August 4, 2024 • 65 mins
Join us today, as we engage in a historically based and refreshingly spooky conversation with our special guest, Sylvia Shults. Sylvia has been in the field for over 20 years, authored numerous nonfiction paranormal books, and has even appeared on Ghost Hunters.
In this episode, Sylvia shares her journey into the paranormal, inspired by a lifelong love of ghost stories and history. She recounts her experiences as a freelance ghost investigator, including a spine-chilling investigation at a haunted hotel in Indiana.
We also explore Sylvia's passion for the then Bartonville Asylum, later referred to as the East Peoria State Hospital. A place where patients were treated with unparalleled kindness and humanity. Sylvia's book, "44 Years in Darkness," breaks from mainstream narrative, "That all mental health facitiles were terrible and brings to light the refreshing and compassionate history of this institution.
Sylvia offers insights into her writing process, the challenges of separating fact from fiction, and the importance of reading to become a better writer. She even shares some humorous and creepy encounters from her investigations, making this episode a must-listen for any paranormal enthusiast.
Don't miss out on Sylvia's upcoming projects, including a true crime book about the infamous 2022 Alabama jailbreak. Tune in for an episode filled with ghostly tales, historical insights, and a touch of humor.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:39):
Welcome to another episode of Fringe Beyond Limits.
Hi guys. Hello. Hey. Welcome back. Thank you for tuning in. Is that what you
do to a podcast? You tune in? Is it like a video?
Yeah. You're listening. All right. All right, great. So how have you two been?
I'm pretty good. Been great. Busy week.
(01:02):
Busy week? Mm-hmm. Wow. All right. Good for you. Yeah.
Pretty it's more it's like calm before
the storm comes you say s'mores no more like
calm before the storm comes okay all right well this has just been an average
week for me yeah but for our listeners we have a treat today we do we have a
(01:24):
interview or a guest how would you how would you She's a guest speaker. A guest speaker.
She has been in the field for 20 plus years.
She has written 10 plus nonfiction paranormal books, right? She has her own podcast.
(01:46):
She's been on about 30 seconds of Ghost Adventures.
Ghost Hunter. I'm sorry, Ghost Hunter. Oh, wrong one. I have them on my brain.
Wrong one. It's such an illness. I hate Ghost Adventures.
But sorry ghost hunters and her name is sylvia schultz sylvia welcome thank
(02:07):
you thank you very much for having me on the show yeah excited to have you so
sylvia you you have written.
What you have written a bunch of books about the paranormal how did you get
started with with with the paranormal in general, I guess.
I mean, how does someone get pulled into this silly little activity?
(02:32):
Well, you know, it's not for everyone.
I have been reading for most of my life.
I cannot remember being preliterate. I cannot remember not knowing how to read.
And one of my favorite things to read ever since childhood has been true ghost
(02:54):
stories and history and creepy stuff and mysterious things.
I've just always been drawn to that.
So when I became an adult and realized that I could write these stories for
my own self, I thought, well, you know, let's try writing ghost stories.
And my love of history also really plays into this fascination with ghost stories.
(03:21):
I really think that you can't understand the ghost
stories is of a place without knowing the history behind it because
that's why we have the story
is because of the history right that's
so true yeah i mean it goes with the old adage that if you don't what is it
you don't understand history or you don't learn from history you're bound to
(03:44):
repeat it that might be why we have a lot of repeat hauntings for sure could
be yeah so yeah yeah so So with that,
you were part of a ghost investigation group at one point, or are you still?
I am kind of a freelancer, which is wonderful because there are a lot of ghost
(04:08):
hunting groups that will let me play with them. Yeah. That's awesome.
On occasion, I've been an actual proper member of a group.
And then we just end up going our separate ways. But I have retained ties with
a lot of the groups that I've worked with.
And it's wonderful because we run into each other and we say, hey, how's it going?
(04:30):
And I get invited on lots of investigations that way.
There will be, I just went a couple of months ago to a very haunted hotel in Indiana.
And one of the groups i work most closely with just had an opening come up and
like the day before somebody the leader of the group texted me and said hey you want to go to indiana,
(04:57):
it was well worth the trip it was an amazing experience very cool the road hotel,
in indiana oh wow i don't know if i've heard of that no neither of that.
I had never heard of it before I was invited to go on this investigation it
was shadow hunters that invited me so yeah that it's for not being known at all it is incredibly,
(05:25):
active we,
that it's two stories and the first floor is like the dining room and a couple
of parlors and the safe room and everything in the kitchen.
And then the second floor is the hotel rooms. And I'm not even joking when I
tell you that a couple of us were standing in the middle of the hallway and
(05:50):
down at the end of the hallway where no one was, we could hear footsteps moving around.
It's amazing. And I slept, well, we all slept in the hotel in different rooms.
And I slept in the room at the other end of the hall.
(06:12):
We caught a really great apparition on film. Oh, really?
I know for a fact. Okay, so the leader of the group is Nick Sarlo,
and he likes to joke around and take candid pictures and just,
you know, play around, snap photos.
Yeah and he he took a
(06:36):
picture of himself and there
were two other team members sitting on the bed in
one of the rooms and it was
pat and sharon were sitting on the bed so
nick snapped a picture of himself kind of like a selfie with pat
and sharon in the background and he looked at it of course it's his phone and
(06:57):
he yelped and everyone else yelped too and he said who's that sitting between
you two no and he phone and by gosh there was a shadow figure between pat and sharon wow,
left off of the bed and noped out of that room like his butt was And then Pat
(07:20):
was supposed to sleep in that room that night. I'd be like, I'm out.
Gosh, love him. He, he actually did spend the night in that room. Wow.
That's something Frank would do. Did anything else happen to him later that
night or did he experience anything else?
(07:41):
No, no. No, he said he slept with me when the next room was empty.
I said, Pat, there's no shame. If you want to get into the room next to mine
during the night, that's perfectly fine.
But no, he spent the entire night in that room. That's brave.
I couldn't have done it. You know, that goes to say that, you know,
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I've been in a couple investigations where it was just a dead night.
Like one of those nights that you're kind of, you know, you're at the end of
like, nothing happened.
And as you're packing up, you know, you might be telling a couple jokes and
just being normal and having a good time.
And all of a sudden you hear knocks and bangs and footsteps.
Steps and it's like you know if you have fun with it it doesn't have to be a
(08:26):
totally serious intense evening for you to catch anything if you just bring
your personality out in the investigation,
it kind of sometimes puts the spirits at ease and and open up a little bit better
for them to be more comfortable to communicate with you so that kind of goes
to that him goofing around and just being himself and having something appear
(08:47):
like that out of nowhere.
I have found that to be true so many times.
Yeah, that's crazy. But I'm happy you had a great time and you guys caught something.
That's really, really unheard of.
I mean, people think that you catch pictures of ghosts and apparitions all the time.
(09:07):
It's so rare. Yeah.
Oh, man. Man, there was, I watched a show just last night, and the fellow's
name is Ian, and he's, I think a show is called Midwest Ghost Hunters.
And he was in the Malvern Manor, which I have a real huge soft spot.
(09:27):
I have had so many, I've been there three times.
Every time I go to the Villisca Axe Murder House, I go to Malvern because they're so close.
And vice versa, every time I go to Malvern, I go to Villisca.
But i have slept at malvern twice and
i've spent the night twice in suzy's room and he was in ian was in suzy's room
and the war about suzy is that she loved the color she was a 40-ish woman who
(09:53):
had the mentality of an eight or nine year old girl she loved the color her
bed is just strewn with coloring books.
And Ian was in there filming and commented on the coloring books.
And he said, so Susie, is this your favorite coloring book?
And he captured the page of the coloring book turning.
(10:16):
No. Wow. What? It was...
That's wild.
It was amazing. Oh my gosh, he captured so much stuff at Malvern.
He was bum-rushed by the black mass in the nursing room hallway,
in the nursing home hallway.
(10:37):
He caught all sorts of great stuff there. I was so jealous. I wish I hadn't
been with him because I loved Malvern.
Wow. That would give me goosebumps watching that.
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. You just gave us a new place to go.
And when we go, we will send you an invite to come with. Absolutely.
I always do. I would love to join you. Oh, that's great.
(11:01):
I took a real close look at when he was panning around Susie's room.
And the last time I was there, her favorite color is pink.
So I brought her a little pink dinosaur, a little faux dinosaur.
And I saw it sitting on the dresser, so that made me happy. Oh,
that's awesome. That is so neat.
(11:23):
So, going back, you're an author of now 11 books, is that correct?
I am working on number 11. You're working on number 11. What is the name,
if you don't mind giving that out?
Oh, the one that has just come out is Grave Deeds and Dead Plots, Volume 2. Okay.
(11:45):
I never thought I'd be writing a series, but here we are.
I just want to expand my wheelhouse a little bit. I realized a while ago that
the line between true crime and paranormal is just vanishingly thin.
So my publisher had been after me years ago to write a true crime book.
(12:08):
So I started reading...
A lot of ghost stories in preparation for doing a book called Days of the Dead.
A story for every single day of the year, which actually won first place in the Book Best Award.
So I'm very happy about that. Oh, congrats. Fantastic. Yes.
Thank you. I noticed that a lot of these ghost stories resulted from true crime, from murders.
(12:35):
And it just really goes hand in hand.
So I pitched the idea to my publisher. I said, what if I did a book of true
ghost or true crime stories that resulted in haunting?
And he jumped on the idea.
And I kept doing research and I kept finding stories. And I have enough for about five or six books.
(12:59):
I'm really looking forward to continuing the series. And I honestly think I
had even more fun doing volume two than I did doing volume one. It was a blast.
I love it. So are you looking all over the country, all over the world?
Like, where do you source some of these stories?
I would love to get stuff from all over the world.
(13:22):
The stories in Volume 2 are mostly America and England.
I found a couple of really wonderful stories from England and Scotland.
And I was over there for three weeks ghost hunting last summer.
So I heard these stories and I'm like, oh, that's going in the next volume.
Oh, that had to have been incredible. There's so much history.
(13:48):
It was so much fun. Now when I read these stories and proofread them and go
through them for details, I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard this story.
That is great. When you look for a topic to write about in terms of,
you know, ghost stories, I mean, you've done Days of the Dead,
(14:10):
like you mentioned, Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays,
Hunting Demons, A True Story of the Dark Side of the Supernatural,
Gone on Vacation, Ghosts of the Illinois River.
When you start to plan out a project, how do you go about finding that niche to write about?
(14:31):
Well. It's more of a,
More of a situation where the stories find me.
A publisher actually approached me to do Ghosts of the Illinois River,
which was absolutely wonderful.
That was the first book of true ghost stories that I ever wrote.
And it just really fell into my lap. And it was through doing that that I learned
(14:56):
about the Peoria State Hospital and ended up three books on the Peoria State
Hospital, which has been just magnificent.
And then oh gosh i
someone was telling me about ghost stories of brookfield zoo because she had
used to work there and i thought oh my gosh how fun would it be to do a book
(15:17):
on haunted zoos and then i thought it would be even more fun to do a book on
haunted zoos museums and amusement Houston Park. Right. Yeah.
One of the very first ghost stories I ever heard in my life was my father telling
me the story of a screaming mummy at the Field Museum. Oh, really?
(15:40):
I've been to the field. I don't know if I've heard that story.
Oh, haven't you? Oh, my goodness. It's wonderful.
So I don't know how much time we have, but so in a nutshell.
Yeah. So they're in the 1930s. Let's see.
(16:02):
So let me back up. The mummy at the Field Museum, who is supposed to scream, is a fellow named Harwa.
There are 23 human mummies and more than 30 animal mummies at the Field Museum.
Him harlem himself lived about 2800 years
ago in egypt's 22nd dynasty between
(16:24):
about 900 and 700 bc he was
very high up in society he was
the he was the storekeeper for
the temple of amun which meant he was
in charge of all of the temple supplies all the
wine the food the grain the animals for
the sacrifices everything so when he died he was mummified according to his
(16:49):
station in life his mummy is very well preserved the fun thing about harwa is
that he is first of all he is the only ancient egyptian that.
Archaeologists have ever found that is named harwa interestingly wow okay the other thing,
(17:10):
harwa is the first ancient egyptian to take
an airline flight for the world's fair
in new york in 1939 he was tapped to be part of an exhibit so he was flown from
the field museum in chicago to new york for the world's fair in new york he
the general electric company set up an exhibit where where they displayed the power of x-rays.
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So Harwa and his coffin were in a lead-lined glass case, and when somebody walked
up to the display and pushed a button,
the lights would go down, and this x-ray would come up and blast Harwa with
125,000 volts of electricity and throw his skeleton up on a black screen.
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And it was like, oh, hey, wow, cool. Look at the mummies going.
So it was so popular that he was invited back for the next year in 1940.
He was returned to Chicago that winter.
The next year, he went from Chicago to New York by way of San Francisco.
Oh, wow. Detour.
(18:26):
He accidentally got sent to San Francisco. Oh, my goodness. kilograms going
between New York and Chicago and San Francisco.
They finally found him and sent him on to New York. So the third thing about
Harwa that is interesting is that he screamed.
In 1933, that's several years before Harwa took to the skies with his jet-setting
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travels, an incident occurred in the Hall of Egyptian Archaeology.
Now, in the mid-1980s, the field, redid their Egyptian exhibit.
Now you go down a spiral staircase into the basement and there you kind of walk
through the exhibit and there are cases all over the place.
(19:13):
Tar was standing there. You come out of the room with the mummies into kind
of like an Egyptian marketplace. at place. It's really, really cool.
But when this happened, and when I was a kid and would go to the Field Museum
on field trips and whatnot from school, the whole of Egyptian antiquities or
archaeology was just one big room.
(19:36):
And all of the mummies were in one glass case along one long side of this room.
And they were arranged basically chronologically. Right.
It was that the door to this case was always kept locked, and the case itself
was filled with nitrogen gas to avoid any insect infestation.
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So there's no way anyone could have been in this case.
So the security guards for the museum were making their rounds one winter night,
and one of the security guards was startled by this blood-curdling scream coming
from the Egyptian hall in the basement.
The guard assumed that a guest had been locked in the museum overnight and had
(20:23):
found himself in this room with these desiccated corpses and was freaking out.
So he raced to the Egyptian hall, turned on his flashlight, turned on the lights,
blew his whistle to gather all the other guards from that different part of the museum.
Two other watchmen joined him in the hall, and there was no one there.
(20:43):
The security guards searched every
inch of the egyptian hall couldn't find
anyone and then one of them noticed he said stay here
this mummy is off its board the way
the mummies were arranged were each body was
on kind of a slant board at about a 30
45 degree angle so that you could see the mummy and it was kind of lying down
(21:07):
and there were six inches of board on either side of So it was impossible for
something to jostle the case so that a body would fall off.
But this Tarla, they say it's Tarla. We're not exactly sure exactly who it was,
(21:27):
but people say it's Tarla.
The mummy was completely off
of its board, lying face down next to the board on the floor of the case.
Henry Field. I was like, how does that happen? That's crazy.
And Henry Field actually wrote about this in his 1953 biography.
(21:49):
Geography field was a curator in physical
anthropology from 1926 to 1941 and
he was the poor schmo who had to go into the case right oh gosh on the board
and he had to pump the nitrogen gas out of the case before he could go in he
(22:12):
had to replace it with oxygen so he could breathe,
inside the cave. Wow.
And the interesting thing about the Field Museum and a lot of the buildings
on the Chicago waterfront, and I'm sure you guys know this being closer to Chicago than I am,
The soil on the Chicago waterfront is very marshy and swampy.
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So they had piling into the soil to provide a safe, stable base for the museum
to sit on. So it is earthquake-proof.
There is no way this could have been jostled like that. So, yeah,
it remains a mystery as to how this happened.
(22:55):
That's unbelievable. Have you thought about writing a book?
That's that i mean it sounds like you have about 3300 books you could write
with not just the stories you have but how you tell the story they're they're that's awesome,
(23:18):
Thanks. Yeah, no, absolutely.
So with that, I think I know the answer to this next question that we have.
But we were wondering, your favorite book or project, would it be safe to say
it's the Peoria State Hospital books?
(23:40):
You have, I think, three you said, right? You have Fractured Spirits,
Fractured Souls, and then 44 Years in Darkness.
Right yeah yeah oh boy i have a real hot spot for the peoria state hospital
some of my favorite ghosts inside there.
(24:02):
Yeah, Fractured Spirits and Fractured Souls came about because someone wanted
me to write about the Peoria State Hospital.
And people would ask me while I was writing Ghosts of the Illinois River,
they said, you know, what are you working on now?
And I said, well, a book of true ghost stories about Illinois.
(24:23):
And they said, oh, have you heard about the Peoria State Hospital?
And like I said, I grew up in LaGrange,
so I knew nothing about the Peoria State. I didn't grow up in it.
So I said, tell me about it. And people would say, it's a haunted,
abandoned mental asylum.
(24:43):
And I'm like, oh, tell me more.
So I started doing the research on this.
And like I said, I'm absolutely obsessed with the history of haunted places as well.
You say haunted mental asylum, and your mind goes all American Horror Story
on you, and you assume that there was pain and fear and abuse.
(25:06):
And it is my privilege and my intense joy to tell people that was not the case
at the Peoria State Hospital.
This is a place where the patients were treated like family members,
like cherished family members.
The superintendent of the Peoria State Hospital, Dr.
(25:27):
George Zeller, he was a doctor. He was a surgeon. He was not trained as a psychiatrist.
And he was very proud of that fact. He was very proud of the fact that he was
not hidebound by current practices in the care of the mentally ill.
He decided just to treat the mentally ill.
(25:50):
The kindness that they deserve. And he said, let's treat them the way we would
want our grandmothers to be treated and see what happens.
And what happened was that the Peoria State Hospital became the premier institution
for the care of the mentally ill, not only in Illinois, not only in the United
(26:11):
States, but in the world. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to say, so I I read your 44 years in darkness,
and I think that was probably my greatest takeaway from the story.
Obviously, the story surrounds a woman by the name of Rhoda Derry and,
you know, the traumas and tragedies she had experienced in her life.
(26:32):
But I think the greatest takeaway I noticed in this 44 years of darkness is,
you know, when it came to the end of her life, she was in a safe space.
She was in a loving and caring place. And that was, you know,
all thanks to this doctor who, you know, saved her and took care of her and
other patients with the greatest of care.
And I love that story. I love that it's refreshing from all the other dark,
(26:57):
heavy stories that you hear about mental hospitals and how folks were treated
in the past. Thank you. Thank you very, very much.
Yes, the story of Rhoda Derry is very compelling. I knew that she needed her own book.
Her story is just mind-blowingly tragic.
(27:19):
Tragic but as you said she spent
the last two years of her life in safety being
cared for being waited on hand and foot by caring
nurses who knew the excruciating history
she had suffered for a great part of her life 44 years as a matter of fact yeah
she she spent the last years of her life in safety you're exactly right that
(27:46):
is so refreshing to hear just because as you mentioned And when you hear haunted, insane asylum,
you have these flashbacks of just...
Horrific tragedies. Yeah, horrific tragedies, people literally yelling, screaming,
running into walls, and the orderlies and nurses that are just not caring and
(28:09):
using horrific techniques to subdue them. So...
I am looking forward to reading that book. You audio-booked it,
right? Yeah, I listened to it on Audible, which is wonderful.
And she was telling me about it two days ago, right?
Yeah, and I was just like, oh, I love that.
(28:30):
So I'm definitely going to join in on that because that is so refreshing to
hear that, yeah, that you just bring to light, you know, the positivity behind things being haunted.
It's not always, you know, scary things that go bump in the night.
Sometimes it's refreshing to hear about these stories.
(28:51):
And it also should bring a little bit of awareness to folks who are going to places investigating.
Right. Like some people have the pre-assumption that this place was evil or
bad or any location for that matter.
And they go in and they try to investigate with aggression or something without
knowing that history, you know. Yeah. They just think it's haunted.
They think it's bad. that it's evil, that it doesn't have to be evil for it to be haunted.
(29:18):
Haunted does not necessarily equate to evil.
Yeah, no, that's great. So, you know, number one, thank you for writing about
that because, I mean, that's so different to here and enlightening, you know?
So, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, of course.
Since you mentioned your book, I'll share this with you. Yeah.
(29:40):
The publisher told me Because the voice actress told him that while she was
recording 44 Years in Darkness, she broke down crying.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, that's a tribute to you.
(30:01):
You made these words on paper come to life for many people, whoever read it, I'm sure.
So that's... Thank you. She could have been lost to history.
You gave her a voice. You give her history and she'll be remembered. So it's wonderful.
So when you are writing a book or researching a book, what are some of your
(30:22):
biggest challenges that you face as an author about specifically the paranormal?
That is an excellent question. Hmm.
I think that the biggest challenge I faced when writing about the paranormal,
(30:45):
especially with a book that deals with something like the Peoria State Hospital,
is separating fact from fiction.
When I was writing Fractured Spirit, I was just learning about the Peoria State Hospital.
And there were a lot of people that shared their experiences with me and there
(31:10):
were some that I knew even then that I had to take with a grain of salt.
I will never, ever, ever poo-poo someone's experience.
That's their experience. I probably wasn't there. I don't know exactly what they experienced.
So I will never, ever call shenanigans on someone's personal experience.
(31:34):
But there have been stories that I have heard that I will say to myself,
well, let's look at this and see what else might have been going on.
I'll give you an example.
This was when I was writing, it was Fractured Spirits, not Fractured Souls,
but when I was working on Fractured Spirits, we were out in Cemetery 2,
(31:59):
and someone was absolutely convinced that they saw the spirit of Bookbinder,
which is one of the spirits that is supposed to haunt Cemetery 2 on Hill 5.
And the person said, oh, yeah, yeah, I saw the spirit of Bookbinder,
(32:19):
and he announced himself to me by means of perfume. I smelled perfume.
And I said, okay, that's wonderful.
It happened to be late April, early May when this took place.
And we were outside and I said, so tell me, this perfume, did it smell like
(32:43):
flower-scented bubble gum?
That's very specific. Yep. Yep.
She said, yeah, that's exactly what it smelled like. I said,
you were smelling the black locust that was in bloom.
You were not smelling anything paranormal. It was perfectly natural. It was the black locust.
(33:05):
Sometimes things get debunked. Right. Yeah, no, that's crazy.
So there's a cemetery by us in Elgin where we've gone, allegedly we've gone after hours.
And there's a famous picture from this showing a lady in white.
Well, we went there to that same exact spot.
(33:29):
And as we're looking in the distance at where this lady in white's picture was
taken, we noticed it's this gravestone that once you look at it at night with a flash,
it could totally resemble it.
And we took a picture of it in the light during the daytime,
(33:50):
and it matched up perfectly.
So you're right. Some things, if you don't go back and take a look at it a second,
third, fourth time, an initial thought can be perceived as paranormal.
But I think if you do your due diligence, and I think any good group does,
(34:10):
you will start debunking your own stuff and other people's experiences, unfortunately.
But yeah, that's exactly what, as a group or as a community,
we should do. That's our responsibility, for sure.
And on the other side, as a ghost investigator, I should be open to other people
(34:32):
looking at my evidence and debunking it as well, you know?
I had a very similar experience at the Peoria State Hospital when I was there with
a group called guard and we were
investigating stone country when it was still stone
country that was the that not
the administration building the gymnasium for the asylum and it at the time
(34:57):
we were investigating it it was a country and western bar and we were we're
there for several hours and recording and taking pictures and everything and
somebody noticed that up near the ceiling,
of course it was a very high ceiling it used to be a gymnasium there was a light
that kept appearing very close to the ceiling and we watched it for a while
(35:20):
and filmed it and looked at it and then we realized that it was a mylar balloon.
Every time it drifted in the breeze I had a similar experience with another
group USPR at Waverly Sanatorium.
(35:40):
We were in the death,
The hallway. I think they call it the death chute. The death tunnel.
The underneath where the death chute ends up. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, down almost at the end of it, almost by that door that leads to the outside.
(36:01):
And we were, all three or four of us were looking up towards the top of the tunnel, of that ramp.
And we kept seeing a light at the top of the tunnel. at the top of the tunnel,
we watched it for, dang, a good 15, 20 minutes before we realized that it was
one of the baffles in the fluorescent light.
(36:22):
Oh, man.
But, yeah, that's how paranormal investigation goes, you know. You're so exciting.
So, since you haven't listened to our podcast, and I pursue you not to at all,
(36:42):
Um, we do have, we do have adult humor and dark humor along the way.
And one of the things I've always am curious about is have you ever encountered
any kind of like situation either in your research or in an investigation where
something was just so bizarre or ironic that you couldn't just help just laugh
(37:04):
out loud in an inappropriate situation?
Oh, no, no, no.
I mean, you may not be proud of it, but I'm not proud of half the stuff I say
on the podcast. So please join me.
Okay. Well, all right. Well, I...
(37:26):
I'll tell you another theorist.
So the Pollock Hospital was the tuberculosis ward on the Hill Park.
And before the Pollock Hospital was built, there was kind of a bat-wing shaped
hospital that was also for the care of TB patients.
(37:48):
And at the very beginning of the hospital's history in 1902,
there was a tent colony for the care of TB patients on that plot of land.
So people have been dying of tuberculosis on that little plot of land for many,
many years. So when the Pollock Hospital was built, it was purpose-built for
(38:13):
the care of tuberculosis patients.
Near the end of the hospital's history, it changed from that.
They had pretty much whipped tuberculosis by that point.
At the very end, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, it was used as the geriatric ward.
And there was a woman that the hospital was separated with the tuberculosis
(38:40):
patients and the geriatric ward into the men's ward and women's ward.
In the women's ward, we had a patient that we, we have a spirit that we call
the dirty girl. Oh, I'm game.
We this spirit has been
known to she likes to get up close and personal with the guys in the group oh
(39:07):
man go on and she gets she gets very handsy in certain areas of men's anatomy
and i have I'm listening.
I have watched two guys at the same time who are standing next to each other both go, ooh.
Really? Did they blame each other? Or are they just like, what was that?
(39:32):
It was interesting. Yeah. And lest you get any...
People, the guys in the groups always get ribbed when we tell people,
when we tell the the groups about the dirty girl and oh
the guys are like oh yeah i want to i want to go meet the
dirty girl and then we point out that yes the pollock hospital was a geriatric
(39:54):
ward and when it was a geriatric ward we did have a patient in her mid-90s who
liked to take her clothes off and go streaking through the hallways oh no we
talk about history informing the hauntings.
Dirty girl. That's a 95 year old feeling you up. That is awesome.
(40:16):
I, I, I don't judge. I mean, everybody needs a little loving and I'm going to
go get my five minutes of fame.
You have fun with that. Frank bring flowers at least.
And chocolates. How, how do I buy your dinner and a drink? Do I need to do that first?
(40:40):
Jeff, Attention to her. I think that's all she wants. All right.
I'm game. I can't wait to investigate now. That's great.
Wow. I was not anticipating that. That was a wild story. That's a good one. I like that.
I assure you that it has happened far more than once.
Yeah oh wow so so with that on the flip side of that what is the creepiest encounter,
(41:09):
that you've had either again you know writing for a book or just on a on a random investigation.
Creepy fun or creepy scary yes both okay okay so we'll start with creepy fun
okay So one of my bucket list items when I went over to England was to experience
(41:33):
the house at 30 East Drive.
That is the site of a very famous poltergeist haunting.
The poltergeist is known as the Black Monk of Pontefract.
It's in the town of Pontefract, which is how the poltergeist got its name.
On our way back from edinburgh and
(41:56):
york and places north we stopped by
pontefract and we we stopped
at 38th drive and parked and got out and we were looking around the outside
it's a lovely little house it's kind of on the corner it's a brick house it's
what's known in england as a council house which is kind of like poor people
(42:16):
housing but it was very nice a little play area in the front yard.
It was really nice. There were a couple of cars in the driveway.
And as we watched, a couple came out of that and got into one of the cars and drove away. And I said.
Weird. All the investigation that I was doing, the research that I did on this
(42:40):
place, it's owned by somebody, but it is reserved for paranormal investigation.
So I don't think anyone lives there.
So we creeped around.
We poked around the house like creepers for a little while longer.
And then we were just about to head for the car. And we were in fact heading
(43:01):
for the car when the car came back and parked and this couple got out and started
heading towards the house.
And I decided that shy babies don't get any candy.
So I raced up to the gate and I hallooed the couple and I said,
we're a couple of paranormal investigators from the United States and we're
(43:25):
here with our English host.
And we just wanted to experience the house at 30 East Drive.
And they're like, well, we're top paranormal investigators, too.
And we hid the house all night.
And then she said the magic word, would you like to come inside?
Jackpot. Nice.
(43:45):
Oh, man. So we got to hang around the house at 38th Drive.
Yeah, on the inside for like 45 minutes. It was brilliant.
It was so much fun. So that's going to be an upcoming episode of Lights Out.
When I get around to doing that is an investigation at 38th Drive,
which is going to be phenomenal.
(44:06):
That's going to be the culmination of all these English episodes that I'm doing.
So we did some investigating.
We did some EVP work. We did some sitting quietly in the dark.
And like I said, there were like three groups there. And the house at 38th Drive
is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside. It's kind of like an anti-Tardis.
(44:31):
So the parlor is right next to the kitchen.
And the parlor was where a bunch of investigators were sitting.
And they had a spirit box going.
So right before we left, I wandered in there.
Quietly and take part in whatever it was that they were doing.
I didn't want to bother them or anything. But everyone's like,
(44:54):
oh, hey, it's one of the Americans.
And there were like eight or nine people in that small room.
And they went around and introduced themselves.
And I said, well, my name's Sylvia.
And one of the investigators yelled and jumped. And everyone And I was like, what?
And she goes, I was wondering why the spirit box said Sylvia 15 minutes ago.
(45:18):
Oh, awesome. The spirit box right there, literally.
They were waiting for you. They just wanted you to come in. How cool.
Oh, they were. So, yeah, we just had a wonderful conversation.
And these people were, every single last one of them were so gracious and so wonderful.
Wonderful and the fellow who was kind of
(45:40):
the lead investigator was named ian and about after
about 45 minutes an hour we said to we
said we have taken up enough of your time
you have been more than gracious thank you so much for
letting us sit in on this investigation it was a
real treat and i like a dummy i
turned my recorder off before i did
(46:02):
this and i went into the kitchen which again in
was right next to the parlor and i shook
ian's hand and i said thank you so much
for this experience it was wonderful and he said my pleasure in this lovely
english accent and from the parlor the ghost box yelled pleasure oh oh that's
(46:24):
awesome i love when things just line up like that. It's fantastic.
Oh, great. So, creepy, not so fun.
Frank, you asked for the Sally House story. Oh, yeah. All right, so...
(46:46):
A couple of years ago, I decided to visit the Sally House.
Now, the Sally House, for those of you listening in, is in Atchison,
Kansas, which is on the other side of Kansas. It's a hike.
So it was a drive of a good six hours or so for me.
(47:08):
And I decided to make a weekend of it.
So I the investigation was on a Saturday night and I drove down to Springfield Saturday noon,
and stopped in at the I promise
this is leading somewhere I stopped in at the meeting of one of the groups that
(47:29):
I kind of hang around with they have their monthly meeting once a month on Saturdays
and it just happened to coincide with my trip so I told Carl I said I'm coming
down town, and I'd like to stop in at the meeting.
And he said, Oh, great. Would you like to give a talk? Because he knows that's
what I do. I said, I would be delighted to.
And I said, Can I just request that I go first? They usually have two speakers,
(47:53):
a speaker, then a break, and then the second speaker.
I said, Can I just go first? Because I need to get on the road.
I'm going to the Sally house.
He said, Oh, if you're going to the Sally house, you need to speak with I think his name was Dennis.
He said, You need to talk to Dennis, he's going to be there.
And he has a lot of experience there.
I said, great, you know, every experience that I can get will be wonderful.
(48:16):
So gave my talk. I think it was on the Peoria State Hospital.
I don't remember exactly what, but so we had the break and I was working with
Dennis and he said, be very, very careful when you go to the Sally house.
I said, I know I've heard stories. And he said, no, I'm serious. Be be careful.
(48:37):
He said, I know people that live within a mile of it and have stuff happen in their homes.
And he said, I have spoken with investigators that have gone on an investigation
and have gotten into car wrecks on the way home.
He said, be careful. I said, thank you for your concern. I really do appreciate it.
(48:58):
When I go to a place that I know is going to be active in an An unpleasant way,
I make myself a protective tea.
I brew a tea with all sorts of strong herbs like nettles, sage,
cinnamon, hibiscus for brightness, honey in there for strength.
(49:22):
I use a little bit of water that has set out under the full moon.
And I know it's mostly just part of the suggestion, but I do study the properties
of herbs and everything. And I know these are all strong herbs.
And I make a tea from it. And when I drink the tea, I have this mental image
in my mind of that whole moon just filling every cell in my body with this white
(49:47):
light, this white protective light.
And that's what I do. So I get to a cellar house, and we're about to start the investigation.
And I take out my mason jar of tea, and it has gelled.
Interesting. What? I've been trying to drink it. It's never happened before or since.
(50:08):
I was going to say, I'm into herbalism, too, and I've made tons of teas, and I've never had that.
Wow, really? It is drink-melted jello. It was so weird.
The texture was so off-putting that I could only choke down about a third of it.
So we did the investigation.
(50:33):
On the way home Sunday morning, I stopped at Mount Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri.
I went to the Patty House Museum in St. Joseph, which made it into the Gone on Vacation book.
I stopped at the Glore Psychiatric Museum because of my soft spot for psychiatric
hospitals. That's also in Gone on Vacation.
(50:53):
Had a wonderful time. Stayed a little bit too late at Glore Museum.
So that is why i was driving home at about 10 30 at night when i hit the deer oh geez really wow.
Yeah oh my goodness you take me
on back road so yeah i had
(51:16):
just turned onto this tiny little highway in the
middle of nowhere illinois and i hit a deer
and caused about three thousand dollars worth of damage to my car
wow well as long
as you're okay the car can always be replaced
and fixed and i'm happy that you're okay oh yeah
i was fine i was fine the deer was not and i was so flustered that i i did not
(51:39):
fill my freezer with medicine like i really should have let it go away but yeah
i was just like wow okay so yeah i said i texted carl the next day and i said And I said,
tell Dennis. He wasn't kidding.
Oh, my goodness. That's crazy.
So I will never. There's only one place that I will never go again.
(52:03):
And that is the Valley Club. Well, I can't wait to go.
He might be going by himself. I don't know if I would go. I will go with you, Frank. All right.
So speaking of that, then what would be like your dream investigation?
Like, the one location that, you know, if there's no constraints,
(52:23):
no, you know, money issues, no travel issues, like, what would be the one place
you would love to have an overnight investigation at?
I'm going to go back to Warwick Castle in England. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I've been to Warwick Castle twice.
(52:44):
This was before I was a paranormal investigator.
And it seemed to me that I had heard a story about Warwick Castle that involved a murder.
And I did some research when I was working on Gravedies and Dead Plots,
Volume 2, and I was right in my recollection.
(53:05):
And there was a murder that involved, it wasn't at the castle,
but it involved one of the owners of the castle. He was stabbed by his manservant,
who later committed suicide.
The manservant died immediately after stabbing himself, but this Earl of Warwick
lingered on for a couple of weeks before dying really, really horribly.
(53:28):
He was stabbed in the side, and he was actually about to leave London to go back to Warwick Castle.
And his manservant stabbed him because he was not happy with the amount of money
he had been left in the earl's will.
So after the stabbing, the earl was taken back to Warwick Castle.
(53:53):
And his doctors decided to pack the wound with mutton fat.
Oh. What? I'm speechless. Really?
Yeah. Mutton fat. And it worked exactly as you thought it would,
and it turned rancid, and it went septic, and he died in agony. Oh, that is terrible.
(54:18):
Yeah. Pretty awful way to go.
But I did not, I wanted to go to Warwick Castle when we were there last summer,
but gosh we had so many things
packed into those three weeks that i i decided not
to press it and then i came home and started
doing research on this story and thought oh my
(54:39):
gosh this is such a wonderful place i just really really want
to go back oh yeah so
that's where i'd go all right no that's just
that's horrible i mean i couldn't even imagine that's gonna be one
of the most painful ways to go is going septic in
your stomach area like where yeah yeah oh side stomach
gross so oh god so so yeah here's another question so for any aspiring writers
(55:07):
of the paranormal supernatural either fiction or non-fiction what would be your
best advice from what i gather Heather,
you're amazing at the history and the research of it.
So I'm pretty sure that's number one. But what other advice would you give to
any new or aspiring writers?
(55:29):
Read. If you don't have time to read, you will never, ever be a good enough
writer to make your mark on the world.
You've got to read. You've got to see what other people are doing.
Read you've got to be like a little magpie and and and learn from every book
you come across whether it's something not to do but most often it is what to
(55:55):
do i was talking to somebody just today actually,
I read omnivorously and voraciously.
I read fiction as well as nonfiction.
I'm partial to nonfiction these days because it's what I write,
but I have really, really love fiction.
(56:18):
One of the stories in Ghosts of the Illinois River, which shows you how long
ago I picked up on this technique.
Sneak one of the stories is just
a little vaguely interesting story but people
tell me that it is one of the most unnerving stories
it's a story about diamond island in the illinois river just very close to all
(56:41):
of illinois and they say it's one of the most unnerving stories in the entire
collection and there are plenty of stories that are scarier but this one just
gets to them and And I say, thank you.
And I say, I know why that is very unnerving to you.
And if you want to know, I will tell you why.
(57:02):
Sometimes they ask, sometimes they don't. But the reason why is that it is written in the present tense.
Okay. Yeah. I was reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Yeah. And he used a technique in there, in that book, that was so subtle that
(57:23):
only another author would pick up on it. But it was extremely effective.
In Under the Dome, there are several scenes where someone comes up to another
person, there's a small gathering, more people join the group,
and a punch is thrown or words are exchanged, and suddenly all heck breaks loose.
(57:44):
And those scenes are written in present tense.
And that gives you a sense of immediacy. It gives you a sense of being there.
The rest of the book is in past tense.
You're just reading happily along, blah, blah, blah. It's just a regular book.
And then suddenly you're thrown into present tense, and it's like you are there.
(58:04):
So that is why that one little story is so unnerving to people.
So yeah read everything you
can get your hands on learn from that reading
that's that's great advice i mean
it's the same thing with with anything even you know paranormal investigating
don't just pick up and do it you know you're either watching the shows or you
(58:26):
go out with someone and you pick up techniques from them so that's that's phenomenal
advice i agree with that oh i love going on investigations with other groups
because everyone's got everyone's got not the standard techniques,
but then as their own techniques.
I learned about cat balls from watching the show, Amy's Crip out of Australia. Yeah, no, great.
(58:51):
So much by just interacting with people that are doing what you want to do.
Yeah, that's, that's great. So, yeah, so we're, we're coming up to the end here.
So I do want to know what upcoming work or books do you have?
Coming in the pipeline or you're looking to start
soon i am currently
(59:16):
working on a book that has nothing
to do with the paranormal it is straight true crime oh awesome and co-writing
it with another author which is a learning experience in and of itself i'm sure
do you guys remember in In April of 2022,
(59:36):
there was a jailbreak in northern Alabama.
Yes. Yes. The jailer broke one of the prisoners out and they went on the run
for 11 days because he was white and pasted.
The book we're working on oh that sounds fun it does very interesting i want to read that.
(59:57):
Thank you thank you we're working hard on it and it's very very exciting it's,
way outside my wheelhouse because i'm used to dealing with historical things
i'm not used to the situations in which i can actually talk to the people that
are accused of the crimes that they have confessed to committing.
(01:00:20):
Nobody really thinks that Casey did kill this woman, Connie Ridgway,
but he confessed to it basically so that he could get himself out of prison.
Donaldson prison is a horrible, horrible place to be. But I don't think I'm
telling tales out of school when I say that my co-writer is basically,
(01:00:40):
we kind of said what we wanted to work on with this book, and it shook out very
early on that he is writing about Vicki and I am writing about Vicki.
I've talked to Casey on the phone a couple of times and I have read psych evaluations
(01:01:02):
of him and I have heard people talk about him.
He has a deeply unpleasant... I hate to say that as a fellow human being, but...
Sure. he's he's he's a
redneck and a racist and he's he's
manipulative as well yeah he
(01:01:23):
tried to manipulate me in very
unpleasant ways and i shut that
down but yeah it was not
a fun experience i can't even imagine yeah oh it was fun yeah well uh i've been
in prison for quite some time and his first chance of getting a parole hearing
(01:01:49):
is when he's going to be 100 years old. Oh, my goodness.
He's going to be the rest of his life in prison. So extrapolate from that what you will.
Wow. Well, I mean, in my opinion, I hope he gets to see that day because that
just means the torture and everything has just gone on for that much longer.
(01:02:09):
Yeah. So, but Sylvia, if you want to share where people can find you,
your, your podcast, your books, website, whatever you want to plug,
please go, go ahead and do that.
All right. I can be found at sylviashult.com.
H-U-L-T-S. That links you to the WordPress site.
(01:02:32):
And at the top of the page, you will find all sorts of wonderful tabs.
I do a fun little thing every Monday morning called Today I Learned.
Like I said, I read universally and I'm always running across these wonderful
little facts, like the fact that research... Oh, Sylvia, did we lose you?
(01:02:53):
Sylvia, I think we lost you there for a moment. We can't hear you.
Hello, Sylvia. Am I? Sylvia? Hello? Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, we lost you right after you said you spelled your name and said WordPress.
Oh, okay. So, sylviashult.com. At the top of that page,
at the top of the WordPress page, you're going to see a bunch of little tabs
(01:03:20):
that lead you to wonderful places on the site.
There is a tab that
leads you to lights out which is my podcast the
links on that page take you to the youtube version of lights out which has all
the pretty pictures that i've taken over the years that kind of go along with
the story but lights out is also available on spotify iheart radio Apple Radio,
(01:03:47):
anywhere you listen to podcasts.
I'm going to be making a very exciting announcement very soon on the website.
Grave Deeds and Dead Puts is also being turned into a podcast.
So I will put the link to the podcast as soon as I know it.
(01:04:07):
Fantastic. So I'm very, very excited about it.
Well, that's awesome. Sylvie, if you want to stick around on after we close
out the show, just to talk for a minute or so.
Thank you so much for agreeing and being on our silly little podcast.
We greatly appreciate it and have learned so much.
And in, in my mind, we've made a new friend and a new investigation buddy.
(01:04:32):
I agree. Yep. You know it.
Awesome. Thank you so much for inviting me on. Oh, of course. Yeah.
Just stick around for one moment. We're going to close out the show.
So Lynette, Bree, any last thoughts, words?
No. Sylvia was great. Yeah, this was fantastic.
I love hearing the stories. I can't wait to read a couple more books and hear more stories. Awesome.
(01:04:55):
Well, thanks for joining us this week. And my name is Frank. This is Fringe.
Beyond. Limits.
Music.
Music.
(00:39):
Welcome to another episode of Fringe Beyond Limits.
Hi guys. Hello. Hey. Welcome back. Thank you for tuning in. Is that what you
do to a podcast? You tune in? Is it like a video?
Yeah. You're listening. All right. All right, great. So how have you two been?
I'm pretty good. Been great. Busy week.
(01:02):
Busy week? Mm-hmm. Wow. All right. Good for you. Yeah.
Pretty it's more it's like calm before
the storm comes you say s'mores no more like
calm before the storm comes okay all right well this has just been an average
week for me yeah but for our listeners we have a treat today we do we have a
(01:24):
interview or a guest how would you how would you She's a guest speaker. A guest speaker.
She has been in the field for 20 plus years.
She has written 10 plus nonfiction paranormal books, right? She has her own podcast.
(01:46):
She's been on about 30 seconds of Ghost Adventures.
Ghost Hunter. I'm sorry, Ghost Hunter. Oh, wrong one. I have them on my brain.
Wrong one. It's such an illness. I hate Ghost Adventures.
But sorry ghost hunters and her name is sylvia schultz sylvia welcome thank
(02:07):
you thank you very much for having me on the show yeah excited to have you so
sylvia you you have written.
What you have written a bunch of books about the paranormal how did you get
started with with with the paranormal in general, I guess.
I mean, how does someone get pulled into this silly little activity?
(02:32):
Well, you know, it's not for everyone.
I have been reading for most of my life.
I cannot remember being preliterate. I cannot remember not knowing how to read.
And one of my favorite things to read ever since childhood has been true ghost
(02:54):
stories and history and creepy stuff and mysterious things.
I've just always been drawn to that.
So when I became an adult and realized that I could write these stories for
my own self, I thought, well, you know, let's try writing ghost stories.
And my love of history also really plays into this fascination with ghost stories.
(03:21):
I really think that you can't understand the ghost
stories is of a place without knowing the history behind it because
that's why we have the story
is because of the history right that's
so true yeah i mean it goes with the old adage that if you don't what is it
you don't understand history or you don't learn from history you're bound to
(03:44):
repeat it that might be why we have a lot of repeat hauntings for sure could
be yeah so yeah yeah so So with that,
you were part of a ghost investigation group at one point, or are you still?
I am kind of a freelancer, which is wonderful because there are a lot of ghost
(04:08):
hunting groups that will let me play with them. Yeah. That's awesome.
On occasion, I've been an actual proper member of a group.
And then we just end up going our separate ways. But I have retained ties with
a lot of the groups that I've worked with.
And it's wonderful because we run into each other and we say, hey, how's it going?
(04:30):
And I get invited on lots of investigations that way.
There will be, I just went a couple of months ago to a very haunted hotel in Indiana.
And one of the groups i work most closely with just had an opening come up and
like the day before somebody the leader of the group texted me and said hey you want to go to indiana,
(04:57):
it was well worth the trip it was an amazing experience very cool the road hotel,
in indiana oh wow i don't know if i've heard of that no neither of that.
I had never heard of it before I was invited to go on this investigation it
was shadow hunters that invited me so yeah that it's for not being known at all it is incredibly,
(05:25):
active we,
that it's two stories and the first floor is like the dining room and a couple
of parlors and the safe room and everything in the kitchen.
And then the second floor is the hotel rooms. And I'm not even joking when I
tell you that a couple of us were standing in the middle of the hallway and
(05:50):
down at the end of the hallway where no one was, we could hear footsteps moving around.
It's amazing. And I slept, well, we all slept in the hotel in different rooms.
And I slept in the room at the other end of the hall.
(06:12):
We caught a really great apparition on film. Oh, really?
I know for a fact. Okay, so the leader of the group is Nick Sarlo,
and he likes to joke around and take candid pictures and just,
you know, play around, snap photos.
Yeah and he he took a
(06:36):
picture of himself and there
were two other team members sitting on the bed in
one of the rooms and it was
pat and sharon were sitting on the bed so
nick snapped a picture of himself kind of like a selfie with pat
and sharon in the background and he looked at it of course it's his phone and
(06:57):
he yelped and everyone else yelped too and he said who's that sitting between
you two no and he phone and by gosh there was a shadow figure between pat and sharon wow,
left off of the bed and noped out of that room like his butt was And then Pat
(07:20):
was supposed to sleep in that room that night. I'd be like, I'm out.
Gosh, love him. He, he actually did spend the night in that room. Wow.
That's something Frank would do. Did anything else happen to him later that
night or did he experience anything else?
(07:41):
No, no. No, he said he slept with me when the next room was empty.
I said, Pat, there's no shame. If you want to get into the room next to mine
during the night, that's perfectly fine.
But no, he spent the entire night in that room. That's brave.
I couldn't have done it. You know, that goes to say that, you know,
(08:03):
I've been in a couple investigations where it was just a dead night.
Like one of those nights that you're kind of, you know, you're at the end of
like, nothing happened.
And as you're packing up, you know, you might be telling a couple jokes and
just being normal and having a good time.
And all of a sudden you hear knocks and bangs and footsteps.
Steps and it's like you know if you have fun with it it doesn't have to be a
(08:26):
totally serious intense evening for you to catch anything if you just bring
your personality out in the investigation,
it kind of sometimes puts the spirits at ease and and open up a little bit better
for them to be more comfortable to communicate with you so that kind of goes
to that him goofing around and just being himself and having something appear
(08:47):
like that out of nowhere.
I have found that to be true so many times.
Yeah, that's crazy. But I'm happy you had a great time and you guys caught something.
That's really, really unheard of.
I mean, people think that you catch pictures of ghosts and apparitions all the time.
(09:07):
It's so rare. Yeah.
Oh, man. Man, there was, I watched a show just last night, and the fellow's
name is Ian, and he's, I think a show is called Midwest Ghost Hunters.
And he was in the Malvern Manor, which I have a real huge soft spot.
(09:27):
I have had so many, I've been there three times.
Every time I go to the Villisca Axe Murder House, I go to Malvern because they're so close.
And vice versa, every time I go to Malvern, I go to Villisca.
But i have slept at malvern twice and
i've spent the night twice in suzy's room and he was in ian was in suzy's room
and the war about suzy is that she loved the color she was a 40-ish woman who
(09:53):
had the mentality of an eight or nine year old girl she loved the color her
bed is just strewn with coloring books.
And Ian was in there filming and commented on the coloring books.
And he said, so Susie, is this your favorite coloring book?
And he captured the page of the coloring book turning.
(10:16):
No. Wow. What? It was...
That's wild.
It was amazing. Oh my gosh, he captured so much stuff at Malvern.
He was bum-rushed by the black mass in the nursing room hallway,
in the nursing home hallway.
(10:37):
He caught all sorts of great stuff there. I was so jealous. I wish I hadn't
been with him because I loved Malvern.
Wow. That would give me goosebumps watching that.
Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. You just gave us a new place to go.
And when we go, we will send you an invite to come with. Absolutely.
I always do. I would love to join you. Oh, that's great.
(11:01):
I took a real close look at when he was panning around Susie's room.
And the last time I was there, her favorite color is pink.
So I brought her a little pink dinosaur, a little faux dinosaur.
And I saw it sitting on the dresser, so that made me happy. Oh,
that's awesome. That is so neat.
(11:23):
So, going back, you're an author of now 11 books, is that correct?
I am working on number 11. You're working on number 11. What is the name,
if you don't mind giving that out?
Oh, the one that has just come out is Grave Deeds and Dead Plots, Volume 2. Okay.
(11:45):
I never thought I'd be writing a series, but here we are.
I just want to expand my wheelhouse a little bit. I realized a while ago that
the line between true crime and paranormal is just vanishingly thin.
So my publisher had been after me years ago to write a true crime book.
(12:08):
So I started reading...
A lot of ghost stories in preparation for doing a book called Days of the Dead.
A story for every single day of the year, which actually won first place in the Book Best Award.
So I'm very happy about that. Oh, congrats. Fantastic. Yes.
Thank you. I noticed that a lot of these ghost stories resulted from true crime, from murders.
(12:35):
And it just really goes hand in hand.
So I pitched the idea to my publisher. I said, what if I did a book of true
ghost or true crime stories that resulted in haunting?
And he jumped on the idea.
And I kept doing research and I kept finding stories. And I have enough for about five or six books.
(12:59):
I'm really looking forward to continuing the series. And I honestly think I
had even more fun doing volume two than I did doing volume one. It was a blast.
I love it. So are you looking all over the country, all over the world?
Like, where do you source some of these stories?
I would love to get stuff from all over the world.
(13:22):
The stories in Volume 2 are mostly America and England.
I found a couple of really wonderful stories from England and Scotland.
And I was over there for three weeks ghost hunting last summer.
So I heard these stories and I'm like, oh, that's going in the next volume.
Oh, that had to have been incredible. There's so much history.
(13:48):
It was so much fun. Now when I read these stories and proofread them and go
through them for details, I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard this story.
That is great. When you look for a topic to write about in terms of,
you know, ghost stories, I mean, you've done Days of the Dead,
(14:10):
like you mentioned, Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays,
Hunting Demons, A True Story of the Dark Side of the Supernatural,
Gone on Vacation, Ghosts of the Illinois River.
When you start to plan out a project, how do you go about finding that niche to write about?
(14:31):
Well. It's more of a,
More of a situation where the stories find me.
A publisher actually approached me to do Ghosts of the Illinois River,
which was absolutely wonderful.
That was the first book of true ghost stories that I ever wrote.
And it just really fell into my lap. And it was through doing that that I learned
(14:56):
about the Peoria State Hospital and ended up three books on the Peoria State
Hospital, which has been just magnificent.
And then oh gosh i
someone was telling me about ghost stories of brookfield zoo because she had
used to work there and i thought oh my gosh how fun would it be to do a book
(15:17):
on haunted zoos and then i thought it would be even more fun to do a book on
haunted zoos museums and amusement Houston Park. Right. Yeah.
One of the very first ghost stories I ever heard in my life was my father telling
me the story of a screaming mummy at the Field Museum. Oh, really?
(15:40):
I've been to the field. I don't know if I've heard that story.
Oh, haven't you? Oh, my goodness. It's wonderful.
So I don't know how much time we have, but so in a nutshell.
Yeah. So they're in the 1930s. Let's see.
(16:02):
So let me back up. The mummy at the Field Museum, who is supposed to scream, is a fellow named Harwa.
There are 23 human mummies and more than 30 animal mummies at the Field Museum.
Him harlem himself lived about 2800 years
ago in egypt's 22nd dynasty between
(16:24):
about 900 and 700 bc he was
very high up in society he was
the he was the storekeeper for
the temple of amun which meant he was
in charge of all of the temple supplies all the
wine the food the grain the animals for
the sacrifices everything so when he died he was mummified according to his
(16:49):
station in life his mummy is very well preserved the fun thing about harwa is
that he is first of all he is the only ancient egyptian that.
Archaeologists have ever found that is named harwa interestingly wow okay the other thing,
(17:10):
harwa is the first ancient egyptian to take
an airline flight for the world's fair
in new york in 1939 he was tapped to be part of an exhibit so he was flown from
the field museum in chicago to new york for the world's fair in new york he
the general electric company set up an exhibit where where they displayed the power of x-rays.
(17:35):
So Harwa and his coffin were in a lead-lined glass case, and when somebody walked
up to the display and pushed a button,
the lights would go down, and this x-ray would come up and blast Harwa with
125,000 volts of electricity and throw his skeleton up on a black screen.
(18:02):
And it was like, oh, hey, wow, cool. Look at the mummies going.
So it was so popular that he was invited back for the next year in 1940.
He was returned to Chicago that winter.
The next year, he went from Chicago to New York by way of San Francisco.
Oh, wow. Detour.
(18:26):
He accidentally got sent to San Francisco. Oh, my goodness. kilograms going
between New York and Chicago and San Francisco.
They finally found him and sent him on to New York. So the third thing about
Harwa that is interesting is that he screamed.
In 1933, that's several years before Harwa took to the skies with his jet-setting
(18:49):
travels, an incident occurred in the Hall of Egyptian Archaeology.
Now, in the mid-1980s, the field, redid their Egyptian exhibit.
Now you go down a spiral staircase into the basement and there you kind of walk
through the exhibit and there are cases all over the place.
(19:13):
Tar was standing there. You come out of the room with the mummies into kind
of like an Egyptian marketplace. at place. It's really, really cool.
But when this happened, and when I was a kid and would go to the Field Museum
on field trips and whatnot from school, the whole of Egyptian antiquities or
archaeology was just one big room.
(19:36):
And all of the mummies were in one glass case along one long side of this room.
And they were arranged basically chronologically. Right.
It was that the door to this case was always kept locked, and the case itself
was filled with nitrogen gas to avoid any insect infestation.
(19:57):
So there's no way anyone could have been in this case.
So the security guards for the museum were making their rounds one winter night,
and one of the security guards was startled by this blood-curdling scream coming
from the Egyptian hall in the basement.
The guard assumed that a guest had been locked in the museum overnight and had
(20:23):
found himself in this room with these desiccated corpses and was freaking out.
So he raced to the Egyptian hall, turned on his flashlight, turned on the lights,
blew his whistle to gather all the other guards from that different part of the museum.
Two other watchmen joined him in the hall, and there was no one there.
(20:43):
The security guards searched every
inch of the egyptian hall couldn't find
anyone and then one of them noticed he said stay here
this mummy is off its board the way
the mummies were arranged were each body was
on kind of a slant board at about a 30
45 degree angle so that you could see the mummy and it was kind of lying down
(21:07):
and there were six inches of board on either side of So it was impossible for
something to jostle the case so that a body would fall off.
But this Tarla, they say it's Tarla. We're not exactly sure exactly who it was,
(21:27):
but people say it's Tarla.
The mummy was completely off
of its board, lying face down next to the board on the floor of the case.
Henry Field. I was like, how does that happen? That's crazy.
And Henry Field actually wrote about this in his 1953 biography.
(21:49):
Geography field was a curator in physical
anthropology from 1926 to 1941 and
he was the poor schmo who had to go into the case right oh gosh on the board
and he had to pump the nitrogen gas out of the case before he could go in he
(22:12):
had to replace it with oxygen so he could breathe,
inside the cave. Wow.
And the interesting thing about the Field Museum and a lot of the buildings
on the Chicago waterfront, and I'm sure you guys know this being closer to Chicago than I am,
The soil on the Chicago waterfront is very marshy and swampy.
(22:35):
So they had piling into the soil to provide a safe, stable base for the museum
to sit on. So it is earthquake-proof.
There is no way this could have been jostled like that. So, yeah,
it remains a mystery as to how this happened.
(22:55):
That's unbelievable. Have you thought about writing a book?
That's that i mean it sounds like you have about 3300 books you could write
with not just the stories you have but how you tell the story they're they're that's awesome,
(23:18):
Thanks. Yeah, no, absolutely.
So with that, I think I know the answer to this next question that we have.
But we were wondering, your favorite book or project, would it be safe to say
it's the Peoria State Hospital books?
(23:40):
You have, I think, three you said, right? You have Fractured Spirits,
Fractured Souls, and then 44 Years in Darkness.
Right yeah yeah oh boy i have a real hot spot for the peoria state hospital
some of my favorite ghosts inside there.
(24:02):
Yeah, Fractured Spirits and Fractured Souls came about because someone wanted
me to write about the Peoria State Hospital.
And people would ask me while I was writing Ghosts of the Illinois River,
they said, you know, what are you working on now?
And I said, well, a book of true ghost stories about Illinois.
(24:23):
And they said, oh, have you heard about the Peoria State Hospital?
And like I said, I grew up in LaGrange,
so I knew nothing about the Peoria State. I didn't grow up in it.
So I said, tell me about it. And people would say, it's a haunted,
abandoned mental asylum.
(24:43):
And I'm like, oh, tell me more.
So I started doing the research on this.
And like I said, I'm absolutely obsessed with the history of haunted places as well.
You say haunted mental asylum, and your mind goes all American Horror Story
on you, and you assume that there was pain and fear and abuse.
(25:06):
And it is my privilege and my intense joy to tell people that was not the case
at the Peoria State Hospital.
This is a place where the patients were treated like family members,
like cherished family members.
The superintendent of the Peoria State Hospital, Dr.
(25:27):
George Zeller, he was a doctor. He was a surgeon. He was not trained as a psychiatrist.
And he was very proud of that fact. He was very proud of the fact that he was
not hidebound by current practices in the care of the mentally ill.
He decided just to treat the mentally ill.
(25:50):
The kindness that they deserve. And he said, let's treat them the way we would
want our grandmothers to be treated and see what happens.
And what happened was that the Peoria State Hospital became the premier institution
for the care of the mentally ill, not only in Illinois, not only in the United
(26:11):
States, but in the world. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to say, so I I read your 44 years in darkness,
and I think that was probably my greatest takeaway from the story.
Obviously, the story surrounds a woman by the name of Rhoda Derry and,
you know, the traumas and tragedies she had experienced in her life.
(26:32):
But I think the greatest takeaway I noticed in this 44 years of darkness is,
you know, when it came to the end of her life, she was in a safe space.
She was in a loving and caring place. And that was, you know,
all thanks to this doctor who, you know, saved her and took care of her and
other patients with the greatest of care.
And I love that story. I love that it's refreshing from all the other dark,
(26:57):
heavy stories that you hear about mental hospitals and how folks were treated
in the past. Thank you. Thank you very, very much.
Yes, the story of Rhoda Derry is very compelling. I knew that she needed her own book.
Her story is just mind-blowingly tragic.
(27:19):
Tragic but as you said she spent
the last two years of her life in safety being
cared for being waited on hand and foot by caring
nurses who knew the excruciating history
she had suffered for a great part of her life 44 years as a matter of fact yeah
she she spent the last years of her life in safety you're exactly right that
(27:46):
is so refreshing to hear just because as you mentioned And when you hear haunted, insane asylum,
you have these flashbacks of just...
Horrific tragedies. Yeah, horrific tragedies, people literally yelling, screaming,
running into walls, and the orderlies and nurses that are just not caring and
(28:09):
using horrific techniques to subdue them. So...
I am looking forward to reading that book. You audio-booked it,
right? Yeah, I listened to it on Audible, which is wonderful.
And she was telling me about it two days ago, right?
Yeah, and I was just like, oh, I love that.
(28:30):
So I'm definitely going to join in on that because that is so refreshing to
hear that, yeah, that you just bring to light, you know, the positivity behind things being haunted.
It's not always, you know, scary things that go bump in the night.
Sometimes it's refreshing to hear about these stories.
(28:51):
And it also should bring a little bit of awareness to folks who are going to places investigating.
Right. Like some people have the pre-assumption that this place was evil or
bad or any location for that matter.
And they go in and they try to investigate with aggression or something without
knowing that history, you know. Yeah. They just think it's haunted.
They think it's bad. that it's evil, that it doesn't have to be evil for it to be haunted.
(29:18):
Haunted does not necessarily equate to evil.
Yeah, no, that's great. So, you know, number one, thank you for writing about
that because, I mean, that's so different to here and enlightening, you know?
So, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, of course.
Since you mentioned your book, I'll share this with you. Yeah.
(29:40):
The publisher told me Because the voice actress told him that while she was
recording 44 Years in Darkness, she broke down crying.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Well, I mean, you know, that's a tribute to you.
(30:01):
You made these words on paper come to life for many people, whoever read it, I'm sure.
So that's... Thank you. She could have been lost to history.
You gave her a voice. You give her history and she'll be remembered. So it's wonderful.
So when you are writing a book or researching a book, what are some of your
(30:22):
biggest challenges that you face as an author about specifically the paranormal?
That is an excellent question. Hmm.
I think that the biggest challenge I faced when writing about the paranormal,
(30:45):
especially with a book that deals with something like the Peoria State Hospital,
is separating fact from fiction.
When I was writing Fractured Spirit, I was just learning about the Peoria State Hospital.
And there were a lot of people that shared their experiences with me and there
(31:10):
were some that I knew even then that I had to take with a grain of salt.
I will never, ever, ever poo-poo someone's experience.
That's their experience. I probably wasn't there. I don't know exactly what they experienced.
So I will never, ever call shenanigans on someone's personal experience.
(31:34):
But there have been stories that I have heard that I will say to myself,
well, let's look at this and see what else might have been going on.
I'll give you an example.
This was when I was writing, it was Fractured Spirits, not Fractured Souls,
but when I was working on Fractured Spirits, we were out in Cemetery 2,
(31:59):
and someone was absolutely convinced that they saw the spirit of Bookbinder,
which is one of the spirits that is supposed to haunt Cemetery 2 on Hill 5.
And the person said, oh, yeah, yeah, I saw the spirit of Bookbinder,
(32:19):
and he announced himself to me by means of perfume. I smelled perfume.
And I said, okay, that's wonderful.
It happened to be late April, early May when this took place.
And we were outside and I said, so tell me, this perfume, did it smell like
(32:43):
flower-scented bubble gum?
That's very specific. Yep. Yep.
She said, yeah, that's exactly what it smelled like. I said,
you were smelling the black locust that was in bloom.
You were not smelling anything paranormal. It was perfectly natural. It was the black locust.
(33:05):
Sometimes things get debunked. Right. Yeah, no, that's crazy.
So there's a cemetery by us in Elgin where we've gone, allegedly we've gone after hours.
And there's a famous picture from this showing a lady in white.
Well, we went there to that same exact spot.
(33:29):
And as we're looking in the distance at where this lady in white's picture was
taken, we noticed it's this gravestone that once you look at it at night with a flash,
it could totally resemble it.
And we took a picture of it in the light during the daytime,
(33:50):
and it matched up perfectly.
So you're right. Some things, if you don't go back and take a look at it a second,
third, fourth time, an initial thought can be perceived as paranormal.
But I think if you do your due diligence, and I think any good group does,
(34:10):
you will start debunking your own stuff and other people's experiences, unfortunately.
But yeah, that's exactly what, as a group or as a community,
we should do. That's our responsibility, for sure.
And on the other side, as a ghost investigator, I should be open to other people
(34:32):
looking at my evidence and debunking it as well, you know?
I had a very similar experience at the Peoria State Hospital when I was there with
a group called guard and we were
investigating stone country when it was still stone
country that was the that not
the administration building the gymnasium for the asylum and it at the time
(34:57):
we were investigating it it was a country and western bar and we were we're
there for several hours and recording and taking pictures and everything and
somebody noticed that up near the ceiling,
of course it was a very high ceiling it used to be a gymnasium there was a light
that kept appearing very close to the ceiling and we watched it for a while
(35:20):
and filmed it and looked at it and then we realized that it was a mylar balloon.
Every time it drifted in the breeze I had a similar experience with another
group USPR at Waverly Sanatorium.
(35:40):
We were in the death,
The hallway. I think they call it the death chute. The death tunnel.
The underneath where the death chute ends up. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, down almost at the end of it, almost by that door that leads to the outside.
(36:01):
And we were, all three or four of us were looking up towards the top of the tunnel, of that ramp.
And we kept seeing a light at the top of the tunnel. at the top of the tunnel,
we watched it for, dang, a good 15, 20 minutes before we realized that it was
one of the baffles in the fluorescent light.
(36:22):
Oh, man.
But, yeah, that's how paranormal investigation goes, you know. You're so exciting.
So, since you haven't listened to our podcast, and I pursue you not to at all,
(36:42):
Um, we do have, we do have adult humor and dark humor along the way.
And one of the things I've always am curious about is have you ever encountered
any kind of like situation either in your research or in an investigation where
something was just so bizarre or ironic that you couldn't just help just laugh
(37:04):
out loud in an inappropriate situation?
Oh, no, no, no.
I mean, you may not be proud of it, but I'm not proud of half the stuff I say
on the podcast. So please join me.
Okay. Well, all right. Well, I...
(37:26):
I'll tell you another theorist.
So the Pollock Hospital was the tuberculosis ward on the Hill Park.
And before the Pollock Hospital was built, there was kind of a bat-wing shaped
hospital that was also for the care of TB patients.
(37:48):
And at the very beginning of the hospital's history in 1902,
there was a tent colony for the care of TB patients on that plot of land.
So people have been dying of tuberculosis on that little plot of land for many,
many years. So when the Pollock Hospital was built, it was purpose-built for
(38:13):
the care of tuberculosis patients.
Near the end of the hospital's history, it changed from that.
They had pretty much whipped tuberculosis by that point.
At the very end, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, it was used as the geriatric ward.
And there was a woman that the hospital was separated with the tuberculosis
(38:40):
patients and the geriatric ward into the men's ward and women's ward.
In the women's ward, we had a patient that we, we have a spirit that we call
the dirty girl. Oh, I'm game.
We this spirit has been
known to she likes to get up close and personal with the guys in the group oh
(39:07):
man go on and she gets she gets very handsy in certain areas of men's anatomy
and i have I'm listening.
I have watched two guys at the same time who are standing next to each other both go, ooh.
Really? Did they blame each other? Or are they just like, what was that?
(39:32):
It was interesting. Yeah. And lest you get any...
People, the guys in the groups always get ribbed when we tell people,
when we tell the the groups about the dirty girl and oh
the guys are like oh yeah i want to i want to go meet the
dirty girl and then we point out that yes the pollock hospital was a geriatric
(39:54):
ward and when it was a geriatric ward we did have a patient in her mid-90s who
liked to take her clothes off and go streaking through the hallways oh no we
talk about history informing the hauntings.
Dirty girl. That's a 95 year old feeling you up. That is awesome.
(40:16):
I, I, I don't judge. I mean, everybody needs a little loving and I'm going to
go get my five minutes of fame.
You have fun with that. Frank bring flowers at least.
And chocolates. How, how do I buy your dinner and a drink? Do I need to do that first?
(40:40):
Jeff, Attention to her. I think that's all she wants. All right.
I'm game. I can't wait to investigate now. That's great.
Wow. I was not anticipating that. That was a wild story. That's a good one. I like that.
I assure you that it has happened far more than once.
Yeah oh wow so so with that on the flip side of that what is the creepiest encounter,
(41:09):
that you've had either again you know writing for a book or just on a on a random investigation.
Creepy fun or creepy scary yes both okay okay so we'll start with creepy fun
okay So one of my bucket list items when I went over to England was to experience
(41:33):
the house at 30 East Drive.
That is the site of a very famous poltergeist haunting.
The poltergeist is known as the Black Monk of Pontefract.
It's in the town of Pontefract, which is how the poltergeist got its name.
On our way back from edinburgh and
(41:56):
york and places north we stopped by
pontefract and we we stopped
at 38th drive and parked and got out and we were looking around the outside
it's a lovely little house it's kind of on the corner it's a brick house it's
what's known in england as a council house which is kind of like poor people
(42:16):
housing but it was very nice a little play area in the front yard.
It was really nice. There were a couple of cars in the driveway.
And as we watched, a couple came out of that and got into one of the cars and drove away. And I said.
Weird. All the investigation that I was doing, the research that I did on this
(42:40):
place, it's owned by somebody, but it is reserved for paranormal investigation.
So I don't think anyone lives there.
So we creeped around.
We poked around the house like creepers for a little while longer.
And then we were just about to head for the car. And we were in fact heading
(43:01):
for the car when the car came back and parked and this couple got out and started
heading towards the house.
And I decided that shy babies don't get any candy.
So I raced up to the gate and I hallooed the couple and I said,
we're a couple of paranormal investigators from the United States and we're
(43:25):
here with our English host.
And we just wanted to experience the house at 30 East Drive.
And they're like, well, we're top paranormal investigators, too.
And we hid the house all night.
And then she said the magic word, would you like to come inside?
Jackpot. Nice.
(43:45):
Oh, man. So we got to hang around the house at 38th Drive.
Yeah, on the inside for like 45 minutes. It was brilliant.
It was so much fun. So that's going to be an upcoming episode of Lights Out.
When I get around to doing that is an investigation at 38th Drive,
which is going to be phenomenal.
(44:06):
That's going to be the culmination of all these English episodes that I'm doing.
So we did some investigating.
We did some EVP work. We did some sitting quietly in the dark.
And like I said, there were like three groups there. And the house at 38th Drive
is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside. It's kind of like an anti-Tardis.
(44:31):
So the parlor is right next to the kitchen.
And the parlor was where a bunch of investigators were sitting.
And they had a spirit box going.
So right before we left, I wandered in there.
Quietly and take part in whatever it was that they were doing.
I didn't want to bother them or anything. But everyone's like,
(44:54):
oh, hey, it's one of the Americans.
And there were like eight or nine people in that small room.
And they went around and introduced themselves.
And I said, well, my name's Sylvia.
And one of the investigators yelled and jumped. And everyone And I was like, what?
And she goes, I was wondering why the spirit box said Sylvia 15 minutes ago.
(45:18):
Oh, awesome. The spirit box right there, literally.
They were waiting for you. They just wanted you to come in. How cool.
Oh, they were. So, yeah, we just had a wonderful conversation.
And these people were, every single last one of them were so gracious and so wonderful.
Wonderful and the fellow who was kind of
(45:40):
the lead investigator was named ian and about after
about 45 minutes an hour we said to we
said we have taken up enough of your time
you have been more than gracious thank you so much for
letting us sit in on this investigation it was a
real treat and i like a dummy i
turned my recorder off before i did
(46:02):
this and i went into the kitchen which again in
was right next to the parlor and i shook
ian's hand and i said thank you so much
for this experience it was wonderful and he said my pleasure in this lovely
english accent and from the parlor the ghost box yelled pleasure oh oh that's
(46:24):
awesome i love when things just line up like that. It's fantastic.
Oh, great. So, creepy, not so fun.
Frank, you asked for the Sally House story. Oh, yeah. All right, so...
(46:46):
A couple of years ago, I decided to visit the Sally House.
Now, the Sally House, for those of you listening in, is in Atchison,
Kansas, which is on the other side of Kansas. It's a hike.
So it was a drive of a good six hours or so for me.
(47:08):
And I decided to make a weekend of it.
So I the investigation was on a Saturday night and I drove down to Springfield Saturday noon,
and stopped in at the I promise
this is leading somewhere I stopped in at the meeting of one of the groups that
(47:29):
I kind of hang around with they have their monthly meeting once a month on Saturdays
and it just happened to coincide with my trip so I told Carl I said I'm coming
down town, and I'd like to stop in at the meeting.
And he said, Oh, great. Would you like to give a talk? Because he knows that's
what I do. I said, I would be delighted to.
And I said, Can I just request that I go first? They usually have two speakers,
(47:53):
a speaker, then a break, and then the second speaker.
I said, Can I just go first? Because I need to get on the road.
I'm going to the Sally house.
He said, Oh, if you're going to the Sally house, you need to speak with I think his name was Dennis.
He said, You need to talk to Dennis, he's going to be there.
And he has a lot of experience there.
I said, great, you know, every experience that I can get will be wonderful.
(48:16):
So gave my talk. I think it was on the Peoria State Hospital.
I don't remember exactly what, but so we had the break and I was working with
Dennis and he said, be very, very careful when you go to the Sally house.
I said, I know I've heard stories. And he said, no, I'm serious. Be be careful.
(48:37):
He said, I know people that live within a mile of it and have stuff happen in their homes.
And he said, I have spoken with investigators that have gone on an investigation
and have gotten into car wrecks on the way home.
He said, be careful. I said, thank you for your concern. I really do appreciate it.
(48:58):
When I go to a place that I know is going to be active in an An unpleasant way,
I make myself a protective tea.
I brew a tea with all sorts of strong herbs like nettles, sage,
cinnamon, hibiscus for brightness, honey in there for strength.
(49:22):
I use a little bit of water that has set out under the full moon.
And I know it's mostly just part of the suggestion, but I do study the properties
of herbs and everything. And I know these are all strong herbs.
And I make a tea from it. And when I drink the tea, I have this mental image
in my mind of that whole moon just filling every cell in my body with this white
(49:47):
light, this white protective light.
And that's what I do. So I get to a cellar house, and we're about to start the investigation.
And I take out my mason jar of tea, and it has gelled.
Interesting. What? I've been trying to drink it. It's never happened before or since.
(50:08):
I was going to say, I'm into herbalism, too, and I've made tons of teas, and I've never had that.
Wow, really? It is drink-melted jello. It was so weird.
The texture was so off-putting that I could only choke down about a third of it.
So we did the investigation.
(50:33):
On the way home Sunday morning, I stopped at Mount Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri.
I went to the Patty House Museum in St. Joseph, which made it into the Gone on Vacation book.
I stopped at the Glore Psychiatric Museum because of my soft spot for psychiatric
hospitals. That's also in Gone on Vacation.
(50:53):
Had a wonderful time. Stayed a little bit too late at Glore Museum.
So that is why i was driving home at about 10 30 at night when i hit the deer oh geez really wow.
Yeah oh my goodness you take me
on back road so yeah i had
(51:16):
just turned onto this tiny little highway in the
middle of nowhere illinois and i hit a deer
and caused about three thousand dollars worth of damage to my car
wow well as long
as you're okay the car can always be replaced
and fixed and i'm happy that you're okay oh yeah
i was fine i was fine the deer was not and i was so flustered that i i did not
(51:39):
fill my freezer with medicine like i really should have let it go away but yeah
i was just like wow okay so yeah i said i texted carl the next day and i said And I said,
tell Dennis. He wasn't kidding.
Oh, my goodness. That's crazy.
So I will never. There's only one place that I will never go again.
(52:03):
And that is the Valley Club. Well, I can't wait to go.
He might be going by himself. I don't know if I would go. I will go with you, Frank. All right.
So speaking of that, then what would be like your dream investigation?
Like, the one location that, you know, if there's no constraints,
(52:23):
no, you know, money issues, no travel issues, like, what would be the one place
you would love to have an overnight investigation at?
I'm going to go back to Warwick Castle in England. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I've been to Warwick Castle twice.
(52:44):
This was before I was a paranormal investigator.
And it seemed to me that I had heard a story about Warwick Castle that involved a murder.
And I did some research when I was working on Gravedies and Dead Plots,
Volume 2, and I was right in my recollection.
(53:05):
And there was a murder that involved, it wasn't at the castle,
but it involved one of the owners of the castle. He was stabbed by his manservant,
who later committed suicide.
The manservant died immediately after stabbing himself, but this Earl of Warwick
lingered on for a couple of weeks before dying really, really horribly.
(53:28):
He was stabbed in the side, and he was actually about to leave London to go back to Warwick Castle.
And his manservant stabbed him because he was not happy with the amount of money
he had been left in the earl's will.
So after the stabbing, the earl was taken back to Warwick Castle.
(53:53):
And his doctors decided to pack the wound with mutton fat.
Oh. What? I'm speechless. Really?
Yeah. Mutton fat. And it worked exactly as you thought it would,
and it turned rancid, and it went septic, and he died in agony. Oh, that is terrible.
(54:18):
Yeah. Pretty awful way to go.
But I did not, I wanted to go to Warwick Castle when we were there last summer,
but gosh we had so many things
packed into those three weeks that i i decided not
to press it and then i came home and started
doing research on this story and thought oh my
(54:39):
gosh this is such a wonderful place i just really really want
to go back oh yeah so
that's where i'd go all right no that's just
that's horrible i mean i couldn't even imagine that's gonna be one
of the most painful ways to go is going septic in
your stomach area like where yeah yeah oh side stomach
gross so oh god so so yeah here's another question so for any aspiring writers
(55:07):
of the paranormal supernatural either fiction or non-fiction what would be your
best advice from what i gather Heather,
you're amazing at the history and the research of it.
So I'm pretty sure that's number one. But what other advice would you give to
any new or aspiring writers?
(55:29):
Read. If you don't have time to read, you will never, ever be a good enough
writer to make your mark on the world.
You've got to read. You've got to see what other people are doing.
Read you've got to be like a little magpie and and and learn from every book
you come across whether it's something not to do but most often it is what to
(55:55):
do i was talking to somebody just today actually,
I read omnivorously and voraciously.
I read fiction as well as nonfiction.
I'm partial to nonfiction these days because it's what I write,
but I have really, really love fiction.
(56:18):
One of the stories in Ghosts of the Illinois River, which shows you how long
ago I picked up on this technique.
Sneak one of the stories is just
a little vaguely interesting story but people
tell me that it is one of the most unnerving stories
it's a story about diamond island in the illinois river just very close to all
(56:41):
of illinois and they say it's one of the most unnerving stories in the entire
collection and there are plenty of stories that are scarier but this one just
gets to them and And I say, thank you.
And I say, I know why that is very unnerving to you.
And if you want to know, I will tell you why.
(57:02):
Sometimes they ask, sometimes they don't. But the reason why is that it is written in the present tense.
Okay. Yeah. I was reading Stephen King's Under the Dome.
Yeah. And he used a technique in there, in that book, that was so subtle that
(57:23):
only another author would pick up on it. But it was extremely effective.
In Under the Dome, there are several scenes where someone comes up to another
person, there's a small gathering, more people join the group,
and a punch is thrown or words are exchanged, and suddenly all heck breaks loose.
(57:44):
And those scenes are written in present tense.
And that gives you a sense of immediacy. It gives you a sense of being there.
The rest of the book is in past tense.
You're just reading happily along, blah, blah, blah. It's just a regular book.
And then suddenly you're thrown into present tense, and it's like you are there.
(58:04):
So that is why that one little story is so unnerving to people.
So yeah read everything you
can get your hands on learn from that reading
that's that's great advice i mean
it's the same thing with with anything even you know paranormal investigating
don't just pick up and do it you know you're either watching the shows or you
(58:26):
go out with someone and you pick up techniques from them so that's that's phenomenal
advice i agree with that oh i love going on investigations with other groups
because everyone's got everyone's got not the standard techniques,
but then as their own techniques.
I learned about cat balls from watching the show, Amy's Crip out of Australia. Yeah, no, great.
(58:51):
So much by just interacting with people that are doing what you want to do.
Yeah, that's, that's great. So, yeah, so we're, we're coming up to the end here.
So I do want to know what upcoming work or books do you have?
Coming in the pipeline or you're looking to start
soon i am currently
(59:16):
working on a book that has nothing
to do with the paranormal it is straight true crime oh awesome and co-writing
it with another author which is a learning experience in and of itself i'm sure
do you guys remember in In April of 2022,
(59:36):
there was a jailbreak in northern Alabama.
Yes. Yes. The jailer broke one of the prisoners out and they went on the run
for 11 days because he was white and pasted.
The book we're working on oh that sounds fun it does very interesting i want to read that.
(59:57):
Thank you thank you we're working hard on it and it's very very exciting it's,
way outside my wheelhouse because i'm used to dealing with historical things
i'm not used to the situations in which i can actually talk to the people that
are accused of the crimes that they have confessed to committing.
(01:00:20):
Nobody really thinks that Casey did kill this woman, Connie Ridgway,
but he confessed to it basically so that he could get himself out of prison.
Donaldson prison is a horrible, horrible place to be. But I don't think I'm
telling tales out of school when I say that my co-writer is basically,
(01:00:40):
we kind of said what we wanted to work on with this book, and it shook out very
early on that he is writing about Vicki and I am writing about Vicki.
I've talked to Casey on the phone a couple of times and I have read psych evaluations
(01:01:02):
of him and I have heard people talk about him.
He has a deeply unpleasant... I hate to say that as a fellow human being, but...
Sure. he's he's he's a
redneck and a racist and he's he's
manipulative as well yeah he
(01:01:23):
tried to manipulate me in very
unpleasant ways and i shut that
down but yeah it was not
a fun experience i can't even imagine yeah oh it was fun yeah well uh i've been
in prison for quite some time and his first chance of getting a parole hearing
(01:01:49):
is when he's going to be 100 years old. Oh, my goodness.
He's going to be the rest of his life in prison. So extrapolate from that what you will.
Wow. Well, I mean, in my opinion, I hope he gets to see that day because that
just means the torture and everything has just gone on for that much longer.
(01:02:09):
Yeah. So, but Sylvia, if you want to share where people can find you,
your, your podcast, your books, website, whatever you want to plug,
please go, go ahead and do that.
All right. I can be found at sylviashult.com.
H-U-L-T-S. That links you to the WordPress site.
(01:02:32):
And at the top of the page, you will find all sorts of wonderful tabs.
I do a fun little thing every Monday morning called Today I Learned.
Like I said, I read universally and I'm always running across these wonderful
little facts, like the fact that research... Oh, Sylvia, did we lose you?
(01:02:53):
Sylvia, I think we lost you there for a moment. We can't hear you.
Hello, Sylvia. Am I? Sylvia? Hello? Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, we lost you right after you said you spelled your name and said WordPress.
Oh, okay. So, sylviashult.com. At the top of that page,
at the top of the WordPress page, you're going to see a bunch of little tabs
(01:03:20):
that lead you to wonderful places on the site.
There is a tab that
leads you to lights out which is my podcast the
links on that page take you to the youtube version of lights out which has all
the pretty pictures that i've taken over the years that kind of go along with
the story but lights out is also available on spotify iheart radio Apple Radio,
(01:03:47):
anywhere you listen to podcasts.
I'm going to be making a very exciting announcement very soon on the website.
Grave Deeds and Dead Puts is also being turned into a podcast.
So I will put the link to the podcast as soon as I know it.
(01:04:07):
Fantastic. So I'm very, very excited about it.
Well, that's awesome. Sylvie, if you want to stick around on after we close
out the show, just to talk for a minute or so.
Thank you so much for agreeing and being on our silly little podcast.
We greatly appreciate it and have learned so much.
And in, in my mind, we've made a new friend and a new investigation buddy.
(01:04:32):
I agree. Yep. You know it.
Awesome. Thank you so much for inviting me on. Oh, of course. Yeah.
Just stick around for one moment. We're going to close out the show.
So Lynette, Bree, any last thoughts, words?
No. Sylvia was great. Yeah, this was fantastic.
I love hearing the stories. I can't wait to read a couple more books and hear more stories. Awesome.
(01:04:55):
Well, thanks for joining us this week. And my name is Frank. This is Fringe.
Beyond. Limits.
Music.
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