February 27, 2025 • 56 mins
Join Kim and Alison as they welcome Sylvia Shults to the show, author and paranormal investigator. Find out how Sylvia beat her fear of the dark and became a paranormal investigator.
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
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Speaker 1 (00:37):
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Speaker 3 (00:58):
Or listening to RIP Paranormal and Friends with your.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hosts Cam Purvis and Alison.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
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(01:37):
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Speaker 3 (02:06):
Hey everyone, welcome to RIP Paranormal and Friends. Hey everyone,
welcome to Rip Paranormal and Friends. Have a special guest
for you this evening. She is an author of Paranormal
for Romance, and she's also now a paranormal investigator.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
So please welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Sylvia schult says show welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hello, Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Oh yes, absolutely, so I am super excited.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I'm so glad that my friend April gave me your information.
Like I said, so, I was kind of reading through
some of your things, and I know you're you're kind
of an author. You used to write about fiction and
now you do nonfiction. But nonetheless, you're also now used
to be like afraid of the dark, but now you're
(03:00):
spending a lot.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Of time in the dark doing paranormal stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
So can you kind of tell us a little bit
about yourself and how this all came about, because.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I want to know I sit in dark places so
that you don't have to. That's what I always say. Well, yeah,
I have always loved stories in general, and I've always
been fascinated with ghost stories. When I was a kid,
(03:30):
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and we had
cousins that we were very close to that lived in Madison, Wisconsin,
and they would come down to Lagrange every couple of months,
and we'd go up to Madison to visit them, and
the sleepovers with our cousins were they always followed the
same pattern. My Carl would tell me and my sister
(03:54):
all of the dirty jokes he'd collected over last I
can still remember someone. Oh yeah, lots of fun. And
then after the swapping of dirty jokes happened, and he
usually had more of them because he was a boy,
so you know, they can. But the dirty jokes came
the ghost stories and we would swap ghost stories back
(04:17):
and forth, and oh man, I love my cousins, and
I just lived for those business and I lived for
knowing that that was going to happen during the sleepover.
We'd get dirty jokes and then we'd get the ghost stories.
So it was so much fun to do that. So yeah,
(04:37):
and then I was always reading ghost stories and always
reading anything to get my hands on. And then I
grew up and started writing fiction and never really got
anywhere with it. I wrote horror and romance. I know,
fine line between the two. Well that actually, yes, I have, Yes,
(05:00):
I have. One of my one of my humorous romances
was Double Double Love and Trouble. It's the hero was
a guest or the host of a ghost hunting show,
so I kind of slipped a little paranormal into that. Romance,
and then a few years ago when it was all
(05:21):
the rage to do mashups like Pride and Prejudice and
zombies and Abraham Lincoln Vampire. Yeah, oh, man, So I
decided to try at a mashup like that, and I
decided to do Shakespeare. So I wrote The Taming of
the War, and that was tons and tons of fun,
(05:43):
really fun inventing a whole backstory for Katerina and how
did she become a werewolf? And why did Bianca and Katerina?
Why were they at their throats at each other's throats
so often? So it was a lot of fun story
for that.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, some of that stuff can be kind of
kind of fun to read, honestly in my opinion, you know,
oh oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, how did you go
from being afraid of the dark to staying in these
haunted locations? Probably, you know, pretty much mostly in the dark.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Like sleeping in the veliska axe mert. Yeah, man, I
can remember the trepidation I would feel as a kid
when I would have to, you know, take the garbage
out late at night and it was just creepy and
weird and you can't see anything in the dark, and yeah,
(06:45):
I got so invested in paranormal investigation, and one of
the things that really draws me to investigation is the
history of it. I really believe that you can understand
the ghost stories of a place without knowing the history
behind them, because that's why we have the So in
(07:07):
doing all that research and doing the research for the
stories for my books, I came to realize that the
dark is not full of horrible, nasty, scary things. If
you encounter a ghost, at least four out of five times,
it's going to be just simply the spirit of someone
(07:28):
who happened to live at an earlier point in history
than you do. That about that, and it's a really
wonderful opportunity for us to communicate with someone who experienced
a different view of life than we do.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yes, anythink that's fascinating?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Oh, it is absolutely Yeah, I mean mm hmm, yeah.
Kim and I and destigate quite a bit worse, starting
to make our rounds out of the state a little
bit more.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But you know, we've been to Veliska.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Veluska was actually our very first investigation, so you know,
right out the gate, let's stay at an ex murder house,
you know.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
But yeah, I mean, it's interesting and it's fascinating to know.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Do we lose again?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Are you there? Hello? Are you there?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You froze up?
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Happened, gonna that's okay, yes, absolutely, So you know, Kim
and I are are aware of these things too. You
know the history.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Are you there?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
There? We go?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
You know the history and are the are you there still?
Are you there?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Okay, I'm not sure what's happening.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Who knows? But you go to the.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Pure Estate Hospital a lot that's like within a few
minutes of your place, correct.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Now, this place was there is.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Opened in like the early nineteen hundreds and shut down
in like nineteen seventy three ish or something to that effect.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
And it was like.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Inne three Yeah, okay, all right, can you tell us
a little bit more about this place?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
And like I haven't heard of it honestly.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So, oh oh my goodness. So you say haunted, sorry,
I and was pain and fear and abuse, And it
is my privilege and it is my joy to tell
(10:10):
people that was not the case at the Peoria State Hospital.
This was a place of deep caring and deep compassion.
The first superintendent, doctor George Zeller, believed that he had
a mon date to care for the worst of the worst.
When we opened in nineteen oh two, he immediately put
(10:31):
out a call to all of the other state hospitals
and mental institutions in the state of Illinois and said,
send us, send us what you got, Send us to
your worst, then the ones that you don't want to
deal with anymore. We got a lot of people from
(10:52):
Dunning in Chicago, people from this is the thing in
that point in time.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
In history, you didn't go to see a psychiatrist to
see if you were insane, that you were taken to court.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And interesting thing, it took two men to have a
woman declared insane, but it took five women to have
a man declared insane. Oh imagine that sounds right right.
So when I was in grad school that this is
(11:34):
an example of serendipity taken to extremes. When I was
in grad school at is U, one of I worked
at the Illinois Regional Archives Depository, or I read and
what we had to do during our tenure there is.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Did a project.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So did a database uh court cases from Logan County, Illinois.
And my job was to go through all of these
records and make a database of what the person the
date of person was committed. And it was people going
(12:17):
into court and being farmed out to whatever institution would
take them. It was the in community records and a
lot of the people that I read about ended up
going to Peoria State Hospital.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
That's correct in grade school.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And I had no idea what the furious state. It
was just another name of institutions in this database that
I was working on. And then I got older and
moved to this area instead of in Bloomington and realized, Okay,
that's the place I was writing about all those years ago.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
This is so poor, that's awesome. No, it was with
what was his name, doctor Zeller?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Was he kind of the main and like he was
like more holistic than anything, and he wasn't like he
didn't believe in like strapping them down and things like
where you hear horror stories about other places like that?
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Is that kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, that's a very good way to put it. He
was very holistic in his approach. He was not trained
as a psychiatrist and he was very proud of that fact.
He was surgeon and his father before him was when
the asylum opened when he was tapped to lead the
asylum by the Peoria Women's Group Women's Club. He was
(13:44):
actually serving in the Philippines as an army surgeon and
he just came back to be was a political thing,
actually it was. It was a political to tell the truth.
But yeah, he he was very proud of the fact
that he was not hide bound by current theories in
(14:06):
the treatment of the mentally ill. He just said, let's
treat them with plaintness, with simple human decency and see
what And what happened was that the Peoria State Hospital
became the premier institution for the care of the mentally
ill in not in Illinois, not in the United States,
(14:27):
but in the world. We hadas coming from outside of
the United States. We had paid England, and I want
to say that the nineteen twenties or thirties, so I
can't be wrong on the date. But yeah, she she
was a member. She was not Royalty mobility. She was
(14:50):
a descendant of Sir Francis Drake in England. And when
she started having mental issues, her searched the entire planet
for the very best care for her and they found
it in central Illinois, in tiny, little Bartonville at theory
that is so yet to us. And yeah, so she
(15:13):
spent the rest of her life here with us. Her
name was Emily Belcher and every month her family would
send a care package that included, among other things, a
pound of silver to be used for her upkeep and
for her care.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah. When she realized that she was and didn't have
much time to live left, she wrote to her family
and said, you know, I realized that I should be
buried in ancestral ground in England, but this is my
family now, I would very much like to be buried here.
So she is one of the four thirty two people
(15:56):
that are buried on the hilltop in the five cemeteries
that we have.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You can still go and find her grave today. She's buried.
She's buried in cemetery three four.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
What kind of experiences have you had there at the hospital?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh boy, wonderful, wonderful things. I remember that we used
to be able to get into the Pollack Hospital, which
is the was the tuberculosis ward for many many years.
And I had become friends with one of the spirits
(16:38):
in the basement of boy named Christopher twenty four years old,
apparently tall, dark and handsome. Well, I've ved a bit,
but I remember there was there was one time when
I was wandering around in the dark and I wandered
(16:58):
into the kitchen and there was another investigator. I think
there were two other investigators sitting there in the dark,
and I sat with them and we could all see
each other. We could all see that each other's mouths
were closed, our lips were touching, and yet the air
(17:20):
around us was filled with whispering. Wow, it was amazing.
It was so it was extraordinary. And there was another time.
Oh man, it's been a long time since I told
this story on myself, but so a few years ago
(17:42):
the historical group at the Peoria State Hospital did have
access to the Polak Hospital and what they would do
on their ghost tours is before the tour started, before
the investigation started, they would take you through the hospital
and have little scene, little bit yet of the hospital
(18:04):
throughout the years, not necessarily in that building, but in
the hospital life. And I volunteered there one summer and
I played a nurse that unfortunately was killed by one
of the patients. But there was one time that I
(18:25):
had gotten there. It had been a long day. I
had volunteer there my own free will, but it had
been a long day and it was going to be
a long night, I knew, So I just didn't really
feel like hanging out with the other actors at the
front of the house. So I got into costume and
I went back to the other end of the building,
(18:47):
which was the women's board, which is where we had
our scene set up. I just didn't feel very sociable,
so I took a book with me to be a
history of the Furious.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Back down on it.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And I was sitting there reading my book and all
of a sudden, the lights go out, and I honestly
didn't think anything of it. I assumed that, you know.
I was like, well, that's weird. Why are we going
lights out already? We haven't even done the tour yet.
So I just I figured it was, you know, one
of the other volunteers, and I just raised my voice
and I said, hey, I'm I'm actually back here. When
(19:25):
you turn the lights back on, please, And lights came
back on. And I told the caretaker of the builder, Chris,
this and Christina and she started laughing and she said,
(19:46):
we just got skunked. By the spirits of the women's word,
because she said, there have been so many times when
we have locked up the building, turned off all the lights,
and and gone out the front door, locked the door
behind us, went to our cars, looked back and there
(20:06):
are lights on.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
Oh my gosh. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Christina is a wonderful research because she knows all the
stories and all the history and all the ghost stories
of the Purious State Hospital. And she's like, they they
love to turn lights on and off.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
They love it.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, I like that, like when they can do that.
So I know my mom has issues at her house
and it used to be with the dining room light,
and like we'd be talking about my grandpa and the
light would turn off, like literally like turn off, and
then you would.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Have to flip the switch to turn it back on.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Well, then it went from that light to the little
light over her stove when she like making pizza or whatever,
and then it went to her laundering room. And so
she's like, Okay, I'm gonna have an electrician come over
and check this all out. Everything checked out fine, But
it's like always when we're talking about Grandpa or around
(21:11):
a certain time print, it's when the lights would go
like every time we have a family function, the lights
would flicker.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
It's it's it's beyond me.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So I I like that when that happens, you know.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
That they're there.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I had an experience just a couple of weekends ago.
So friends of mine and I went to Whispers estate
in Indiana had a closet door that would open. We
caught it half a dozen times opening on camera.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
And good friend of.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Mine, real good, he was right next to it.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
He got there in that bedroom on the bed and
I talked to it and I cajoled and I pleaded
and I begged, and that door would not open for me.
And every time I would walk out of that, I
drew that darn door would open on camera. I had
sunk me.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Every time, My gosh, I want to see a door
open or something.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You know, we've been.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
We've been okay, So we've been through for our school.
And they called it the principal's office, but it actually
was like the counselor's office, right, And so we're upstairs
and I'm with Kim's cousin and a couple other gals
up there, and you know, and we're trying to be like, okay.
You know, we're thinking it's still the principal's office at
this time. So we're like, oh, we're in here because
we got in trouble. So I'm like, well, there's nobody
(22:35):
in here to like, you know, supervise me. So I'm
just gonna write on your desk with sharpie or we're
gonna smoke in here or whatever. And when we're done,
we tried to go out the door and the door
was locked. We were locked in there. Oh, and her cousin.
Her cousin started crying and was like.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We'll never do that again, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And then you hear this click and the door open
like it, you know, we could get out.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
It happened to us. It happened to us twice. She
was dumbe. She's like, I'm never going back up there
with you again. Shoot up there with me again. And
it still happened. And I'm like, so those are the
only two times that that's happened.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Though.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
We did have the door rattle on us in there.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
And it's on our live seed. You can hear it
the door handle rattling. Yeah, because Kim's kind of a
little prankster. So we're like, okay, it's probably her plate,
but it was not.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Well, one of the books that I am very very
fond of is called Gone on Vacation. It's haunted zoos
museums and a music.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Yes, yes, it's fun to write.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So I'm currently working on a sequel to that Gone
in the works.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So I was talking with a podcast interviewer oh this
time last year, I think it was and the Women
from England, and she said something about historic villages. Why
didn't I think of that before? Now I have to
write a sequel to this. So that came to be.
But on the way to Whispers Estate a couple of
(24:16):
saturdays ago, my friend James and Roger and I went
and we stopped at a historic village in Indiana called
Billy Creek Village, which is cool.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yes, oh my gosh, yes we we We had a
chance to go there when we went to Indiana State,
guys like I'll take you over there, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And we didn't do it. Oh you must. Oh it's
so fun. They have a general and they had like
this wall of SODA's and it's awesome and they have
all sorts of other stuff in the gift shop, and
it's really really really cool. There's there's a whole village there,
and then like half a mile outside the village there's
something called the Civil Warhouse.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Yes, well, we were kind.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I had a crunch for time because we had to
meet up with people at Whispers. So we're like, all right,
if we only have to investigate one building. We interviewed
the guy at the store and we're like, all right,
if we only have to do one building, let's do
the Civil Warhouse. So we drove and so Roger stayed outside.
James and I wandered the bottom of the house and
(25:23):
it's really nice inside. It's a very pleasant little house
to be in, and we're kind of poking around exploring
while Roger was outside having a cigarette, and then James
Knight went upstairs. And the upstairs is like one big floor.
It's not really divided into rooms. It's almost like an attic,
but a lot areer and lighter. It's very very pleasant.
(25:46):
So we go up the stairs. There's a little landing
and then another couple of stairs and you get into
the attic. Party. So we're wandering around and there's there's
a little dresser and there's a little silver bell on
the dress sir. And James picks it up and wrings it,
and we hear Roger from downstairs going you right a
(26:10):
laugh and downstairs kind of filming taking pictures and whatnot.
The jamb stairs, we're looking at the furniture up there.
We work our way all the way to the other
end of the second floor. We look down and we're like, oh,
James is like, I can see my truck from here.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Then we work our.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Way back too. There's only one door that works. The
others walked off. They work our way back to the
door that we came in at. I go down the
stairs first. James is following me. We go down to
the landing and I realized that door at the bottom
of the stairs is closed. Well, that's weird. Why would
Roger close the door on us? So I my fingers
(26:51):
and pushed on.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
It, and it wouldn't open.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I had to put the flat of my hand on
and really give it a sh shove to get the
door open.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, And so James and I came down the rest
of the stairs and we poked our heads into the
parlor and Roger was there with his camera and we said, Roger,
why'd you close the door? And Roger's like, there was
a door.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
There was a door.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Oh my gosh, what not close that door? So we
spend the next ten minutes trying to debunk this, and
we would we we'd start with the door open against
the wall the way it was when we went up
the stairs, and we took turs, just shoving it and
it would swing almost all the way to the door jam,
(27:44):
but then it would stop. It would slow and it
wouldn't hit the doorjam, and we'd press it closed and
you could hear this chunk as it seated itself in
the door jam. We did not hear that could chunk.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Oh wow, any of it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
But that door was closed.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So I know you've talked about Veliska and you talked
about Billy Creek. What other locations have you been to?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Oh? I adore Gettysburg. I've been to Gettysburg.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Kim would love to go there. That is like an.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I have a real soft spot for Malvern Manor,
which is very close to Veliska.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
That is our home away from home where they're probably
you know, sometimes we get there, probably seven ten times
a year.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It's like, I love I sleep in Susie's room every
time I stay the night.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You have a connection then with Kim, because Kim has
a strong connection with Susie, a very strong connection with her.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh, she gave me a wonderful little EVP. I was
sitting there the last I went, oh, the last time
before the last time I went. And I was sitting there,
I was coloring in one for coloring books, and I
picked up a crayon and I said, I said, let's
color a blue sheep. Let's let's color a little bit.
(29:16):
And I picked it up and I started coloring, and
I said. I had my recorder going, and I said, oh,
that's not blue, that's purple. But that's okay. We can
make a purple sheep, right, And I heard after review,
I heard, yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah, Kim has a very strong
connection with Susie. Really before oh jeez.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh, oh goodness, he has a safe place to go to. Yeah,
that's great. And then I was fortunate enough to go
(30:13):
ghost hunting in England and Scotland for three weeks a
couple of years, and one of the things on my
bucket list. I really wanted to get to Warwick Castle
and I didn't get there that visit, but one of
my bucketless things was thirty East Drive, which is the
site of the Poultergeist Haunting of the Black Monk of Pontefract.
(30:35):
Oh wow, yeah, really really famous English Poultergeist case, and
so we just stopped there. It was Dale and Paul
Dale Coasmerica as a ghost hunter up in Chicago area
and was our native guide. He was the one we
stayed with when we were in England. So on the
(30:56):
drive back from the North Part from scott London, Edinburgh
and York and England and the North North part of England,
we stopped in Pontefract and we stopped at thirty East
Drive and we looked at it from the outside and
we're like, oh, it's so cool if we could get in,
but it's booked like a year and a half out.
(31:17):
I knew there was no chance we could get in there.
And there were a couple of cars in the driveway
and I said, wow, I think the owner just has
it for investigations. I don't think anyone lives there right now.
And then this woman and this man get out to
come out of the building, out of the house, and
(31:38):
they get into the cars and one of the cars
and drive away, like, oh, that's kind of weird. Hung
around after, you know, for a little while longer, just
being creeper, staring at the house from the outside. And
then we're walking towards our car, getting ready to go
back to London, and the couple comes back. They park
the car and we're almost to the car and I said,
(32:01):
shy babies, don't get any sweeties. And I turned around
and I went up to the woman and I said, Hi,
we're a couple of investigators from the United States and
from all this way just to see this house. And
they're like, oh, yeah, we've got the house overnight. There
were three groups and we're all working together and we
have the place for the entire night. And then she
(32:22):
said the magic words, do you want to come inside?
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
A week, So we got to spend like an hour
investigating thirty East Drive. It was fantastic. It was so cool.
And see, it's always so amazing to see a place
like Lizzie Borden's house that you've read about so many
(32:52):
years and you can see it. It's just so cool.
So we did some a little bit of investigation, and
so I went, it's very small inside. It's like the
anti tartists. It's smaller on the inside than it looks
on the outside. So a bunch of investigators, like half
(33:13):
a dozen investigators sitting in the parlor, which is where
ooltergeist activities started back in the sixties or whatever. And
so they're all sitting around and I'm standing in the doorway,
and they've got a spirit box. They've got a boot
buddy going with the spirit box going, and they go
around the room introducing themselves, and I was recording because
(33:37):
I have a podcast too, so I was recording for them.
So they all go around the room introducing themselves and
I said, well, my name's Sylvia, and one of the
women at the end of the group of chairs jumped
and yelped and everyone's like what and she goes I
was wondering why the spirit box, said Sylvia at fifteen
(33:59):
minutes to oh wow, Well that is truly awesome. So
we talked and visited and just had a wonderful time,
and we decided, all right, you know what, you guys,
get back to your investigation. We went up to Ian,
who was the lead investigator of all three groups. And
(34:22):
I'm still kicking myself for turning my recorder off when
I did, because we said our goodbyes and went to
Ian who was standing in the kitchen which was next
to the parlor, and the wardbox was still going, and
I shook hands hand and I said, Ian, thank you
and your groups, thank you so much for being so
(34:43):
welcoming to us. This was really an intensely wonderful and
privileged experience. Thank you very much. And he said, very graciously,
it was our pleasure. And from the parlor, the ghost
box yelped pleasure.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Oh wow, Oh my gosh, that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
It's always you always catch the.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Stuff when you're least expecting it, like can I get
We'll be setting up and we're getting all this stuff,
and it's like, why don't we.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Have our recorder going right now?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
You know?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
And we always say.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Oh, we're gonna have it going, We're gonna have it going,
and then we.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Don't have it going.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It's like you get the most crazy things you know
at that time, and then you're like, well, crap, I
don't have anything to show for it other than my
personal experience, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
But it happened with James and whispers with that door opening.
He was walking around with his Pasma camera and we
had a camera set up watching that closet door because
we were told that closet door opens on its own,
so we had that camera set up. So he walks
in with his camera, going thank goodness, and he said cheerily, oh,
(36:01):
don't mind me, And his idea was to just set
the camera, which is on a tripod, up on the
dresser that had a mirror. The dresser right next to
the closet door. So he carefully walks in and goes, oh,
don't mind, mate me, I'm just gonna set this down here.
And he hears the door could chunk and the little
(36:23):
bell on it ring, and he goes, holy moly, and
he swings the camera over and his camera happened to
catch the mirror that was sitting on top of the dresser,
and in the mirror you can see the door opening,
and then the mirror the camera pans all the way
over to the closet door and catches it at the
(36:43):
top of its swing. So he caught it in the
mirror and in person, and he was just like WHOA,
that spooked me. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, that's crazy. Do you have a location or anything
that's on your like your bucket list.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Or oh, I really really want to go back to
castle in England. There are so many places in England
that I would love to go. I've been to England
three times twice when I was in college and way
(37:24):
before I was a paranormal investigator, and now now that
I am an investigator, I would very much like to
go back to Warwick Castle because it is ridiculously haunted.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Cass Were Great Well.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
A couple of years ago I started writing an actual series.
They had been approached by one of my publishers to
do a true crime book and at the time I
was like, I don't know about that. But then I thought, well,
what if I did a book of true crime stories
that have resulted in hauntings? And enthralled with the idea
(38:07):
and I collected so many stories that I now have
in the material for the next five books. The next
one is going to be all gangsters. So in the
second book of that series, Great Deeds Were Dead Fun,
I wrote about Warwick Castle. I was like, man, I
knew that I know there was a ghost story associated
with that castle, which I love so much, and I'm
(38:30):
reasonably certain that it involved a murder, and I looked
it up and I was right. There was a murder
that happened at what It wasn't at the castle, but
it was It involved the owner of the castle by
his manservant. And I was like, oh, yeah, I get
(38:50):
to write about Wick Castle and this is wonderful.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Let us Oh.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
My gosh, I would I would love to go to castle.
I don't think I'll ever get to England or any
place like that to investigate, which would be amazing. We
did have a gentleman on a couple of years back,
and I can't remember exactly where he lived, but he
actually lived in a castle, oh Tom Riley. Yes, he
(39:24):
was a very neat person, but like to even live
in a part of a castle, like I think what
they did is maybe it's like they must have done
it into like apartments or something.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
To that effect.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
But that would still be so cool, you know, the
history and everything.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah, in in.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
The in the London, well yeah, I guess some of
them are in the Tower of London and in one
of the other castles there. There's something called Grace and
Favor Apartment and they are apartments in the Castle in
(40:08):
the Tower of London and that you can live there.
I mean, how cool would that be to live.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
At the town?
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Another thing that I would really really love to.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Go In the United States, there's something called the Bridgewater
Triangle and the parts of the Bridgewater Triangle is it's
like part of New Hampshire, part of Vermont. And there's
a forest in the Bridgewater Triangle that is just ridiculously
(40:41):
haunted Pretown. I want to say, it's like the Freetown
Forest or something like that, but yet super super super
super haunted. And I would love to go that because
I love wandering around in the woods and to go
to a haunt a forest and just wander the place
(41:02):
would just be amazing. Oh yeah, and Epping Forest in England.
I was in Epping Forest the second when, not knowing
that Epping Forest was actually used as a body dump
site for a lot of London gangs. Oh really, for
(41:27):
the Gangster book, I'm going to be writing about Epping
Forest to do that in there, So I would love.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
To go back to Epping Forest.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
It was such a dork and like I said, I
went to England for two months. It was a college
exchange program sort of thing, so I was in London
for two months and Florence, Italy for two months. So
and I went out to Epping Forest because it was like, oh,
you know, it's got Robin Hood vibes and everything, so
(41:58):
I was like, yeah, I want to go see this place.
So I went there on a weekend and had just
a wonderful time wandering the forest. And that the summer
after I got back, which was after my junior year
in college. Wowleven Wood Prince of Thieves came out with
(42:18):
Kevin Cooster and I went to see it with my
boyfriend at the time, and they show Robin Hood and
his merry men wandering around the forest and they come
to this fallen tree and I recognized it. I was like,
(42:40):
I heard about this fallen tree in the middle of
the woods.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
And then come to find out what, Yes, part of
it was filmed in Epping Forest.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
Oh wow, that is so fascinating. Yeah, do you havens
or anything lined up for the shear yet?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I was going to go to Malvern again, but I
ended up volunteering to do a talk at a True
crime conference near Rockford, Illinois instead, so I put that off.
I'll take James there another time. But we do have
an invitation to go to Edinburgh Manor and Scott.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Yeah been there? Yeah one oh man.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So we we have an invitation to go there at
the end of June. The group that is hosting it
is going for three nights and they're like, you can
comfort you can come for one, you can as as
much as you like. So that is they're they're going
there at the end of June, and they're going there
again in November, and we have an invitation to join
(43:52):
them for either or both of those dates. So that's
that's probably gonna be saying. Is is Edinburgh, Man.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Have you been there yet? I have?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yes. I spent the night in the children's ward. Oh yes,
had something touched me?
Speaker 5 (44:08):
Oh yeah yeah, Oh.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
So much fun it was. We went at the end
of November, so it was ridiculously cold. I noticed that
there was a thermometer on the wall next to the
bed and the thermometer read thirty three degrees. Oh my gosh,
So I really wanted to sleep in the building. All
(44:35):
the other women on the team punked and slept in
the house behind it. But I was like, I am
willing to sleep in the I don't care how cold
it is. I'm going to sleep in the building.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Yes, So I slept.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
In the building. I slept in, like I said, in
the children's ward. Yeah, and a couple of the other
guys slept in some of the rooms, and I was like,
I don't know about that. So a couple of the
guys I also slept in the children's ward and I
got sleep first, snores like a Harley. I'm on this bed,
(45:13):
I've got I'm under my sleeping bag. I've got my
blanket with me too. I'm in all my clothes, I'm
in my coat, i have my socks, and I'm fully
dressed in the sleeping bag, still shivering like nothing. I've
got my ear plugs in. I'm trying to fall asleep.
I'm so cold, and he's the snoring is so loud.
I'm just absolutely miserable. And then something brushes past my
(45:37):
bed and touches my button.
Speaker 7 (45:39):
Oh my god, it was not in the mood, and
I just said out loud, please don't and away.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Yeah. I'm still trying to get to sleep, and I'm
still miserable. I'm still cold, and then I realize I
have to pee.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, that's always the way, and so I took my
earplugs out and I threw off the covers and I
sat down.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I put my shoes on. I looked over and the
guy in the bed next to me was still awake.
He was watching some sort of boxing match on his phone.
And I was like, oh, Johnny, I'm so glad you're
still awake.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
I really have to go to the house and use
the bathroom. Would you walk me over there, please, because
I was not about to walk through the building in
the complete dark by myself, especially when I had to peek.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, we'll go over there
there together, that's fine. And he looked at me and
he said, have you've been awake this whole time? I
(46:41):
said yeah, he said we asleep, and all I'm like,
who can sleep with bill scarring like that? Yes, I've
not been asleep. I've been awake the whole time. He said, oh, okay,
because a little while ago I thought you might be
talking to your sleep because you said please don't and
I said, I sleep, I was talking to whatever touched
(47:02):
my butt.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Oh my gosh, to get back to Edinburgh, manor.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, we're the fourth of July, so you're the right
after us. Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
So you guys better stir it up for us. Tell
them they have to be active for us.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
You bet. I am in the same bed I slept
in last time. I'm going to be sleeping in in
the children's ward. When you come in the door, it's
the bed on the left. It's in the corner next
to the wall. I'm a fan of the Paranormal Files
and they investigated that and they sat on that bed
(47:51):
to do their cock sessions. So, being the fan dork
that I am, all that bed, I want to sleep
in that bed, right, Yeah, why not?
Speaker 8 (48:03):
Oh my gosh. There was one time where Kim and
I went and we went with my cousin and it
was just the three of us. And this was in March.
Was it in the end of February? For when we
went with my cousin Chad.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
We went there and there was ice on the floor
in the cafeteria. I mean we still, I mean, yes,
the cold was draining our you know, equipment so fast.
But we were getting actually, you know a few things
like we you know, we're getting the knocking, and like
we'd go down to the knocking and then it'd be
(48:38):
at the other end of the building and we're like, okay,
we're playing cat mouse the whole night. Like my cousin
caught a couple strange things on his camera and recording.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
I wish I still had those. I don't know. I
don't he sent him to make email, and I don't
know which email he sent it.
Speaker 7 (48:57):
I can't find.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That breaks really really active. When we went to bed
about two o'clock in the morning, and one of the
guys says, he poked his head out right before he
got into bed. He poked his head out and looked
down the wall and saw a shadow figure in the hall.
Is two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Yeah, I mean when we would sleep in the building,
like when we first started going there, we'd leave our
recorders going all night and you could hear it sound
like furniture being moved, people running up down the hallways,
like kind of all on our recorders.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Like it was just insane. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
The first night I slept at Malvern Manor. The second
time I cons did, I stayed overnight and I slept
in Susan drum and it really really really hot. So
I could tell myself that the sound of appearing was
just the sounds of the buildings, But that did not
explain the footsteps I heard in the hallway, nor did
(50:05):
it explain the woman's laughter I heard out in the hallway.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Oh huh, Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
But I'm student and I am safe, and I actually
opened the door before I went to sleep, so I'm like,
I'm good, I am gold.
Speaker 5 (50:24):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Now, Okay, besides your investigations and things, I mean, I
know you do have books out there. You have the
Fractured Spirit one where you kind of talk about Puria
State Hospital, correct, and you have I mean, you have
a bunch of other books out there. But where like,
you know, for our book gurus, because I know we
do have a lot of listeners who are always looking
for a good book to read. Yea, where can they
(50:48):
find Where can they find your books?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Well, if you go to Sylvia Shaltz dot com that's
s h U l t S. There was a tab
right at the top that says parent normal nonfiction and
you can also find my romance and horror books there too.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
It's really interested.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
I recommend the horror is fun. But yes, I do
have the links to my podcast Lights out there. There's
also information about the other podcast I have based on
the true crime books, and it is called Grave Deeds
and Dead Plots. That's the name of the podcast too.
That can be come at Voyagemedia dot fm. Okay, and
(51:32):
the books, of course, you can get them on Amazon,
but Amazon doesn't need any more of our money. So
when I get asked about that, I always like to
send people to a shop, a place called bookshop dot
org books, and from bookshop dot org, part of your
(51:53):
personal price actually goes to a fund that gets divvied
up between independent Books Bork. Wonderful way to support indie bookstores,
even if you don't.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
Have one in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
We have a lot of listeners and things like that
and friends that that write books also, and they really
encourage people to go do that instead of going through
some of these other big places, you know.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
So I'm all for that because you know, local shops
and everything. They they need the.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Business more than some of these you know, bigger places
and things and whatnot, So yes, it is good to
support them absolutely. Now, do you have any other events
or expos or anything that you're doing that are coming up.
If somebody is in the area and they want to
stop and see you.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yes, yes, there is a oh let's see Fountaindale Library.
And I want to say Bowling Brook is having a
paranormal expo sort of thing March eighth. I am going
to be at that. I'm going to be doing a presentation.
I'm going to be in Peoria at the Puria con
(53:09):
at the end of March, the last weekend in March
and Saturday and Sunday, and I'm going to be doing
a well you know what here I cat off my lap.
(53:39):
So yeah, March twenty ninth and thirtieth, I'm going to
be at Peoria at the Civic Center. On April twenty sixth,
I'm going to be up in Goo, Illinois, which is
very close to Rockford. There's a true crime convention from
twelve to five on Saturday, April twenty sixth. I am
(54:00):
going to be doing a talk there on Donney murders
in Ontario.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
It really fascinating case I learned.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
I was doing Days of the Dead and I abandoned
the story quite a bit for the first volume of
Grave deeds and dead plots, because that is the violence
that had been simmering for years erupted in one night.
And at the end of that night there were five
(54:32):
people dead in two houses, one of which was in flames.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
So yeah, and it left a stain on Canadian history
that has not been forgotten to this day. So really
really fascinating case. And that it was this trouble was
brewed for years and it is a really fascinating story.
It's the murder of the Donnaling. So I'm going to
be okay at the truth.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
I love your.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah. So that, like I said, that is April twenty six,
it's a Saturday, and Rosco Little and that's True Crime Convention.
Speaker 5 (55:13):
True Crime Convention.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Okay, awesome, all right, Well, thank you Sylvia for joining
us tonight.
Speaker 5 (55:21):
It was a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Do You have a lot of fascinating stories and things
that have happened to you and and everything, and so
it was really a pleasure talking to you. I'm so
grateful that we crossed paths, and I'd like to thank
all of our listeners that listen to us all the
time without you and wouldn't be here. So we appreciate
each and every one of you, and I will make
(55:44):
sure to get all your information out so that way listeners.
If you don't quite get it you know through the podcast,
you can check our social media. We'll have Sylvia's information
on there as well. Once again, until next time, peace out, everybody,
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
In the cornfield. In fact, if you come across the group.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Of children in a cornfield, we promise to make fun
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Discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Or listening to RIP Paranormal and Friends with your.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hosts Cam Purvis and Alison.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Robinson, make sure to check us out on our Facebook
(01:37):
pages RIP Paranormal and Friends and Rip pareneral Busters for
up to date show information and events.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Hey everyone, welcome to RIP Paranormal and Friends. Hey everyone,
welcome to Rip Paranormal and Friends. Have a special guest
for you this evening. She is an author of Paranormal
for Romance, and she's also now a paranormal investigator.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
So please welcome.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Sylvia schult says show welcome.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hello, Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
Oh yes, absolutely, so I am super excited.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I'm so glad that my friend April gave me your information.
Like I said, so, I was kind of reading through
some of your things, and I know you're you're kind
of an author. You used to write about fiction and
now you do nonfiction. But nonetheless, you're also now used
to be like afraid of the dark, but now you're
(03:00):
spending a lot.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Of time in the dark doing paranormal stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
So can you kind of tell us a little bit
about yourself and how this all came about, because.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I want to know I sit in dark places so
that you don't have to. That's what I always say. Well, yeah,
I have always loved stories in general, and I've always
been fascinated with ghost stories. When I was a kid,
(03:30):
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and we had
cousins that we were very close to that lived in Madison, Wisconsin,
and they would come down to Lagrange every couple of months,
and we'd go up to Madison to visit them, and
the sleepovers with our cousins were they always followed the
same pattern. My Carl would tell me and my sister
(03:54):
all of the dirty jokes he'd collected over last I
can still remember someone. Oh yeah, lots of fun. And
then after the swapping of dirty jokes happened, and he
usually had more of them because he was a boy,
so you know, they can. But the dirty jokes came
the ghost stories and we would swap ghost stories back
(04:17):
and forth, and oh man, I love my cousins, and
I just lived for those business and I lived for
knowing that that was going to happen during the sleepover.
We'd get dirty jokes and then we'd get the ghost stories.
So it was so much fun to do that. So yeah,
(04:37):
and then I was always reading ghost stories and always
reading anything to get my hands on. And then I
grew up and started writing fiction and never really got
anywhere with it. I wrote horror and romance. I know,
fine line between the two. Well that actually, yes, I have, Yes,
(05:00):
I have. One of my one of my humorous romances
was Double Double Love and Trouble. It's the hero was
a guest or the host of a ghost hunting show,
so I kind of slipped a little paranormal into that. Romance,
and then a few years ago when it was all
(05:21):
the rage to do mashups like Pride and Prejudice and
zombies and Abraham Lincoln Vampire. Yeah, oh, man, So I
decided to try at a mashup like that, and I
decided to do Shakespeare. So I wrote The Taming of
the War, and that was tons and tons of fun,
(05:43):
really fun inventing a whole backstory for Katerina and how
did she become a werewolf? And why did Bianca and Katerina?
Why were they at their throats at each other's throats
so often? So it was a lot of fun story
for that.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You know, some of that stuff can be kind of
kind of fun to read, honestly in my opinion, you know,
oh oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, how did you go
from being afraid of the dark to staying in these
haunted locations? Probably, you know, pretty much mostly in the dark.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Like sleeping in the veliska axe mert. Yeah, man, I
can remember the trepidation I would feel as a kid
when I would have to, you know, take the garbage
out late at night and it was just creepy and
weird and you can't see anything in the dark, and yeah,
(06:45):
I got so invested in paranormal investigation, and one of
the things that really draws me to investigation is the
history of it. I really believe that you can understand
the ghost stories of a place without knowing the history
behind them, because that's why we have the So in
(07:07):
doing all that research and doing the research for the
stories for my books, I came to realize that the
dark is not full of horrible, nasty, scary things. If
you encounter a ghost, at least four out of five times,
it's going to be just simply the spirit of someone
(07:28):
who happened to live at an earlier point in history
than you do. That about that, and it's a really
wonderful opportunity for us to communicate with someone who experienced
a different view of life than we do.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yes, anythink that's fascinating?
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Oh, it is absolutely Yeah, I mean mm hmm, yeah.
Kim and I and destigate quite a bit worse, starting
to make our rounds out of the state a little
bit more.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
But you know, we've been to Veliska.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Veluska was actually our very first investigation, so you know,
right out the gate, let's stay at an ex murder house,
you know.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
But yeah, I mean, it's interesting and it's fascinating to know.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Do we lose again?
Speaker 5 (08:20):
Are you there? Hello? Are you there?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You froze up?
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Happened, gonna that's okay, yes, absolutely, So you know, Kim
and I are are aware of these things too. You
know the history.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Are you there?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
There? We go?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:52):
You know the history and are the are you there still?
Are you there?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Okay, I'm not sure what's happening.
Speaker 5 (09:14):
Who knows? But you go to the.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Pure Estate Hospital a lot that's like within a few
minutes of your place, correct.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Now, this place was there is.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Opened in like the early nineteen hundreds and shut down
in like nineteen seventy three ish or something to that effect.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
And it was like.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Inne three Yeah, okay, all right, can you tell us
a little bit more about this place?
Speaker 5 (09:45):
And like I haven't heard of it honestly.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So, oh oh my goodness. So you say haunted, sorry,
I and was pain and fear and abuse, And it
is my privilege and it is my joy to tell
(10:10):
people that was not the case at the Peoria State Hospital.
This was a place of deep caring and deep compassion.
The first superintendent, doctor George Zeller, believed that he had
a mon date to care for the worst of the worst.
When we opened in nineteen oh two, he immediately put
(10:31):
out a call to all of the other state hospitals
and mental institutions in the state of Illinois and said,
send us, send us what you got, Send us to
your worst, then the ones that you don't want to
deal with anymore. We got a lot of people from
(10:52):
Dunning in Chicago, people from this is the thing in
that point in time.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
In history, you didn't go to see a psychiatrist to
see if you were insane, that you were taken to court.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And interesting thing, it took two men to have a
woman declared insane, but it took five women to have
a man declared insane. Oh imagine that sounds right right.
So when I was in grad school that this is
(11:34):
an example of serendipity taken to extremes. When I was
in grad school at is U, one of I worked
at the Illinois Regional Archives Depository, or I read and
what we had to do during our tenure there is.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Did a project.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
So did a database uh court cases from Logan County, Illinois.
And my job was to go through all of these
records and make a database of what the person the
date of person was committed. And it was people going
(12:17):
into court and being farmed out to whatever institution would
take them. It was the in community records and a
lot of the people that I read about ended up
going to Peoria State Hospital.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
That's correct in grade school.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
And I had no idea what the furious state. It
was just another name of institutions in this database that
I was working on. And then I got older and
moved to this area instead of in Bloomington and realized, Okay,
that's the place I was writing about all those years ago.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
This is so poor, that's awesome. No, it was with
what was his name, doctor Zeller?
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Was he kind of the main and like he was
like more holistic than anything, and he wasn't like he
didn't believe in like strapping them down and things like
where you hear horror stories about other places like that?
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Is that kind of.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, that's a very good way to put it. He
was very holistic in his approach. He was not trained
as a psychiatrist and he was very proud of that fact.
He was surgeon and his father before him was when
the asylum opened when he was tapped to lead the
asylum by the Peoria Women's Group Women's Club. He was
(13:44):
actually serving in the Philippines as an army surgeon and
he just came back to be was a political thing,
actually it was. It was a political to tell the truth.
But yeah, he he was very proud of the fact
that he was not hide bound by current theories in
(14:06):
the treatment of the mentally ill. He just said, let's
treat them with plaintness, with simple human decency and see
what And what happened was that the Peoria State Hospital
became the premier institution for the care of the mentally
ill in not in Illinois, not in the United States,
(14:27):
but in the world. We hadas coming from outside of
the United States. We had paid England, and I want
to say that the nineteen twenties or thirties, so I
can't be wrong on the date. But yeah, she she
was a member. She was not Royalty mobility. She was
(14:50):
a descendant of Sir Francis Drake in England. And when
she started having mental issues, her searched the entire planet
for the very best care for her and they found
it in central Illinois, in tiny, little Bartonville at theory
that is so yet to us. And yeah, so she
(15:13):
spent the rest of her life here with us. Her
name was Emily Belcher and every month her family would
send a care package that included, among other things, a
pound of silver to be used for her upkeep and
for her care.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah. When she realized that she was and didn't have
much time to live left, she wrote to her family
and said, you know, I realized that I should be
buried in ancestral ground in England, but this is my
family now, I would very much like to be buried here.
So she is one of the four thirty two people
(15:56):
that are buried on the hilltop in the five cemeteries
that we have.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You can still go and find her grave today. She's buried.
She's buried in cemetery three four.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
What kind of experiences have you had there at the hospital?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh boy, wonderful, wonderful things. I remember that we used
to be able to get into the Pollack Hospital, which
is the was the tuberculosis ward for many many years.
And I had become friends with one of the spirits
(16:38):
in the basement of boy named Christopher twenty four years old,
apparently tall, dark and handsome. Well, I've ved a bit,
but I remember there was there was one time when
I was wandering around in the dark and I wandered
(16:58):
into the kitchen and there was another investigator. I think
there were two other investigators sitting there in the dark,
and I sat with them and we could all see
each other. We could all see that each other's mouths
were closed, our lips were touching, and yet the air
(17:20):
around us was filled with whispering. Wow, it was amazing.
It was so it was extraordinary. And there was another time.
Oh man, it's been a long time since I told
this story on myself, but so a few years ago
(17:42):
the historical group at the Peoria State Hospital did have
access to the Polak Hospital and what they would do
on their ghost tours is before the tour started, before
the investigation started, they would take you through the hospital
and have little scene, little bit yet of the hospital
(18:04):
throughout the years, not necessarily in that building, but in
the hospital life. And I volunteered there one summer and
I played a nurse that unfortunately was killed by one
of the patients. But there was one time that I
(18:25):
had gotten there. It had been a long day. I
had volunteer there my own free will, but it had
been a long day and it was going to be
a long night, I knew, So I just didn't really
feel like hanging out with the other actors at the
front of the house. So I got into costume and
I went back to the other end of the building,
(18:47):
which was the women's board, which is where we had
our scene set up. I just didn't feel very sociable,
so I took a book with me to be a
history of the Furious.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Back down on it.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And I was sitting there reading my book and all
of a sudden, the lights go out, and I honestly
didn't think anything of it. I assumed that, you know.
I was like, well, that's weird. Why are we going
lights out already? We haven't even done the tour yet.
So I just I figured it was, you know, one
of the other volunteers, and I just raised my voice
and I said, hey, I'm I'm actually back here. When
(19:25):
you turn the lights back on, please, And lights came
back on. And I told the caretaker of the builder, Chris,
this and Christina and she started laughing and she said,
(19:46):
we just got skunked. By the spirits of the women's word,
because she said, there have been so many times when
we have locked up the building, turned off all the lights,
and and gone out the front door, locked the door
behind us, went to our cars, looked back and there
(20:06):
are lights on.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
Oh my gosh. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Christina is a wonderful research because she knows all the
stories and all the history and all the ghost stories
of the Purious State Hospital. And she's like, they they
love to turn lights on and off.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
They love it.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, I like that, like when they can do that.
So I know my mom has issues at her house
and it used to be with the dining room light,
and like we'd be talking about my grandpa and the
light would turn off, like literally like turn off, and
then you would.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Have to flip the switch to turn it back on.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Well, then it went from that light to the little
light over her stove when she like making pizza or whatever,
and then it went to her laundering room. And so
she's like, Okay, I'm gonna have an electrician come over
and check this all out. Everything checked out fine, But
it's like always when we're talking about Grandpa or around
(21:11):
a certain time print, it's when the lights would go
like every time we have a family function, the lights
would flicker.
Speaker 5 (21:19):
It's it's it's beyond me.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So I I like that when that happens, you know.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
That they're there.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I had an experience just a couple of weekends ago.
So friends of mine and I went to Whispers estate
in Indiana had a closet door that would open. We
caught it half a dozen times opening on camera.
Speaker 5 (21:43):
And good friend of.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Mine, real good, he was right next to it.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
He got there in that bedroom on the bed and
I talked to it and I cajoled and I pleaded
and I begged, and that door would not open for me.
And every time I would walk out of that, I
drew that darn door would open on camera. I had
sunk me.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Every time, My gosh, I want to see a door
open or something.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
You know, we've been.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
We've been okay, So we've been through for our school.
And they called it the principal's office, but it actually
was like the counselor's office, right, And so we're upstairs
and I'm with Kim's cousin and a couple other gals
up there, and you know, and we're trying to be like, okay.
You know, we're thinking it's still the principal's office at
this time. So we're like, oh, we're in here because
we got in trouble. So I'm like, well, there's nobody
(22:35):
in here to like, you know, supervise me. So I'm
just gonna write on your desk with sharpie or we're
gonna smoke in here or whatever. And when we're done,
we tried to go out the door and the door
was locked. We were locked in there. Oh, and her cousin.
Her cousin started crying and was like.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We'll never do that again, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And then you hear this click and the door open
like it, you know, we could get out.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
It happened to us. It happened to us twice. She
was dumbe. She's like, I'm never going back up there
with you again. Shoot up there with me again. And
it still happened. And I'm like, so those are the
only two times that that's happened.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Though.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
We did have the door rattle on us in there.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
And it's on our live seed. You can hear it
the door handle rattling. Yeah, because Kim's kind of a
little prankster. So we're like, okay, it's probably her plate,
but it was not.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Well, one of the books that I am very very
fond of is called Gone on Vacation. It's haunted zoos
museums and a music.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Yes, yes, it's fun to write.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
So I'm currently working on a sequel to that Gone
in the works.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
Yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So I was talking with a podcast interviewer oh this
time last year, I think it was and the Women
from England, and she said something about historic villages. Why
didn't I think of that before? Now I have to
write a sequel to this. So that came to be.
But on the way to Whispers Estate a couple of
(24:16):
saturdays ago, my friend James and Roger and I went
and we stopped at a historic village in Indiana called
Billy Creek Village, which is cool.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yes, oh my gosh, yes we we We had a
chance to go there when we went to Indiana State,
guys like I'll take you over there, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
And we didn't do it. Oh you must. Oh it's
so fun. They have a general and they had like
this wall of SODA's and it's awesome and they have
all sorts of other stuff in the gift shop, and
it's really really really cool. There's there's a whole village there,
and then like half a mile outside the village there's
something called the Civil Warhouse.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Yes, well, we were kind.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I had a crunch for time because we had to
meet up with people at Whispers. So we're like, all right,
if we only have to investigate one building. We interviewed
the guy at the store and we're like, all right,
if we only have to do one building, let's do
the Civil Warhouse. So we drove and so Roger stayed outside.
James and I wandered the bottom of the house and
(25:23):
it's really nice inside. It's a very pleasant little house
to be in, and we're kind of poking around exploring
while Roger was outside having a cigarette, and then James
Knight went upstairs. And the upstairs is like one big floor.
It's not really divided into rooms. It's almost like an attic,
but a lot areer and lighter. It's very very pleasant.
(25:46):
So we go up the stairs. There's a little landing
and then another couple of stairs and you get into
the attic. Party. So we're wandering around and there's there's
a little dresser and there's a little silver bell on
the dress sir. And James picks it up and wrings it,
and we hear Roger from downstairs going you right a
(26:10):
laugh and downstairs kind of filming taking pictures and whatnot.
The jamb stairs, we're looking at the furniture up there.
We work our way all the way to the other
end of the second floor. We look down and we're like, oh,
James is like, I can see my truck from here.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
Then we work our.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Way back too. There's only one door that works. The
others walked off. They work our way back to the
door that we came in at. I go down the
stairs first. James is following me. We go down to
the landing and I realized that door at the bottom
of the stairs is closed. Well, that's weird. Why would
Roger close the door on us? So I my fingers
(26:51):
and pushed on.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
It, and it wouldn't open.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I had to put the flat of my hand on
and really give it a sh shove to get the
door open.
Speaker 5 (27:02):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, And so James and I came down the rest
of the stairs and we poked our heads into the
parlor and Roger was there with his camera and we said, Roger,
why'd you close the door? And Roger's like, there was
a door.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
There was a door.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Oh my gosh, what not close that door? So we
spend the next ten minutes trying to debunk this, and
we would we we'd start with the door open against
the wall the way it was when we went up
the stairs, and we took turs, just shoving it and
it would swing almost all the way to the door jam,
(27:44):
but then it would stop. It would slow and it
wouldn't hit the doorjam, and we'd press it closed and
you could hear this chunk as it seated itself in
the door jam. We did not hear that could chunk.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Oh wow, any of it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
But that door was closed.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So I know you've talked about Veliska and you talked
about Billy Creek. What other locations have you been to?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Oh? I adore Gettysburg. I've been to Gettysburg.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
Kim would love to go there. That is like an.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I have a real soft spot for Malvern Manor,
which is very close to Veliska.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
That is our home away from home where they're probably
you know, sometimes we get there, probably seven ten times
a year.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It's like, I love I sleep in Susie's room every
time I stay the night.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You have a connection then with Kim, because Kim has
a strong connection with Susie, a very strong connection with her.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Oh, she gave me a wonderful little EVP. I was
sitting there the last I went, oh, the last time
before the last time I went. And I was sitting there,
I was coloring in one for coloring books, and I
picked up a crayon and I said, I said, let's
color a blue sheep. Let's let's color a little bit.
(29:16):
And I picked it up and I started coloring, and
I said. I had my recorder going, and I said, oh,
that's not blue, that's purple. But that's okay. We can
make a purple sheep, right, And I heard after review,
I heard, yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah, Kim has a very strong
connection with Susie. Really before oh jeez.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh, oh goodness, he has a safe place to go to. Yeah,
that's great. And then I was fortunate enough to go
(30:13):
ghost hunting in England and Scotland for three weeks a
couple of years, and one of the things on my
bucket list. I really wanted to get to Warwick Castle
and I didn't get there that visit, but one of
my bucketless things was thirty East Drive, which is the
site of the Poultergeist Haunting of the Black Monk of Pontefract.
(30:35):
Oh wow, yeah, really really famous English Poultergeist case, and
so we just stopped there. It was Dale and Paul
Dale Coasmerica as a ghost hunter up in Chicago area
and was our native guide. He was the one we
stayed with when we were in England. So on the
(30:56):
drive back from the North Part from scott London, Edinburgh
and York and England and the North North part of England,
we stopped in Pontefract and we stopped at thirty East
Drive and we looked at it from the outside and
we're like, oh, it's so cool if we could get in,
but it's booked like a year and a half out.
(31:17):
I knew there was no chance we could get in there.
And there were a couple of cars in the driveway
and I said, wow, I think the owner just has
it for investigations. I don't think anyone lives there right now.
And then this woman and this man get out to
come out of the building, out of the house, and
(31:38):
they get into the cars and one of the cars
and drive away, like, oh, that's kind of weird. Hung
around after, you know, for a little while longer, just
being creeper, staring at the house from the outside. And
then we're walking towards our car, getting ready to go
back to London, and the couple comes back. They park
the car and we're almost to the car and I said,
(32:01):
shy babies, don't get any sweeties. And I turned around
and I went up to the woman and I said, Hi,
we're a couple of investigators from the United States and
from all this way just to see this house. And
they're like, oh, yeah, we've got the house overnight. There
were three groups and we're all working together and we
have the place for the entire night. And then she
(32:22):
said the magic words, do you want to come inside?
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
A week, So we got to spend like an hour
investigating thirty East Drive. It was fantastic. It was so cool.
And see, it's always so amazing to see a place
like Lizzie Borden's house that you've read about so many
(32:52):
years and you can see it. It's just so cool.
So we did some a little bit of investigation, and
so I went, it's very small inside. It's like the
anti tartists. It's smaller on the inside than it looks
on the outside. So a bunch of investigators, like half
(33:13):
a dozen investigators sitting in the parlor, which is where
ooltergeist activities started back in the sixties or whatever. And
so they're all sitting around and I'm standing in the doorway,
and they've got a spirit box. They've got a boot
buddy going with the spirit box going, and they go
around the room introducing themselves, and I was recording because
(33:37):
I have a podcast too, so I was recording for them.
So they all go around the room introducing themselves and
I said, well, my name's Sylvia, and one of the
women at the end of the group of chairs jumped
and yelped and everyone's like what and she goes I
was wondering why the spirit box, said Sylvia at fifteen
(33:59):
minutes to oh wow, Well that is truly awesome. So
we talked and visited and just had a wonderful time,
and we decided, all right, you know what, you guys,
get back to your investigation. We went up to Ian,
who was the lead investigator of all three groups. And
(34:22):
I'm still kicking myself for turning my recorder off when
I did, because we said our goodbyes and went to
Ian who was standing in the kitchen which was next
to the parlor, and the wardbox was still going, and
I shook hands hand and I said, Ian, thank you
and your groups, thank you so much for being so
(34:43):
welcoming to us. This was really an intensely wonderful and
privileged experience. Thank you very much. And he said, very graciously,
it was our pleasure. And from the parlor, the ghost
box yelped pleasure.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Oh wow, Oh my gosh, that's so crazy.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:04):
It's always you always catch the.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Stuff when you're least expecting it, like can I get
We'll be setting up and we're getting all this stuff,
and it's like, why don't we.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Have our recorder going right now?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
You know?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
And we always say.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Oh, we're gonna have it going, We're gonna have it going,
and then we.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Don't have it going.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
It's like you get the most crazy things you know
at that time, and then you're like, well, crap, I
don't have anything to show for it other than my
personal experience, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
But it happened with James and whispers with that door opening.
He was walking around with his Pasma camera and we
had a camera set up watching that closet door because
we were told that closet door opens on its own,
so we had that camera set up. So he walks
in with his camera, going thank goodness, and he said cheerily, oh,
(36:01):
don't mind me, And his idea was to just set
the camera, which is on a tripod, up on the
dresser that had a mirror. The dresser right next to
the closet door. So he carefully walks in and goes, oh,
don't mind, mate me, I'm just gonna set this down here.
And he hears the door could chunk and the little
(36:23):
bell on it ring, and he goes, holy moly, and
he swings the camera over and his camera happened to
catch the mirror that was sitting on top of the dresser,
and in the mirror you can see the door opening,
and then the mirror the camera pans all the way
over to the closet door and catches it at the
(36:43):
top of its swing. So he caught it in the
mirror and in person, and he was just like WHOA,
that spooked me. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Yeah, that's crazy. Do you have a location or anything
that's on your like your bucket list.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Or oh, I really really want to go back to
castle in England. There are so many places in England
that I would love to go. I've been to England
three times twice when I was in college and way
(37:24):
before I was a paranormal investigator, and now now that
I am an investigator, I would very much like to
go back to Warwick Castle because it is ridiculously haunted.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
Cass Were Great Well.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
A couple of years ago I started writing an actual series.
They had been approached by one of my publishers to
do a true crime book and at the time I
was like, I don't know about that. But then I thought, well,
what if I did a book of true crime stories
that have resulted in hauntings? And enthralled with the idea
(38:07):
and I collected so many stories that I now have
in the material for the next five books. The next
one is going to be all gangsters. So in the
second book of that series, Great Deeds Were Dead Fun,
I wrote about Warwick Castle. I was like, man, I
knew that I know there was a ghost story associated
with that castle, which I love so much, and I'm
(38:30):
reasonably certain that it involved a murder, and I looked
it up and I was right. There was a murder
that happened at what It wasn't at the castle, but
it was It involved the owner of the castle by
his manservant. And I was like, oh, yeah, I get
(38:50):
to write about Wick Castle and this is wonderful.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Let us Oh.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
My gosh, I would I would love to go to castle.
I don't think I'll ever get to England or any
place like that to investigate, which would be amazing. We
did have a gentleman on a couple of years back,
and I can't remember exactly where he lived, but he
actually lived in a castle, oh Tom Riley. Yes, he
(39:24):
was a very neat person, but like to even live
in a part of a castle, like I think what
they did is maybe it's like they must have done
it into like apartments or something.
Speaker 5 (39:38):
To that effect.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
But that would still be so cool, you know, the
history and everything.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
Yeah, in in.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
The in the London, well yeah, I guess some of
them are in the Tower of London and in one
of the other castles there. There's something called Grace and
Favor Apartment and they are apartments in the Castle in
(40:08):
the Tower of London and that you can live there.
I mean, how cool would that be to live.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
At the town?
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Another thing that I would really really love to.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Go In the United States, there's something called the Bridgewater
Triangle and the parts of the Bridgewater Triangle is it's
like part of New Hampshire, part of Vermont. And there's
a forest in the Bridgewater Triangle that is just ridiculously
(40:41):
haunted Pretown. I want to say, it's like the Freetown
Forest or something like that, but yet super super super
super haunted. And I would love to go that because
I love wandering around in the woods and to go
to a haunt a forest and just wander the place
(41:02):
would just be amazing. Oh yeah, and Epping Forest in England.
I was in Epping Forest the second when, not knowing
that Epping Forest was actually used as a body dump
site for a lot of London gangs. Oh really, for
(41:27):
the Gangster book, I'm going to be writing about Epping
Forest to do that in there, So I would love.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
To go back to Epping Forest.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
It was such a dork and like I said, I
went to England for two months. It was a college
exchange program sort of thing, so I was in London
for two months and Florence, Italy for two months. So
and I went out to Epping Forest because it was like, oh,
you know, it's got Robin Hood vibes and everything, so
(41:58):
I was like, yeah, I want to go see this place.
So I went there on a weekend and had just
a wonderful time wandering the forest. And that the summer
after I got back, which was after my junior year
in college. Wowleven Wood Prince of Thieves came out with
(42:18):
Kevin Cooster and I went to see it with my
boyfriend at the time, and they show Robin Hood and
his merry men wandering around the forest and they come
to this fallen tree and I recognized it. I was like,
(42:40):
I heard about this fallen tree in the middle of
the woods.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
It was great.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
And then come to find out what, Yes, part of
it was filmed in Epping Forest.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
Oh wow, that is so fascinating. Yeah, do you havens
or anything lined up for the shear yet?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I was going to go to Malvern again, but I
ended up volunteering to do a talk at a True
crime conference near Rockford, Illinois instead, so I put that off.
I'll take James there another time. But we do have
an invitation to go to Edinburgh Manor and Scott.
Speaker 5 (43:25):
Yeah been there? Yeah one oh man.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
So we we have an invitation to go there at
the end of June. The group that is hosting it
is going for three nights and they're like, you can
comfort you can come for one, you can as as
much as you like. So that is they're they're going
there at the end of June, and they're going there
again in November, and we have an invitation to join
(43:52):
them for either or both of those dates. So that's
that's probably gonna be saying. Is is Edinburgh, Man.
Speaker 5 (43:59):
Have you been there yet? I have?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yes. I spent the night in the children's ward. Oh yes,
had something touched me?
Speaker 5 (44:08):
Oh yeah yeah, Oh.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
So much fun it was. We went at the end
of November, so it was ridiculously cold. I noticed that
there was a thermometer on the wall next to the
bed and the thermometer read thirty three degrees. Oh my gosh,
So I really wanted to sleep in the building. All
(44:35):
the other women on the team punked and slept in
the house behind it. But I was like, I am
willing to sleep in the I don't care how cold
it is. I'm going to sleep in the building.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Yes, So I slept.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
In the building. I slept in, like I said, in
the children's ward. Yeah, and a couple of the other
guys slept in some of the rooms, and I was like,
I don't know about that. So a couple of the
guys I also slept in the children's ward and I
got sleep first, snores like a Harley. I'm on this bed,
(45:13):
I've got I'm under my sleeping bag. I've got my
blanket with me too. I'm in all my clothes, I'm
in my coat, i have my socks, and I'm fully
dressed in the sleeping bag, still shivering like nothing. I've
got my ear plugs in. I'm trying to fall asleep.
I'm so cold, and he's the snoring is so loud.
I'm just absolutely miserable. And then something brushes past my
(45:37):
bed and touches my button.
Speaker 7 (45:39):
Oh my god, it was not in the mood, and
I just said out loud, please don't and away.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Yeah. I'm still trying to get to sleep, and I'm
still miserable. I'm still cold, and then I realize I
have to pee.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, that's always the way, and so I took my
earplugs out and I threw off the covers and I
sat down.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
I put my shoes on. I looked over and the
guy in the bed next to me was still awake.
He was watching some sort of boxing match on his phone.
And I was like, oh, Johnny, I'm so glad you're
still awake.
Speaker 5 (46:19):
Thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
I really have to go to the house and use
the bathroom. Would you walk me over there, please, because
I was not about to walk through the building in
the complete dark by myself, especially when I had to peek.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, we'll go over there
there together, that's fine. And he looked at me and
he said, have you've been awake this whole time? I
(46:41):
said yeah, he said we asleep, and all I'm like,
who can sleep with bill scarring like that? Yes, I've
not been asleep. I've been awake the whole time. He said, oh, okay,
because a little while ago I thought you might be
talking to your sleep because you said please don't and
I said, I sleep, I was talking to whatever touched
(47:02):
my butt.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
Oh my gosh, to get back to Edinburgh, manor.
Speaker 5 (47:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
Yeah, we're the fourth of July, so you're the right
after us. Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (47:23):
So you guys better stir it up for us. Tell
them they have to be active for us.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
You bet. I am in the same bed I slept
in last time. I'm going to be sleeping in in
the children's ward. When you come in the door, it's
the bed on the left. It's in the corner next
to the wall. I'm a fan of the Paranormal Files
and they investigated that and they sat on that bed
(47:51):
to do their cock sessions. So, being the fan dork
that I am, all that bed, I want to sleep
in that bed, right, Yeah, why not?
Speaker 8 (48:03):
Oh my gosh. There was one time where Kim and
I went and we went with my cousin and it
was just the three of us. And this was in March.
Was it in the end of February? For when we
went with my cousin Chad.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
We went there and there was ice on the floor
in the cafeteria. I mean we still, I mean, yes,
the cold was draining our you know, equipment so fast.
But we were getting actually, you know a few things
like we you know, we're getting the knocking, and like
we'd go down to the knocking and then it'd be
(48:38):
at the other end of the building and we're like, okay,
we're playing cat mouse the whole night. Like my cousin
caught a couple strange things on his camera and recording.
Speaker 5 (48:50):
I wish I still had those. I don't know. I
don't he sent him to make email, and I don't
know which email he sent it.
Speaker 7 (48:57):
I can't find.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
That breaks really really active. When we went to bed
about two o'clock in the morning, and one of the
guys says, he poked his head out right before he
got into bed. He poked his head out and looked
down the wall and saw a shadow figure in the hall.
Is two o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Yeah, I mean when we would sleep in the building,
like when we first started going there, we'd leave our
recorders going all night and you could hear it sound
like furniture being moved, people running up down the hallways,
like kind of all on our recorders.
Speaker 5 (49:40):
Like it was just insane. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
The first night I slept at Malvern Manor. The second
time I cons did, I stayed overnight and I slept
in Susan drum and it really really really hot. So
I could tell myself that the sound of appearing was
just the sounds of the buildings, But that did not
explain the footsteps I heard in the hallway, nor did
(50:05):
it explain the woman's laughter I heard out in the hallway.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Oh huh, Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
But I'm student and I am safe, and I actually
opened the door before I went to sleep, so I'm like,
I'm good, I am gold.
Speaker 5 (50:24):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Now, Okay, besides your investigations and things, I mean, I
know you do have books out there. You have the
Fractured Spirit one where you kind of talk about Puria
State Hospital, correct, and you have I mean, you have
a bunch of other books out there. But where like,
you know, for our book gurus, because I know we
do have a lot of listeners who are always looking
for a good book to read. Yea, where can they
(50:48):
find Where can they find your books?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
Well, if you go to Sylvia Shaltz dot com that's
s h U l t S. There was a tab
right at the top that says parent normal nonfiction and
you can also find my romance and horror books there too.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
It's really interested.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
I recommend the horror is fun. But yes, I do
have the links to my podcast Lights out there. There's
also information about the other podcast I have based on
the true crime books, and it is called Grave Deeds
and Dead Plots. That's the name of the podcast too.
That can be come at Voyagemedia dot fm. Okay, and
(51:32):
the books, of course, you can get them on Amazon,
but Amazon doesn't need any more of our money. So
when I get asked about that, I always like to
send people to a shop, a place called bookshop dot
org books, and from bookshop dot org, part of your
(51:53):
personal price actually goes to a fund that gets divvied
up between independent Books Bork. Wonderful way to support indie bookstores,
even if you don't.
Speaker 5 (52:05):
Have one in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
We have a lot of listeners and things like that
and friends that that write books also, and they really
encourage people to go do that instead of going through
some of these other big places, you know.
Speaker 5 (52:24):
So I'm all for that because you know, local shops
and everything. They they need the.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Business more than some of these you know, bigger places
and things and whatnot, So yes, it is good to
support them absolutely. Now, do you have any other events
or expos or anything that you're doing that are coming up.
If somebody is in the area and they want to
stop and see you.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yes, yes, there is a oh let's see Fountaindale Library.
And I want to say Bowling Brook is having a
paranormal expo sort of thing March eighth. I am going
to be at that. I'm going to be doing a presentation.
I'm going to be in Peoria at the Puria con
(53:09):
at the end of March, the last weekend in March
and Saturday and Sunday, and I'm going to be doing
a well you know what here I cat off my lap.
(53:39):
So yeah, March twenty ninth and thirtieth, I'm going to
be at Peoria at the Civic Center. On April twenty sixth,
I'm going to be up in Goo, Illinois, which is
very close to Rockford. There's a true crime convention from
twelve to five on Saturday, April twenty sixth. I am
(54:00):
going to be doing a talk there on Donney murders
in Ontario.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
It really fascinating case I learned.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
I was doing Days of the Dead and I abandoned
the story quite a bit for the first volume of
Grave deeds and dead plots, because that is the violence
that had been simmering for years erupted in one night.
And at the end of that night there were five
(54:32):
people dead in two houses, one of which was in flames.
Speaker 5 (54:36):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
So yeah, and it left a stain on Canadian history
that has not been forgotten to this day. So really
really fascinating case. And that it was this trouble was
brewed for years and it is a really fascinating story.
It's the murder of the Donnaling. So I'm going to
be okay at the truth.
Speaker 3 (55:01):
I love your.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah. So that, like I said, that is April twenty six,
it's a Saturday, and Rosco Little and that's True Crime Convention.
Speaker 5 (55:13):
True Crime Convention.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Okay, awesome, all right, Well, thank you Sylvia for joining
us tonight.
Speaker 5 (55:21):
It was a pleasure talking to you.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
Do You have a lot of fascinating stories and things
that have happened to you and and everything, and so
it was really a pleasure talking to you. I'm so
grateful that we crossed paths, and I'd like to thank
all of our listeners that listen to us all the
time without you and wouldn't be here. So we appreciate
each and every one of you, and I will make
(55:44):
sure to get all your information out so that way listeners.
If you don't quite get it you know through the podcast,
you can check our social media. We'll have Sylvia's information
on there as well. Once again, until next time, peace out, everybody,
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