing glimpses of what he was like in life.
I thought he was in his 60s, but, actually, looking at him when he was healthy, he might have been younger.
In his 50s, maybe, I'm thinking.
He's very skittish.
He's like, "Where are you going? "Where are you going? What's up? What's up? "Where are you going? Where are you going? Okay, okay, okay, okay.
" He was detained at some point in his life.
So, yeah, he had problems, you know, with his family.
There were problems there.
Hmm.
He's okay with us knowing some things but not everything.
STEVE: So, now, what happens to him? Well, he was discharged from that commitment in 1883.
I don't know how long he was there in 1883, but I found him in later census records working in Buffalo as a shoemaker.
So, was he okay after that? Well, he apparently wasn't, because he ended up taking his own life.
He slit his own throat with a razor.
Geez.
Martin kills himself in 1909.
- He was 60 years old at the time.
- Right.
This is interesting "An effort is being made to find relatives.
" Correct.
His brother's gone.
His parents are gone.
He was pretty much alone.
AMY: He, uh, got really hurt, really bad.
He goes, "Then, it all just stopped.
" Mmm He's like, "I was trying to I got to get to the church.
I got to get to the church.
" Didn't work out that way.
Mm, they put him in the ground.
They just threw him in the ground.
But he's not angry anymore, not angry anymore.
Now it's the sad.
He's sad.
STEVE: Now that I know a former owner of Sheila and George's property was committed to mental institution and later committed suicide, I need to see if there's anything else that could help my case.
Searching through old records, I come across the Crapo family and find not one but four deaths all inside my clients' house.
I'm heading over to meet with a local genealogist who says she's got information that will definitely help my case.
So, in my research, I came across the Crapo family that lived on my clients' property.
What do you know about the family itself? Well, Archie Crapo and his wife and his four children moved here from Kansas in 1931 during the Great Depression.
I saw that there was four deaths inside the house.
What do you know about those? By this time, Archie had moved his ailing parents in with them.
The first death was Archie's mother in January of 1948, and she died of heart failure.
And this is her death certificate.
She was 88 years old.
Mm-hmm.
Well, less than a month later, her husband dies.
His official cause of death was heart failure, as well.
Was he around the same age? I think he was about 96.
Wow.
So, what was the third death? The third death happens in 1962 Archie's wife, Carola.
After a long struggle with lung cancer, she passes away in the house.
She was 67.
But what was the fourth one? Well, Archie sold the house to his son, Joseph, and his wife, Joyce, and their two kids.
Okay.
And soon after they moved her mother in, Margaret Penticoff.
She passes away on February 1, 1975 of congestive heart failure in the house.
This is a photo of her? This is a photo of her.
I mean, I know it's natural causes, but, I mean, this house is like bad luck.
What the hell? There's some lady.
And they're flipping the [bleep.]
out.
Feisty, feisty, and not happy that we're here, and she's like spitting at us and calling us names.
We'd probably maybe hear her yelling or maybe see her quickly.
MATTHEW: Any idea what time period she might be from? '70s or '80s.
[Hinges squeak.]
The little old lady from outside, she likes it in here.
She's vomiting.
I think she died here.
It was fast.
I don't know if it's her heart.
This is making me too sick.
It's not healthy for the living to be in that area because they are [Grunts.]
Absorbing that.
And that's very bad for them.
Look, I don't know if this is gonna help my case, but during my research, one thing really caught my eye the murder of a pregnant girl less than a mile from my client's house.
I'm heading over to meet with a local police sergeant who said this is one of the most brutal murders in the county's history.
The reason I called you is I came across that article about a 7-month-pregnant female that was murdered within less than a mile from my clients' property, and you were able to look into it for me.
Yeah, that's why I brought you here.
Just a couple hundred yards up the riverbank is where the woman's body was found.
Okay, so when did this happen? It was September 23, 1899.
It was about 8:00 at night.
There was three boys that were walking along the riverbank, and they heard a woman screaming.
The three of them went down to the edge of the riverbank, and they found the woman facedown, partially in the water.
They turned her over and immediately noticed that she was bleeding severely from her neck.
Before the doctor could come, she had died.
Okay, now, did they ever wind up identifying her? Yes.
They identified her at the morgue as 26-year-old Emily Adolphson.
She was a Swedish immigrant.
Her throat had been slit from her chin to her spinal column, and she bled to death.
Okay.
And they also determined that she was 7 months pregnant.
So, did they have any idea who might have done this? She had a lover named Frank Vennerholm.
Now, did they go after this guy? They go in the early morning hours, and they go to his residence to interview him.
They scour the apartment just trying to look for some evidence.
They go into the closet, and they find a pair of pants and a vest that are covered in mud and blood.
And then, he gets arrested.
So, does it go to trial? Does he get indicted? - Yes.
- And so, how'd the trial go? They find Vennerholm guilty for the murder of Emily.
Okay.
On July 16, 1901, Vennerholm was executed in Auburn, New York.
Does this guy ever confess to anything? He never confesses.
- Never? - Never.
AMY: There's a woman.
She's crying.
There's a river, or, like, a stream.
Something about that and something about her child.
Usually, she's down like this, and she's like rocking, you know, and she's like, "Aah," crying.
But then, she stands up, and she becomes this big different, totally different kind of thing, uh, person.
I think that's, like, really, like, her pain and everything, like, comes up like that.
And then, she's screaming.
If someone sees this happening, it's not good for them.
I saw several dead people during my walk, but the religious man smothering a female in the house has me the most concerned.
AMY: There was a female on the bed.
And there was a male there.
He would kind of make himself into a black, thick mass.
Amy, is this what you saw? Yes.
STEVE: Now that Amy and I have completed our investigations, we're ready to reveal our findings to each other and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I'd like you to meet George and Sheila.
This is their home.
They've owned it about two years.
Now, the activity's really bad here.
They actually live here with Sheila's son, Nathan, who's 15.
This is Evan, who's 18, who moved out about 10 days ago? Mm-hmm.
And this is Sara, who's 14, and she's the main reason we're here.
And she's a sweet kid, and she's getting physically attacked.
They're desperate for help, and that's why they called us.
So, now that Amy knows a little bit about what's going on, I'm gonna ask her to tell us about her walk.
AMY: When I first arrived, I noticed this little old lady there, and she was yelling at me from the garage.
Later on, in the house, I encountered her in the kitchen, and I saw her and felt her become extremely ill, like violently ill.
She was vomiting, extreme stomach pain.
It's like I'm like, "Maybe this is a heart attack.
" She projects it out so intensely that the living would absorb this, and it would physically affect you.
So, I don't think it's good for you to be in that area.
I do think that she died possibly in the kitchen, and fairly recently '70s, '80s.
You know, the one thing that really struck me odd during the research for your property actually, the home itself was that four people actually died right inside the house.
Oh, my.
- Three of them were women.
- Oh.
And all from the same family.
Now, who I think you may be talking about is this woman.
This is Margaret Penticoff.
She died of congestive heart failure in 1975 in the home.
Okay.
How old was she when she died? She was pretty young 62.
Yeah, that looks like her.
The lips and the nose.
- It's a little disconcerting.
- Yeah.
Yeah, that definitely might have put a difference onto whether or not I would have bought the house, honestly, had I known.
The other thing was when I got to the porch area, I felt a lot of anger, and this anger is actually from a living person.
I felt that someone who's living in the house is actually very sick.
I felt extreme physical pain, especially in the back.
Yeah, it was really bad.
That would be me.
[Voice breaking.]
And pretty much every single thing that I go through every day.
[Sniffles.]
And I'm angry because I hurt so bad.
It sucks.
And I get anxiety, and I can't breathe.
So, every single thing you said just nailed it up.
And it's just kind of nice to know that somebody knows that I'm making it up.
Mm-hmm.
I can see it upsets you seeing your wife like that.
It does.
You know, and I really can't do anything to help her.
Well, I didn't even realize I was angry until you said it, and I want my life back.
I couldn't believe that people could even get out of bed in the morning or do anything because it's so severe.
I was just overwhelmed.
I felt that there were possibly other people in the house that might be having health issues, too.
Well, Sara You've been taking her to the doctors for how long for her stomach? A year and a half.
And they can't find anything wrong.
GEORGE: What else did you get? So, there's one male that's causing a lot of problems here.
Right off the bat, it was You know, he was telling me, you know, that he's extremely religious, that you the family that's there now needs to accept Jesus Christ into your hearts as your savior.
He despises everybody in the house, and he wants you all out because he believes you are not clean or pure, and he is taking on the role of a ghost.
He was showing himself becoming massive and dark, and he was showing me how he would stomp down the hallway between the rooms and be in the hall like [Stomps.]
[Sighs.]
The footstep stuff is something they all hear.
Oh, yeah.
Yep, on a daily basis.
Now, you see a shadow figure - coming up the porch all the time.
- Yeah.
Like somebody's coming up the stairs and then passing the windows and going to the door, but when I go to answer the door, - there's nobody there.
- Mm-hmm.
You got a real interesting story.
GEORGE: It was about 2:30 in the morning.
The shadow was on the porch, and I said, "I'm gonna do something," so I grabbed the flashlight, I opened the door, and this thing took off.
- And I gave chase.
- Mm-hmm.
And we get to the garage, and I stopped immediately because whatever it was just cleared a path for itself.
The bikes were thrown to the left and to the right.
I didn't know what to do.
STEVE: Now, does the stuff they're describing sound like it's him? I think so because those are all things that I think he believes would bother you.
But the other thing that he would do is become physical towards people.
He touched my head.
He also showed me him kind of trying to smother people.
He likes to get close to certain people while they're in bed.
He likes to take his fingers and try to push them down people's throats to make you choke.
This man kind of has his sights set on one female in particular in the household, and the one thing that I did see was that she had longer hair.
What he would do is, like, go to the end of the bed and, like, become this dark, you know, this darkness and would then show me him, like, laying on top of this person.
Yeah, that is quite disturbing.
The main reason we're here is for your daughter, Sara.
Right.
- And she just kind of described her.
- Yeah.
But she's also been getting scratched.
Okay.
And at one point, it had looked like somebody had taken her by the wrist and held her wrist tight, and she was bruised.
I explained the situation to an artist, and she drew it.
Of what he's doing? Yes.
Oh, geez.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, that's very disturbing.
You can't even protect her from him.
That's the infuriating part.
I can't That's my job.
I can't do it.
But it at least explains some things of why maybe nobody could find out what's going on with her.
They're not gonna find it.
It's not anything that any doctors can find.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you have any idea who this guy might have been in life? Well, the first thing is, obviously, he was extremely religious.
I know that at some point he was living with his mother, also that he was, at some point, detained.
When I first met him, he was kind of giving me the details about his death.
And there was extreme head and chest pain, and then everything just stopped for him.
He was, I mean, severely injured and hurt.
Well, a lot of who you're describing reminds me of a guy that actually lived on your property at one time.
Now, a guy named Martin Southland moved onto your property with this parents in 1869.
You said the guy was detained.
Well, he was institutionalized three times.
Oh.
And you said the guy was a religious freak, right? - Uh, yes.
- Okay.
So, the article I came across for him According to this, he's "mentally disturbed by religious excitement.
" And the other thing you said He was a painful death? Mm-hmm.
He didn't do it on the property, but he was living in Buffalo.
At the age of 60, he committed suicide, and he cut his throat.
Oh.
Makes sense, it does.
Okay, you've got a lot going on.
I mean, did you encounter anything else? Yes, I did.
Geez.
The upstairs is a very, very bad area.
Okay.
I figured out that there was someone or something there that could jump you.
So, this means that they can enter your body and take over.
So, initially, I was assuming that it was the religious male, but later, I figured out that it's actually a female.
She's really good.
Like, she can hide.
That scares me.
I think that she is very dangerous, and I think she has an extreme effect on the living.
One of things that she's doing to draw out her energy needs is to actually tap into the electrical impulses of the human brain and feed off of that, as well.
And this could possibly cause brain damage in the long term.
We feel lost.
I don't know what to do.
There's no words that can even describe how I feel about it.
Totally helpless.
Well, all I can say is I'm glad you guys called us when you did because, obviously, you've got a serious problem in your house.
The big question is do you stay and fight, or do you pack up your bags and take Nathan and Sara, especially, and move the hell out of here? For the answer to that question, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
I have some good news and some bad news.
Unfortunately, there's nothing that can really be done in the case of the elderly woman.
If someone was to approach her and try to tell her that she's deceased, it would make matters worse.
As far as the religious man, I think the best thing to do is to reach out to an Evangelical or Pentecostal church.
And you need to find a holy person, and this person needs to deliver a sermon a perform a blessing.
And then, once that's done, he'll move right on.
So, what do they do about this woman that jumps people? There needs to be three sensitives.
It needs to be two females and one male.
One of them has to be a physical medium.
The other two, I want to be different, whatever, like a psychic knower or a psychic empath.
And what they need to do is actually have séance upstairs.
That's how they're going to basically trap her amongst the three of them.
And then, each one is going to do what they do to move a deceased person on.
And then, once that's completed, she'll be gone.
In the meantime, because your daughter is so sensitive, I do think that she should not be in the house until this is completed.
And things could get a lot more intense.
[Sighs.]
Now, the question is will there be a change in Sara when all this is done? I mean, she should be fine.
I'm glad to hear that.
And, you know, I don't even have to ask you if you're gonna take Amy's advice.
- Oh, yeah.
- GEORGE: Oh, yes.
Without question.
No, I just really want to get started with these tasks that we have that Amy has given us so that we can help Sara, help the family, and get our house back.
It's like taking that big sigh that you've wanted to take forever.
AMY: I really hope Sheila and George follow my advice and deal with the dangerous entities terrorizing their family.
With the help of priest and mediums, they should be able to free their home of evil and lead a peaceful life.
Lots of pain.
This isn't normal.
There's something going on.
Really strong.
Something's grabbing my arm and hurting me.
And then, she's screaming.
He was classified as insane.
This is not good.
They're being tortured.
Something bad's going to happen.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's panic.
And it's almost like a butchering.
I see dead people.
They all died horribly.
I speak to dead people.
Get out of here.
And they speak to me.
Vicious.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
It doesn't matter where you are.
I'll find you.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide detective.
This guy's a real piece of work.
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I feel like I live in a house of Hell.
It's my job to reveal them.
This is not good.
But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
I want my life back.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay - Is he trying to kill her? - [Sobs.]
Or time to get out.
Oh, my god.
This is going to kill us.
STEVE: I'm in the small town of Falconer, New York.
It's about an hour south of Buffalo.
I received a call from a woman named Sheila.
She said there's something very wrong in her new home.
The activity is nonstop, and it's violent.
Everybody in the house is living in fear.
But Sheila says her 14-year-old daughter is getting the worst of it.
She says she may be in grave danger.
MATTHEW: Before Amy arrives, I look for anything that might influence her findings.
Once all the family photos and personal items are covered or removed, the location will be ready for tonight's walk.
AMY: Oh, boy.
I'm getting lots of anger and drugs.
Someone is sick.
MATTHEW: Currently? It feels like it.
Lots of pain.
[bleep.]
Ugh, this person is a disaster.
STEVE: Sheila, when we spoke on the phone, I know you were upset, and it sounds like you've got a problem here.
Tell me a little bit about what's going on.
It seems like something is targeting my daughter.
It's very hard for her to be here.
She doesn't want to be here.
There's nothing I can do to protect her 'cause I don't know what's going on.
I mean, she's having experiences every day.
She's having a lot of stomach issues, and the doctors can't find anything wrong with her.
At one point, she had bruises on her hand that looked like somebody grabbed her.
And that was really what prompted me to try and find somebody to help us.
So, who exactly is living in the house? That's my husband, George.
- This is my daughter, Sara.
- Sara? And that's my 15-year-old son, Nathan.
Okay.
We've all had experiences.
Okay.
There's all kinds of noises in the house.
We have a lot things that just come up missing.
My back has been worse than it's ever been.
Now, what kind of back pain are you talking about? Severe, stabbing pain, where sometimes it takes your breath away.
And now it's to the point where, you know, I'm going to different doctors, having injections, and taking medication just so that I can basically do what I need to do.
This isn't normal.
There's something going on.
AMY: A lot of pain, a lot of pain, physical pain.
Somebody is [bleep.]
in a lot of [bleep.]
pain.
It's really bad back pain, like super [bleep.]
bad.
First, I have no idea how anybody [bleep.]
lives here.
I don't know how they sleep.
I don't know how they eat.
I don't know how they can leave.
And just the physical pain that I feel that they're dealing with is ridiculous.
STEVE: So, Sheila, why did you bring me outside? I see somebody walking up the steps.
And there's a couch right in there where I sit at night, and I'm thinking somebody's coming to the door.
So, I'll get up and answer, you know, go to the door, and there's nobody there.
Can you make out any features at all, like a face or anything.
No, it kind of happens really quick, but it looks more like a shadowy figure.
Okay, so, have you ever seen this figure anyplace else? Yes, inside the house.
Okay, show me.
SHEILA: I was sitting on that same couch, and I heard footsteps coming down these stairs, so I was looking to see who it was, and I never heard the door open, but, all of a sudden, I saw that same shadowy figure, like, look around the corner at me and then came right back towards this direction.
All right, so, you come to investigate, and you're sure there was nobody down here? I'm positive.
Okay, did you hear it go back up the steps? No, I did not.
- Okay.
- [Hinges squeak.]
And you definitely hear the door.
I got no explanation for it other than what you're telling me.
What do you really hoping for us to do for you? Well, I'm hoping to be able to find out whatever it is that's hurting Sara.
Just show us how or tell us how we can get rid of it so that we can have an everyday life, she can stay here without having to worry about being alone.
I don't know what else I can do.
Okay.
AMY: [Groans.]
There's, like, this guy.
He's super-religious like super-religious.
Wow.
He wants everyone in this home to leave because they are unclean.
So, you know, he's haunting the [bleep.]
out of them.
MATTHEW: What does he do? He acts like a ghost.
Out of here, he will stomp.
Like, he'll [Stomps, grumbles.]
He gives no privacy and lets it be known there's no privacy.
So, Sara, I was talking to Mom earlier about the stuff that's going on here.
And the reason I took this case is because of you and what she said you're going through.
She mentioned some physical problems.
What's happening? Ever since we moved into this house, I've had really bad stomach pains that feel like someone's stabbing me all the time, and I've gone to like 10 doctors about it, and none of them can figure out what's wrong.
Is that the only physical thing you're having, I mean? I'll wake up at night, and I'll be getting scratched, and even the whole family, like, says that it's centered around me.
These scratches that you're getting, I mean, how bad are we talking about? What are they looking like? They'll go away within three or four days, but I've had some that have scarred over.
So I've had some bleeding.
Where do you generally get these scratches? On my thigh and my lower back.
You have cats here.
Yeah.
Are we pretty sure it's not that? Yeah, 'cause I had them before the cats were here.
Before the cats.
Anything else physical happening to you? I've gotten bruises on my arm.
What kind of bruises? Like, something's grabbing my arm and hurting me.
It looked like four fingers going across, and they were really big, like, probably two times the size of my hand.
- So, like a man's hands.
- Yes.
The religious guy, he prefers a particular woman here.
I see him looming over her.
He can make physical contact.
Like, he just grabbed my head.
He was making it known that he can touch me, and it felt like a tingling where his fingers would be, like down into my brain even.
He gets super-big, smothering, you know, trying to smother.
Pressure, panic.
The way that he smothers people is he sticks his fingers in their mouth and down their He makes people choke.
He's like, "This is chaos, "and they need to fix it and take care of it and accept Jesus Christ," into, you know, their lives.
Okay.
Things going on all the time.
They're being tortured.
So, George, I was talking to Sheila, and you guys are practically newlyweds, right? Yes.
But it seems like you can't even enjoy it.
No.
And I know you must be concerned for Sara, as well.
Being the stepdad, it's my job to protect the family, and it just freaks me out that I can't prevent what's happening to her.
Do you ever experience anything? On two occasions, something was on the porch, so got the flashlight, and I took off toward the garage, and whatever it was went into the garage.
Everything that was in its way was pushed aside.
It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up because if I can't catch and if I can't see it and if I can't stop it, how can I stop it from coming into the house? So, George, with all this stuff going on in the house, have you tried any kind of get help here or anything like that? One afternoon, somebody stopped by the house, and I'm like, "Excuse me.
Can I help you? Do you have the right house?" And he says, "Yeah, I'm from your wife's church.
" He was wearing the old-style, black-rimmed hat Okay.
And a full-length black jacket.
Like an old preacher type of thing? Yes, exactly like an old preacher, like from the early 1900s maybe.
So, he comes in, and he checks out the house, and he starts to make for the door.
I'm like, "Oh, hey, wait a minute.
You got anything to tell us?" And he just looks at me dead in the face and says, "I can't help you.
" Did you tell your wife what happened? Yes, I did.
As soon as she came home, I told her.
I said, "Hey, your friend from the church came.
" And she says, "What friend?" I would say that this is not a very good area in the house.
This religious guy, he doesn't like it up here, either.
It makes him agitated.
He thinks that there is something evil here.
This is not good.
From his religious perspective, it's, you know, some kind of demon or something.
Something kills people here.
STEVE: So, when I was talking to Mom, she mentioned that everybody's having experiences in the house, and I was wondering about you.
I used to sleep in this bed right here and had a laptop there.
I would watch stuff before I went to sleep.
And I used to see eyes peering at me through this door leading into the bathroom.
Describe what it looked like.
It kind of just looked like just two sets of balls that were red, that were right next to each other.
Are you sure it's not something you're looking at on your laptop that's screwing your eyes up? No, 'cause, I mean, I'm trying to comprehend what's going on and find a way to just prove that it's not, you know, paranormal.
Right, and you're not coming up with any answers? I haven't come up with anything other than Yeah, nothing.
Okay, so, is there anything else going on? Well, I have a few items go missing for months at a time that I've know I placed somewhere.
What kind of stuff? It's been water bottles, keys, a belt one time.
It's not there when you check, and then you come back, and it's in the spot.
Like, you know it was there before, but you couldn't find it.
Are you having trouble going to bed at night or sleeping? Yeah, sometimes.
I've always had feeling that somebody's watched me from that corner ever since we moved in.
AMY: [bleep.]
God.
It gets even worse in here.
There's something here that I'm missing.
And I'm gonna tell you that it can [bleep.]
jump people, get inside of people's bodies.
I don't think it's this religious guy.
It feels feminine.
This person's good.
They're [bleep.]
good.
Really strong.
She knows how to [bleep.]
hide.
She knows that I They're dangerous when they can [bleep.]
dangerous.
She makes people sick.
This is way deliberate, way intentional.
Definitely.
And she messed people up.
STEVE: Sheila and George didn't know anything about the history of their property, so I made few calls.
Turns out one of the original owners had real bad go of things.
I'm heading over to meet with a local historian who says this story is filled with heartbreak, insanity, and death.
STEVE: What can you tell me about the Southland family? Jon and his wife, Jane, purchased the property in 1869.
They had 75 acres of land, and he was a farmer.
I have an 1881 atlas of Chautauqua County which shows the property, the 75 acres.
Okay, Now, on the phone, you said things were tough for this family.
What did you mean by that? In 1880, John and his wife were out one morning - for a ride in their carriage.
- Okay.
And something spooked the horses, and they veered very hard, and it caused the carriage to topple over.
Jonathan apparently hit his head.
He managed to hold on to the reins, but he was dragged behind the horses.
He managed to control them, and he hitched them to a post and went back to aid his wife and dropped dead.
Wow.
He must have had some hit to the head.
So, I would assume that Jane got the property then once he passed.
No, at that time period, a woman didn't automatically inherit her husband's full estate because there were children.
- Okay.
- They had two grown sons.
Martin was 31, and Charles was 25.
And they were the ones who inherited the farm.
And so, what happens? In 1883, Martin was committed to a mental institution in Buffalo.
What was his issue? His commitment was for religious excitement.
What does that mean? In the mid to late 1800s, people were being exposed to spiritualism and Mormonism and other new beliefs.
Perhaps his family was concerned about that.
Geez.
He was classified as insane.
AMY: This guy I met earlier, he speaks funny.
He does.
He speaks strange.
MATTHEW: How? Like old-fashioned.
This creepy religious guy is suddenly opening up to me, and I'm seeing glimpses of what he was like in life.
I thought he was in his 60s, but, actually, looking at him when he was healthy, he might have been younger.
In his 50s, maybe, I'm thinking.
He's very skittish.
He's like, "Where are you going? "Where are you going? What's up? What's up? "Where are you going? Where are you going? Okay, okay, okay, okay.
" He was detained at some point in his life.
So, yeah, he had problems, you know, with his family.
There were problems there.
Hmm.
He's okay with us knowing some things but not everything.
STEVE: So, now, what happens to him? Well, he was discharged from that commitment in 1883.
I don't know how long he was there in 1883, but I found him in later census records working in Buffalo as a shoemaker.
So, was he okay after that? Well, he apparently wasn't, because he ended up taking his own life.
He slit his own throat with a razor.
Geez.
Martin kills himself in 1909.
- He was 60 years old at the time.
- Right.
This is interesting "An effort is being made to find relatives.
" Correct.
His brother's gone.
His parents are gone.
He was pretty much alone.
AMY: He, uh, got really hurt, really bad.
He goes, "Then, it all just stopped.
" Mmm He's like, "I was trying to I got to get to the church.
I got to get to the church.
" Didn't work out that way.
Mm, they put him in the ground.
They just threw him in the ground.
But he's not angry anymore, not angry anymore.
Now it's the sad.
He's sad.
STEVE: Now that I know a former owner of Sheila and George's property was committed to mental institution and later committed suicide, I need to see if there's anything else that could help my case.
Searching through old records, I come across the Crapo family and find not one but four deaths all inside my clients' house.
I'm heading over to meet with a local genealogist who says she's got information that will definitely help my case.
So, in my research, I came across the Crapo family that lived on my clients' property.
What do you know about the family itself? Well, Archie Crapo and his wife and his four children moved here from Kansas in 1931 during the Great Depression.
I saw that there was four deaths inside the house.
What do you know about those? By this time, Archie had moved his ailing parents in with them.
The first death was Archie's mother in January of 1948, and she died of heart failure.
And this is her death certificate.
She was 88 years old.
Mm-hmm.
Well, less than a month later, her husband dies.
His official cause of death was heart failure, as well.
Was he around the same age? I think he was about 96.
Wow.
So, what was the third death? The third death happens in 1962 Archie's wife, Carola.
After a long struggle with lung cancer, she passes away in the house.
She was 67.
But what was the fourth one? Well, Archie sold the house to his son, Joseph, and his wife, Joyce, and their two kids.
Okay.
And soon after they moved her mother in, Margaret Penticoff.
She passes away on February 1, 1975 of congestive heart failure in the house.
This is a photo of her? This is a photo of her.
I mean, I know it's natural causes, but, I mean, this house is like bad luck.
What the hell? There's some lady.
And they're flipping the [bleep.]
out.
Feisty, feisty, and not happy that we're here, and she's like spitting at us and calling us names.
We'd probably maybe hear her yelling or maybe see her quickly.
MATTHEW: Any idea what time period she might be from? '70s or '80s.
[Hinges squeak.]
The little old lady from outside, she likes it in here.
She's vomiting.
I think she died here.
It was fast.
I don't know if it's her heart.
This is making me too sick.
It's not healthy for the living to be in that area because they are [Grunts.]
Absorbing that.
And that's very bad for them.
Look, I don't know if this is gonna help my case, but during my research, one thing really caught my eye the murder of a pregnant girl less than a mile from my client's house.
I'm heading over to meet with a local police sergeant who said this is one of the most brutal murders in the county's history.
The reason I called you is I came across that article about a 7-month-pregnant female that was murdered within less than a mile from my clients' property, and you were able to look into it for me.
Yeah, that's why I brought you here.
Just a couple hundred yards up the riverbank is where the woman's body was found.
Okay, so when did this happen? It was September 23, 1899.
It was about 8:00 at night.
There was three boys that were walking along the riverbank, and they heard a woman screaming.
The three of them went down to the edge of the riverbank, and they found the woman facedown, partially in the water.
They turned her over and immediately noticed that she was bleeding severely from her neck.
Before the doctor could come, she had died.
Okay, now, did they ever wind up identifying her? Yes.
They identified her at the morgue as 26-year-old Emily Adolphson.
She was a Swedish immigrant.
Her throat had been slit from her chin to her spinal column, and she bled to death.
Okay.
And they also determined that she was 7 months pregnant.
So, did they have any idea who might have done this? She had a lover named Frank Vennerholm.
Now, did they go after this guy? They go in the early morning hours, and they go to his residence to interview him.
They scour the apartment just trying to look for some evidence.
They go into the closet, and they find a pair of pants and a vest that are covered in mud and blood.
And then, he gets arrested.
So, does it go to trial? Does he get indicted? - Yes.
- And so, how'd the trial go? They find Vennerholm guilty for the murder of Emily.
Okay.
On July 16, 1901, Vennerholm was executed in Auburn, New York.
Does this guy ever confess to anything? He never confesses.
- Never? - Never.
AMY: There's a woman.
She's crying.
There's a river, or, like, a stream.
Something about that and something about her child.
Usually, she's down like this, and she's like rocking, you know, and she's like, "Aah," crying.
But then, she stands up, and she becomes this big different, totally different kind of thing, uh, person.
I think that's, like, really, like, her pain and everything, like, comes up like that.
And then, she's screaming.
If someone sees this happening, it's not good for them.
I saw several dead people during my walk, but the religious man smothering a female in the house has me the most concerned.
AMY: There was a female on the bed.
And there was a male there.
He would kind of make himself into a black, thick mass.
Amy, is this what you saw? Yes.
STEVE: Now that Amy and I have completed our investigations, we're ready to reveal our findings to each other and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I'd like you to meet George and Sheila.
This is their home.
They've owned it about two years.
Now, the activity's really bad here.
They actually live here with Sheila's son, Nathan, who's 15.
This is Evan, who's 18, who moved out about 10 days ago? Mm-hmm.
And this is Sara, who's 14, and she's the main reason we're here.
And she's a sweet kid, and she's getting physically attacked.
They're desperate for help, and that's why they called us.
So, now that Amy knows a little bit about what's going on, I'm gonna ask her to tell us about her walk.
AMY: When I first arrived, I noticed this little old lady there, and she was yelling at me from the garage.
Later on, in the house, I encountered her in the kitchen, and I saw her and felt her become extremely ill, like violently ill.
She was vomiting, extreme stomach pain.
It's like I'm like, "Maybe this is a heart attack.
" She projects it out so intensely that the living would absorb this, and it would physically affect you.
So, I don't think it's good for you to be in that area.
I do think that she died possibly in the kitchen, and fairly recently '70s, '80s.
You know, the one thing that really struck me odd during the research for your property actually, the home itself was that four people actually died right inside the house.
Oh, my.
- Three of them were women.
- Oh.
And all from the same family.
Now, who I think you may be talking about is this woman.
This is Margaret Penticoff.
She died of congestive heart failure in 1975 in the home.
Okay.
How old was she when she died? She was pretty young 62.
Yeah, that looks like her.
The lips and the nose.
- It's a little disconcerting.
- Yeah.
Yeah, that definitely might have put a difference onto whether or not I would have bought the house, honestly, had I known.
The other thing was when I got to the porch area, I felt a lot of anger, and this anger is actually from a living person.
I felt that someone who's living in the house is actually very sick.
I felt extreme physical pain, especially in the back.
Yeah, it was really bad.
That would be me.
[Voice breaking.]
And pretty much every single thing that I go through every day.
[Sniffles.]
And I'm angry because I hurt so bad.
It sucks.
And I get anxiety, and I can't breathe.
So, every single thing you said just nailed it up.
And it's just kind of nice to know that somebody knows that I'm making it up.
Mm-hmm.
I can see it upsets you seeing your wife like that.
It does.
You know, and I really can't do anything to help her.
Well, I didn't even realize I was angry until you said it, and I want my life back.
I couldn't believe that people could even get out of bed in the morning or do anything because it's so severe.
I was just overwhelmed.
I felt that there were possibly other people in the house that might be having health issues, too.
Well, Sara You've been taking her to the doctors for how long for her stomach? A year and a half.
And they can't find anything wrong.
GEORGE: What else did you get? So, there's one male that's causing a lot of problems here.
Right off the bat, it was You know, he was telling me, you know, that he's extremely religious, that you the family that's there now needs to accept Jesus Christ into your hearts as your savior.
He despises everybody in the house, and he wants you all out because he believes you are not clean or pure, and he is taking on the role of a ghost.
He was showing himself becoming massive and dark, and he was showing me how he would stomp down the hallway between the rooms and be in the hall like [Stomps.]
[Sighs.]
The footstep stuff is something they all hear.
Oh, yeah.
Yep, on a daily basis.
Now, you see a shadow figure - coming up the porch all the time.
- Yeah.
Like somebody's coming up the stairs and then passing the windows and going to the door, but when I go to answer the door, - there's nobody there.
- Mm-hmm.
You got a real interesting story.
GEORGE: It was about 2:30 in the morning.
The shadow was on the porch, and I said, "I'm gonna do something," so I grabbed the flashlight, I opened the door, and this thing took off.
- And I gave chase.
- Mm-hmm.
And we get to the garage, and I stopped immediately because whatever it was just cleared a path for itself.
The bikes were thrown to the left and to the right.
I didn't know what to do.
STEVE: Now, does the stuff they're describing sound like it's him? I think so because those are all things that I think he believes would bother you.
But the other thing that he would do is become physical towards people.
He touched my head.
He also showed me him kind of trying to smother people.
He likes to get close to certain people while they're in bed.
He likes to take his fingers and try to push them down people's throats to make you choke.
This man kind of has his sights set on one female in particular in the household, and the one thing that I did see was that she had longer hair.
What he would do is, like, go to the end of the bed and, like, become this dark, you know, this darkness and would then show me him, like, laying on top of this person.
Yeah, that is quite disturbing.
The main reason we're here is for your daughter, Sara.
Right.
- And she just kind of described her.
- Yeah.
But she's also been getting scratched.
Okay.
And at one point, it had looked like somebody had taken her by the wrist and held her wrist tight, and she was bruised.
I explained the situation to an artist, and she drew it.
Of what he's doing? Yes.
Oh, geez.
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, that's very disturbing.
You can't even protect her from him.
That's the infuriating part.
I can't That's my job.
I can't do it.
But it at least explains some things of why maybe nobody could find out what's going on with her.
They're not gonna find it.
It's not anything that any doctors can find.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Do you have any idea who this guy might have been in life? Well, the first thing is, obviously, he was extremely religious.
I know that at some point he was living with his mother, also that he was, at some point, detained.
When I first met him, he was kind of giving me the details about his death.
And there was extreme head and chest pain, and then everything just stopped for him.
He was, I mean, severely injured and hurt.
Well, a lot of who you're describing reminds me of a guy that actually lived on your property at one time.
Now, a guy named Martin Southland moved onto your property with this parents in 1869.
You said the guy was detained.
Well, he was institutionalized three times.
Oh.
And you said the guy was a religious freak, right? - Uh, yes.
- Okay.
So, the article I came across for him According to this, he's "mentally disturbed by religious excitement.
" And the other thing you said He was a painful death? Mm-hmm.
He didn't do it on the property, but he was living in Buffalo.
At the age of 60, he committed suicide, and he cut his throat.
Oh.
Makes sense, it does.
Okay, you've got a lot going on.
I mean, did you encounter anything else? Yes, I did.
Geez.
The upstairs is a very, very bad area.
Okay.
I figured out that there was someone or something there that could jump you.
So, this means that they can enter your body and take over.
So, initially, I was assuming that it was the religious male, but later, I figured out that it's actually a female.
She's really good.
Like, she can hide.
That scares me.
I think that she is very dangerous, and I think she has an extreme effect on the living.
One of things that she's doing to draw out her energy needs is to actually tap into the electrical impulses of the human brain and feed off of that, as well.
And this could possibly cause brain damage in the long term.
We feel lost.
I don't know what to do.
There's no words that can even describe how I feel about it.
Totally helpless.
Well, all I can say is I'm glad you guys called us when you did because, obviously, you've got a serious problem in your house.
The big question is do you stay and fight, or do you pack up your bags and take Nathan and Sara, especially, and move the hell out of here? For the answer to that question, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
I have some good news and some bad news.
Unfortunately, there's nothing that can really be done in the case of the elderly woman.
If someone was to approach her and try to tell her that she's deceased, it would make matters worse.
As far as the religious man, I think the best thing to do is to reach out to an Evangelical or Pentecostal church.
And you need to find a holy person, and this person needs to deliver a sermon a perform a blessing.
And then, once that's done, he'll move right on.
So, what do they do about this woman that jumps people? There needs to be three sensitives.
It needs to be two females and one male.
One of them has to be a physical medium.
The other two, I want to be different, whatever, like a psychic knower or a psychic empath.
And what they need to do is actually have séance upstairs.
That's how they're going to basically trap her amongst the three of them.
And then, each one is going to do what they do to move a deceased person on.
And then, once that's completed, she'll be gone.
In the meantime, because your daughter is so sensitive, I do think that she should not be in the house until this is completed.
And things could get a lot more intense.
[Sighs.]
Now, the question is will there be a change in Sara when all this is done? I mean, she should be fine.
I'm glad to hear that.
And, you know, I don't even have to ask you if you're gonna take Amy's advice.
- Oh, yeah.
- GEORGE: Oh, yes.
Without question.
No, I just really want to get started with these tasks that we have that Amy has given us so that we can help Sara, help the family, and get our house back.
It's like taking that big sigh that you've wanted to take forever.
AMY: I really hope Sheila and George follow my advice and deal with the dangerous entities terrorizing their family.
With the help of priest and mediums, they should be able to free their home of evil and lead a peaceful life.