February 5, 2025 • 51 mins
The Sallie House has been deemed the most haunted house in Kansas. It's also left many experienced investigators believing that something evil and sinister dwells there.
Special Guest: Johnny Houser
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Frequently I'm asked a very disturbing question. Do you believe
the ghosts of children are demons in disguise?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Really?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
People ask me this on the regular and my response
is always the same. That's not the sort of thing
I would be okay with myself being wrong on. So
I guess I'm risking demonic possession every time I encounter
the ghost of a child. Can you imagine the spirit
of a lost child coming to investigators for help only
to be treated as though they were an evil entity? Personally,
(00:44):
I'm not willing to take that chance. The reality is,
I think this idea was born from the fact that
it's hard for us to imagine children ending up as spirits,
somehow condemned to an eternity of wandering the earth. The
universe couldn't possibly let that happen, right, So of course
they must be demons. In all my years investigating, not
(01:06):
once have I encountered a spirit of a child who
I believed to be something evil or sinister in disguise.
That being said, there is a location one I've had
yet to visit, where time and time again it is
stated there is something very ominous there, masquerading as the
spirit of an adorable child named Sally. Let's see if
(01:28):
we can get to the bottom of this. Shall we
join me as we head to Atchison, Kansas to visit
the Sally House. I'm Amy Rooney, and welcome to Haunted Road. Atchison,
Kansas is a small town with a population of just
over ten thousand people, but what it lacks in numbers
(01:49):
it makes up for with rich history. The first European
settlers built a trading post there so they could buy
and sell with the indigenous Kansa people from there, became
a stop on a stagecoach line, then a railway station.
It seemed to always be a temporary resting place for
passers through, and it's the birthplace of one of history's
(02:11):
most famous doomed travelers, Amelia Earhart. On the outskirts of Atchison,
on an otherwise unremarkable residential street sits the Sally House.
At first glance, it looks like any other white two
story home. There are brick columns on either side of
the porch with gray trim along the peaked roofs. You
might never give it a second look if you didn't
(02:33):
know about the Sally House's haunted history. It was built
in the mid to late nineteenth century for Michael and
Kate Finney and their three children, James, Agnes, and Charles.
It's said that they were so eager to move into
their new home that they lived there even before it
was finished. They stayed in the basement while the upper
floors were still being erected. Sadly, shortly after the house
(02:57):
was completed, Michael passed away in eighteen seventy two. At
some point in the nineteen hundreds, the Sally House became
a rental. It changed ownership several times while a steady
stream of temporary residence came and went. That includes Johanna
Barnes and her five year old son Frank. Johanna suffered
(03:18):
from mental health issues and attempted to kill herself and
her son on the night of September twenty fourth, nineteen
o six. They were in the house at the time.
While Johanna survived, Frank did not. At some point after that,
although it's unclear when, strange things began happening in the home,
particularly for tenants children their toys would move around on
(03:40):
their own, and unfortunately, even when these kids insisted that
they hadn't left their rooms messy and with their things
scattered around, they still sometimes got blamed for it. One
girl in particular, made an imaginary friend while she lived
in the house, a friend the structure would later be
named after Sally. Her parents didn't think much of it
(04:00):
at the time, but they noticed that when they moved
out of the Sally House, their daughter abruptly stopped seeing
and talking to this imaginary friend. Then, on December thirty first,
nineteen ninety two, Tony and Deborah Pickman moved in as
the newest renters. The two were expecting their first child,
and they probably liked that the house had two bedrooms
(04:21):
and a nursery. It was the perfect setup for a
growing family. However, they noticed that the lights tended to dim,
then minutes later bright and again. It only happened at night,
but it was every night, and no matter how many
repair people Tony and Deborah called in, nobody could find
anything wrong with the lights. At one point, Tony joked
(04:43):
that the only explanation was that the house was haunted,
and from the moment those words came out of his mouth.
The dimming never happened again. It was like whatever entity
was behind the lighting changes didn't want to give.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Themselves away yet.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Other technical problems included an oven timer that went off
without being set and frequently displayed the wrong time. When
Tony and Deborah were on the phone with friends. Sometimes
the line would go dead for minutes at a time,
only then to start working again. The couple also had pets,
a Samoya dog and multiple cats. The dog often barked
(05:20):
and snarled outside the empty nursery, while the cats frequently
panicked out of nowhere, running around the house in a
state of inexplicable terror. After Deborah gave birth to her son,
Taylor in June of nineteen ninety three, these strange incidents
only became more frequent. Multiple neighbors approached Tony and Deborah
(05:41):
to tell them they'd seen the lights on in the
nursery when the house was empty or in the middle
of the night when everyone was asleep. Baby Taylor had
a toy, Teddy Bear, that played music when they wound
it up, but it frequently played on its own even
when no one had touched it. Speaking of Teddy bears.
Deborah collected them and had them all over the house.
(06:01):
There was one particular bear that she kept sitting on
a chair, but it tended to turn up on the floor,
as though it had jumped down on its own. There
was also a different bear that Tony often found facing
the wall, even though he and Deborah both swore that
they hadn't put it down that way. In a book
Deborah later published called The Sally House Haunting, she described
(06:23):
one especially unsettling incident. One night, the whole family went
out to visit Tony's parents. Nobody was home, but when
they got back, every single teddy bear in Taylor's nursery
had been moved. Now they were sitting in a circle,
their backs to one another. At first, Deborah and Tony
(06:44):
figure there had to be a rational explanation for all
of this. Maybe one of their neighbors had let themselves
in through the unlocked front door to play a prank,
But when they asked around, nobody owned.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Up to the practical joke.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
However, after a lot of conversations with people on the block,
Deborah and Tony did hear about those ghostly incidents the
previous renters had experienced. That's also how Deborah learned the
name of the little girl's imaginary friend, which may have
been the name of the spirit that was apparently haunting
her house, Sally. Now, I do want to be clear,
(07:20):
there's no record that anyone named Sally ever died within
the Sally House. There are also no former tenants with
that name. If Sally truly is a ghost who was
interacting with Deborah and Tony, it is unclear how she
got there, but the couple was desperate for answers and
contacted a psychic named Barbara after she heard Tony and
(07:44):
Deborah's story. Barbara said the house was haunted by a
spirit who was indeed named Sally, and she wanted to
protect a baby. At another reading, Barbara added that Sally
was seven years old and had died around the nineteen
thirties or forties. Barbara insisted that Sally was harmless. All
the scary things she'd done, like moving objects around and
(08:06):
making the electronics malfunction, had been her attempts to keep
a baby safe. She may have even felt protective over
little Taylor, who was only about a month old at
this point. At Barbara's recommendation. From that point on, Deborah
tried to treat Sally's spirit the way she would any
misbehaving seven year old. First, she explained that she appreciated
(08:28):
that Sally was trying to help out with the baby,
but her behavior wasn't in fact helpful. She needed Sally
to act differently. Then, afterward, Deborah tried to keep the
house safe and secure for the spirit. She read children's
books to her, and when she went to bed, she
told Sallie it was okay to come cuddle with her
and Tony. She even brought a wrapped gift for the girl,
(08:52):
a doll in a box with wrapping paper. Somehow, when
the room was apparently empty, the doll inside the box
got placed on the bed, although the packaging was never
torn and the wrapping paper was still perfectly taped around
the box. From the sound of it, all of these
gestures helped Deborah get along with Sally quite well. But
(09:13):
Tony was a lot more skeptical about Barbara's advice, and
he didn't want anything to do with the storytelling, the
nighttime cuddling, or the gift giving. Even after Sally materialized
in front of him in the kitchen appearing as a
very young girl. She looked closer to five than seven.
He was more frightened than anything else. Unsurprisingly, this meant
(09:34):
Sally also wasn't a big fan of Tony, and she
occasionally lashed out violently. At least one time, she bit
him so hard on the thigh it left a baseball
sized bruise. Tony eventually theorized that whatever was dwelling in
the house, it wasn't a ghost at all. He believed
it was something demonic. He also thought an evil spirit
(09:55):
was taking control of his body. On occasion, he said
it drove him to to stab a stray cat to
death after it wandered into the house one day, and
it also left him often fighting the impulse to stab
his wife Deborah as well. It's hard to say who
was right about the spirit's true nature, but we do
know that things only escalated from there. Candles often lit
(10:19):
by themselves, which was obviously concerning since this was a
major fire hazard. Deborah stuck with her usual method of
trying to talk to Sally and explain that she shouldn't
light things on fire. However, this didn't help. The candles
kept igniting, as did teddy bears and an oil lamp
on top of that, Tony and Deborah noticed something strange
(10:41):
about the photos they took around the home. By this point,
they'd both come to accept that there was something otherworldly
dwelling with them, and they expected to see signs of
Sally's presence on film. But by the end of nineteen
ninety three or so, they began to notice a second
entity in their pictures. The following February, Tony believed he
(11:04):
saw this second figure manifest when a woman he didn't
recognize walked down the hallway right in front of him.
He also apparently interacted with her one day when the
television remote went missing. After searching the house everywhere for it,
Tony decided to take a nap on the couch. According
to Deborah's book The Sally House Haunting, Tony woke again
(11:25):
when a woman tapped him on the shoulder, set it
down near him, and said, Tony, here's your remote. In
his half awake state, Tony thought it was Deborah doing this,
but later she insisted that she hadn't found the remote
and definitely hadn't given it to him or woken him up.
Since Barbara the psychic had been so helpful about identifying
(11:46):
Sally's ghost. Tony and Deborah went to her again to
ask about this other woman, but Barbara didn't have much
information to offer. She thought the woman was trying to
get Sally to go somewhere with her, and Sally didn't
want to go. Her best guess was that the ghost
may have been Sally's mother. Now, like Saally, this unidentified
(12:06):
spirit seemed to have a very confrontational relationship with Tony.
One night, he was in bed alone trying to sleep
when he saw something solidify out of thin air right
in front of him, first a torso with crossed arms,
then a fully embodied woman. She had dark hair, a
stern expression, and she was wearing a high collared black dress.
(12:27):
Tony couldn't move out of a combination of terror and
the fact that the woman was shaking his water bed erratically.
He shouted at Deborah, calling for help, while drawers and
the bedroom door opened and closed on their own. The
woman reached for Tony's face and said, I'm gonna That's
when he saw that she was wearing a black lace
glove and there was a bird resting on one of
(12:49):
her fingers. Finally, Tony got his wits about him enough
to dive off the bed and sprint for the door.
He was shouting for Deborah all the while, especially when
he found the knob wasn't working, But when she stepped in,
everything in the room looked normal. There was no sign
that anything odd had happened. At this point, Tony and
Deborah decided they needed professional help. They called in the
(13:12):
crew from the ghost hunting show sightings multiple times. They
also hired a medium to help the spirits move along. Interestingly,
this medium said she didn't sense just two ghosts, Sally
and her mother.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
She thought there were three.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
This medium apparently encouraged the mother and this third spirit,
described as a perfect gentleman, to leave the house. The
little girl Sally stayed in spite of everything that had
happened with Tony. Deborah still believed she was a defenseless
young child who needed to be taken care of, and
Deborah wanted her to remain in the house. As it
(13:50):
turned out, either Sally was more dangerous than she initially appeared,
or there was something malicious besides her still lurking in
the home. Some un unseen entity tried to push Tony
down the stairs shortly before Halloween in nineteen ninety four,
It was the last straw, and Tony and Deborah moved
out in the end of October. Afterward, new tenants moved
(14:13):
into the Sally House and the hauntings continued up until today.
When visitors drop by virghost tours, they often experience all
the same things that left Tony and Deborah so unsettled.
Objects that move on their own, footsteps and noises with
no clear source, and electronic disturbances. Many guests get scratches
(14:35):
and bruises while walking through the home. They sometimes feel
as though someone invisible is touching them. You'll remember that
the Pickman's dog seemed bothered by the nursery. To this day,
guide dogs also tend to refuse to set foot in it.
While many visitors believe they've seen or interacted with Sally,
there are reports of another spirit as well, an adult woman.
(14:58):
It's believed this is not in fact the woman Deborah
and Tony had exercised from the home, but some other
spirit who came to the house at some later point
and decided to stay.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
There are also reports.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Of some kind of very old, malevolent being in the basement,
which may have been there for decades. There is a
raging debate about what these entities truly are. Some agree
with Deborah that these are spirits of the dead. As
I said before, there's no record of any young girl
named Sally ever living or dying in the Sally House,
but there are rumors connecting her to one of the
(15:34):
first residents who lived there, Charles Finney. Charles was the
son of Michael and Kate Finny, who first had the
house built, and he grew up to be a doctor.
According to some rumors and speculation, a local mother rushed
her dangerously ill daughter, Sally, to Charles's house late at
night for emergency treatment. It said she brought the girl
(15:56):
to Charles either because of his reputation or because he
was secretly Sally's illegitimate father, whatever the nature of their relationship.
Charles supposedly rushed Sally into surgery without giving her anesthesia,
as they didn't have the time to waste waiting for
it to kick in. Sadly, even his great skill couldn't
save her life, and Sally died in horrible pain, too
(16:20):
young to understand that the man who was hurting her
only did so because he was trying to help. Perhaps
that's why she seems to lash out against men so
much more often than women, because she associates them with
the doctor who painfully performed surgery on her during her
final night. Another theory about these specters is that they
(16:44):
are demons who never were human at all. Even the
spirit known as Sally may only be pretending to be
an innocent young girl. If we don't know what these
spirits are, we can't help them find peace. Frankly, we
can't even know if peace is something that they are seeking.
So to help me cut through the nod of rumor
and conjecture and try to learn the truth about the
(17:05):
Sally House, I'm talking to someone very special. We are
bringing back mister Johnny Hauser to the show, and he's
gonna tell us why he vowed to never return to
the Sally House. That's coming up after the break. All right,
(17:25):
So we are joined by one of my favorite people
and was the very first guest ever on Haunted Road,
mister Johnny Howser.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Hey, thanks for having me. There was a lot of
fun the first episode. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, you were my you know.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I was like I remember thinking back then, like okay,
who can I completely screw up with and they won't
judge me.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I was like Johnny, and it was.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Lockdown, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I feel like it was very close to it because
I know the pod came in twenty twenty one, so.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It was way back when, and uh it was.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's funny because you know, my good friend Aaron Minky,
who's executive producer of this show, he went back and
he re recorded a bunch of his old Lore episodes
and I didn't understand that, and now I do because
I go back and I listened to my first few episodes,
like first one or two seasons, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Oh wow, I got a lot better since then.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And so, you know, but it's always been a ton
of fun. So but thank you so much for coming back.
All Right, So today we're going to talk about the
Sally House.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And what's interesting.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
About this house to me is that I've never been there,
and so, you know, there's not a ton of places
that we cover on the podcast where I haven't been.
But it's also one of those places that people repeatedly
ask me to go to, and I hope to get
there eventually. I do think it's interesting that it's run
by the town basically as opposed to like a private owner.
(18:58):
But that being said, I was trying to find someone
to talk to about it, and I reached out to
Richard step of usual friend of ours, and because I
knew he wrote a book on it, and I was like, Richard,
you've been on the podcast too many times, so I
need someone else. And he pointed me to you, and
he specifically said you have to talk to Johnny.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Because he swore he would never go back there.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I thought that's perfect, So can you just tell me, like,
how did you find yourself at the Sally House?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Uh? That's such a you know in the paranormal game,
you look back and everything's like puzzle pieces, almost like
it just all falls into place without you even knowing.
For me, it started at the blisk Ax Murder House
like eighteen years ago, and I have overnights come and
I check them in and I go to give him
the speel inside the house and the guy goes, whatever's
(19:48):
in here was at my house and I'm just like, oh, yeah,
like what are you talking about? He goes, My name's
Tony and I was on the show's sightings what they
call the Sally House. So I'm like, oh, I remember
watching that when I was young. You know, you're the
guy getting the scratches live on camera, and so we
got to talking. The houses are the exact same street address,
(20:11):
the fiveh eight second Street. The artist rendition, he drew
a Sally. The Sally ghost that presumably died from the
appendix operation is a spitting image of Catherine Moore, who
is one of the little girls at the Axe Murder House.
So he walks into the downstairs bedroom where Aina and
(20:33):
Lina Stellinger were found, and he starts choking and coughing,
and he's coughing and coughing. I'm like, dude, you all right,
Like you need to drink a water or something. He
throws up a chunk of bacon where the bacon was
found in nineteen twelve on the floor at the Axe
Murder House.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
This happened in front of you, right.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
In front of me, and like guys being guys, when
something gross happens, we do we go look, you know,
it's like and it was a chunk of raw, fatty bacon.
And I left there. It's like, I'm out. I don't
know what's happening here, but I got to go, you know,
and I thought about that forever. It's like, why would
(21:17):
this dude swallow a huge chunk of fatty raw bacon
make himself throw it up to impress me a tour
guide at the X House for two years at that point,
you know, like the X House wasn't even nothing back then.
And that started my obsession with the Sally House. And
then I had the opportunity to spend like three days
(21:40):
there and I had to jump on it because that
sightings episode was one that stuck with me before I
was even really in a paranormal game. And since then
I've known. I've met people in the field in production
companies that worked on that episode, and they said the
producer that quit out of Hollywood quit his job, become
(22:02):
a born again Christian all because of what he witnessed
there with the scratchings and stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So, to be clear, the bacon, the bacon incident, this
happened in the Veliska House.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, So when they found the bodies at next morning,
there was a chunk of raw acon laying on the
floor in that bedroom, the Downs room. And so when
deb and Tony came to stay the night, when he
walked into that room, he threw up raw bacon in
the exact spot that the bacon was found.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
So that's wild.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
That's the room that's downstairs, correct, So that's the same
room where that invested Robert Larson.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I believe that's where he stabbed himself and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, that's a bizarre space. So that's that's really interesting.
And that's kind of one of the reasons why I
wanted to talk to you, is it seemed like there's
this kind of connection between the two houses. And just
going back to that Sightings episode, so I used to
watch that show too. I think a lot of us
are age watch that show, and I don't remember that
(23:05):
episode specifically, so I'm going to have to go back
and check it out when this happened, and I want
to talk more about the Sally House itself, but I
just this bacon moment has me pretty speechless. But when
this happened, Like, what were you thinking? Like what was
going through your head as you see this go on?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Specifically back then, you know, I always would play Wugi
board by myself, Bloody Mary by myself. I was just
a weird kid growing up, and I had no idea
that there were teams that did this with matching T shirts.
You know, it's like there are people that do this
besides me. It's so new and so magical and so
(23:45):
bizarre and so weird and fantastic that I'm like, oh
my gosh, I just witnessed this guy do that. And
then I mean you automatically try and rationalize, like, okay,
did that really happen? But it's like, why, of course
it really happened. Why would he think that to impress
some duty doesn't even know that's nobody, you know, like, yeah,
(24:05):
that's wild, Yeah it was. And I mean I took
out my little Motorola flip phone at the time and
took a picture of it because I just wanted to
document everything I seen, and of course it's like two megapixel.
You can't even make nothing out at this point.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
But it's okay, you have the you have the bacon
bar forever in your brain. I'm sure, so great, But okay,
So moving ahead to Sally House, you have the opportunity
to spend three days there.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now what happens?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
You know, you can kind of go through it step
by step, but like, how long ago was this and
you know, what was it like when you first like
set foot in that house.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
This would probably be about twelve to fifteen years ago.
As soon as we got there, as soon as and
I won't say as soon as I walked on the property,
like when I opened the door and I seen the
staircase going upstairs, I just got the I was feeling
a file filth gross like blah. I mean, I can't
even really describe it, just not good. We were unpacking,
(25:11):
getting ready to, you know, just put our equipment and
get it all charged up. My buddy's cell phone flew
off the table into the living room and it's like, oh, okay,
that's what this is going to be tonight. First thing,
right off the bat, I decide I want to be
I want to go down in the basement. And by
this guy, i'd heard that there was no Sally ghost.
(25:34):
There's no Sally girl that died from a procedure in there,
there's no records of it. The story I heard was
a lady that lived there back in the day, was
dabbling in the occult and black magic in the basement,
and supposedly there's a pentagram on the floor. You go
down there, there's a big black spot on the floor.
(25:54):
Who knows what it is or what it was. But
it's about six o'clock. I mean, it's still daylight. And
I try some you know, is anyone here can give
me a sign, you know, the normal ghost hunting techniques.
Fifteen years ago. Nothing's happening. So I decide, well, if
(26:15):
this is a cult, I'll try religious provocation. It just
makes sense to me, you know. So I go, in
the name of Jesus Christ do something and I feel
like a bug bite burn on the back of my leg,
and I'm like, oh, I just got scratched. This is awesome.
So I run upstairs and roll up my pant leg.
(26:36):
On the back of my calf. There's a big patch
of bald like the hair is burned off my leg
and you can smell the burnt hair. You can see
singed hair like something burned hair off my leg. And
I'm like, uh, that's nuts. This is something way different.
So I go up. There's a Catholic college in town.
(26:58):
I go up to the gift shop, spend like one
hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty dollars on crucifixes,
holy water, you name it, protection, this and that. I
get back down there the holy water bottles are empty.
They're just decorative bottles. So I go back up there again.
Everything's closed and it's like that scene in The Lost
Boys where they're filling up their squirt guns with holy water.
(27:21):
Like I walk in a building, I'm like, this is
a church. I see water. It's like that's got to
be holy water. What else would it be. So I'm
like filling up the bottles, looking around, like am I
even supposed to be here?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think you're allowed to do that. I'm not sure,
but I think you are.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, it's gonna you know, if the cops came, like,
come on, I'm getting holy water, you know. So I
go back down. I put one of the holy water
bottles on where that pentagram supposedly was. We investigate upstairs
and everything. I go back downstairs to pick up my
holy water bottle. It's empty and there's a lid on
(27:59):
the top, but you can see the condensation in the glass.
It's like it evaporated out of it. And I ended
up leaving early. Just on top of that was feelings,
a dread, just something's not right, you know, that fight
or flight feeling. And when I got home. That started
(28:20):
about three months of me just being really weird, like
very like not leave the house, reclusive. I can remember
my buddy knocking at my screen door and I shut
my main door in his face, and like I won't
people leave me alone. I'm sick of people. And then
I started getting like mental flashes of like violent acts,
(28:43):
like just a little quick one second to make me go, man,
what is wrong? Like what's happening here? You know? And
I ended up finding a church in town and went
for like three days a week there. For a while,
I was fine, but I really think something almost got
a hold of me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
I hear the demon actually in the background of your
house right now, right, I think it's still it's still
with you, Johnny. It's funny because it's not. I mean,
it's not funny at all. So, first of all, you
were supposed to be there for three nights. It sounds
like you didn't even make it through the first night.
That feeling of just something's wrong, Like there's been a
(29:24):
few haunts like that where I've walked in and I
can almost it almost feels like you're just sick inside.
But it's like it's like a weird visceral, like something
is very wrong. Here, and I feel it, like physically
but also like spiritually in my soul that either there's
someone or some sort of energy that's very distraught and upset,
(29:48):
or there's something like legitimately dangerous here. And what you're
describing is just like so unexplainable. You know, how does
that possibly happen? I mean, I the only thing that
can happen someone snuck down there and I try to
play a joke on yours in which I don't think happened.
And then for you to be affected by someone who
you know went for so long, you know, you took
(30:10):
a picture of bacon barf. That's like, You're not someone
who gets scared and has things like stick with you
for so long. You know, it's like you were fascinated
by those things. So for it to really like kind
of affect you that way after, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I remember I drove home in the middle of the
night and got home and as soon as I walked
in my door, I kind of dropped my bag. I
started crying, like I just felt like I got back
from war, you know, and all of a sudden, I
was like home and it's like, what did I just
go through? You know, it's like this flood of emotions
(30:50):
just came out. I mean, the weirdness, the weird thoughts
and everything. I mean, I was I was married at
the time, and my ex wife would say we'd be
eaten and you'd just be staring at it, being like
you wanted to kill me. I'm like, no, I wasn't.
It's like, yeah, you're like what you know, just it's
(31:11):
very oppressive. That place is very oppressive and just full
of nothing good.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Right now, what do you think about I know you
did eventually go back, but we'll get to that. But
what what do you think about the fact that you
know there are people investigating there quite a bit. And
I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of you know,
demons and whatnot. I don't really put like a face
on things. But I do believe in like true negative
(31:37):
type energy, and I think that energy can be human
or I think something so terrible and tragic can happen
somewhere that it just completely oppresses that space forever, and
that some of us can actually like take a bit
of that with us and it can physically and mentally
affect us, you know. So I you know, I don't
have an explanation or an answer. But I also feel
(31:58):
like too, if you're combat it with something you believe in,
like religion and going to church, if you believe in that,
that is how you get rid of that right right now?
How do you feel about people investigating there so often?
Do you think that is feeding into what's going on there?
You know a lot of people walk away.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Just completely fine.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Others seem to have some pretty like life changing experiences.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
What do you think that does to that house?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
It absolutely feeds it. I mean I've seen it firsthand
at the twenty years I spent at the Axe House.
It absolutely fad that place. You know, the more people
come and do who knows what in the house that
they're not always super respectful investigators that go to these places.
Sometimes a lot of times it's just people getting completely
(32:44):
wasted and doing who knows what in it most of
the time super respectful. But you know, the investigators that
I do know are super respectful. I'm not lumping everybody
into one thing, but bad things do happen from normal
people that go into these places, and I think it
just feeds it. And I mean we've all been in
relationships that are very oppressive and dark and draining doesn't
(33:08):
mean demons. It just people can be that, you know.
And I also think these places are like mirrors. They
just reflect back to you what you put into it.
If like at the Axous, if you think you're talking
to little kids, that's what you're going to get. If
you think the killers in the house, that's what you're
going to get. If you think this, that's what you're
(33:28):
going to get. You know, That's the one thing I've
learned throughout all these years and these locations is everybody
gets different things, vastly different things, day after day. You know,
it doesn't really seem like a static type deal. But
getting back to your question, I mean absolutely people investigating
and going in and giving it energy, giving it time,
(33:51):
reacting to what happens. You know, the first thing I
learned in the field for residential hauntings is you know,
tell the client if something happens, don't overreact and go
crazy and oh my gosh, the door just slammed. Everybody, Look,
you know, you're just feeding it. Ignore it, Ignore it,
and it'll hopefully go away type thing.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's like a bully.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
When you stop giving them the reaction they want, you know,
and I think that's probably one of the reasons. Like
me as an investigator, it's very rare that I encounter
anything negative because I'm like the most cheerful ghost hunter
that's ever, you know, Like I walk into every place
laughing and giggling and like I would be the most
if I were like a mean ghost, I'd be so
(34:35):
annoyed with me.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you come in that the ghosts is like, I'm
going to light her up, and it's like she's so nice.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Though it's my defense. Everyone's like, what do you do.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I'm like, just don't care, just be nice. They don't
they want That's my solution to everything. Although I am
very I do want to visit the Sally House. I
am definitely going to try to make it in twenty
twenty five. And so now kind of circling back, you
you go back.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
How long did it take you to go back? Why
did you go back?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Well, the initial time I went back maybe a few
months later, and that time it was the same thing,
very oppressive, very terrifying. I ended up leaving in the
middle of the night again. And in fact, there's a
popular ghost hunting show. I'm not going to say which one,
it is, but one of the cast members is in
(35:29):
the basement and they go to crawl inside the hole
in the basement in the wall. They step on a
little TV set to get in that hole. That's I
left that there. We were doing video iving. I left
all my gear there. It's like, I don't care, I'll
just buy more. I'm not going to the house ever again.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
And so what was why what happened that time? It
was just the feeling or did an experience happen that
set you over the edge?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I mean there were experiences like I got shoved. I
was at the top of the stairs just standing and
I got shoved like almost down the steps, and I
braced myself on the railing. But then I'm like, well,
maybe I was locking my knees. You know, I'm trying
to debunk it my head and it happened again. But
stuff like that I can handle, like big deal, you
know it was. What I can't take is the mental manipulation.
(36:20):
Something bad is about to happen real soon that I
don't like. You know, So I left sore. I'd never
go back, ended up going back again.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You're good at keeping promises to yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
That's it. I don't. I don't like something beating me,
you know.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
No, I told I would be the same way. Absolutely,
I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I can't let this beat me. So I go down
again and I do this experiment down in the basement
on top of the pentagram and asked to do it
like light therapy. It's it's almost like the Estes method,
but it's with a light therapy, light getting to the
boring details, but creates like a tunnel inside your mind.
And I did it, and all of a sudden, all
(37:03):
I seen was the steps of the Volaska's murder house
and like boots walking up the steps. And I tried
to force it out of my mind. I'm like, you know,
that's just what you are used to keep an open mind,
and it kept going back to that. Well, then it
went into like the kids room and kind of alluded
(37:24):
to what happened there, and again I got super emotional,
like it's almost like I was feeling what the Morris
felt that night. It's terrified. I was emotional. I was sad. Guys.
I got to take a break, like this is too much,
So we go out front. It's about two in the
morning on a Tuesday. It's dark, it's foggy. It's one
(37:48):
of those just summer nights. Every time I've been to
the Sally House, you always get teenagers congregating out front.
I mean, it just happens every single time. So we're
sitting there and also to see a figure emerge out
of the fog about a block away, and I'll look
to my buddy, I'm like, you know, weirdo coming up
behind you, you know, and it's a full blown Catholic
(38:11):
monk with the robe with the hood up and the
little rope tight around his waist, walks through us, does
not say a word, doesn't even look at us. As
soon as he passes the house, he does like the
sign of the Cross on his body and disappears into
the fog. And everybody's just like, uh what. And I'm like, guys,
(38:35):
I'm out. They're like, oh, you can't leave. It's like,
I don't know what that was, But do Catholic priests
just roam around and full regalia at two am on
a Tuesday? Like no, Like, you know, big guy, I
don't listen to you, but I'm listening tonight. So message
loud and clear.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Okay, So when you say walk through, you like walked
between you guys, are like literally walked for you?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Like, was this like a spiritual form or was this
a physical.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Person like between us, like a physical person? I'm assuming
he was real.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Oh so he's just on like Sally House duty or.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I mean, that's I have no idea, Like I've never
seen anything like that in my life. Like he walked
up and one of us like, hey, how you doing?
And he didn't say anything, So he just kind of
moved out of his way, and that's when he did
the sign of the cross and kept walking and just
disappeared into the fog.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
That's I wonder is there a place he would have
come from locally like that there?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Well, there's a it's a big Catholic college in that town.
But it was Ah. So we go to get coffee
earlier in that day, and this might have been what
explains it. We go to get coffee and school is
out for summer. The guy making coffee is a college
professor at the Catholic school. He's like, Oh, what are
you guys in town for. We're like, how this We're
(39:58):
staying at the Sally House. He goes, Ah, that's our
arch nemesis. So I don't know if he sent one
of his homeboys down to like give us a little
extra umph, like a little extra protection or what.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
But yeah, or maybe it's just so well known that
you know, maybe he was taking a midnight stroll and
like that's just what they do when they walk by it.
That's just their automatic response. I mean, that's just that's
a really wild story. And so you at that point
you're like, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't know what that means,
but hanging around to find out, Like at some point,
if you're going to be stupid, you gotta be.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah, the universe only gives you so many signs and
you know, so okay, so now have you been back
since then?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I have not been back since then.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, And okay, that so just like point blank, like
what do you think is going on there?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
I think there's some thing negative there, But I think
there's like where negative things happen, negative things are attracted to,
you know. I don't think it's the big D word, right,
And I personally would have nothing to do with it,
you know, And I think that there'd be a lot
worse happening from there. I don't know, it's not the
(41:22):
Sally Ghost, right. But then I've talked to people that
have stayed the night there and oh it is boring.
Nothing happened.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, you know, I think
that happens at every punted location. I have to remind people.
I'm like, well, they're not like there to perform for you,
Like some nights are great, some nights are quiet. That's
part of the part of the gig.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
But you know, I just I find that that place
very interesting, just in the sense that, well, I trust
you implicitly with your information, you know, so it always
depends on where that kind of information is coming from
for me, and so I just find it very interesting.
Now can you imagine the people that lived there for
so long? Can you imagine living there on a daily basis?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Oh man, I mean just being immersed and marinating in
that anxiety and depression and darkness day after day after day,
like good grief. I couldn't imagine. And you know what's
interesting is the guy that lives next door. We were
on the back deck taking a break and that's where
(42:25):
we take breaks all night. He would just be his
lights would be on, and we weren't like speaking in
his windows, you know, but he can't help but to
notice when the lights are on and the middle of
the night and no curtains are drawn. He's just like
pacing through his house all night long, and like I'm
wonder and I wonder what's going on over there as well, right,
you know, I you know, if this lady was practicing
(42:49):
a cult in black magic, she's just willing darkness into
that place, just kind of begging it to come, you
know whatever. Really, just faith you believe in about all
of that has its own form of evil, you know, right,
And if you're just sitting there like saying, hey, come
on whatever, come hang out, like and who knows what's
(43:12):
attached to other people that go there, who knows what
they do in the house.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
There's a time at the X House. I go in
there and there's all these papers on the floor from
the overnights, and all of us junk on the floor,
and it's like, what is this? It is how to
summon a demon? Printed off the Internet? And I started laughing,
you know, and I called up a friend of mine
(43:39):
because I'm not a huge specialist or expert, so I
called her up. I'm like, should I be worried about
this or is this just stupid? She goes, It's not
them doing it correctly or anything. It's the intent that
they had when they get in there.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
With that, It's like, I'm a big I'm a big
believer in intention and you know, the energy that you are
asking for or putting off yourself, and you know, that
makes me wonder what the sallyas too?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Like is that just so many people walking.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
In there with the intention of encountering something potentially evil,
and so you know, some people might be excited by that,
some people might be asking for it. Other people might
be so scared of that that they're like exuding this
kind of like nervous scared energy, you know. So it's
I don't know, it's really interesting. I think a lot
(44:33):
of hauntings just come from us, to be honest, Yeah,
you know, or we or we affect them deeply, and yeah,
I'm really interested to get in there and kind of
feel that vibe.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I usually get. I meet a lot of new young
teams that come through Veleska, and I'm always excited to
see them because they're you know, seventeen eighteen just getting
in the field or so pumped over it and I
can impart what i've little I've learned over the last
twenty five thirty years, you know, and they're like, oh,
we're going to the Sally House, Like, uh what okay, boys,
(45:09):
let's let's have a talk.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
So okay, now, ending on that, this is your opportunity
to talk to those folks who want to go there.
What is your advice for people who want to go
to the Sally House? What? What would you tell them?
How would you tell them to handle that haunting? Or
would you just tell them.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Not to go?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
You know, first rule of ghost hunting is you got
to know when to call it. You got to know
when to stop and when it's clearly starting to become unsafe.
And if somebody starts getting weird, go take a break,
Go get a candy bar, Like it's all right. You'll
have to give it one hundred and twenty percent, you know,
watch each other's moods, Watch each other. If somebody starts
(45:49):
acting angry or outside of themselves how they would normally
wouldn't act. You got a buddy watch and you got
to not be afraid to say, okay, no, we need
to leave. You know, who cares about the four hundred
bucks or whatever we threw down. I mean, is your
personal well being worth that? I wouldn't suggest it for
(46:10):
someone new, you know, cut your teeth on a few
other places at art so terrible.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Well, that's very sound advice. My advice to people is
if it starts getting weird, just start whistling a happy song,
because nothing bad can happen if you're whistling. That's my
that's my ghost, my ghost defense mechanism.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
And there's a lot of truth in that because, like
you know, being at the Axe House for so long,
it's I've seen it affect me several times with like
when I was talking about the quick snippets of violent
acts and stuff. Whenever I get that anymore, I just
counteract it with a happy act. If I'm in a
(46:54):
bad make myself getting a hat like Yin and Yang.
There's truth to that.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yeah, if you force your self to smile, it automatically
like sends endorphins to like your body, and it instantly
lifts your.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Mood or wakes you up.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I spent years I'm a true true crime nerd, so
it's like all day long, I'm doing X House stuff
and then I uh watch forensic Files and then I'll
watch The Exorcist. And this year I've decided I'm just
going to watch Billy Madison and like funny and laugh.
That's what it's like to laugh a little bit. And
(47:30):
you know, I.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Think that's a great idea. Yeah, you got you got
to counteract that.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Stuff exactly, take a break from it.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, awesome, Well, it was so great to talk to
you again. I hope our paths cross in person soon
and if I head back, if I head to the
Sally House, I'll let you know and let you know
what happens. But yeah, your your stories and everything you've
said today has just been so interesting and so compelling,
and I know that every no One's gonna love listening
(48:01):
as always. So thank you so much, Johnny. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I'll keep the Catholic Clergy on speed dial for you.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Now that I've finished up my interview with Johnny, I
wanted to tell you a little story about something that
happened in my own house after our interview was complete.
I don't record Haunted Road in some big, fancy studio
or anything like that. I actually record Haunted Road in
my upstairs walk in closet. Because it's so filled with
(48:33):
clothes and clothing racks and whatnot that it dampens the
sound enough, and so it's the perfect spot. So I
have a music stand set up there, my scripts, my recorder,
all of that microphone, and that's where I record it.
And that whole setup is there always. And so I
recorded my interview with Johnny. I took my memory card
or SD card out of the recorder so I could
(48:56):
upload the interview for our producers from my office downstairs.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
The next day, I went back in to do.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Some more recording for Haunted Road, and when I walked in,
my entire setup, my scripts, my recorder, my microphone, my
music stand, all of it was strewn.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
About the room.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
I don't know how that could have happened. This is
something that's just static and there, and that's never happened before.
I do have cats, but they are not allowed in
my closet ever, because if they go in there, they
can actually get in between the floors of my house
and get stuck. So we're very strict about letting them
in there. I have a three hundred year old house,
and I didn't hear anything, and so I don't know
what could have caused that. I diligently just kind of
(49:39):
picked everything up and carried about my day. But I'm
asking you, Haunted roadies, what do you think. Do you
think something came through somehow with my interview with Johnny
or do you think in my three hundred year old
house something about that interview stirred something up within my
own home.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I'll keep you posted if anything else happens, but I
thought it was interesting and I want to to give
you that follow up. There are so many questions that
we'll never know the answers to what happens to us
after we die, what other kinds of beings share this
world with us? And what is the nature of the
spirits that dwell in the Sally House. But even if
(50:18):
we can't find one definitive explanation, the fact that we're
asking these questions at all still matters. It's human nature
to wonder about the world around us, and that may
be why the Sally House holds so much fascination. I'm
Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is
(50:48):
a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Miles from Air
and Minky. Haunted Road is hosted and written by me
Amy Brune, with additional research by Cassandra de Alba. This
show is edited and produced by supervising producer Rima El Kali,
with executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
(51:10):
Learn more about this show over at grimanmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Frequently I'm asked a very disturbing question. Do you believe
the ghosts of children are demons in disguise?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
No?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Really?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
People ask me this on the regular and my response
is always the same. That's not the sort of thing
I would be okay with myself being wrong on. So
I guess I'm risking demonic possession every time I encounter
the ghost of a child. Can you imagine the spirit
of a lost child coming to investigators for help only
to be treated as though they were an evil entity? Personally,
(00:44):
I'm not willing to take that chance. The reality is,
I think this idea was born from the fact that
it's hard for us to imagine children ending up as spirits,
somehow condemned to an eternity of wandering the earth. The
universe couldn't possibly let that happen, right, So of course
they must be demons. In all my years investigating, not
(01:06):
once have I encountered a spirit of a child who
I believed to be something evil or sinister in disguise.
That being said, there is a location one I've had
yet to visit, where time and time again it is
stated there is something very ominous there, masquerading as the
spirit of an adorable child named Sally. Let's see if
(01:28):
we can get to the bottom of this. Shall we
join me as we head to Atchison, Kansas to visit
the Sally House. I'm Amy Rooney, and welcome to Haunted Road. Atchison,
Kansas is a small town with a population of just
over ten thousand people, but what it lacks in numbers
(01:49):
it makes up for with rich history. The first European
settlers built a trading post there so they could buy
and sell with the indigenous Kansa people from there, became
a stop on a stagecoach line, then a railway station.
It seemed to always be a temporary resting place for
passers through, and it's the birthplace of one of history's
(02:11):
most famous doomed travelers, Amelia Earhart. On the outskirts of Atchison,
on an otherwise unremarkable residential street sits the Sally House.
At first glance, it looks like any other white two
story home. There are brick columns on either side of
the porch with gray trim along the peaked roofs. You
might never give it a second look if you didn't
(02:33):
know about the Sally House's haunted history. It was built
in the mid to late nineteenth century for Michael and
Kate Finney and their three children, James, Agnes, and Charles.
It's said that they were so eager to move into
their new home that they lived there even before it
was finished. They stayed in the basement while the upper
floors were still being erected. Sadly, shortly after the house
(02:57):
was completed, Michael passed away in eighteen seventy two. At
some point in the nineteen hundreds, the Sally House became
a rental. It changed ownership several times while a steady
stream of temporary residence came and went. That includes Johanna
Barnes and her five year old son Frank. Johanna suffered
(03:18):
from mental health issues and attempted to kill herself and
her son on the night of September twenty fourth, nineteen
o six. They were in the house at the time.
While Johanna survived, Frank did not. At some point after that,
although it's unclear when, strange things began happening in the home,
particularly for tenants children their toys would move around on
(03:40):
their own, and unfortunately, even when these kids insisted that
they hadn't left their rooms messy and with their things
scattered around, they still sometimes got blamed for it. One
girl in particular, made an imaginary friend while she lived
in the house, a friend the structure would later be
named after Sally. Her parents didn't think much of it
(04:00):
at the time, but they noticed that when they moved
out of the Sally House, their daughter abruptly stopped seeing
and talking to this imaginary friend. Then, on December thirty first,
nineteen ninety two, Tony and Deborah Pickman moved in as
the newest renters. The two were expecting their first child,
and they probably liked that the house had two bedrooms
(04:21):
and a nursery. It was the perfect setup for a
growing family. However, they noticed that the lights tended to dim,
then minutes later bright and again. It only happened at night,
but it was every night, and no matter how many
repair people Tony and Deborah called in, nobody could find
anything wrong with the lights. At one point, Tony joked
(04:43):
that the only explanation was that the house was haunted,
and from the moment those words came out of his mouth.
The dimming never happened again. It was like whatever entity
was behind the lighting changes didn't want to give.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Themselves away yet.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Other technical problems included an oven timer that went off
without being set and frequently displayed the wrong time. When
Tony and Deborah were on the phone with friends. Sometimes
the line would go dead for minutes at a time,
only then to start working again. The couple also had pets,
a Samoya dog and multiple cats. The dog often barked
(05:20):
and snarled outside the empty nursery, while the cats frequently
panicked out of nowhere, running around the house in a
state of inexplicable terror. After Deborah gave birth to her son,
Taylor in June of nineteen ninety three, these strange incidents
only became more frequent. Multiple neighbors approached Tony and Deborah
(05:41):
to tell them they'd seen the lights on in the
nursery when the house was empty or in the middle
of the night when everyone was asleep. Baby Taylor had
a toy, Teddy Bear, that played music when they wound
it up, but it frequently played on its own even
when no one had touched it. Speaking of Teddy bears.
Deborah collected them and had them all over the house.
(06:01):
There was one particular bear that she kept sitting on
a chair, but it tended to turn up on the floor,
as though it had jumped down on its own. There
was also a different bear that Tony often found facing
the wall, even though he and Deborah both swore that
they hadn't put it down that way. In a book
Deborah later published called The Sally House Haunting, she described
(06:23):
one especially unsettling incident. One night, the whole family went
out to visit Tony's parents. Nobody was home, but when
they got back, every single teddy bear in Taylor's nursery
had been moved. Now they were sitting in a circle,
their backs to one another. At first, Deborah and Tony
(06:44):
figure there had to be a rational explanation for all
of this. Maybe one of their neighbors had let themselves
in through the unlocked front door to play a prank,
But when they asked around, nobody owned.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Up to the practical joke.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
However, after a lot of conversations with people on the block,
Deborah and Tony did hear about those ghostly incidents the
previous renters had experienced. That's also how Deborah learned the
name of the little girl's imaginary friend, which may have
been the name of the spirit that was apparently haunting
her house, Sally. Now, I do want to be clear,
(07:20):
there's no record that anyone named Sally ever died within
the Sally House. There are also no former tenants with
that name. If Sally truly is a ghost who was
interacting with Deborah and Tony, it is unclear how she
got there, but the couple was desperate for answers and
contacted a psychic named Barbara after she heard Tony and
(07:44):
Deborah's story. Barbara said the house was haunted by a
spirit who was indeed named Sally, and she wanted to
protect a baby. At another reading, Barbara added that Sally
was seven years old and had died around the nineteen
thirties or forties. Barbara insisted that Sally was harmless. All
the scary things she'd done, like moving objects around and
(08:06):
making the electronics malfunction, had been her attempts to keep
a baby safe. She may have even felt protective over
little Taylor, who was only about a month old at
this point. At Barbara's recommendation. From that point on, Deborah
tried to treat Sally's spirit the way she would any
misbehaving seven year old. First, she explained that she appreciated
(08:28):
that Sally was trying to help out with the baby,
but her behavior wasn't in fact helpful. She needed Sally
to act differently. Then, afterward, Deborah tried to keep the
house safe and secure for the spirit. She read children's
books to her, and when she went to bed, she
told Sallie it was okay to come cuddle with her
and Tony. She even brought a wrapped gift for the girl,
(08:52):
a doll in a box with wrapping paper. Somehow, when
the room was apparently empty, the doll inside the box
got placed on the bed, although the packaging was never
torn and the wrapping paper was still perfectly taped around
the box. From the sound of it, all of these
gestures helped Deborah get along with Sally quite well. But
(09:13):
Tony was a lot more skeptical about Barbara's advice, and
he didn't want anything to do with the storytelling, the
nighttime cuddling, or the gift giving. Even after Sally materialized
in front of him in the kitchen appearing as a
very young girl. She looked closer to five than seven.
He was more frightened than anything else. Unsurprisingly, this meant
(09:34):
Sally also wasn't a big fan of Tony, and she
occasionally lashed out violently. At least one time, she bit
him so hard on the thigh it left a baseball
sized bruise. Tony eventually theorized that whatever was dwelling in
the house, it wasn't a ghost at all. He believed
it was something demonic. He also thought an evil spirit
(09:55):
was taking control of his body. On occasion, he said
it drove him to to stab a stray cat to
death after it wandered into the house one day, and
it also left him often fighting the impulse to stab
his wife Deborah as well. It's hard to say who
was right about the spirit's true nature, but we do
know that things only escalated from there. Candles often lit
(10:19):
by themselves, which was obviously concerning since this was a
major fire hazard. Deborah stuck with her usual method of
trying to talk to Sally and explain that she shouldn't
light things on fire. However, this didn't help. The candles
kept igniting, as did teddy bears and an oil lamp
on top of that, Tony and Deborah noticed something strange
(10:41):
about the photos they took around the home. By this point,
they'd both come to accept that there was something otherworldly
dwelling with them, and they expected to see signs of
Sally's presence on film. But by the end of nineteen
ninety three or so, they began to notice a second
entity in their pictures. The following February, Tony believed he
(11:04):
saw this second figure manifest when a woman he didn't
recognize walked down the hallway right in front of him.
He also apparently interacted with her one day when the
television remote went missing. After searching the house everywhere for it,
Tony decided to take a nap on the couch. According
to Deborah's book The Sally House Haunting, Tony woke again
(11:25):
when a woman tapped him on the shoulder, set it
down near him, and said, Tony, here's your remote. In
his half awake state, Tony thought it was Deborah doing this,
but later she insisted that she hadn't found the remote
and definitely hadn't given it to him or woken him up.
Since Barbara the psychic had been so helpful about identifying
(11:46):
Sally's ghost. Tony and Deborah went to her again to
ask about this other woman, but Barbara didn't have much
information to offer. She thought the woman was trying to
get Sally to go somewhere with her, and Sally didn't
want to go. Her best guess was that the ghost
may have been Sally's mother. Now, like Saally, this unidentified
(12:06):
spirit seemed to have a very confrontational relationship with Tony.
One night, he was in bed alone trying to sleep
when he saw something solidify out of thin air right
in front of him, first a torso with crossed arms,
then a fully embodied woman. She had dark hair, a
stern expression, and she was wearing a high collared black dress.
(12:27):
Tony couldn't move out of a combination of terror and
the fact that the woman was shaking his water bed erratically.
He shouted at Deborah, calling for help, while drawers and
the bedroom door opened and closed on their own. The
woman reached for Tony's face and said, I'm gonna That's
when he saw that she was wearing a black lace
glove and there was a bird resting on one of
(12:49):
her fingers. Finally, Tony got his wits about him enough
to dive off the bed and sprint for the door.
He was shouting for Deborah all the while, especially when
he found the knob wasn't working, But when she stepped in,
everything in the room looked normal. There was no sign
that anything odd had happened. At this point, Tony and
Deborah decided they needed professional help. They called in the
(13:12):
crew from the ghost hunting show sightings multiple times. They
also hired a medium to help the spirits move along. Interestingly,
this medium said she didn't sense just two ghosts, Sally
and her mother.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
She thought there were three.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
This medium apparently encouraged the mother and this third spirit,
described as a perfect gentleman, to leave the house. The
little girl Sally stayed in spite of everything that had
happened with Tony. Deborah still believed she was a defenseless
young child who needed to be taken care of, and
Deborah wanted her to remain in the house. As it
(13:50):
turned out, either Sally was more dangerous than she initially appeared,
or there was something malicious besides her still lurking in
the home. Some un unseen entity tried to push Tony
down the stairs shortly before Halloween in nineteen ninety four,
It was the last straw, and Tony and Deborah moved
out in the end of October. Afterward, new tenants moved
(14:13):
into the Sally House and the hauntings continued up until today.
When visitors drop by virghost tours, they often experience all
the same things that left Tony and Deborah so unsettled.
Objects that move on their own, footsteps and noises with
no clear source, and electronic disturbances. Many guests get scratches
(14:35):
and bruises while walking through the home. They sometimes feel
as though someone invisible is touching them. You'll remember that
the Pickman's dog seemed bothered by the nursery. To this day,
guide dogs also tend to refuse to set foot in it.
While many visitors believe they've seen or interacted with Sally,
there are reports of another spirit as well, an adult woman.
(14:58):
It's believed this is not in fact the woman Deborah
and Tony had exercised from the home, but some other
spirit who came to the house at some later point
and decided to stay.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
There are also reports.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Of some kind of very old, malevolent being in the basement,
which may have been there for decades. There is a
raging debate about what these entities truly are. Some agree
with Deborah that these are spirits of the dead. As
I said before, there's no record of any young girl
named Sally ever living or dying in the Sally House,
but there are rumors connecting her to one of the
(15:34):
first residents who lived there, Charles Finney. Charles was the
son of Michael and Kate Finny, who first had the
house built, and he grew up to be a doctor.
According to some rumors and speculation, a local mother rushed
her dangerously ill daughter, Sally, to Charles's house late at
night for emergency treatment. It said she brought the girl
(15:56):
to Charles either because of his reputation or because he
was secretly Sally's illegitimate father, whatever the nature of their relationship.
Charles supposedly rushed Sally into surgery without giving her anesthesia,
as they didn't have the time to waste waiting for
it to kick in. Sadly, even his great skill couldn't
save her life, and Sally died in horrible pain, too
(16:20):
young to understand that the man who was hurting her
only did so because he was trying to help. Perhaps
that's why she seems to lash out against men so
much more often than women, because she associates them with
the doctor who painfully performed surgery on her during her
final night. Another theory about these specters is that they
(16:44):
are demons who never were human at all. Even the
spirit known as Sally may only be pretending to be
an innocent young girl. If we don't know what these
spirits are, we can't help them find peace. Frankly, we
can't even know if peace is something that they are seeking.
So to help me cut through the nod of rumor
and conjecture and try to learn the truth about the
(17:05):
Sally House, I'm talking to someone very special. We are
bringing back mister Johnny Hauser to the show, and he's
gonna tell us why he vowed to never return to
the Sally House. That's coming up after the break. All right,
(17:25):
So we are joined by one of my favorite people
and was the very first guest ever on Haunted Road,
mister Johnny Howser.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Hey, thanks for having me. There was a lot of
fun the first episode. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, you were my you know.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
I was like I remember thinking back then, like okay,
who can I completely screw up with and they won't
judge me.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I was like Johnny, and it was.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Lockdown, wasn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I feel like it was very close to it because
I know the pod came in twenty twenty one, so.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
It was way back when, and uh it was.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
It's funny because you know, my good friend Aaron Minky,
who's executive producer of this show, he went back and
he re recorded a bunch of his old Lore episodes
and I didn't understand that, and now I do because
I go back and I listened to my first few episodes,
like first one or two seasons, and I'm like.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Oh wow, I got a lot better since then.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
And so, you know, but it's always been a ton
of fun. So but thank you so much for coming back.
All Right, So today we're going to talk about the
Sally House.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And what's interesting.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
About this house to me is that I've never been there,
and so, you know, there's not a ton of places
that we cover on the podcast where I haven't been.
But it's also one of those places that people repeatedly
ask me to go to, and I hope to get
there eventually. I do think it's interesting that it's run
by the town basically as opposed to like a private owner.
(18:58):
But that being said, I was trying to find someone
to talk to about it, and I reached out to
Richard step of usual friend of ours, and because I
knew he wrote a book on it, and I was like, Richard,
you've been on the podcast too many times, so I
need someone else. And he pointed me to you, and
he specifically said you have to talk to Johnny.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Because he swore he would never go back there.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I thought that's perfect, So can you just tell me, like,
how did you find yourself at the Sally House?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Uh? That's such a you know in the paranormal game,
you look back and everything's like puzzle pieces, almost like
it just all falls into place without you even knowing.
For me, it started at the blisk Ax Murder House
like eighteen years ago, and I have overnights come and
I check them in and I go to give him
the speel inside the house and the guy goes, whatever's
(19:48):
in here was at my house and I'm just like, oh, yeah,
like what are you talking about? He goes, My name's
Tony and I was on the show's sightings what they
call the Sally House. So I'm like, oh, I remember
watching that when I was young. You know, you're the
guy getting the scratches live on camera, and so we
got to talking. The houses are the exact same street address,
(20:11):
the fiveh eight second Street. The artist rendition, he drew
a Sally. The Sally ghost that presumably died from the
appendix operation is a spitting image of Catherine Moore, who
is one of the little girls at the Axe Murder House.
So he walks into the downstairs bedroom where Aina and
(20:33):
Lina Stellinger were found, and he starts choking and coughing,
and he's coughing and coughing. I'm like, dude, you all right,
Like you need to drink a water or something. He
throws up a chunk of bacon where the bacon was
found in nineteen twelve on the floor at the Axe
Murder House.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
This happened in front of you, right.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
In front of me, and like guys being guys, when
something gross happens, we do we go look, you know,
it's like and it was a chunk of raw, fatty bacon.
And I left there. It's like, I'm out. I don't
know what's happening here, but I got to go, you know,
and I thought about that forever. It's like, why would
(21:17):
this dude swallow a huge chunk of fatty raw bacon
make himself throw it up to impress me a tour
guide at the X House for two years at that point,
you know, like the X House wasn't even nothing back then.
And that started my obsession with the Sally House. And
then I had the opportunity to spend like three days
(21:40):
there and I had to jump on it because that
sightings episode was one that stuck with me before I
was even really in a paranormal game. And since then
I've known. I've met people in the field in production
companies that worked on that episode, and they said the
producer that quit out of Hollywood quit his job, become
(22:02):
a born again Christian all because of what he witnessed
there with the scratchings and stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
So, to be clear, the bacon, the bacon incident, this
happened in the Veliska House.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yes, So when they found the bodies at next morning,
there was a chunk of raw acon laying on the
floor in that bedroom, the Downs room. And so when
deb and Tony came to stay the night, when he
walked into that room, he threw up raw bacon in
the exact spot that the bacon was found.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
So that's wild.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
That's the room that's downstairs, correct, So that's the same
room where that invested Robert Larson.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I believe that's where he stabbed himself and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Yeah, that's a bizarre space. So that's that's really interesting.
And that's kind of one of the reasons why I
wanted to talk to you, is it seemed like there's
this kind of connection between the two houses. And just
going back to that Sightings episode, so I used to
watch that show too. I think a lot of us
are age watch that show, and I don't remember that
(23:05):
episode specifically, so I'm going to have to go back
and check it out when this happened, and I want
to talk more about the Sally House itself, but I
just this bacon moment has me pretty speechless. But when
this happened, Like, what were you thinking? Like what was
going through your head as you see this go on?
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Specifically back then, you know, I always would play Wugi
board by myself, Bloody Mary by myself. I was just
a weird kid growing up, and I had no idea
that there were teams that did this with matching T shirts.
You know, it's like there are people that do this
besides me. It's so new and so magical and so
(23:45):
bizarre and so weird and fantastic that I'm like, oh
my gosh, I just witnessed this guy do that. And
then I mean you automatically try and rationalize, like, okay,
did that really happen? But it's like, why, of course
it really happened. Why would he think that to impress
some duty doesn't even know that's nobody, you know, like, yeah,
(24:05):
that's wild, Yeah it was. And I mean I took
out my little Motorola flip phone at the time and
took a picture of it because I just wanted to
document everything I seen, and of course it's like two megapixel.
You can't even make nothing out at this point.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
But it's okay, you have the you have the bacon
bar forever in your brain. I'm sure, so great, But okay,
So moving ahead to Sally House, you have the opportunity
to spend three days there.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now what happens?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
You know, you can kind of go through it step
by step, but like, how long ago was this and
you know, what was it like when you first like
set foot in that house.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
This would probably be about twelve to fifteen years ago.
As soon as we got there, as soon as and
I won't say as soon as I walked on the property,
like when I opened the door and I seen the
staircase going upstairs, I just got the I was feeling
a file filth gross like blah. I mean, I can't
even really describe it, just not good. We were unpacking,
(25:11):
getting ready to, you know, just put our equipment and
get it all charged up. My buddy's cell phone flew
off the table into the living room and it's like, oh, okay,
that's what this is going to be tonight. First thing,
right off the bat, I decide I want to be
I want to go down in the basement. And by
this guy, i'd heard that there was no Sally ghost.
(25:34):
There's no Sally girl that died from a procedure in there,
there's no records of it. The story I heard was
a lady that lived there back in the day, was
dabbling in the occult and black magic in the basement,
and supposedly there's a pentagram on the floor. You go
down there, there's a big black spot on the floor.
(25:54):
Who knows what it is or what it was. But
it's about six o'clock. I mean, it's still daylight. And
I try some you know, is anyone here can give
me a sign, you know, the normal ghost hunting techniques.
Fifteen years ago. Nothing's happening. So I decide, well, if
(26:15):
this is a cult, I'll try religious provocation. It just
makes sense to me, you know. So I go, in
the name of Jesus Christ do something and I feel
like a bug bite burn on the back of my leg,
and I'm like, oh, I just got scratched. This is awesome.
So I run upstairs and roll up my pant leg.
(26:36):
On the back of my calf. There's a big patch
of bald like the hair is burned off my leg
and you can smell the burnt hair. You can see
singed hair like something burned hair off my leg. And
I'm like, uh, that's nuts. This is something way different.
So I go up. There's a Catholic college in town.
(26:58):
I go up to the gift shop, spend like one
hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty dollars on crucifixes,
holy water, you name it, protection, this and that. I
get back down there the holy water bottles are empty.
They're just decorative bottles. So I go back up there again.
Everything's closed and it's like that scene in The Lost
Boys where they're filling up their squirt guns with holy water.
(27:21):
Like I walk in a building, I'm like, this is
a church. I see water. It's like that's got to
be holy water. What else would it be. So I'm
like filling up the bottles, looking around, like am I
even supposed to be here?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
I think you're allowed to do that. I'm not sure,
but I think you are.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, it's gonna you know, if the cops came, like,
come on, I'm getting holy water, you know. So I
go back down. I put one of the holy water
bottles on where that pentagram supposedly was. We investigate upstairs
and everything. I go back downstairs to pick up my
holy water bottle. It's empty and there's a lid on
(27:59):
the top, but you can see the condensation in the glass.
It's like it evaporated out of it. And I ended
up leaving early. Just on top of that was feelings,
a dread, just something's not right, you know, that fight
or flight feeling. And when I got home. That started
(28:20):
about three months of me just being really weird, like
very like not leave the house, reclusive. I can remember
my buddy knocking at my screen door and I shut
my main door in his face, and like I won't
people leave me alone. I'm sick of people. And then
I started getting like mental flashes of like violent acts,
(28:43):
like just a little quick one second to make me go, man,
what is wrong? Like what's happening here? You know? And
I ended up finding a church in town and went
for like three days a week there. For a while,
I was fine, but I really think something almost got
a hold of me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
I hear the demon actually in the background of your
house right now, right, I think it's still it's still
with you, Johnny. It's funny because it's not. I mean,
it's not funny at all. So, first of all, you
were supposed to be there for three nights. It sounds
like you didn't even make it through the first night.
That feeling of just something's wrong, Like there's been a
(29:24):
few haunts like that where I've walked in and I
can almost it almost feels like you're just sick inside.
But it's like it's like a weird visceral, like something
is very wrong. Here, and I feel it, like physically
but also like spiritually in my soul that either there's
someone or some sort of energy that's very distraught and upset,
(29:48):
or there's something like legitimately dangerous here. And what you're
describing is just like so unexplainable. You know, how does
that possibly happen? I mean, I the only thing that
can happen someone snuck down there and I try to
play a joke on yours in which I don't think happened.
And then for you to be affected by someone who
you know went for so long, you know, you took
(30:10):
a picture of bacon barf. That's like, You're not someone
who gets scared and has things like stick with you
for so long. You know, it's like you were fascinated
by those things. So for it to really like kind
of affect you that way after, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I remember I drove home in the middle of the
night and got home and as soon as I walked
in my door, I kind of dropped my bag. I
started crying, like I just felt like I got back
from war, you know, and all of a sudden, I
was like home and it's like, what did I just
go through? You know, it's like this flood of emotions
(30:50):
just came out. I mean, the weirdness, the weird thoughts
and everything. I mean, I was I was married at
the time, and my ex wife would say we'd be
eaten and you'd just be staring at it, being like
you wanted to kill me. I'm like, no, I wasn't.
It's like, yeah, you're like what you know, just it's
(31:11):
very oppressive. That place is very oppressive and just full
of nothing good.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Right now, what do you think about I know you
did eventually go back, but we'll get to that. But
what what do you think about the fact that you
know there are people investigating there quite a bit. And
I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of you know,
demons and whatnot. I don't really put like a face
on things. But I do believe in like true negative
(31:37):
type energy, and I think that energy can be human
or I think something so terrible and tragic can happen
somewhere that it just completely oppresses that space forever, and
that some of us can actually like take a bit
of that with us and it can physically and mentally
affect us, you know. So I you know, I don't
have an explanation or an answer. But I also feel
(31:58):
like too, if you're combat it with something you believe in,
like religion and going to church, if you believe in that,
that is how you get rid of that right right now?
How do you feel about people investigating there so often?
Do you think that is feeding into what's going on there?
You know a lot of people walk away.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Just completely fine.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Others seem to have some pretty like life changing experiences.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
What do you think that does to that house?
Speaker 1 (32:24):
It absolutely feeds it. I mean I've seen it firsthand
at the twenty years I spent at the Axe House.
It absolutely fad that place. You know, the more people
come and do who knows what in the house that
they're not always super respectful investigators that go to these places.
Sometimes a lot of times it's just people getting completely
(32:44):
wasted and doing who knows what in it most of
the time super respectful. But you know, the investigators that
I do know are super respectful. I'm not lumping everybody
into one thing, but bad things do happen from normal
people that go into these places, and I think it
just feeds it. And I mean we've all been in
relationships that are very oppressive and dark and draining doesn't
(33:08):
mean demons. It just people can be that, you know.
And I also think these places are like mirrors. They
just reflect back to you what you put into it.
If like at the Axous, if you think you're talking
to little kids, that's what you're going to get. If
you think the killers in the house, that's what you're
going to get. If you think this, that's what you're
(33:28):
going to get. You know, That's the one thing I've
learned throughout all these years and these locations is everybody
gets different things, vastly different things, day after day. You know,
it doesn't really seem like a static type deal. But
getting back to your question, I mean absolutely people investigating
and going in and giving it energy, giving it time,
(33:51):
reacting to what happens. You know, the first thing I
learned in the field for residential hauntings is you know,
tell the client if something happens, don't overreact and go
crazy and oh my gosh, the door just slammed. Everybody, Look,
you know, you're just feeding it. Ignore it, Ignore it,
and it'll hopefully go away type thing.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's like a bully.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
When you stop giving them the reaction they want, you know,
and I think that's probably one of the reasons. Like
me as an investigator, it's very rare that I encounter
anything negative because I'm like the most cheerful ghost hunter
that's ever, you know, Like I walk into every place
laughing and giggling and like I would be the most
if I were like a mean ghost, I'd be so
(34:35):
annoyed with me.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
So you come in that the ghosts is like, I'm
going to light her up, and it's like she's so nice.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Though it's my defense. Everyone's like, what do you do.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
I'm like, just don't care, just be nice. They don't
they want That's my solution to everything. Although I am
very I do want to visit the Sally House. I
am definitely going to try to make it in twenty
twenty five. And so now kind of circling back, you
you go back.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
How long did it take you to go back? Why
did you go back?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Well, the initial time I went back maybe a few
months later, and that time it was the same thing,
very oppressive, very terrifying. I ended up leaving in the
middle of the night again. And in fact, there's a
popular ghost hunting show. I'm not going to say which one,
it is, but one of the cast members is in
(35:29):
the basement and they go to crawl inside the hole
in the basement in the wall. They step on a
little TV set to get in that hole. That's I
left that there. We were doing video iving. I left
all my gear there. It's like, I don't care, I'll
just buy more. I'm not going to the house ever again.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
And so what was why what happened that time? It
was just the feeling or did an experience happen that
set you over the edge?
Speaker 1 (35:53):
I mean there were experiences like I got shoved. I
was at the top of the stairs just standing and
I got shoved like almost down the steps, and I
braced myself on the railing. But then I'm like, well,
maybe I was locking my knees. You know, I'm trying
to debunk it my head and it happened again. But
stuff like that I can handle, like big deal, you
know it was. What I can't take is the mental manipulation.
(36:20):
Something bad is about to happen real soon that I
don't like. You know, So I left sore. I'd never
go back, ended up going back again.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You're good at keeping promises to yourself.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
That's it. I don't. I don't like something beating me,
you know.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
No, I told I would be the same way. Absolutely,
I can't do this.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I can't let this beat me. So I go down
again and I do this experiment down in the basement
on top of the pentagram and asked to do it
like light therapy. It's it's almost like the Estes method,
but it's with a light therapy, light getting to the
boring details, but creates like a tunnel inside your mind.
And I did it, and all of a sudden, all
(37:03):
I seen was the steps of the Volaska's murder house
and like boots walking up the steps. And I tried
to force it out of my mind. I'm like, you know,
that's just what you are used to keep an open mind,
and it kept going back to that. Well, then it
went into like the kids room and kind of alluded
(37:24):
to what happened there, and again I got super emotional,
like it's almost like I was feeling what the Morris
felt that night. It's terrified. I was emotional. I was sad. Guys.
I got to take a break, like this is too much,
So we go out front. It's about two in the
morning on a Tuesday. It's dark, it's foggy. It's one
(37:48):
of those just summer nights. Every time I've been to
the Sally House, you always get teenagers congregating out front.
I mean, it just happens every single time. So we're
sitting there and also to see a figure emerge out
of the fog about a block away, and I'll look
to my buddy, I'm like, you know, weirdo coming up
behind you, you know, and it's a full blown Catholic
(38:11):
monk with the robe with the hood up and the
little rope tight around his waist, walks through us, does
not say a word, doesn't even look at us. As
soon as he passes the house, he does like the
sign of the Cross on his body and disappears into
the fog. And everybody's just like, uh what. And I'm like, guys,
(38:35):
I'm out. They're like, oh, you can't leave. It's like,
I don't know what that was, But do Catholic priests
just roam around and full regalia at two am on
a Tuesday? Like no, Like, you know, big guy, I
don't listen to you, but I'm listening tonight. So message
loud and clear.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Okay, So when you say walk through, you like walked
between you guys, are like literally walked for you?
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Like, was this like a spiritual form or was this
a physical.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Person like between us, like a physical person? I'm assuming
he was real.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Oh so he's just on like Sally House duty or.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I mean, that's I have no idea, Like I've never
seen anything like that in my life. Like he walked
up and one of us like, hey, how you doing?
And he didn't say anything, So he just kind of
moved out of his way, and that's when he did
the sign of the cross and kept walking and just
disappeared into the fog.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
That's I wonder is there a place he would have
come from locally like that there?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Well, there's a it's a big Catholic college in that town.
But it was Ah. So we go to get coffee
earlier in that day, and this might have been what
explains it. We go to get coffee and school is
out for summer. The guy making coffee is a college
professor at the Catholic school. He's like, Oh, what are
you guys in town for. We're like, how this We're
(39:58):
staying at the Sally House. He goes, Ah, that's our
arch nemesis. So I don't know if he sent one
of his homeboys down to like give us a little
extra umph, like a little extra protection or what.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
But yeah, or maybe it's just so well known that
you know, maybe he was taking a midnight stroll and
like that's just what they do when they walk by it.
That's just their automatic response. I mean, that's just that's
a really wild story. And so you at that point
you're like, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't know what that means,
but hanging around to find out, Like at some point,
if you're going to be stupid, you gotta be.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah, the universe only gives you so many signs and
you know, so okay, so now have you been back
since then?
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I have not been back since then.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, And okay, that so just like point blank, like
what do you think is going on there?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
I think there's some thing negative there, But I think
there's like where negative things happen, negative things are attracted to,
you know. I don't think it's the big D word, right,
And I personally would have nothing to do with it,
you know, And I think that there'd be a lot
worse happening from there. I don't know, it's not the
(41:22):
Sally Ghost, right. But then I've talked to people that
have stayed the night there and oh it is boring.
Nothing happened.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, you know, I think
that happens at every punted location. I have to remind people.
I'm like, well, they're not like there to perform for you,
Like some nights are great, some nights are quiet. That's
part of the part of the gig.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
But you know, I just I find that that place
very interesting, just in the sense that, well, I trust
you implicitly with your information, you know, so it always
depends on where that kind of information is coming from
for me, and so I just find it very interesting.
Now can you imagine the people that lived there for
so long? Can you imagine living there on a daily basis?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Oh man, I mean just being immersed and marinating in
that anxiety and depression and darkness day after day after day,
like good grief. I couldn't imagine. And you know what's
interesting is the guy that lives next door. We were
on the back deck taking a break and that's where
(42:25):
we take breaks all night. He would just be his
lights would be on, and we weren't like speaking in
his windows, you know, but he can't help but to
notice when the lights are on and the middle of
the night and no curtains are drawn. He's just like
pacing through his house all night long, and like I'm
wonder and I wonder what's going on over there as well, right,
you know, I you know, if this lady was practicing
(42:49):
a cult in black magic, she's just willing darkness into
that place, just kind of begging it to come, you
know whatever. Really, just faith you believe in about all
of that has its own form of evil, you know, right,
And if you're just sitting there like saying, hey, come
on whatever, come hang out, like and who knows what's
(43:12):
attached to other people that go there, who knows what
they do in the house.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
There's a time at the X House. I go in
there and there's all these papers on the floor from
the overnights, and all of us junk on the floor,
and it's like, what is this? It is how to
summon a demon? Printed off the Internet? And I started laughing,
you know, and I called up a friend of mine
(43:39):
because I'm not a huge specialist or expert, so I
called her up. I'm like, should I be worried about
this or is this just stupid? She goes, It's not
them doing it correctly or anything. It's the intent that
they had when they get in there.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
With that, It's like, I'm a big I'm a big
believer in intention and you know, the energy that you are
asking for or putting off yourself, and you know, that
makes me wonder what the sallyas too?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Like is that just so many people walking.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
In there with the intention of encountering something potentially evil,
and so you know, some people might be excited by that,
some people might be asking for it. Other people might
be so scared of that that they're like exuding this
kind of like nervous scared energy, you know. So it's
I don't know, it's really interesting. I think a lot
(44:33):
of hauntings just come from us, to be honest, Yeah,
you know, or we or we affect them deeply, and yeah,
I'm really interested to get in there and kind of
feel that vibe.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I usually get. I meet a lot of new young
teams that come through Veleska, and I'm always excited to
see them because they're you know, seventeen eighteen just getting
in the field or so pumped over it and I
can impart what i've little I've learned over the last
twenty five thirty years, you know, and they're like, oh,
we're going to the Sally House, Like, uh what okay, boys,
(45:09):
let's let's have a talk.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
So okay, now, ending on that, this is your opportunity
to talk to those folks who want to go there.
What is your advice for people who want to go
to the Sally House? What? What would you tell them?
How would you tell them to handle that haunting? Or
would you just tell them.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Not to go?
Speaker 1 (45:27):
You know, first rule of ghost hunting is you got
to know when to call it. You got to know
when to stop and when it's clearly starting to become unsafe.
And if somebody starts getting weird, go take a break,
Go get a candy bar, Like it's all right. You'll
have to give it one hundred and twenty percent, you know,
watch each other's moods, Watch each other. If somebody starts
(45:49):
acting angry or outside of themselves how they would normally
wouldn't act. You got a buddy watch and you got
to not be afraid to say, okay, no, we need
to leave. You know, who cares about the four hundred
bucks or whatever we threw down. I mean, is your
personal well being worth that? I wouldn't suggest it for
(46:10):
someone new, you know, cut your teeth on a few
other places at art so terrible.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Well, that's very sound advice. My advice to people is
if it starts getting weird, just start whistling a happy song,
because nothing bad can happen if you're whistling. That's my
that's my ghost, my ghost defense mechanism.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
And there's a lot of truth in that because, like
you know, being at the Axe House for so long,
it's I've seen it affect me several times with like
when I was talking about the quick snippets of violent
acts and stuff. Whenever I get that anymore, I just
counteract it with a happy act. If I'm in a
(46:54):
bad make myself getting a hat like Yin and Yang.
There's truth to that.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yeah, if you force your self to smile, it automatically
like sends endorphins to like your body, and it instantly
lifts your.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Mood or wakes you up.
Speaker 1 (47:07):
I spent years I'm a true true crime nerd, so
it's like all day long, I'm doing X House stuff
and then I uh watch forensic Files and then I'll
watch The Exorcist. And this year I've decided I'm just
going to watch Billy Madison and like funny and laugh.
That's what it's like to laugh a little bit. And
(47:30):
you know, I.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Think that's a great idea. Yeah, you got you got
to counteract that.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Stuff exactly, take a break from it.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, awesome, Well, it was so great to talk to
you again. I hope our paths cross in person soon
and if I head back, if I head to the
Sally House, I'll let you know and let you know
what happens. But yeah, your your stories and everything you've
said today has just been so interesting and so compelling,
and I know that every no One's gonna love listening
(48:01):
as always. So thank you so much, Johnny. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I'll keep the Catholic Clergy on speed dial for you.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Now that I've finished up my interview with Johnny, I
wanted to tell you a little story about something that
happened in my own house after our interview was complete.
I don't record Haunted Road in some big, fancy studio
or anything like that. I actually record Haunted Road in
my upstairs walk in closet. Because it's so filled with
(48:33):
clothes and clothing racks and whatnot that it dampens the
sound enough, and so it's the perfect spot. So I
have a music stand set up there, my scripts, my recorder,
all of that microphone, and that's where I record it.
And that whole setup is there always. And so I
recorded my interview with Johnny. I took my memory card
or SD card out of the recorder so I could
(48:56):
upload the interview for our producers from my office downstairs.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
The next day, I went back in to do.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Some more recording for Haunted Road, and when I walked in,
my entire setup, my scripts, my recorder, my microphone, my
music stand, all of it was strewn.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
About the room.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
I don't know how that could have happened. This is
something that's just static and there, and that's never happened before.
I do have cats, but they are not allowed in
my closet ever, because if they go in there, they
can actually get in between the floors of my house
and get stuck. So we're very strict about letting them
in there. I have a three hundred year old house,
and I didn't hear anything, and so I don't know
what could have caused that. I diligently just kind of
(49:39):
picked everything up and carried about my day. But I'm
asking you, Haunted roadies, what do you think. Do you
think something came through somehow with my interview with Johnny
or do you think in my three hundred year old
house something about that interview stirred something up within my
own home.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I'll keep you posted if anything else happens, but I
thought it was interesting and I want to to give
you that follow up. There are so many questions that
we'll never know the answers to what happens to us
after we die, what other kinds of beings share this
world with us? And what is the nature of the
spirits that dwell in the Sally House. But even if
(50:18):
we can't find one definitive explanation, the fact that we're
asking these questions at all still matters. It's human nature
to wonder about the world around us, and that may
be why the Sally House holds so much fascination. I'm
Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is
(50:48):
a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm and Miles from Air
and Minky. Haunted Road is hosted and written by me
Amy Brune, with additional research by Cassandra de Alba. This
show is edited and produced by supervising producer Rima El Kali,
with executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick.
(51:10):
Learn more about this show over at grimanmild dot com,
and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
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