August 1, 2025 • 24 mins
In 1987, a family purchased a set of second-hand bunk beds for their young daughters. Almost immediately after they started being used, their children started reporting a strange apparition, visions, and objects moving on their own. Can objects be haunted? And if so, are there more true accounts that can prove it to us? In this episode, we explore the Tallman Bunkbeds Haunting, as well as mention the Hexham Heads Mystery, and the Haunted Dybbuk Box.
Here's the story of the bunk beds on Unsolved Mysteries: https://youtu.be/aSJqmSfT62c
You can find Edwin social media as @edwincov
Have an idea you want to send? Send me an email or DM! hello@horrorstory.com
You can get these ad-free through ScaryPlus.com free for 14 days, then 4.99 per month. Cancel anytime.
Get in touch on HorrorStory.com
Here's the story of the bunk beds on Unsolved Mysteries: https://youtu.be/aSJqmSfT62c
You can find Edwin social media as @edwincov
Have an idea you want to send? Send me an email or DM! hello@horrorstory.com
You can get these ad-free through ScaryPlus.com free for 14 days, then 4.99 per month. Cancel anytime.
Get in touch on HorrorStory.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In the spring of nineteen eighty six, Allen and Debbie
Tallman moved in with their three young children into a
modest ranch house on South Larrabee Street in Horicon, Wisconsin.
The house was new, it had been built in nineteen
eighty four, although it's worth noting that being nwe did
not mean it wouldn't come with problems, and no, I'm
not talking about the faults and the home inspection. For
(00:26):
a while, life was ordinary and it was expected. They
were living in a small Midwestern town after all. But
all of that was going to change. They were still
furnishing their home, so Allan and Debbie went to a
local furniture shop in Horicon and found a set of
bunk beds perfect for their two younger daughters. So they
paid the second hand shop one hundred dollars and took
(00:47):
it home. They took it straight to the basemind and
stared it there before putting it together and then taking
it upstairs. Eventually they got them into their daughter's bedrooms,
but when they started sleeping in them, the first signs
of trouble began. Soon after the bunk bed was moved
into place, the children began experiencing health problems. They visited
(01:08):
doctors more than usual, and one of them was hospitalized
twice for illnesses that seemed unrelated to one another. At
the same time, one of them was telling her parents
that she kept hearing a strange voice telling her to
be quiet at night. Danny, the oldest of three, claimed
he saw a suitcase slide across the floor on its
(01:29):
own before returning to where it had been. Allan and
Debby assumed that these were the kinds of things children
might imagine, but the events continued, the children's fear grew,
and their stories were told with a consistency that was
hard to dismiss. Over the weeks that followed, what began
as strange noises and shifting objects would developed into something
(01:51):
far more disturbing, marking the beginning of one of the
most unusual hauntings ever reported in Wisconsin. Now, I came
across this story in an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
and although it was a very short segment, it still
brought a long lasting type of fear of objects, things
(02:12):
that don't move, that don't have a life of their own.
I'm going to tell you the infamous tale of the tall,
mean bunk bed incident. My name is Edwin and here's
a horror story. It was late May of nineteen eighty
(02:33):
seven when the bed was moved into the children's room.
The arrangement was that the two girls would share the
bunk beds and their oldest, a boy, would have his
own room. The first incident came from the oldest son, Danny,
who was sleeping in the room next to the bunk
bed when he saw the clock radios dial moved by
itself from one side to the other. He told his parents,
(02:55):
but they were like, no, that can't happen. But still
the mom, Debbie, thought that it was interference, so she
went and took a look. That's when she saw that
the knob was turning by itself and the red signal
indicator was moving across a frequency bar. She found it
really odd and took the radio out of the room.
(03:15):
A few weeks later, mister Allan Tallman was painting in
the basement when Debbie called him up for dinner. He
laid the brush down and went upstairs. But when he
went back down to the basement he found the brush
he had been using bristles down in the paint. Now
he would have never left it like that, so he
tried to explain it to himself, but still couldn't. And
(03:37):
yet he didn't want to even begin to think that
his house was haunted. At first, Allan and Debbie try
to calm themselves and the children down by suggesting that
they were only dreaming or imagining things, but the consistency
of it became harder to dismiss. Two of the children
spoke of similar events, often separately, but their fear was real,
(04:00):
and as parents, they were aware of it. In interviews,
Debbie said that their two year old daughter had woken
up screaming several times, saying that there was a fire
on the door of her room, going shhh. Now, she
mentioned that her son had told her of an old
lady that was standing by the door in his room.
(04:20):
It was a little old lady, quote really ugly, with
long black hair and a glow about her like fire,
with sounds of feet moving across the carpet. At one point,
a babysitter saw a chair at the kitchen table that
was rocking back and forth, with absolutely no one sitting
(04:40):
on it and no explanation. Now, they themselves would sometimes
see strange glowing shapes around the house as well. So
at this point Debbie began to think that her house
was proudly haunted, and the possibility that something in their
home was intentionally trying to unsettle them. Near that last
part of nightineteen eighty seven, they kept hearing doors banging
(05:02):
open and shut, strange voices calling to them, and visions
that were scaring the children. Things were getting out of hand.
A week before Christmas, something had scared their son again,
so Alan reached his breaking point. He started running around
the rooms, challenging the entity, screaming to it, pick on me,
(05:24):
leave my kids alone. If you want to fight, I'll fight.
And he heard nothing back. But then one night, when
he was getting home, he heard the howling of the wind,
even though there was no breeze. He then heard it
say come here, clearly audible. He started searching around to
(05:45):
see who might have said that, expecting to find a prankster.
He rushed over the front steps when he saw something
glowing inside the garage. It was orangish red. He could
see flames coming out of the overhead door, and that's
when he saw two eyes in the windows. He immediately
thought it was fire, but then he took a second look,
(06:07):
and there was nothing. It was late around the same
time again, at around two in the morning, and Alan
had just returned from his late shift. He worked as
a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, so it wasn't anything
unusual for him, and on this occasion, Alan was in
his daughter's bedroom waiting for them to fall asleep, when
suddenly he heard a vacuum like sound. Startled. He looked around
(06:31):
the room when he saw a foggy thing rise directly
out of the floor with green eyes. As he stared
in disbelief, he heard it say you're dead, and then
it vanished instantly in a flash of flames. Now Alan
was traumatized. He was visibly shaken when his wife, Debbie,
(06:52):
saw him, describing him as white as a ghost and
with blue lips. She kept asking what happened, what's wrong,
but he wouldn't say anything. He was just standing there,
tears coming down his face. His wife got on the
phone and called a pastor from their church and told
him what was going on, begging him to come right away,
(07:13):
saying that Alan was crying and wouldn't tell her what happened.
From the Unsolved Mysteries episode that I watched where they
talked to the pastor. He said that Alan gave no
signs of having made everything up. The pastor had been
around terrified people before, and this is what was in
front of him. So the pastor blessed the house, gave
(07:34):
the family communion right there, and then gave them the
tapes of church music for them to play in the house. However,
the paranormal events resumed. This time had happened to a
relative who was asked by Alan to watch over their
daughters while they fell asleep since he had to go
to work later than usual. This relative was skeptical of
(07:54):
ghost so he was like, okay, we'll do it. But
then he too saw quote the same specter, the one
that had been seeing by the Tallman family. So he
left the bedroom completely scared, saying, I am never coming
back to this house. I cannot handle this. The family
(08:15):
decided to leave the house for good that same night,
opting instead to stay at a motel before the church
provided them with a place to stay for the time. Now,
around this time, word had spread around the neighborhood about
the haunted Tallman home, something Debbie mentioned in an interview
where she says how tough it was because she had
(08:36):
to deal with the unknown in their home and the
talk of around town. The house was in a subdivision
of ten other houses noted by the Horricon Police Chief
Douglas Claman. He, the pastor, and the homeowner had toured
the house searching for recording devices, amplifiers, anything that showed
that everything might have been a prank, even considering projection equipment,
(09:01):
but nothing unusual was found. After all those nights of
fear and sleeplessness, Alan and Debbie concluded that the bed
was a source of the problem and that it had
to be removed. So in early February of nineteen eighty eight,
they arranged for the bunk bed to be taken to
a local landfill. That wasn't just discarded, It was buried
(09:23):
to ensure that no one else could ever use it.
The family wanted to be absolutely certain that the object
could not return to their home or passed to another family.
Now at this point you might be thinking, what about
this story made it about the bunk bet. What turns out,
(09:44):
the activity throughout the Tollman home was strongly connected to
the second hand bunk bets, the ones that were purchased.
You see, they moved into November of nineteen eighty six,
and the problem started six months later when the bunk
beds were purchased, more specifically for the moment they were
actually used for the first time. Now, something like a
(10:04):
trigger came from those beds. Based on comments and polls
from you guys, have found that we generally believe that
entities might be tied to places or people themselves. This
house was a relatively new construction and everything was fine
until the beds were used. Plus, the new family who
purchased the house in April of nineteen eighty eight reported
(10:27):
no paranormal activity after moving in. Their story might have
ended there had it not been for local press coverage
and then the national attention through the television series Unsolved Mysteries.
When the episode aired in October of nineteen eighty eight,
it introduced the Tallman Haunting to a white audience. The
(10:48):
segment featured dramatizations of the events, but also included interviews
with Reverend Wayne doe Brats and police Chief Doug Glammon,
both of whom vouched for the family's sincerity. I described
them as credible, ordinary people now that supports at the
Tallman case apart from many ghost stories, which often lack
outside witnesses. Although the Tallman family never saw publicity, their
(11:15):
experience quickly became a talking point in paranormal circles. It
was unusual in that the disturbances seemed to be tied
not to a house or a location, but to a
single object. This gave the case a unique place, and
discussions of cursed or haunted objects often mentioned alongside items
like the Hope Diamond or the Annabel Doll. Although it
(11:37):
never gave the same level of fame, the Taumans themselves
did not pursue further media appearances. They gave no book deals,
no follow up interviews. They avoided turning their story into entertainment.
They would turn to private life, leaving only the original
episode of Unsolved Mysteries and a handful of reports as
(11:58):
a record. Some ways, this reluctance has added to the
story's power. Unlike the Amityville Horror or Enfield Poulter Geist,
the tall Men haunting was not commercialized or exaggerated for decades.
It remains what it always was, a short, intense burst
of terror centered around a single ordinary piece of furniture.
(12:25):
The concept of things being haunted is way more common
than you think, with even museums filled with objects that
are set to be haunted. I remember when I visited
Zach Begen's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas with my friend
Michelle and left with a strange sense of dread because
of the things that they had in there. At the
paranormal field, they say that there are a few ways
(12:45):
that an object can become haunted. One is residual energy
or an energy attachment. The idea goes that living things
energy and that it's this energy that can be stored
or recorded with an objects. During my research, I kept
finding stone tape theory, so I looked it up. It
turns out it's a BBCTV play that was back from
(13:08):
nineteen seventy two. It's actually called The Stone Tape and
the story scientists investigate a haunted mansion, suggesting that the
stone walls can record traumatic human events, kind of like
how magnetic tape records sound. The idea seemed to make
sense to paranormal research circles, so it stayed. They say
that under certain conditions, these events can be replayed like
(13:31):
a recording, and that's when people experience them as apparitions, sounds,
or sensations. This is different than a ghost because they
are seen as residual hauntings like mindless echoes of the
past with no interaction. A second way is an actual
spirit attachment, where if the objects was particularly loved by
(13:53):
a spirit during their life, like a favorite doll or
a toy, the bond to the item can be so
strong spirit remains connected to it after passing away. This
is where activity happens after buying a secondhand item. It's
when we hear that a spirit may become upset if
someone else tries to claim it. The third theory is
(14:15):
a negative energy from traumatic events, where a negative imprint
remains on a physical object, like if a weapon was
used in a murder. It might retain the negative energy,
making people feel uneasy if they hold it now. This
is not to be confused with demonic type or energy.
But then here's the fourth, which is an actual curse
(14:35):
is on the object, but they are linked to malevolent
forces like demons sometimes that will bring bad luck, misfortune,
or death to their owners. This is one we hear
about the most, at least in this podcast, because folklore
and paranormal research is filled with them, some like stories
of cursed diamonds that cause death to their owners or
(14:56):
the recent stories circulating about Annabelle. These are just some
examples and how this activity manifests through haunted objects, while
it varies with things like electronic disturbances, movement of objects,
sounds and voices, apparitions, illness and fires. Another famous example
(15:17):
of haunted objects is the story of the Hexham Heads.
The Hexham Head story begins in nineteen seventy one when
two boys, Colin and Leslie Robson, reported digging up a
pair of small carved stone heads in the garden of
their families home in Hexham, Northumberland. Soon after the discovery,
members of the rocks and household and the next door family,
(15:40):
the Dods, described poltergeist like disturbances, objects shifting position when
no one was near them, bottles thrown across the rooms,
hair pulled, and in one neighbor's account, citing a strange
part human before leaving the house. The heads, each only
a few centimeters hi, quickly became the suspected focus of
(16:02):
the activity. The artifacts were passed on to doctor Anne Ross,
a noticed Celticist who had publicly written about the ritual
importance of human head imagery in iron Age and Romanto
British contexts. Ross later stated that she witnessed an apparition
a part wolf, part man figure walking out of a
(16:25):
room in her house and vanishing downstairs. Her daughter subsequently
reported a similar encounter. Now Anne associated these events with
the heads and returned them. Decades later, she repeated her
first reactions and experiences in interviews, some that are cited
by academic research. They were keeping the heads linked to
(16:46):
uncanny phenomena. Eventually people examined how the pieces were made.
One academic assessment concluded that the heads were molded rather
than carved, suggesting a modern origin. The chain of custody
during the mid nineteen seventies included museum staff and later
independent investigators. After a period of private examination in the
(17:09):
late nineteen seventies, the original heads reportedly went missing and
the present whereabouts are unknown. Nineteen seventy four, a local
lorry driver, Desmond Craigie, who was known as des claimed
that he had made the heads in nineteen fifty six
as toys for his daughter while living in the same
address that the Robsons later occupied. He demonstrated the claim
(17:33):
by producing new examples cast from local materials, though observers
noted his replicas did not convincingly match the originals. DES's claim,
if correct, would explain both the molded manufacture and the
presence of the objects in the garden, but the debate
over authenticity has never fully settled. The case briefly entered
(17:57):
UK popular consciousness in nineteen seventy six via a BBC
nationwide segment that featured Doctor Ann and reference a reported
werewolf idea, a broadcast later restored and resurfaced by BBC Archives.
The TV coverage helped cement the Heads as a nineteen
seventies folklore touchdoone half archaeological curiosity, half contemporary legend. Today,
(18:22):
the Hexham Heads set at the intersection of folklore studies, archaeology,
and modern myth. The core facts a garden discovery, reported disturbances,
expert interest, and a modern manufacturer claim, and the artifact's
disappearance are reasonably well documented. However, the supernatural elements are
(18:43):
mostly tied to witness testimony instead of some evidence, which
is why the story persists as both a cautionary archaeological
curiosity and as a classic haunted object story. But here's
another one you might know. Back when I was taking
a ghost tour in poor the tour guide told me
a story about a very famous cursed object, one that
(19:04):
I had heard of in Zach Began's museum. Although this
story might not be exactly what you thought it was.
Now this is a story of the Dibiic Box, and
it begins in two thousand and one. Now a man
named Kevin Mannus, a Portland, Oregon antique stealer, bought a
small wooden wine cabinet and an estate sale. In his
(19:26):
later accounts, Mannu said that the cabinet had belonged to
a Polish Jewish woman, one who survived a Nazi concentration
camp and brought it to the United States after World
War Two. According to his story, the woman's granddaughter told
him that the box had been kept hidden away and
was never to be opened. She supposedly referred to it
(19:46):
as a depic box. It's important to note, however, that
this backstory has never been independently verified, and Manus himself
has since admitted that much of it was a creative embellishment.
Now Jewish folklora a typyk is understood as a restless spirit,
one that can attach itself to a person, often portrayed
(20:07):
as malicious or troubled. The figure of the dibik has
been part of Jewish storytelling for centuries, though not all
traditions accept it literally. The specific idea of a dibic box, however,
does not come from Jewish religious practice, and appears to
have originated with Manis tail A. Man Is described opening
(20:29):
the box and finding two nineteen twenties pennies, a lock
of hair tied with a string, and a small statue
engraved with the Hebrew word shalom, a wine goblet, and
a dried rosebud, also a candle holder. He claimed that
soon afterward strange events began. According to his story, he
(20:50):
had nightmares of an old hag attacking him, and his
mother suffered a stroke on the very day he gave
her the cabinet. He also described flickering lights, unexplained orders,
and visitors who felt dread or illness in its presence.
These reports come solely from Manus's own testimony, and while
(21:10):
they have been repeated often, there's no outside confirmation that
such events took place. Over time, Manus tried to give
the box away. He said that each new owner reported misfortunes,
including insomnia, hair loss, and severe anxiety. One owner, a
college student named Josef Nitzke, listed the box on eBay
(21:32):
in two thousand and three, calling it a cursed object,
and that list thing went viral very quickly. It just
spread across the Internet forums and news outlets, capturing attention
as one of the first widely shared online ghost stories. Eventually,
the box was purchased by Jason Haxton, the director of
a museum in Missouri that Haxton later wrote a book
(21:55):
about the object in twenty eleven, where he claimed it
caused welts to appear on his skin and interfered with electronics.
He said he once sealed it in a military container
and buried it for safety before finally donating it to
Zach Began's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. Today, the box
is displayed there as one of the museum's main attractions.
(22:18):
Begans has said that multiple visitors, including musician Post Malone,
experienced frightening incidents after interacting with it. I actually got
to see it and the story behind it. Even though
it might be made up partially, it's pretty cool. In
twenty twenty one, reporting revealed that Kevin Mannis had admitted
to crafting much of this story. It was kind of
(22:39):
a creative exercise that later took on a life of
its own. Despite this, the Devic Box has endured in
popular culture, largely because of its viral spread online, its
appearance in books and television, and it's continued to display
at the Haunted Museum. Today, the story persists less as
a matter of document minted fact and more as a
(23:01):
blend of modern folklore, marketing, and the timeless fascination with
cursed objects. The power of story behind objects is a
very powerful one, enough to make people pay much more
for what they're getting, and at times quite literally, like
for the bunk bets, the family paid one hundred dollars
(23:23):
and ended up losing more than three thousand after giving
up their home because of the incidents. And if you're
like thrifting, have you ever purchased something that didn't quite
feel right? Because when it comes to secondhand items, the
shared walls of hotel rooms, and perhaps the physical memories
of those who lived in your home long before you,
(23:46):
can you actually trust what remains now. This episode of
Horror Story was researched and written by me Edwin Komar
Rubias regarding the story of the Tallman bunk beds. Was
it actually the beds? Let me know what you think
(24:08):
about it, and if you want to watch the original
Unsolved Mystery segment, I'll link to it so you can
watch it on YouTube. That show was one of my
favorites back in the day. Anyway, to support this and
my other shows, you can try out Scary plus over
on scaryplus dot com. You get all these episodes at
free and keeps everything going. Or if you can drop
(24:28):
some stars for me in the reviews, that always helps.
We're following the show. I'll be back next week with
another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it
Scary everyone, See soon.
In the spring of nineteen eighty six, Allen and Debbie
Tallman moved in with their three young children into a
modest ranch house on South Larrabee Street in Horicon, Wisconsin.
The house was new, it had been built in nineteen
eighty four, although it's worth noting that being nwe did
not mean it wouldn't come with problems, and no, I'm
not talking about the faults and the home inspection. For
(00:26):
a while, life was ordinary and it was expected. They
were living in a small Midwestern town after all. But
all of that was going to change. They were still
furnishing their home, so Allan and Debbie went to a
local furniture shop in Horicon and found a set of
bunk beds perfect for their two younger daughters. So they
paid the second hand shop one hundred dollars and took
(00:47):
it home. They took it straight to the basemind and
stared it there before putting it together and then taking
it upstairs. Eventually they got them into their daughter's bedrooms,
but when they started sleeping in them, the first signs
of trouble began. Soon after the bunk bed was moved
into place, the children began experiencing health problems. They visited
(01:08):
doctors more than usual, and one of them was hospitalized
twice for illnesses that seemed unrelated to one another. At
the same time, one of them was telling her parents
that she kept hearing a strange voice telling her to
be quiet at night. Danny, the oldest of three, claimed
he saw a suitcase slide across the floor on its
(01:29):
own before returning to where it had been. Allan and
Debby assumed that these were the kinds of things children
might imagine, but the events continued, the children's fear grew,
and their stories were told with a consistency that was
hard to dismiss. Over the weeks that followed, what began
as strange noises and shifting objects would developed into something
(01:51):
far more disturbing, marking the beginning of one of the
most unusual hauntings ever reported in Wisconsin. Now, I came
across this story in an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
and although it was a very short segment, it still
brought a long lasting type of fear of objects, things
(02:12):
that don't move, that don't have a life of their own.
I'm going to tell you the infamous tale of the tall,
mean bunk bed incident. My name is Edwin and here's
a horror story. It was late May of nineteen eighty
(02:33):
seven when the bed was moved into the children's room.
The arrangement was that the two girls would share the
bunk beds and their oldest, a boy, would have his
own room. The first incident came from the oldest son, Danny,
who was sleeping in the room next to the bunk
bed when he saw the clock radios dial moved by
itself from one side to the other. He told his parents,
(02:55):
but they were like, no, that can't happen. But still
the mom, Debbie, thought that it was interference, so she
went and took a look. That's when she saw that
the knob was turning by itself and the red signal
indicator was moving across a frequency bar. She found it
really odd and took the radio out of the room.
(03:15):
A few weeks later, mister Allan Tallman was painting in
the basement when Debbie called him up for dinner. He
laid the brush down and went upstairs. But when he
went back down to the basement he found the brush
he had been using bristles down in the paint. Now
he would have never left it like that, so he
tried to explain it to himself, but still couldn't. And
(03:37):
yet he didn't want to even begin to think that
his house was haunted. At first, Allan and Debbie try
to calm themselves and the children down by suggesting that
they were only dreaming or imagining things, but the consistency
of it became harder to dismiss. Two of the children
spoke of similar events, often separately, but their fear was real,
(04:00):
and as parents, they were aware of it. In interviews,
Debbie said that their two year old daughter had woken
up screaming several times, saying that there was a fire
on the door of her room, going shhh. Now, she
mentioned that her son had told her of an old
lady that was standing by the door in his room.
(04:20):
It was a little old lady, quote really ugly, with
long black hair and a glow about her like fire,
with sounds of feet moving across the carpet. At one point,
a babysitter saw a chair at the kitchen table that
was rocking back and forth, with absolutely no one sitting
(04:40):
on it and no explanation. Now, they themselves would sometimes
see strange glowing shapes around the house as well. So
at this point Debbie began to think that her house
was proudly haunted, and the possibility that something in their
home was intentionally trying to unsettle them. Near that last
part of nightineteen eighty seven, they kept hearing doors banging
(05:02):
open and shut, strange voices calling to them, and visions
that were scaring the children. Things were getting out of hand.
A week before Christmas, something had scared their son again,
so Alan reached his breaking point. He started running around
the rooms, challenging the entity, screaming to it, pick on me,
(05:24):
leave my kids alone. If you want to fight, I'll fight.
And he heard nothing back. But then one night, when
he was getting home, he heard the howling of the wind,
even though there was no breeze. He then heard it
say come here, clearly audible. He started searching around to
(05:45):
see who might have said that, expecting to find a prankster.
He rushed over the front steps when he saw something
glowing inside the garage. It was orangish red. He could
see flames coming out of the overhead door, and that's
when he saw two eyes in the windows. He immediately
thought it was fire, but then he took a second look,
(06:07):
and there was nothing. It was late around the same
time again, at around two in the morning, and Alan
had just returned from his late shift. He worked as
a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, so it wasn't anything
unusual for him, and on this occasion, Alan was in
his daughter's bedroom waiting for them to fall asleep, when
suddenly he heard a vacuum like sound. Startled. He looked around
(06:31):
the room when he saw a foggy thing rise directly
out of the floor with green eyes. As he stared
in disbelief, he heard it say you're dead, and then
it vanished instantly in a flash of flames. Now Alan
was traumatized. He was visibly shaken when his wife, Debbie,
(06:52):
saw him, describing him as white as a ghost and
with blue lips. She kept asking what happened, what's wrong,
but he wouldn't say anything. He was just standing there,
tears coming down his face. His wife got on the
phone and called a pastor from their church and told
him what was going on, begging him to come right away,
(07:13):
saying that Alan was crying and wouldn't tell her what happened.
From the Unsolved Mysteries episode that I watched where they
talked to the pastor. He said that Alan gave no
signs of having made everything up. The pastor had been
around terrified people before, and this is what was in
front of him. So the pastor blessed the house, gave
(07:34):
the family communion right there, and then gave them the
tapes of church music for them to play in the house. However,
the paranormal events resumed. This time had happened to a
relative who was asked by Alan to watch over their
daughters while they fell asleep since he had to go
to work later than usual. This relative was skeptical of
(07:54):
ghost so he was like, okay, we'll do it. But
then he too saw quote the same specter, the one
that had been seeing by the Tallman family. So he
left the bedroom completely scared, saying, I am never coming
back to this house. I cannot handle this. The family
(08:15):
decided to leave the house for good that same night,
opting instead to stay at a motel before the church
provided them with a place to stay for the time. Now,
around this time, word had spread around the neighborhood about
the haunted Tallman home, something Debbie mentioned in an interview
where she says how tough it was because she had
(08:36):
to deal with the unknown in their home and the
talk of around town. The house was in a subdivision
of ten other houses noted by the Horricon Police Chief
Douglas Claman. He, the pastor, and the homeowner had toured
the house searching for recording devices, amplifiers, anything that showed
that everything might have been a prank, even considering projection equipment,
(09:01):
but nothing unusual was found. After all those nights of
fear and sleeplessness, Alan and Debbie concluded that the bed
was a source of the problem and that it had
to be removed. So in early February of nineteen eighty eight,
they arranged for the bunk bed to be taken to
a local landfill. That wasn't just discarded, It was buried
(09:23):
to ensure that no one else could ever use it.
The family wanted to be absolutely certain that the object
could not return to their home or passed to another family.
Now at this point you might be thinking, what about
this story made it about the bunk bet. What turns out,
(09:44):
the activity throughout the Tollman home was strongly connected to
the second hand bunk bets, the ones that were purchased.
You see, they moved into November of nineteen eighty six,
and the problem started six months later when the bunk
beds were purchased, more specifically for the moment they were
actually used for the first time. Now, something like a
(10:04):
trigger came from those beds. Based on comments and polls
from you guys, have found that we generally believe that
entities might be tied to places or people themselves. This
house was a relatively new construction and everything was fine
until the beds were used. Plus, the new family who
purchased the house in April of nineteen eighty eight reported
(10:27):
no paranormal activity after moving in. Their story might have
ended there had it not been for local press coverage
and then the national attention through the television series Unsolved Mysteries.
When the episode aired in October of nineteen eighty eight,
it introduced the Tallman Haunting to a white audience. The
(10:48):
segment featured dramatizations of the events, but also included interviews
with Reverend Wayne doe Brats and police Chief Doug Glammon,
both of whom vouched for the family's sincerity. I described
them as credible, ordinary people now that supports at the
Tallman case apart from many ghost stories, which often lack
outside witnesses. Although the Tallman family never saw publicity, their
(11:15):
experience quickly became a talking point in paranormal circles. It
was unusual in that the disturbances seemed to be tied
not to a house or a location, but to a
single object. This gave the case a unique place, and
discussions of cursed or haunted objects often mentioned alongside items
like the Hope Diamond or the Annabel Doll. Although it
(11:37):
never gave the same level of fame, the Taumans themselves
did not pursue further media appearances. They gave no book deals,
no follow up interviews. They avoided turning their story into entertainment.
They would turn to private life, leaving only the original
episode of Unsolved Mysteries and a handful of reports as
(11:58):
a record. Some ways, this reluctance has added to the
story's power. Unlike the Amityville Horror or Enfield Poulter Geist,
the tall Men haunting was not commercialized or exaggerated for decades.
It remains what it always was, a short, intense burst
of terror centered around a single ordinary piece of furniture.
(12:25):
The concept of things being haunted is way more common
than you think, with even museums filled with objects that
are set to be haunted. I remember when I visited
Zach Begen's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas with my friend
Michelle and left with a strange sense of dread because
of the things that they had in there. At the
paranormal field, they say that there are a few ways
(12:45):
that an object can become haunted. One is residual energy
or an energy attachment. The idea goes that living things
energy and that it's this energy that can be stored
or recorded with an objects. During my research, I kept
finding stone tape theory, so I looked it up. It
turns out it's a BBCTV play that was back from
(13:08):
nineteen seventy two. It's actually called The Stone Tape and
the story scientists investigate a haunted mansion, suggesting that the
stone walls can record traumatic human events, kind of like
how magnetic tape records sound. The idea seemed to make
sense to paranormal research circles, so it stayed. They say
that under certain conditions, these events can be replayed like
(13:31):
a recording, and that's when people experience them as apparitions, sounds,
or sensations. This is different than a ghost because they
are seen as residual hauntings like mindless echoes of the
past with no interaction. A second way is an actual
spirit attachment, where if the objects was particularly loved by
(13:53):
a spirit during their life, like a favorite doll or
a toy, the bond to the item can be so
strong spirit remains connected to it after passing away. This
is where activity happens after buying a secondhand item. It's
when we hear that a spirit may become upset if
someone else tries to claim it. The third theory is
(14:15):
a negative energy from traumatic events, where a negative imprint
remains on a physical object, like if a weapon was
used in a murder. It might retain the negative energy,
making people feel uneasy if they hold it now. This
is not to be confused with demonic type or energy.
But then here's the fourth, which is an actual curse
(14:35):
is on the object, but they are linked to malevolent
forces like demons sometimes that will bring bad luck, misfortune,
or death to their owners. This is one we hear
about the most, at least in this podcast, because folklore
and paranormal research is filled with them, some like stories
of cursed diamonds that cause death to their owners or
(14:56):
the recent stories circulating about Annabelle. These are just some
examples and how this activity manifests through haunted objects, while
it varies with things like electronic disturbances, movement of objects,
sounds and voices, apparitions, illness and fires. Another famous example
(15:17):
of haunted objects is the story of the Hexham Heads.
The Hexham Head story begins in nineteen seventy one when
two boys, Colin and Leslie Robson, reported digging up a
pair of small carved stone heads in the garden of
their families home in Hexham, Northumberland. Soon after the discovery,
members of the rocks and household and the next door family,
(15:40):
the Dods, described poltergeist like disturbances, objects shifting position when
no one was near them, bottles thrown across the rooms,
hair pulled, and in one neighbor's account, citing a strange
part human before leaving the house. The heads, each only
a few centimeters hi, quickly became the suspected focus of
(16:02):
the activity. The artifacts were passed on to doctor Anne Ross,
a noticed Celticist who had publicly written about the ritual
importance of human head imagery in iron Age and Romanto
British contexts. Ross later stated that she witnessed an apparition
a part wolf, part man figure walking out of a
(16:25):
room in her house and vanishing downstairs. Her daughter subsequently
reported a similar encounter. Now Anne associated these events with
the heads and returned them. Decades later, she repeated her
first reactions and experiences in interviews, some that are cited
by academic research. They were keeping the heads linked to
(16:46):
uncanny phenomena. Eventually people examined how the pieces were made.
One academic assessment concluded that the heads were molded rather
than carved, suggesting a modern origin. The chain of custody
during the mid nineteen seventies included museum staff and later
independent investigators. After a period of private examination in the
(17:09):
late nineteen seventies, the original heads reportedly went missing and
the present whereabouts are unknown. Nineteen seventy four, a local
lorry driver, Desmond Craigie, who was known as des claimed
that he had made the heads in nineteen fifty six
as toys for his daughter while living in the same
address that the Robsons later occupied. He demonstrated the claim
(17:33):
by producing new examples cast from local materials, though observers
noted his replicas did not convincingly match the originals. DES's claim,
if correct, would explain both the molded manufacture and the
presence of the objects in the garden, but the debate
over authenticity has never fully settled. The case briefly entered
(17:57):
UK popular consciousness in nineteen seventy six via a BBC
nationwide segment that featured Doctor Ann and reference a reported
werewolf idea, a broadcast later restored and resurfaced by BBC Archives.
The TV coverage helped cement the Heads as a nineteen
seventies folklore touchdoone half archaeological curiosity, half contemporary legend. Today,
(18:22):
the Hexham Heads set at the intersection of folklore studies, archaeology,
and modern myth. The core facts a garden discovery, reported disturbances,
expert interest, and a modern manufacturer claim, and the artifact's
disappearance are reasonably well documented. However, the supernatural elements are
(18:43):
mostly tied to witness testimony instead of some evidence, which
is why the story persists as both a cautionary archaeological
curiosity and as a classic haunted object story. But here's
another one you might know. Back when I was taking
a ghost tour in poor the tour guide told me
a story about a very famous cursed object, one that
(19:04):
I had heard of in Zach Began's museum. Although this
story might not be exactly what you thought it was.
Now this is a story of the Dibiic Box, and
it begins in two thousand and one. Now a man
named Kevin Mannus, a Portland, Oregon antique stealer, bought a
small wooden wine cabinet and an estate sale. In his
(19:26):
later accounts, Mannu said that the cabinet had belonged to
a Polish Jewish woman, one who survived a Nazi concentration
camp and brought it to the United States after World
War Two. According to his story, the woman's granddaughter told
him that the box had been kept hidden away and
was never to be opened. She supposedly referred to it
(19:46):
as a depic box. It's important to note, however, that
this backstory has never been independently verified, and Manus himself
has since admitted that much of it was a creative embellishment.
Now Jewish folklora a typyk is understood as a restless spirit,
one that can attach itself to a person, often portrayed
(20:07):
as malicious or troubled. The figure of the dibik has
been part of Jewish storytelling for centuries, though not all
traditions accept it literally. The specific idea of a dibic box, however,
does not come from Jewish religious practice, and appears to
have originated with Manis tail A. Man Is described opening
(20:29):
the box and finding two nineteen twenties pennies, a lock
of hair tied with a string, and a small statue
engraved with the Hebrew word shalom, a wine goblet, and
a dried rosebud, also a candle holder. He claimed that
soon afterward strange events began. According to his story, he
(20:50):
had nightmares of an old hag attacking him, and his
mother suffered a stroke on the very day he gave
her the cabinet. He also described flickering lights, unexplained orders,
and visitors who felt dread or illness in its presence.
These reports come solely from Manus's own testimony, and while
(21:10):
they have been repeated often, there's no outside confirmation that
such events took place. Over time, Manus tried to give
the box away. He said that each new owner reported misfortunes,
including insomnia, hair loss, and severe anxiety. One owner, a
college student named Josef Nitzke, listed the box on eBay
(21:32):
in two thousand and three, calling it a cursed object,
and that list thing went viral very quickly. It just
spread across the Internet forums and news outlets, capturing attention
as one of the first widely shared online ghost stories. Eventually,
the box was purchased by Jason Haxton, the director of
a museum in Missouri that Haxton later wrote a book
(21:55):
about the object in twenty eleven, where he claimed it
caused welts to appear on his skin and interfered with electronics.
He said he once sealed it in a military container
and buried it for safety before finally donating it to
Zach Began's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. Today, the box
is displayed there as one of the museum's main attractions.
(22:18):
Begans has said that multiple visitors, including musician Post Malone,
experienced frightening incidents after interacting with it. I actually got
to see it and the story behind it. Even though
it might be made up partially, it's pretty cool. In
twenty twenty one, reporting revealed that Kevin Mannis had admitted
to crafting much of this story. It was kind of
(22:39):
a creative exercise that later took on a life of
its own. Despite this, the Devic Box has endured in
popular culture, largely because of its viral spread online, its
appearance in books and television, and it's continued to display
at the Haunted Museum. Today, the story persists less as
a matter of document minted fact and more as a
(23:01):
blend of modern folklore, marketing, and the timeless fascination with
cursed objects. The power of story behind objects is a
very powerful one, enough to make people pay much more
for what they're getting, and at times quite literally, like
for the bunk bets, the family paid one hundred dollars
(23:23):
and ended up losing more than three thousand after giving
up their home because of the incidents. And if you're
like thrifting, have you ever purchased something that didn't quite
feel right? Because when it comes to secondhand items, the
shared walls of hotel rooms, and perhaps the physical memories
of those who lived in your home long before you,
(23:46):
can you actually trust what remains now. This episode of
Horror Story was researched and written by me Edwin Komar
Rubias regarding the story of the Tallman bunk beds. Was
it actually the beds? Let me know what you think
(24:08):
about it, and if you want to watch the original
Unsolved Mystery segment, I'll link to it so you can
watch it on YouTube. That show was one of my
favorites back in the day. Anyway, to support this and
my other shows, you can try out Scary plus over
on scaryplus dot com. You get all these episodes at
free and keeps everything going. Or if you can drop
(24:28):
some stars for me in the reviews, that always helps.
We're following the show. I'll be back next week with
another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it
Scary everyone, See soon.
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