Possessed By The Devil: The Story of Latoya Ammons

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call be Bed.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
We're joyed as always with our super producer, Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you argue you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
In tonight's episode, we're returning to the paranormal or depending
upon whom you ask, the infernal now. In a previous episode,
we opened with a question about going to a haunted house.

(00:56):
I think I dodged the question. The closest experience I
had had with that was in the Mark Twain house
in Connecticut, and I think what I saw can be
at least for my peace of mind so I can
sleep during the day. It's clearly explained through scientific, mundane means.
But in tonight's episode, we're looking at a case that

(01:17):
you might be familiar with if your fans of shows
like The Ghost Hunters. This is the story of LaToya
Ammons and the Ammon's family. Now had we heard about
them before we began looking into this.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
It was ringing some bells for Matt.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I think we've talked about this in passing, like in
the Poltergeist episode, because a lot of what we're going
to talk about today is back in twenty fourteen. We
did that episode twenty twenty, so I'm pretty sure there's
like there are little things that are pinging here. I
think I may have also seen a documentary that we're
gonna mention here, so maybe it's just that leading in.
But I think a great question for today is what

(01:52):
is the closest thing you guys have come to being possessed?

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Possessed by Jazz Baby, That's about it. I got the
spirit of New Orleans dwelling within me.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Yeah, what about you, Matt?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I don't know. That's why I was trying to think
when when we're going to go through today, like how
being possessed is described by folks who claim to have
been possessed, you know, after the fact, once you're back
in your whatever rational thinking mind is. The way it's
described is very interesting, and I don't think I've ever
experienced anything quite like that. Maybe the closest is just

(02:29):
being like so inebriated that you can almost see yourself
like from a third perspective. It's almost like it's not
really happening. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Maybe that's like when you met Brack the other night.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Maybe close to that. Maybe that's what I'm thinking about.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
Or maybe it's like Another analog would be dream logic. Right,
you have a dream wherein you are seeing yourself at
a remove and it all makes sense until you enter
the waking world and think, oh, that's odd. That's not
usually how I experience reality.

Speaker 5 (03:00):
It is a vibe kind of right, Like I've been
having some pretty intense dreams lately, and I'll kind of
wake up and I'll be half awake and half still
you know, one foot in the dream realm, and it
does kind of feel like it's not sleep paralysis like
I know our buddy Dylan has described. It's just terrifying,
but it's something akin to not being fully in control

(03:22):
or cognizant of your own body and mind connection exactly.
You know, you're you're sitting in the shotgun seat or
the back seat there you go, of your of your actions.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, well, we don't want to advocate drug use or
whatever here. But if anyone has ever partaken in cannabis
too far of an extent, like you had a little
too much or maybe a lot of too much, there's
a feeling that maybe that has been experienced there that
is that same kind of removed that you're talking about.

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Well, the psychedelics or more hardcore would be by design ketamine.
Ketamine is a dissociative drug that you know, it does
tend to have that very effect people describe almost looking
down upon themselves, seeing what they're doing and whether they're
like dancing at the club or like receiving kean therapy
and treatment which we know has become a very viable

(04:11):
source of mental health, you know, intervention, And yeah, it's
probably interesting for that very reason that it does disconnect
those pieces and allow some work to be done.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Ibogain, That am I saying it right?

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Ibogain. Also see sensory deprivation tanks. Also see the ego
death in other forms of psychedelics. Also see arguments that
something is mundane, as black mold in your attic could
create dizziness or a euphoric feeling that some people could
interpret as an encounter with the supernatural just just a

(04:47):
few years ago. So we're recording on April twenty seventh,
twenty twenty six, fellow conspiracy realist, and back around twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, this family we just mentioned, LaToya Ammon's and
the Ammon's family, they encountered what experientially could only be
described as a series of terrifying events. Now, skeptics are

(05:10):
going to tell you this can all be explained away
through science and mundane sources. However, true believers, including members
of the Ammon's family, to this day, remain convinced that
what they encountered was an actual case of not just
a haunted house, but of demonic possession.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Well it's not just the family, it's there are people
in this child protective services. There are some people who
are legitimate, you know, people of medicine who believe they
experienced things in throughout this thing that it seems to
be real, at least for them.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Right, So, what actually happened at Gary, Indiana's Demon House
huge thanks to the journalist Marissa Kwaikowsky, by the way,
who originally broke this story. Here are the facts, So
let's cast our memories back.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's November. It's twenty eleven.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
LaToya Emmons and her mother Rosa Campbell move into a
house on thirty eight to sixty Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana,
and along with them called LaToya Emmons three children, two boys.
The younger one is seven, the older one is nine,
and the eldest third child a daughter who is twelve
years old at the time. And you guys have I

(06:30):
think a lot of us have been in situations where
you have to move. It's always a big deal. It
can be especially stressful on the kiddos because you lose
touch with your old friends. You have to feel like
you're starting your social life all over again at a
new school. But according to the family, there is an
unseen or unexpected new vector of stress. Things start to

(06:52):
go south pretty quickly, and I believe the first incident
begins with flies in the middle of winter in December.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Well, if you guys ever rented a new apartment or
a house, not new, not new construction, just moved into
a new place and there has been something weird like
that going on that you didn't realize. A house I
moved into one time had rats. It was like they're
in the ceiling of the basement level, and we had
no idea when we moved in, and it was definitely

(07:20):
this kind of thing, which you know at the jump
of this story, when you hear what we're about to
tell you, it might be reminiscent of something you've experienced before,
where you move into a new place, especially a rental place,
and there's something just really bad about it that you
didn't notice when you signed the contract, right to me, right,
right man? At first, this just we're dipping our toes
into the weirdness, right.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, And that becomes a kind of buyer's remorse or
renter's remorse in this case that can be common to
a lot of us, and folks, I'm sure you've experienced
this at one point or another. I'm specifically thinking about
awesome place I used to occupy that had literal bats
in the attic, and I was living in a place
where it's illegal to kill the bats. So you have

(08:03):
to trap them. Yeah, you have to trap them and
release them and hope you release them far enough away
from their old belfry that they do not return.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Was it in Georgia though?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Okay, so your bats were probably I bet you loved
it for a little bit, because you probably didn't have
many mosquitos at all around your joint.

Speaker 4 (08:21):
See, so maybe they should have had bats. Guys, maybe
they should have had bats in this house on Carolina Street,
because it's December twenty eleven and they start reporting at
least that these massive swarms of fat black flies. Picture
like an oversized, well fed house fly. These swarms of

(08:42):
black flies are repeatedly overtaking their porch. The swarms seem
to come from nowhere and then immediately ghost or ghost
after like showing up and making an impression. There was
no discernible cause it's kind of weird in that part
of the country at that time of year or two
have swarms of flies, especially when the neighbors aren't reporting

(09:04):
a similar instance.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
In one interview, LaToya calls them horseflies, which you know,
if you've ever been around horse flies, you know those
things are kind of mean.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
They bite, they'll come at you. They're like wasp.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yes, very similar. I haven't seen it that. That's something
LaToya said in an interview that was posted on YouTube
in twenty twenty. I don't know if they were actually horseflies,
We don't know that, or if they were just they're
referred to as blackflies, you know, like the maybe a
common house fly or something that's associated with decay, death,
that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
Sure, plague.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
Also it's a general term. It's like saying the assailant
used a long gun.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (09:42):
Black fly could be one of thousands of species of flies.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Yeah, it could be black flies in your chardon e
death Rea, pardon two minutes too late.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
I'm only bringing that because in my mind, at least,
a common house fly swarm versus a horse fly swarms
like two very different things.

Speaker 5 (09:58):
I mean, you know, houseflies are gross, and you know
when you see them and you've got a swarm of them,
you definitely want to get to the root of it.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
But I feel like your house.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
Is some attacky you know, angry swarming insects coming at you.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
That's a very different proposition.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yes, yeah, one hundred percent, you know, because then it
becomes a threat. Then it's like, can I send the
kids out on the porch?

Speaker 5 (10:19):
A single wasp in my abode yesterday and I went
into full commando mode.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
The raid and the swater just kind of like parky mask.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
I'm glad you got it. I used to get high
off wasp things.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Man, I don't know that's fun.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
Good for I discovered it accidentally.

Speaker 5 (10:39):
You're trying just just a little poison. This has a treat, sure, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Like Princess Bride. Hey, hey, kids don't do wasp stings.
Don't do The Other thing that LaToya says in the
interview is that they killed these swarms over and over
and over again.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Cursed cursed place.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, but that doesn't seem right.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Yeah, especially when we consider that things quickly escalate. This
is a pattern we see proposed in a lot of
alleged hauntings or possession or poltergeist cases. The grandmother is
of particular interest, I think to all of us, at
least to me. Rosa Campbell says, she begins hearing unexplained

(11:22):
footsteps in the basement. The basement is unfinished, so there's
a dirt floor. That's gonna be important later. She knew
where her daughter and her grandchildren were, so logically there
couldn't be anybody horsing around there unless they had snuck in.
She also heard odd creaks, ors creaking. Someone was gently

(11:42):
moving them in another room. That's what she assumed. And
this is by the way, not a new construction to
our earlier point, it's an old house.

Speaker 5 (11:50):
And one of the biggest things people scream at at
the movie screen when they're watching like conjuring type films
is move, get.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Out of there. What are you doing?

Speaker 6 (12:00):
Yes, moving sucks.

Speaker 5 (12:01):
Moving is, like, I think, one of the most stressful things,
next to like losing a loved one or.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Being broken up with.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
People are gonna put it off as much as long
as humanly possible, so I think maybe horseflies. Okay, we
can get past this creaky sounds all right, you know
what we're gonna We're gonna move past this curious once.
We Yeah, it's an old house, but you know, moving
is a nightmare. Nobody wants to move, and people are
gonna tell themselves all kinds of stories to keep from

(12:27):
having to do the damn thing.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
I love helping people move, by the way, more so
than I love moving myself. You know, like, if you
have your stuff, I've contacted each of you about this
over time and said, hey, I'm happy to lend a
dumb pair of hands. There's something about the tetris of
it that's pleasing. But when you're moving yourself, yeah, that's
an excellent point. Noal people will often will often find

(12:53):
any rationalization to avoid uprooting again, especially if they have
kids and they want to mess with their kids' social life.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, I was Ben. It is very kind of you
to be the type of person who would offer even
if it's not needed, you know what I mean? Thank
you for that. Like, seriously, not a lot of people
will go out on a limon.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Do that.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Appreciate you, sir?

Speaker 4 (13:12):
It's good to It's what are we gonna do? Just
sit around and put off moving. Let's get here, let's
get haunted. Right.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
One other quick thing I think we should mention here
before you even get into where we're going. This is
a mother LaToya, her mother Rosa, and then these three
kids in a house. Okay, we just talked about a story,
and you guys are gonna have to help me. Remember
a story we just talked about where mister Price was

(13:42):
investigating the Boorly Rectory and there was a little piece
of information in there about somebody's wife was potentially moving
in the darkness and using the haunting as a way
to cover up her infidelity.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Tenant who was probably working the land and use a
monk right something, Oh, it was something pretended on the land.
But her husband was the reverend, and she was she
was telling her husband even more diabolic, yeah, that she was,
you know, being found naked outside of the bed because
she had been thrown.

Speaker 6 (14:18):
By Oh, how have I found myself in this state?

Speaker 3 (14:21):
In this disheveled state? So this reminds you of possibly that.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I'm well, no, but kind of okay. When I was
going to say, is I'm trying to put my my
thoughts in the inside the head of Rosa, the grandmother
who knows she has a daughter who's young and attractive
and has three kids, but there isn't you know, a
man or a person, a partner in her life. You imagine,
maybe you are hearing sounds in the house at night.

(14:47):
You could imagine, oh, it's my daughter, and maybe you know,
maybe she's with somebody or there, you know, doing something whatever.
I'm trying to imagine, what are the rational ways I'm
thinking about this, uh in that moment, other than ghosts,
other than poultry ize, other than demons.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Which is interesting because when we go to the escalation,
we see that not much longer after or not too
far past hearing doors creaking and saying I'm hearing footsteps
in the basement. Rosa Campbell. The grandmother claims that she
begins seeing ghostly apparitions. Now we don't always know what
time of day this was, but it appears to be

(15:25):
from the many interviews they've done, it appears to be
happening in the evening right so after dark, after sunset,
she's witnessing a shadowy silhouette of a male humanoid, adult
sized figure pacing in the living room. And then later
she says she also discovers a bootprint in the same area.

(15:45):
It's strange because the well, not even that strange if
you look at the genre. The pattern of paranormal activity
and violence continues to increase over time. As a matter
of fact, Emmons will later say that she is convinced
she was strangled forcefully by an unknown entity, like she

(16:05):
felt the ghostly hands across her throat. This is this
is poltergeist activity at this point. Now it becomes poltergeys stick,
which is a term I made up. I like it.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
I'm gonna use it. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
We can we just say, a wet bootprint in your
house and it's not one of your shoes or your
family's shoes.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
And it's not a path, it's one.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
It's just a I mean that to me is so
disturbing because I think initially before everything about something paranormal,
some some joker was in my house.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
First, just now use the use the mat you know
at that bar. Were you raised in the bar?

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
One of my questions is is this no shoes house
like level people or no.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Shoes?

Speaker 4 (16:54):
I prefer no shoes. If it's an emergency, like Shang
Wang says, then you know you can make exceptions moving
day for instance.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
But in general, I've only just recently adopted a noose
shoes policies really on my radar, but since I've kind
of gotten become a bit of a need freak, it
really goes a long way and keeping your force clean.
And if you live in a city, a big city
where you walk a lot, like in New York for example,
yes it is absolutely a must. And if you wear
your shoes into someone's apartment, they will look at you askance.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
I think you should just you know, keep outside outside
unless you're spooky ghost. Unless you're a spooky ghost.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
The thing I've picked up from several of my son's friends,
like their parents, many of them. Their families are from
South Korea. They have a really great way of handling
that situation that I was unaware of with the slippers
kind of situation. Yesah, so yeah, you enter the home,

(17:48):
you leave your shoes in some place right there by
the door and the bloodroot.

Speaker 5 (17:53):
Maybe there's a lobby, Yeah, lobbies.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
It's the best.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
And that's one of my questions that I'm having too
much fun waving this around. That's one of my questions
that hasn't been answered and should be yours as well,
fellow conspiracy realist, was this and no shoes house we
need to do? But yeah, either way, we're bringing it up.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, we're in Gary, Indiana. We've mentioned that on this
show before, just about how dangerous that town has been
for quite a time, especially around you know, twenty eleven,
twenty fourteen, like all through the time that this story
is active. If there is a bootprint in your house, right,
that is a dangerous, potentially massively dangerous situation.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
It could be indicative of crime for sure, And that
would be the natural assumption and a very valid assumption
to make. We also know the poltergeistick events escalate again.
The twelve year old the daughter, one of the amon's children,
had a group of friends spend the night. This is
after the unexplained bootprint. Group of friends spend the night

(18:57):
because they are mourning the death of a loved one,
as reported by USA Today. As reported by The m
D Star and a lot of other local papers that
broke this story, I.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Think Rosa actually was like saying this as the grandmother
or whatever, just saying.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
So the family claims later that during this sleepover, we
could call it their daughter. The twelve year old levitates
unconscious above her bed until LaToya admits her mother, Rosa
and the friends of the twelve year old get together

(19:36):
and pray, at which point, during their prayers Christian prayers,
by the way, the girl slowly sinks back down into
the bed. She regains consciousness. She has no memory of
the event, and they're saying, you know, you were floating,
Are you okay? Do you remember anything? And she says, no,
what happened? This is beyond out of season flies. This

(19:59):
is super horror movie territory at this point.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
First of all, that can't happen in the natural world, right,
so if that happens, truly some it's going down, thank
you doling. But like, right that the moment that that
occurs where we have jumped genres right in real.

Speaker 4 (20:22):
Life, especially considering whatever is happening appears to be contagious. Now,
in a lot of alleged poltergeist cases, a single person
often becomes the focus of activity, right, Typically it's going
to be an adolescent human female. But in this case,
whatever is happening, it appears to affect the other children

(20:46):
as well, especially the younger son. So the younger son,
the seven year old, is having these episodes where his
eyes apparently roll back in his head and he's having
seizure like thrashing movements. He's been physically violent, like he
head butts his grandmother and stuff, and he's.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
In thought of headbutting your grandmother.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yeah right, I will lot yeah, And he's growling stuff
like I will kill you or it's time to die.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Always a lot of swears coming out of these possessed individuals. Swears, curses,
just bad language, rude behavior.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, Noel, He's never been
possessed by like.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
A post.

Speaker 4 (21:29):
From the seventeen hundreds, going oh of a perishing thirst
for a nice melow. No he's like, I'm going to
kill you.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Surely there's a comedic example of possession by a friendly
entity in cinema.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
We'll have to get that.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, beetlejuice, that's true. That's true. I guess he's supposed
to be a villain, but I have such a soft
spot in my sternum for that guy.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
So this stuff is happening, what do you imagine your
first couple of steps.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
Are can We also mentioned the older son has been
physically thrown through the air by an unseen force. Got
to mention that, like the nine year old, Sorry, he's
the middle kid. He's so you got the seven year old,
We got the nine year old. The nine year old
is also not immune. That's what we mean by contagious.
And that's a great question, Matt.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Well, yeah, so if this starts happening in your house, like,
where do you go first? If you have, like, let's say,
a religious background, you're saying prayers over your child that
is floating in the air, you probably go to a
church first. And that is one of the first things
they did. They tried going to churches in like different churches,

(22:39):
just saying hey, please help, this is crazy. This is
spiritual in nature. You guys are the church. Somebody come
and help us. And finally, after a lot of people
were saying, no, come on, we don't do that. That's
not a thing, that's not happening, they got some church
officials to come out and do a couple of things.
It was so weird. Imagine you go to a spiritual

(23:00):
advisor at a church and they say, well, you should
probably just clean your house with like bleach, you know,
and ammonia and stuff.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
Put some oil crosses on the windows.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, draw oil crosses on every door and window, and
that's their like, that's the solve, and now you're good.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
They also consulted what Indie Star journalists describe as local clairvoyance,
So there's a mix there with the church forces and
these clairvoyants apparently independently claimed the house was inhabited by
more than two hundred demons, so they escalated number crazy well,

(23:37):
they said, more than okay, fair fair fairs.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah right.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
I immediately realized that after I said, hey, guys, I
don't know if I've mentioned this to you and you've
maybe seen it, but I am a big collector of crucifixes.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Do you think I'm covered.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
Protection is that it depends on how much you believe
in the sigil.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
Honestlys would say, yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Those things just flip upside down.

Speaker 5 (24:01):
Did I not tell you that that's what they'll do?

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Man?

Speaker 5 (24:05):
I have one, guys, where the Christ which was affixed
to the cross a flipped.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Upside down, not the whole cross, just the Christ. What?

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yes, where was it manufactured?

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Unclear?

Speaker 6 (24:19):
I left him that way though.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
It's really sick.

Speaker 4 (24:21):
I'm just checking if it was like a TMU Jesus.

Speaker 5 (24:23):
No, no, no, it was definitely a manufacturing flaw. Don't think
it was in a spate of demon position.

Speaker 4 (24:30):
No good news for you. My old professors or some
of my old ecclesiastical type friends would say that those
things work perfectly well so long as you have focused
genuine belief in them. So start believing in them. If
that vampire crisis ever pops off.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Interesting, I have a one that glows in the dark.
O right, with the power of belief or like with
depends you got to charge it up with the power
of belief.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
There makes it glow.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
There we go, give it some sunshine. I like that,
very clear style. We know okay, so we know that
this didn't do the trick for the Amans family, at least,
they were not satisfied. They reach out to secular authorities,
and one of those secular authorities is a guy named
Jeffrey on yque and Ony Cue is a medical doctor.

(25:20):
He's their regular GP. He visits the house. It's April
twenty twelve, so it's well after these alleged events began.
And this doctor is our first skeptic in the conversation.
In his notes, he says, you know, I don't think
this is paranormal activity, and it makes sense for a
doctor to say that. Instead, he says, I think this

(25:42):
behavior has another basis, a mental basis, maybe a family
dynamic basis. I think these folks are maybe hallucinating, maybe
egging each other on. I think their behavior is delusional.
But whatever he saw, whatever the cause, anonymous source in
his office believe that this was a matter for the authorities,

(26:05):
and so they contacted the police, and not Sting but
the Gary PD. And when the police arrive, they find
the older brother acting normally. Rationally is the word they
used in the reports. But the younger boy, again, this
is our seven year old. He's screaming, he's seizing, he's
gnashing his teeth. He's acting very very violent. There are

(26:30):
hospital incidents we should talk.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
About, but let's just go into the mind of the
people that were concerned about potential child safety here. Imagine
if you hear a nine year old was thrown across
the room by some quote unseen force, that sounds like
an adult or somebody bigger than that child through that kid, right,
that sounds like abuse. That's if that rings to your
the ear of somebody who is paid to pay attention

(26:54):
to these things as someone who's a kid is being abused.
And there are a lot of things in here that
are very interesting when you see what the solve is
or what the potential actual problem is. Go back to
that church really quickly. Think about them saying, clean your
your old house with bleach, especially an old house that
has a basement. What could they possibly be trying to

(27:17):
counteract ben bleach in an old house. Smell the black
mold we were talking about, which isn't gonna kill it.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Actually, if he can't kill that, right, then it would
treat it.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
It would at least treat you know, other things that
potentially could be affecting this family that is outside of
the spiritual realm, and it would bring us to this place.
Right that is still rational? Still potentially, hey, this could
be abuse until.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Until we see this hospital incident where the younger child
is apparently observed by Child Services and observed by a
nurse fighting with what seems to be preternatural strength. It
takes five adults to restrain this kid. Eventually the kid

(28:03):
is released from the hospital. But now to that earlier point,
the Department of Child Services or DCS, feels like they
need to investigate further because this could be a potential
abuse case, which, as you said, is a very reasonable
thing to think. So they film a visit to the
house and the younger brother starts attacking his grandmother, who

(28:29):
claims that when she confronts him and says, you're not
my grandson, he turns to facer and he walks up
the wall backwards. This is confirmed later by DCS personnel
who say we witnessed the event, and that was reprinted
in the New York Daily News. By this point, the
story's gone national.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
A lot of these.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
Incidents that are being described here are like the quintessential
backwards walking demon possessed trop Hopes from film I Mean
you see it in like movies like Hereditary, you know,
you see it's in again, like the Conjuring franchise and stuff.
I mean, there's obviously a lot of details pulled from
this that have been you know used. This is actually

(29:13):
that's interesting though, because this is more more recent.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
Again, it's like it's almost a genre of folklore.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 5 (29:19):
But you gotta wonder, is there like may people are
people are eyewitnessing this stuff.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
I'm a little bit of plumb professionals. Yeah, we've got
to introduce another one. This is a very interesting character.
A police captain named Charles Austin. Austin at this point
has been an officer for more than thirty years, like
thirty six, thirty seven years. He's almost forty years into
the game, and he first visits the site due to
reports that the aman's children are missing school and per

(29:48):
his own account, we'll tell you how to find it
in a minute. He and his partners spent about forty
five minutes in the house on Carolina Street, and they
found things at first in the basements that schewed him out,
a little odd paraphernalia, dirt, and strange places. He even
says maybe a ritual of some sort took place down here,

(30:10):
and this is before they even start digging stuff up.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
I would just put forward one of the reasons that
the the rituals might be thought to have happened there
is because one of the clearvoyants early on gave the
advice to LaToya and Rosa to make some kind of
altar in the basement where those clearvoyants said a lot
of these spirits or these phenomena were originating. So I imagine,

(30:35):
you know, if you put a bunch of sage down there,
and you know, maybe amber other things that you might
find that you would create some kind of altar, maybe
some crosses, maybe other things that are related to the
Christian religion for defending against evil spirits and that kind.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
Of No, we're not talking about infernal ritual they're talking
about them and trying to do their solid Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, yes, But if you don't know about the things,
you're not familiar with what that would look like. You've
never seen that before in your work as a police
captain in the Gary Police Department, you might go, oh,
I think they might be doing rituals down here.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Yeah, just because that out there, that's a great observation,
because you know, if you're familiar with this kind of
magical working, you know that nobody really puts up a
sign in clear like hand lettered English that says, don't
worry this ritual, this alter is for good rituals. This
is our good one with like a little smiley face

(31:31):
on the bottom. Right. That just doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
When the black candles usually don't say for Satan, only
that kind of.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Thing, right exactly, So it might be nice. There's actually
really good idea. Let us know if you want us
to put that in the merch store.

Speaker 5 (31:43):
Even the term alter, you know, it's just kind of
I think for a lot of folks who maybe aren't
as religious minded, it conjures images of pagan sacrifices or
things that might have been given negative connotations because of
some you know, kind of breathless reporting around satanning panic
type stuff, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Exactly, Yeah, And well put we also know Captain Austin
is one of our primary examples of the evil being
contagious outside of the house. Again, this is all for
the official narrative because Captain Austin also recounts how after
he left the house during his first visit, he pulls

(32:23):
over at a gas station a few miles away I
think two to three miles away, local gas station, and
while he's in the car idling, his radio goes bonkers.
It shifts to static, and he hears a voice that
he interprets as saying, amid the static, who's in there.
This guy genuinely seems to believe there was paranormal activity.

(32:45):
I think he's an important witness. Therefore, there are a
couple of reasons why. But one of the biggest points
here is that he is a thirty plus year veteran
in the police force in Gary, Indiana, and people who
work in law enforcement in Gary and Deana, they see
a lot of stuff. This town, for anybody who's not familiar,

(33:08):
is routinely named as one of the most dangerous places
in the United States. So for this guy to see
all these other horrific, mundane things, every imaginable crime, even
the worst ones. For him to have seen all that
stuff and then get spooked out by this house, that's
a statement in and of itself. He is also like

(33:30):
those clairvoyance we mentioned. He is convinced that there is
an emanation point that whatever's wrong with this house is
coming from underneath those basement stairs.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Dude, And somehow it got into his two thousand and
five Infinity.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
And somehow it loves Infenity, which is crazy because that's
a very overrated car that tells us a lot about
the age of the spirit.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Like an Ultima and five Ultima come on, that was
like an iconic vehicle, you know, I just saw so
many of them rolling around Atlanta for a.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Oh my gosh, these way moos are haunted. Let's get
into that. I can't wait until that happens.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
When you were talking about the carbon, did you say
at one point the Captain's garage wouldn't open, like it
just wasn't functioning. So I guess maybe his garage door
was just broken temporarily, but rhos. But then he said
his five Infinity would move back and forth on its
own like it was remote controlled somehow.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Which Christine situation exactly.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
Yeah, And then it becomes sort of the pattern recognition. Right,
Is this just normal bad luck? Or have I been cursed?
That's a big question. One previous occupant apparently told investigators
that police had previously visited the home and authorities had
previously visited the home and then quit their jobs and

(34:51):
left the area. So whatever was going on at the
house on Carolina Street, it was shaking people up. The police,
the child services, the hospital staff. They generally are going
to deal with science rather than the supernatural. So the
amens return to seeking spiritual assistance, and at this point
the story is blowing up. It's gained a lot of attention.

(35:14):
They contact Reverend Michael Mangeneo and Manjenou. The good Reverend
interviews the family April twenty second, twenty twelve. At this
point he concludes that they are they're not making it
up that they are being tormented by demons. He gets
pretty quick permission from the local bishop to perform not one,

(35:37):
but three exorcism minor rights. By the way, the ones
that don't need the full side off from the Vatican.

Speaker 6 (35:45):
Will discount if you get a package deal like that.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
That's a great question, you know what I mean, Like
if they're still trying to exercise the same demon, the
fourth one should be free, you would think so, But
they do pay him. That's an excellent question though. And
one of the rights is in Latin, were in English.
One specifically focuses on LaToya ammons, and it's weird because
I knew we all saw this during that first exorcism.

(36:09):
Police returned to the basement again. It's dirt floor, right,
so they're digging at about four feet into the dirt.
They find stuff. They find stuff that they don't find
like a full human skeleton or like a murder confession.
They find a pink press on fingernail, a pair of
women's undergarments, a comb, two children's socks. We don't know

(36:30):
if they match what.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
It's definitely not find anything about children, right.

Speaker 4 (36:35):
They find a heavy bar it's a vague description, and
a red tin so like a little tin red box.
It's weird stuff to find.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, it's definitely strange. It's definitely strange. But you know,
with all these kids, you wonder if, you know, what
if they found some things around and put some stuff,
you know, in the basement. But it does seem like
it was too deep or just it doesn't seem like
it was possible. We should say at this point in
the story, when Magineo was involved and when the exorcisms

(37:07):
are happening, when a lot of this is going down,
DCS successfully removed the children from the home from Latoya's custody,
which is you know, that's a tough thing, right as
a mom my. God, that's a crazy tough thing for
the kids. But the two older kids went to one place,

(37:27):
the youngest kid went to a different place for a
psyche val and this was all ongoing when this is happening,
which is very interesting just to know there's such turmoil
within the family structure, right and within each individual human
being going through all of this trouble while you're psychologically

(37:48):
dealing with whatever's happened at the house. It does feel
like it's that cumulative thing that we talked about back
in the in the Rectory episode, Ben, where you were
talking about energies and potentually somehow those passing through the
time barrier in some weird way, we're just developing more
and more of whatever this negative energy potentially is.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Yeah, well put and we also know we will come
to find later that part of the reason Child Protective
Services or Department of Child Services decided to remove custody
was because way prior years before moving to Carolina Street,
the Ammon's family had had issues with the kids missing

(38:32):
school quite frequently, right, So this coupled with what could
be indicators of a lack of safety for the kids,
not proven abuse, but you know, let's call them yellow cards.
This makes their decision make sense, even though it is,
as we know, highly traumatic for children affected by those decisions.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Oh yeah, they The determination is that mom was delusional
and then the children were delusional because mom was delusional.
And it was this word reciprocal.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Thing, feedback, welu begging each other on yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Which is really tough, you know. I mean, that's like
a holy crap, you know, whether it's true or not.
What a situation to be in.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
Yeah, And long story short, by the way, folks, the
Ammon's family persevere. They eventually move out of the house.
They relocate to Indianapolis that very same year that everything's
popping off, in twenty twelve. And we know a lot
about these alleged events thanks to a twenty eighteen work

(39:31):
by a guy named Zach Baggins, probably most well known
as the host of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures. This piece
of work is called Demon House. It bills itself as
a documentary. It has interviews with several of the people
we've mentioned, along with exercises in that tried and true
ghost hunting formula, the procedures that he and his team

(39:53):
and other shows use in similar episodes of their you know,
of their genre.

Speaker 5 (39:58):
I gotta say it's pretty good branding our Travel Channel
show about ghosts to be ghost adventures. It just seems
a little more broad in general, rather than ling ghost hunting.
It's like, we're just going on adventures finding ghosts along
the way.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
And the documentary Demon House.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
On the other hand, we know exactly when that means.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
That's the deep water, that's the demon water.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
The documentary or the piece is free right now on
Amazon Prime with ads unless you pay more. Check out
our previous episode. It also has multiple instances of these
investigators and family of witnesses allegedly encountering additional bizarre paranormal activity.

(40:39):
So what happens? The good news First, the Ammon's family
does safely make it out. But we have to ask
before we get to the ultimate fate of the house.
Could this truly be a case of possession and spirits
or can we explain it through scientific means. Let's say
we take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

(41:03):
Here's where it gets crazy, all right, We outline the
bare basement bones of the narrative as presented in so
many news pieces. But what say we examine it again
with a skeptical eye. What say we go back to
doctor on you quote.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
I definitely want to do. Can I meant one point
before we jump into the doctor, because this is the
doctor is going to be seriously good. Here one point
that is kind of outside of all this is the
instance where it first starts happening. They first go to
the church and they say, hey, this is crazy. Help
us church and the congregation, the experts there, the you know,

(41:40):
folks who run the church. They all said, you need
to move. But if you are a family that is
not very well off, you don't have the next you know,
if you need first month's last month security deposit to
get out of where you're currently living to get into
a new place, that's an impossibility. And especially if you
have this many kids.

Speaker 5 (41:59):
I talk about just the inconvenience of it and the
stress of moving, and I totally glusted over that it
is prohibitive to do so for folks in certain economic situations.
As absolutely a great point to bring up.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
That, because you'd have to take the hit on that
security deposit, right if you just broke your re lease, right, then,
if you're renting a property like that, you'd probably have
to pay other extra fees and stuff that I'm not
even thinking about. Though.

Speaker 5 (42:22):
There should be a demon possession clause in any rental agreement.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
I think I would.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
Argue, we should we do that? Should we just like
introduce those I think we should?

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Yeah, maybe under the Act of God kind of stuff, right.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, But that is just to say all. That's just
to say it. I think maybe a lot of people,
if you are, if we're just beginning to approach this
from a skeptical point of view, might say, why don't
you just get the hell out of there? Well, you know,
that could be a choice for some people, but for many,
many people, that is not even a thing that could happen.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
And so let's just jump back into the science of
it or the potential paranormal versus pseudonormal of it all. First,
our doctor on Yeku, who was skeptical of all of
these claims being made by the family, and he believe
the family was suffering from some sort of mass shared delusion,
possibly like you had said, been egging each other on

(43:13):
sort of a filet a due situation.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
But you know, more than two, and.

Speaker 5 (43:18):
He felt as though the case involved some pretty extreme
incidents of this kind of phenomenon causing these hallucinations. So additionally,
the kids had history of absences at school for years
before moving to the home, which with one complaint going
back as far as two thousand and nine, So there
were some pre existing red flags that the good doctor

(43:40):
seemed to think pointed to something a little bit more in.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
The realm of the profane rather than the sacred side.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
Note here on the doctor, he later gets in hot
water himself in twenty twenty and arrested for illegally prescribing drugs.
I don't want to do an ad hominem attack or
like attack the character of this guy, but it is
going to be something you see when you search for

(44:09):
him on the internet. Still, he is skeptical. And while
we're speaking to skeptics, we need another take on Captain Austin,
who again seems in that documentary in multiple interviews written
for him video as well, seems to be a genuine
article like a real McCoy believer. But if you go

(44:31):
to Joe Nickel writing for the Skeptical Inquirer in twenty fourteen.
You'll see some strong arguments that Captain Austin is not
an impartial witness because he has a long standing belief
personally in the supernatural right the unseen are the worldly
spirits and ghosts. And this is okay to me, Guys,

(44:51):
this is a sticky wicket, I think, to all of us,
I'm not just talking about me. To all of us,
this is a sticky wicket because we know that believing
in something like that in your personal life, having some
modicum of faith does not inherently prevent you from being
impartial while you are doing your job. But it could
mean that a person is primed to jump to certain

(45:14):
conclusions without fully analyzing evidence. Right. So, there could, for instance,
be a firefighter yet, and that firefighter could be a
very ardent practitioner of Christianity or Islam or something. But
when they're on the job, their job is to fight fires.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Right.

Speaker 4 (45:33):
They might pray during it that everybody gets out alive,
but they're not going to not put out a fire
because of some religious qualm. It's their job to stop fires.
So it's this guy's job to investigate his personal beliefs
or his values shouldn't be interfering with the investigation. Does
that make sense? Like, I don't feel like we can

(45:55):
throw him out immediately just because he believes in stuff
that skeptics don't.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
No, we can't throw it out. It is the Molder
and Scully of it all, right, Like if in the
tail of the X Files, if Molder didn't have Scully,
he may believe in these things wholeheartedly without fully investigating
or you know, examining all the possibilities whenever something comes up.
Which is why that concept of the skeptic coming in

(46:21):
to temper those feelings, those like the things you feel
deep the way potentially the captain feels there. I would
It does make me wonder about something like the levitation
of the kid, Like remember that first thing we talked about,
the levitation of a child up off of the bed.

(46:42):
When you use the word levitation, that conjures a very
specific thought in the minds of somebody hearing that, right,
But could you also describe levitation as a kid kind
of jumping a little bit, or a kid, you know,
doing something weird with their back to push themselves off
of the bed for a moment rather than going up

(47:04):
into the air slowly and levitating and hanging in the
air for a while and then coming back down. I
don't know. I feel like you could get influenced to
view it that way if you felt more inclined to
believe it.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
Well, and if you were kind of charged in a
charge situation like that, where you would maybe tend towards
a more supernatural interpretation.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
I think I've mentioned a situation.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
Where I fully believed that I was seeing a friend
who we had lost, a friend of mine who passed
away in a car accident, writing on the inside of
a windshield, you know, from beyond the grave, and in
that moment, I fully believe that's what I was experiencing,
only to take a step back a couple of hours
later and realize that this is something this person did

(47:48):
while they were alive, and the residue of their finger
had maintained on the inside of that windshield, and when
it fogged up, it looked like their signature was appearing.
But in that moment, boy oh boy, I was like
absolutely overcome and had no other possible way that I
could explain what I was seeing.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
And Austin, importantly, Captain Austin did not personally witness the
alleged levitation event, but he could have again, he could
have been primed right toward a certain interpretation of what
he was told later. So after interviewing several witnesses, Nicol
over again at skeptical inquirer. He says, look, all these

(48:27):
so called supernatural incidents, in my opinion, are either embellished, misreported,
or have easily discovered mundane explanations. And I want to
go back to that thing about levitation because obviously, fellow
conspiracy realist, what it conjures up in most people's minds
is going to be very cinematic. As Matt said, it's
staying in the air hovering for a discernible amount of time.

(48:50):
But Nicol and most other skeptics believe the daughter did
not levitate, but instead somehow kind of bumped up right,
threw himself up. Wasn't staying in the air, but appeared
to go up, and then people prayed and she calmed down.
So it could have been something as simple as having
restless leg syndrome. I don't think it was that, but

(49:12):
that's something that would make you actually vacate your bed.
In some cases, it's a serious medical condition.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
It's tough, but you also have to take them into
account the possibility that it was a child having a
bit of a tantrum, like a fit, like exactly sure, when.

Speaker 5 (49:27):
You're talking about like a bed and the bounciness of
a mattress and like the relative light weight of a child,
And if they did that enough, bounce their bodies up
and down you caught it midview, it could absolutely look
like that, especially at their prime, to think something crazy
was going on.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Right, That's what I'm saying. And again it's not hovering
for an extended amount of time, not even like ten seconds. Right.
So this this has some other easier descriptions, simpler descriptions
Akham Razer style.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
And this is so important because one of the things
the clinical psychol just that ended up looking at the
youngest son and doing a psychoval on him. One of
the things that person said was that this child appears
to go into the act of being possessed when he
is challenged. When when he has asked questions he doesn't
want to answer. He he plays as though he is possessed.

(50:20):
But then if you ask him other things, he pretend
like it seems as though he's totally coherent. And logical.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
Well, bro Salem Witch trials anyone.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
I mean, like, that's the that's a big.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
Part of that whole debacle was these these young you know,
kids wanting to get away with stuff and so kind
of almost colluding to like act a certain way.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yes, and if you've had kids, you know that there
is there is a thing, especially early on, there's manipulations.
There's there are tantrums that you know, throughout the process
of parenting, you work through them, and you you you
hone those things and your your parenting style into turning
that tantrum into something else, right, teaching the child to
not do those particular things. Well, one of the big

(51:01):
ones that I saw, at least in my house early on,
as that begins to present itself as a possibility, a
tantrum is that thing going off the bed just like no, no,
like I don't want to do something right or.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Thrash.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
I'm just putting that out there because you could read
it that way if we're going to look at it through.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
This lens, especially if you don't have kids.

Speaker 5 (51:24):
We don't know this about Austin or the investigator, but
it certainly is something that if you haven't witnessed it personally.
It could absolutely appear to be demon possession.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Yeah, and it's something we've all done, by the way.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
No question, and we know that.

Speaker 4 (51:39):
Going back to skeptical inquirer, Nicol also concludes that there's
something wonky about this walking up the wall incident. This
is where the grandmother, Rosa Campbell says, you know, the
kid said I'm not your grandson, and then creeply walks
up the world and reverse. She was holding her grandson's
hand during this incident. Again, he's seven, so he's not

(52:02):
that that heavy.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
This means he could have had support as he pushed
himself against the wall. If you have a spear seven
year old laid around at home, folks, try it there
and tell us if it works. We're kitting, we're kidding,
don't do it. But I think that's the explanation.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
That's not a thing that can't be it.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
I did it when I was a kid.

Speaker 7 (52:20):
Yeah, hold onds, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Your grandmother hold one hand.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
Oh no, I said, did it with other people as
a kid, but yeah, one hand with a grandmother. We
don't know her upper body strength. That's a big part
of it. But that's enough for Nickel to conclude. So again,
it's not me saying this, this is Nichol's conclusion and
skeptical inquirer.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Oh, nobody's judging you, dude. It's just I think that's
just a crazy like uh, it feels like a reach.
That's yeah, that's like a if they maybe practice that,
you know, a couple times a week and they really
got it, they might be able to make it happen
one day.

Speaker 4 (52:56):
Our Family Gymnastics Act is going to get us out
of Gary and Da right. I mean, there's a thread
of skepticism to these reports since since the jump, but
there are plenty of other people who seem one hundred
percent convinced that something spooky is afoot, and one of
those is Zach Beagan. So we got to get back
to his documentary. Let's put it plainly, if you are

(53:18):
a fan of ghost hunters or ghost Adventurers, you're going
to dig Demon House because it plays out like a
longer version of a lot of those episodes. It has
everything you expect from the show on site visits, interviews,
explorations of timelines, documents delving into past incidents, as well

(53:38):
as famously attempts to incite or explore new instances. We're
all familiar right where there's a guy who's walking around,
He's like, hey.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
Ghost, if you're here, come on out, broke get me. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (53:50):
Shut. I like the shut.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I have to say. I do love the process that's
that's common in these especially for Zach where you lock
yourself in that place with some cameras with minimal staff
inside the house, no lights. I mean that to me
is like, that is so fun and exciting to sit
there and watch, even though I'm pretty sure nothing's gonna happen,

(54:16):
because it never does.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
I like it though.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
It's like wrestling meets ghosts, you know what I mean.
I want to see the cast of the w excuse me,
the wrestlers of the WWE, the champions do ghost hunts.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
That be fun.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Yeah, that would be fun.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Hulk Holgan, who's just a terrible person. Years back, he
had one of my favorite cartoons from like the Hulkbuster,
the wrestling franchise of cartoons, where a bunch of zombies
take over an amusement park that is an internet efema.

Speaker 5 (54:46):
Oh well, you'll also recall the hul Cogan is the
reason that the Gremlins decided to put the movie back
on Gremlins too, and the yeah that's right, fourth.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Wall, right, fourth wall. I always get the number of walls.

Speaker 4 (54:58):
Right, the fourth wall sports.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
I'll get it right one day.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Do you guys remember the Celebrity Paranormal Project where where
a bunch of celebrities they wore these cameras. You remember
the camera that got really popular that's on your chest
and it's a forward facing camera, almost like a selfie stick.
It's yes, And then they had one that was on
like up by their eyes, and there would be teams

(55:24):
of them that would go in and check out haunted
places at night.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
Do you remember this at all?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
And they'd use the footage this one can picture shots.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
I can picture, but I don't. I don't have a program.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
Yeah, I love the audience.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
There are several versions of that show or the styles
on that one, but it is so cool to watch
one or two people that are genuinely terrified look around
a place that is pretty creepy.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
I mean, look, we're not saying that a lot of
houses aren't creepy.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
We're just asking if if it's.

Speaker 4 (55:59):
A batter of the lives being off, or if it's
a matter of you know demons, and it's weird. It's
weird too because this formula, in full disclosure, we have
been asked in the in the past to participate with
programs like this, this formula, which is tried and true
and quite successful in media. It runs high on implication
and high on production value. But it's often accused of

(56:22):
playing fast and loose with the facts. This might not
be a fair estimation in Began's case, because he repeatedly asked,
is this whole thing a hoax? He also points out
midway through the Demon House piece that the Amens might
have a profit motive getting a film made. There's a

(56:42):
there's a part where he plays half of the conversation
with an allegedly angry producer who wants the exclusive film
rights to a movie based off the Amens experience, and
once our guys act to stop his investigation. But they're
all also things that doc kind of gloss is over right.

(57:03):
They say, an unidentified previous owner reports paranormal activity. They say,
another previous tenant reports paranormal activity. But the owner of
the place during the time the Amins are living there,
he's a landlord named Charles Reed, and he straight up says,
I'd never saw anything weird there. Prior tenants never saw

(57:23):
anything weird there. And Zach does interview some prior tenants
who say, yeah, I heard the house creak man because
it's old, thank you, Dylan, and old houses are very talkative.
That's just the truth of the matter. And then he
also interviews or he talks with contacts other members of
the Amon's family outside of that core group of five,

(57:46):
and a lot of them say this story is complete bunk.
So we know there is a plot twist though, because
whatever begans Zach begins encounters, he is intrigued enough to
really go jeep on this one. We're gonna pause for
word from our sponsors, and then we've got got to
give you a big reveal. We're back. Okay, imagine this.

(58:12):
You hear a ghost story or possession story so compelling,
a haunted house story so arresting that you go and
buy the house. That's what Zach does in twenty fourteen
thirty five thousand dollars, which is actually really great price
for a house, and he does it just to create
this documentary that.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
He called that was a good price for the house.

Speaker 4 (58:35):
I mean without looking at the house you know what,
You're right, I'm thinking in Atlanta prices. This is Gary, Indiana.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
In Atlanta price it's like four hundred thousand dollars is
a good price for.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
A house for a starter.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Yes, So like thirty five k for me is like
doing something nice for the family if they still owned it, right,
But if they didn't still own it, then I don't know,
because thirty five thousand dollars could get you started, yeah, exactly.
But what I'm saying is like if that low of
an amount of money would be like a nice thing

(59:09):
to do, so somebody could get started with a new
down payment maybe somewhere. It just it just feels like
too low of a amount.

Speaker 3 (59:17):
Of money, right.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
We don't have all of the details outside of public
statements by Zach to the media and and you know
the public documents. You have to you have to allow
for public viewing. When you purchase a place.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Wasn't it going to get torn down? Like before you
bought it?

Speaker 4 (59:37):
I think it was already being seen as like a teardown.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Yeah, that would make sense. Why thirty five k?

Speaker 4 (59:43):
Yes, yeah, probably foundation problems. Of course we know there
was black mold because he hires a house inspector who's
And there's a seed in the film where he's he's
talking on the phone with the house inspector. This is
not a real phone. He's talking on the phone to
the house inspector and he's like, Zoe, is there as
best as or black mold all this stuff in there?
And the house inspector pretty much says yeah. He specifically

(01:00:05):
says there's black mold in the attic, along with other
nasty little things, and these spores could leak out into
the water or the air. They could create dizzyness or
bouts of euphoria that could be misinterpreted as paranormal experiences
and I don't know, man. Then he also talks to

(01:00:25):
some people who lived at the house after the amens
I believe, And there's a really curious conversation where he's
talking to this one guy and he says, well, your
wife said nothing crazy went on there, and the guy says, well,
I have a different story. What if I have a
different story. I've been looking into this. I know there's
a heck of a market for this, So before I

(01:00:46):
tell you anything, we would need to come to some
kind of agreement. So it seems like that guy at
least is saying, I'll tell you whatever you want, man,
I'll say whatever number of demons you like, as long
as you know I've made whole at the end, is
that the gist you guys got from that, That's what
I was picking up on.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I could definitely see that. I sorry, I was getting
lost in like some of the exorcism things that were
done in the house, And I just don't see how
how so many people missed black mold in the attic,
Like nobody looked in the attic.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
It's the house, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, Or I'm just imagining, like you could maybe explain
that as something else, you know, as some I don't
know if you're in the spiritual realm of explanations, but
I don't think anyone who is trained to perform an
exorcism for the Catholic Church in particular is going to
look at those things first, right. We've we've mentioned that before.

(01:01:44):
We spoke earlier with Ryan Bethea about the practices, and
we've done a whole other episode on exorcisms. I believe
we talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
That separate rise in exorcism exorcisms one oh one.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, it seems as though that stuff would have been
checked out way before Zach got involved.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
Yeah, the Catholic Church, to their credit, is pretty pretty
strict about what threshold a case has to reach to
get a major exorcism, to get the like to get
the head exorcist involved. And there is one. And he
hated Harry Potter. I think his last name was actually Emmon,

(01:02:23):
Gabriel Emmon for many years. Well, I'd beat Gabe anyway.
This this is like due diligence right to your point.
This is what is supposed to be figured out day
one or night one, and because of that, to his credit,
Zach Bacon's himself is initially skeptical there appears to be
but as the you guess saw, as the investigation continues,

(01:02:46):
he becomes increasingly convinced that the house is occupied by
some sort of supernatural entity. There's also a moment where
they air surveillance cam footage of what appears to be
the host attacking a fellow investigator. You guys saw this.
He claims to have no memory of it, and it's

(01:03:06):
if you look at the footage, I would say attack
is a strong word. He's like pushing him and seems
to be yelling at him, and then later he apologizes
and says he has no idea what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
It just stinks because it's the kind of thing that
you could easily act. Right. Yeah, so there's no way
to prove that he doesn't remember it just by his
own account. That doesn't prove fit.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
We'd have to have brain monitoring capability right for the
time before, during, and after the incident. And they also
don't deploy that anywhere in the documentary. Even when they
pull in that ghost ghost hunter paraphysics spangler type guy
and they're using you know, EMF detectors and so on,
they never do it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Is that a thing yet where you you hook somebody
up and like, we should do that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
We should, it needs to be let's make that happen.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Hey, are you possessed?

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Give us a call or have your human vessel give us,
give us an email. Yes, we would love to do
some brain scans, but yeah, that's the natural logical step.
And we don't know why they didn't do it, but
we do know. They also speak to Valerie Washington, that's
the DCS worker who witnessed the wall climbing incident. And

(01:04:20):
the way the interview is edited, I want to be careful.
I say this. The way this interview is edited makes
it seem that she maintains this actually happened. She did
see the kid walk on the wall, the grandmother was
holding the hand. She cannot explain the incident. She believes something,
as she said, out of the realm of normalcy was occurring,

(01:04:42):
and she cites the event as one of the reasons
she left the area. But she is also talking about
the tremendous trauma and stress placed on her just for
working in child perspective services in general. You know, you
see horrific things, right, It's got to be a job
with a high burnout rate.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
Ghost aside, one thing we have mentioned before, just through
through my past experiences and some folks that was very
close to for a long time, folks who worked with
children that are categorized in the State of Georgia as
emotionally behaviorally disturbed, which is a very controversial thing. You

(01:05:24):
can look into that and like why that's controversial, and
especially the methods that the State of Georgia has enacted
to try and help children who you know, are said
to be EBD. There are instances that I have I've
seen some camera footage of And I've heard many a
tale about a very young child that appears to have

(01:05:46):
otherworldly strength in the moment, like the heat of a
moment type situation like this one that's being described, right,
Several people around a very young child, and that child
appears to be much stronger than they have any reason
to be when they are in a state of high
physical stress. I would just say, I think that is

(01:06:07):
a thing that can occur, at least that would be
surprising to someone witnessing it. Climbing walls, that's a whole
different thing, right, But needing several adults to control a
five year old, that is a thing that can happen.

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
Yes, agreed. And we also know that he does talk
with other former residents. Right, the way the Peace puts
it is that a former resident named Mika used to
live at Carolina Street. Happens by as they're creating this
work of film, and she is accompanied in a car

(01:06:43):
with her three kids. The kids ask Zach about the
house the purported demons, why started investigating, and according to
the film, one of the children later attempts suicide. Just
a few days after. The mother calls Zach and ask
about this, or tells him notifies him about this, he
talks with the child. In the documentary, he talks with

(01:07:06):
the teen and a member of the crew quits the
shoot because they are also apparently convinced that whatever they're
delving into is contagious. You showed too much interest, It'll
get you, And that's a huge narrative. In Demon House,
they say evil luck follows people interact with the house.
The child services visitors, relatives, the home inspector gets bad luck.

(01:07:31):
He ties and Zack ties encounters with the house to
everything from broken bones to cancer to a homicide. There's
a lot of EVP or electronic voice phenomenon allegations. Check
out our episodes on that. But then Guys, the Skeptical
Inquirer returns to the Ammon's House later itself, in courtesy

(01:07:51):
of an article by Kenny Biddle in twenty eighteen. If
you're the kind of person who doesn't dig these ghost
hunting shows, if you're the kind of person and who
considers yourself zealously skeptical, then check out Kenny Biddle's article.
It is an out and out takedown of so many
claims in the piece in Demon House, it is more

(01:08:13):
than worth your time. You can read it free online.
I gotta say my only criticism of Biddle's writing here
is something that happens often in this genre. His language
can get so snarky that it becomes a little bit unhelpful,
you know what I mean? Just tell us the problem
with the thing. You don't have to be you know,
you don't have to be a pill about it. Do

(01:08:35):
you guys read that one?

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Remember of that one?

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
It's pretty it's a pretty stridently mean film review. But
it goes into the it goes into problems with the timeline,
it goes into problems of motivation, and it spends a
lot of time on you know, the skeptics should look
at Biddle flat out refuses to call this an actual documentary.

(01:08:59):
He says it's riddled with evidence of cherry picking information,
manipulating events, and then further, psychologists interviewing the children say
that they are acting deceptively in accordance with their mother's belief.
They're being manipulative, they're trying to please authority figures, and
the kid who was often touted to be the possessed

(01:09:21):
one again might just be using that as a conversational
tactic or a behavioral tactic.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Well yeah, well what they call that a coping mechanism.
That's a learned behavior. If I act this way when
I don't like something, or when something is bad or wrong,
then I get a different type of attention than the
one I'm currently receiving that I don't like.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
We teach people how to treat us, for.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
Sure, we do, but we also learn what works for us.
Especially as a child, you learn what happens when dad
does certain things or when mom says certain things, and
you know the reaction to those things, and then you
develop behaviors to counter those things. And you know, it
does make you wonder, like, what else is going on
that we don't know about?

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
And here's the thing, fellow conspiracy realists, you might be saying, Ben,
Matt Noel, Tennessee, why don't you guys do an investigation.
Why don't you get on there and hit the streets.
We can visit the site, but we cannot visit the house.
And here's why. After filming this thing, Zach Begins himself

(01:10:28):
decided to have the house demolished. He wrote to the
Indie Star and he said something was inside that house
that had the ability to do things that I had
never seen before, things that others carrying the highest forms
of credibility couldn't explain either. There was something there that
was very dark yet highly intelligent and powerful, kind of

(01:10:49):
like Boorley Rectory. Like I'm starting to wonder if haunted
houses are endangered the good ones keep just disappearing before
we can get to them.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Well, if you burn it down, nobody can check your.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Work except.

Speaker 4 (01:11:04):
Yeah, no more on the ground investigations.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
Why brought to you by Progressive Product Right, just.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
So I got a pitch for you, guys. It's gonna
go five seasons. It's a show called Not Haunted, and
it's a it's a show where we just go in
to places that are supposed to be haunted and we
just show how they're not haunted. It's gonna be a hoot.
Everybody's gonna love it. There's gonna be no sensationalism.

Speaker 6 (01:11:28):
We just immediately say this house is clean.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Yeah, just a bunch of whiet houses at night.

Speaker 7 (01:11:33):
Why why I was thinking about that too, because there
have to be so many investigations or paranormal investigations where
they don't find anything right and the producers aren't interested.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
What if we take your idea, and I wanted to
take it a step further. Why don't we make it
an ongoing show. It could be ten seasons of just
stuff that's not even alleged to be haunted. We can
just go to David Bust and assure people it's not haunted.
This would be great for partnerships. We will prove that
your business is not haunted.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
That's a really fun thing. You'll be there on site
while people are going about their business, whatever the business is,
and we're just walking around with Geiger counters and e
MF meters just going, oh no, no, don't worry, it's
not haunted.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Just miss We're live with stuff. They don't want you
to know this is not haunted. Are you a ghost?

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
No, you are.

Speaker 5 (01:12:30):
Legally required to tell me if you because we're ghosts.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
Whoa, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
What's the what's the New Zealand show? Something paranormal?

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Spooky?

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
No, no, Spookies is one that's great, but this one
is like, ah, something something paranormal.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 5 (01:12:54):
Damn it, there are some spooky ghosts in that one
and the cave they're all green, remember welling paranormal.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
I've shouted it out a couple times. Fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
Is it good?

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
It was really really good.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
I don't know it real good.

Speaker 5 (01:13:08):
My girlfriend the other day referred to David Busters as
David and Busters, and I found it unhinged.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
I wrote a She wrote a pretty great ad.

Speaker 5 (01:13:17):
She wrote some mad copy for SOLDENTI film that was
very personalized.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Great.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Jah found it delightful.

Speaker 4 (01:13:23):
Yes, okay, and this is kind of where we have
to leave it. So that's that's a question we're going
to be fair about again. Huge thanks to the journalist
Rissa Kwaitowski over at the Indiana Star. You originally broke
this story. The general consensus, fellow conspiracy realist, it seems
to be that most people who have looked into this
in good faith do not believe the former house at

(01:13:44):
thirty eight sixty Carolina Street was haunted. Some people, to
be fair, including members of the Ammon's family, argue that yes,
supernatural stuff was at play in the structure, and the
sly implication of spinning a yarn for money is actually
bolstered by the twenty twenty four release of the Netflix
film The Deliverance, which is based on the story of

(01:14:07):
the Ammon's family.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Ooh, I'm confused.

Speaker 5 (01:14:10):
With Deliverance, which yeah different, you got to mentally prepare
yourself in two very different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Actually who produced this one?

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
Uh, this was made by uh Lee Daniels, who who
also created Precious.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
He's great.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
He's telling yeah, and he, by the way, is saying,
look this, what you're seeing in the Deliverance is a
work of fiction, you know, based on based on a
true story. Is kind of like when somebody says a
portion of these proceeds go to charity, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Based on I want to see this?

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
Well you can't, especially if you're already watching Netflix. Folks,
click just click over hit us with those two thumbs.
By the way, if you can't, uh, it might mess
up your algorithm. But we appreciate your service. So there
is good news that doesn't need ghosts. Emmons had lost
custody of her children, as we said, she regained custody

(01:15:11):
in November twenty twenty twelve after moving to a new
house and meeting the objectives of the Child Service's case
plan for her official reports. As we record on Monday,
April twenty seventh, the family has not experienced any issues
with demonic presences or spirits in their home in Indianapolis.
They go to church on Sunday. They're no longer solely

(01:15:34):
fixated on religion to explain or cope with the children's
behavior issues. There we go, folks. We want to know
your thoughts. Tell us your favorite haunted house, tell us
the strangest paranormal experiences you've had. Let us know if
you believe in demons. We can't wait to hear from you,
So write to us. Contact us, call us. You can
find us on the lines.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
Yes, you can find us all over the lines at
the handle's conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show, And that
just depends on which social media platform.

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
Floats your boat. Just throw them both out there, see
what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
You can give us a call right now. Our phone
number is one eight three three STDWYTK. When you call in,
give yourself a cool nickname, and let us know if
we can use your name and message on one of
our listener mail episodes to show up in the audio feed.
You just got to track that down. It's not here
on Netflix. If you're watching Hey, if you want to
send us an email, you can. We are the.

Speaker 4 (01:16:28):
Entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be
well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back, as
a matter of fact, writing back to several of you
this evening, so quick, broke quo, clarice, give us a
random fact of your own. We'll give you one in return.
Here's what I'd like to recommend. Please do check out
an article from Popular Mechanics Sunday, April nineteenth, twenty twenty six. Yes,

(01:16:51):
the FBI secretly investigated Bigfoot. Tune into our weekly Strange
News segment to learn more. In the meantime, we'll see
you out here in the conspiarras at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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