June 9, 2025 • 55 mins
Tonight, Margie interviews Troy Taylor. He is the author of more than 150 books on history, hauntings, true crime, the unexplained, and the supernatural in America. Troy is the founder of American Hauntings Ink, which offers books, events, and ghost tours, and is the owner of the American Oddities Museum in Alton, Illinois. He is also the writer and co-host of the American Hauntings Podcast. He has appeared in numerous television shows and documentaries, and his book about the St. Louis Exorcism of 1949 is currently under option to be turned into a film by a major production company. Join us for a scary and entertaining evening!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M HM.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's time for the Unexed News News. Extraterrestrials, time anomalies,
dimension dimensions, remote viewing, UFOs, UAPs and USO's, ghostly encounters, abductions, Bigfoot,
and more and more, your end of the week news
(00:37):
source for everything everything unexplained. Here is your host for
the unex News podcast, Margie K.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to an ex News. I'm
your host, Margie KA, and we have a special two
hour broadcast this evening. First step is Troy Taylor and
after at the top of the hour that we're going
to have Flora Eisenhower on our other channel, So we'll
(01:19):
be checking out here and we'll be checking in on
the new one. So I'm sure you have the links already,
and let's get to it. Troy Taylor is the author
of more than one hundred and fifty books on history, haunting's,
true crime, the unexplained, and the supernatural in America. Troy
is the founder of American Hauntings, Inc. Which offers books,
(01:41):
events and ghost tours, and he's in the owner of
the American Oddities Museum in Alton, Illinois. He's also the
writer and co host of the American Hauntings podcast. He's
appeared in numerous television shows and documentaries, and his book
about the Saint Louis Exorcism of nineteen forty nine is
currently under option to be turned into a film by
(02:03):
a major production company. Welcome to the program, Troy.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Well, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, thank you so much. You're such a busy guy.
I appreciate you taking some time out to talk to
me for a little bit about you. And then of
course the conference coming up, we will definitely get to that.
But first, you know, I always have to ask this question,
how did you get started in the paranormal?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Well, I I think I guess the best way to
say is I sort of grew up in it. My
great granddad was a cop. He was an Irish immigrant
who was a police officer, and when I was a kid,
I got to spend quite a bit of time with
him and he would always tell me all his stories.
And his stories were, you know, a lot of stories
(02:51):
you take with a grain of salt, but you know,
there were always stories about you know, murders and probably
things that eight year old kids shouldn't have heard. But
he was always full of ghost stories because he would
talk about ghosts that he'd encountered when he worked. He
had a friend who was actually murdered in the line
of duty, and he and a number of other cops
(03:14):
in the tower I grew up used to talk about
how they saw his ghost on a regular basis near
where he died. And so I was just always interested
in this kind of stuff. When I was in high school,
I was always the kid that if you heard about
a ghost story or a haunted place or something spooky.
And I grew up in the eighties, so you know,
there was all kinds of things going on everywhere back then,
(03:37):
and people would always tell me their stories, and Halloween night,
I would take all my friends out and take them
on a ghost tour, not knowing that, you know, it
would someday be my job. But this is really the
only job I've ever had, and I like to say
it's not a real job, but it's certainly fun. And
so I just sort of grew up in it. And
(04:00):
in the early nineties, there was just not a whole
lot of this kind of stuff. There weren't a lot
of books, there weren't ghost tours or not much except
in a few of the big cities, and so I
started a ghost tour in the town where I grew up,
which was in the middle of Illinois town called Decatur,
and I thought, well, it'd be fun. I'm gonna I'm
(04:21):
gonna write a book and I'm gonna collect all these
ghost stories from Decatur that nobody's ever you know, people
tell the stories, but nobody's ever written them down. And
so I put a book together and I had it.
I always tell everybody it looked like it was printed
in my garage, and it basically was. I you know,
took photos, I glued them into the paper, took them
(04:43):
to an offset printer, had the books printed, and then
sold fifty five thousand copies of it, which was a
bit of a surprise.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I'm still a kid at this point, you know. And
so I got this book out and I started doing it.
Or a buddy of mine who passed away just a
few months ago, said, hey, you know what you ought
to do. You ought to you got all these people
who are excited about these places in your book, you
ought to like rent a van or something and drive
everybody around so they can see these places. And I said,
(05:16):
that's a great idea. So we ended up the very
first year, we convinced a radio station that he and
I worked at at the time and to give away
the tickets. And the manager at the station said, well,
no one's going to buy tickets to some kind of
ghost tour, and so we're gonna have to pick them away, right,
And so you know, it's nineteen ninety four and they're
(05:38):
giving away the tickets on the air. They're gone in
like a half an hour whole bus, and so they
started telling everybody, well, you know, in case people don't
show up, you should just come down and wait, and
you know, maybe there'll be a seat on the bus.
So we ended up like waiting for a seat on
the bus. Needless to say, we charged for the tickets
the next year. And I've been doing it ever since.
(06:01):
You know, I've got tours in other cities, and I've
been doing tours and I you know, I do speaking
events and stuff, and so, you know, all of that
stuff was fun. I'd had some weird experiences and things.
Like I told you before we went on the air,
I'm not a psychic. I don't see dead people, I
don't hear dead people. But you know, I've been doing
(06:23):
this for thirty two years now, and every once in
a while you become part of your own story, whether
you plan or not. And so yeah, I've had some
experiences over the years. Probably the one that really convinced
me that there was something to all of this was gosh,
it had to have been probably around two thousand and
(06:44):
one or two. It was right before they opened the
Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville to the public. The people
who own it now had just bought it, and it
was a mess and people have been breaking in there
for years. And a buddy of mine took me we
walked through the building at night, and he took me
through it to show me, you know what it was like,
really excited to show it to me. And we walked
(07:06):
through the building and as we were walking down one
of the hallways, a man in a in a white
looked like a white coat, just walked across the hallway
in front of us, and I mean, needless to say,
startled me. And I you know, at first, I thought, Wow,
what's going on here? And we realized that it had
(07:27):
to be somebody who had just broken into the building
because it was happening all the time. So we went
down to the room that he'd walked into to tell
him that he had to leave, and when we went
into the room, there was no one in the room
and there was no door and no way out. And
at that point I realized, I've just seen a ghost,
and I think I'm finished with the tour now, and
(07:49):
so we left. That was enough.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well you got what you came for.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That's right, that's right, and so you know, yeah, see,
it's it's it's all well, people ask how do you
do this? How do you get so much stuff? How
do you write so many books? I'm like, this is
my full time job. This is what I do all day,
every day. And you know, sometimes it's seven days a
week when you work for yourself. Sometimes it's you know,
late at night, early in the morning. But you know,
(08:16):
I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know, I've written eighteen books.
I know someone who's written thirty six books. But now
I know someone who's written one hundred and fifty books,
So that's got.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
To be the top.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, my.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Goal was always a good friend of mine who passed
away a few years ago, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and I
had a competition going. Rosemary and I were trying to
see who could brightley most, and we both just wanted
to beat Hans Holzer. That's all we cared about. I'm
just kidding, but we were competing with each other to
see who could write the most. So I wrote a lot.
(08:58):
She wrote a lot of books. And what a wealth
of walking encyclopedia of information she was. She was at
our conference every single year we'd had it for you know,
every year, until the one year she wasn't able to come,
and then that was she passed away just soon after
the conference. But she'd been at every single one we'd
(09:20):
ever done, and she was she was something else. She
was a great person.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So yeah, she was. I liked her. Now let's talk
about you've done numerous TV shows and documentaries. Let's name
a few for me.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Well, I did it right now. On Netflix, you can
watch The Unexplained Files. I am in the episode about
the Myrtles plantation. I am the villain of the episode.
In other words, they spend about fifteen minutes letting people
tell stories about the house at arn't true, and then
I come in and go, yes, none of that is true,
(10:01):
And then tell the real history of the house, so
that was a lot of fun to get to do.
So I enjoyed that a lot because I never say
that house isn't on it. There's been plenty of deaths
in that house, but the ones that they like to
use is their advertising. Chloe, who never existed and the
Poison family, who died from yellow fever a year apart
(10:21):
from each other, don't have anything to do with the
hauntings there. So yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. So
that's available. I recently did an episode of History's Greatest
Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne about John Dillinger and his mysterious afterlife.
I've done on Discovery. Plus there's a documentary streaming now
(10:45):
called The Exorcism of Roland Doe, which is about the
nineteen forty nine exorcism, which I've written pretty extensively about,
so I'm in that one. It actually came out before
the boy who was the center at the Baziz passed away,
and I'd made an agreement with him about twenty years
ago that I would not use his name as long
(11:06):
as he was alive, and I never did now I can,
so I have since put out a new edition of
the book that does include more of the information that
I've had for years that I couldn't use. So that's
why you get a rolling dough as the name of it.
But it's still a decent documentary. So I don't know.
I've done other episodes of stuff and Halloween time, I
(11:28):
pop up in varying ages and different beard links and
different hair over many years, you know, pop up. So
I'm around.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Okay, yeah, well you have been. I've seen you on
some shows. So you've got this extorcism though, back to
that in nineteen forty nine, is that the event that
The Exorcists was about.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah, well, yeah, movies in inspired hired William Peter Bladdy's
book in nineteen forty nine. When it happened. The family
that was involved in it, the Hunkler family, were actually
from Cottage City, Maryland, outside of Washington, d C. And
they were originally from Saint Louis and most of their
family was in Saint Louis. So when events started to
(12:19):
happen in their home in Maryland, you know, kind of
Poultergeist type events, you know, they were pretty shaken up
by it and ended up going to Saint Louis, thinking,
you know, hey, we'll be closer to family, and then
things escalated into what the Jesuits who were involved in
the case believed was a full blown possession, and it
(12:40):
went on for almost six weeks, and it was the
possession of the exorcism took place in several different places
in Saint Louis, and eventually, in the summer of nineteen
forty nine, after it was all over, there was a
newspaper article in Washington, d c. That talked about the
kind of poltergeist event that happened in Maryland, and then
(13:01):
there was mention in the article that an exorcism was
performed in Saint Louis. Well. One of the people who
read that article was William Peter Blattie, and he was
at that time going to seminary school at Georgetown studying
to be a priest, and was interested in the article,
asked questions about it to his advisors. Had heard there
(13:23):
was a diary kept about the exorcism, but you know,
it wasn't accessible to anybody, and the church had decided
to kind of keep things quiet at that point. They
didn't release Ronnie's name. Ronald was the boy they didn't
release his name or anything, and so he just sort
of filed it away. And then you know, twenty years later,
he's not a priest, he's a writer and he decides
(13:45):
to write this book about a little well, initially about
a boy who was possessed, and he starts writing to
one of the priests in Saint Louis who was involved
in the real case, who asked him to spare the
embarrassment of the family, could he make some changes to
his manuscript and not talk about this being a young
boy because it would be, you know, an embarrassment to
(14:07):
the family and things. And so he changed it to
a girl. And that's how we ended up with Reagan McNeil,
and that's that was part of what inspired the Exorcists.
Some of the wilder stuff came from another case that
dated back to the nineteen twenties, but this was this
was the one that first got his attention and caused
him to decide to write about an exorcism and a possession.
(14:31):
And so, yeah, I've been talking about it for a while.
It's one of those things that I got interested in
in the early two thousands and started doing research and
you know, living close to Saint Louis as I do.
It was easy in those days too, even then before
we had you know, the internet so widely at our fingertips.
It was easy to do research because it was close by.
(14:55):
Plus it helped that everyone, or well several of the
people that were in the actual exorcism, we're still alive
at this point. So I interviewed everyone who was still alive,
including years later, interviewed an Alexian monk who was also
involved in the exorcism at the Sant Alexias Hospital in
(15:16):
Saint Louis. And I didn't know he existed. He was
dying and his family contacted me and he wanted to
tell his story, and so I went to see him
in Milwaukee and where he was retired and got his
story too. So there is anybody left now, everybody's gone,
now that Ronald has since passed away, there isn't anyone
(15:37):
left who was involved. So I, you know, can't see
me adding a whole lot to the story at this point.
But it is an interesting story now now. Whether or
not he was demonically possessed, I don't know. That's that's
really my answer. I I just present everything that I've
got on the whole case, whether I'm doing it in
(15:59):
a lecture or in my book, I give people all
the information and all the facts, and I let people
decide for themselves what they want to believe, because there
are lots of possibilities. But I will say, whatever it
was that happened to this family, it was so earth
shattering to them and so upsetting to them and so
(16:20):
momentous that, you know, seventy plus years later, we're still
talking about it. So something happened to that family, whether
you no matter what you want to believe it, it
was something happened. So that's kind of where I leave things.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So well, we don't want to give away a lot
of information because you get this book coming up, but
I will ask you this, did the young man involve
this Ronald?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Did he ever experience anything like that again after that
after that incident? No?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
And that's what's one of the things that's sort of
interesting about it, because when people have tried to offer
me alternative explanations, and I've searched for them myself, I
just don't accept the fact. I don't just go, oh, yeah,
he must have been possessed. There are lots of possibilities, so,
you know, I take the case too. I've talked to
psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors just to get their opinion
(17:17):
on it. And the interesting thing about it is a
lot of people will say that it was probably some
sort of mental disorder, or it was you know something
you know, childhood schizophrenia or something, but no one has
an explanation as to how he was well magically cured
because it did go away. It stopped, and for the
(17:37):
rest of his life he never had anything like that
ever happened to him again. It just came to an
abrupt stop at the end of this exorcism. And again
nothing else, there was nothing else that ever bothered him.
So it makes you wonder, you know, you have to
kind of wonder what was going on and what really happened. So,
(17:57):
you know, I I've done a couple of different editions
of the book. The first one, you know, had to
use his pseudonym, but the more recent one I did
after he passed away. You know, I get into a
lot more detail about the family dynamic and things, and
you can see where there were issues, you know, with
a lot of things issues with him, and he admitted that.
(18:20):
But that's one of the things that was interesting about
him is that he, you know, really didn't have much
of a memory about what had occurred. When I finally
did get a chance to interview him, he and that
was kind of a standard thing going on. He wouldn't
remember how he behaved during the extras and ritual, which
they would do at night, not because it was spooky,
(18:41):
but because that's the only time that Jesuits were free
to be able to do this, because they were all
involved in other things during the day, so in their
spare time, so to speak, they had to perform an exorcism,
and so you know, he wouldn't have much memory of that,
and as time went on, it was more and more.
One of the things he told me is that he
always kind of felt like it was someone else's life
(19:03):
because he only knew about it from the memories and
the remembrances of other people, not his own. And so yeah,
and so he was, you know, it was really great
to talk to, but he very polite, very nice guy,
but he just really couldn't tell me a whole lot.
But you know, when all this stuff was over, he
(19:25):
went on and went to work for NASA. He worked
for NASA his entire career. A guy was a genius.
I mean, he was real. He's got patents for things
we still use on space vehicles today, and that's you know,
the Exorcist boy, you know, you know, did all these
things that people don't even know about. And you know,
he was always afraid that somebody would find out who
(19:47):
he was. You know, when I this was when I
talked to him back in like two thousand and five.
He was always afraid someone would find out who he
was and that you know, he'd never get any peace.
But no one ever did none of his co work.
I mean, he retired and no one ever had any idea.
It wasn't until after he passed away that his name
was revealed. Now, I mean I knew what his name was.
(20:09):
I found it years before, but it wasn't widely known
until more recently. And you know, it was I kind
of spilled the beans on it once he passed away,
and then I started to see it being picked up
in other places. But that was the arrangement I had
with him, is that I would never use his name,
and that's why he gave me the interview.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So just yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well that's that's quite an
amazing story and you do have to think there had
to be something to it. If he was miraculously cured,
he didn't have a memory of it, and then he
went on with the normal life exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I mean, no medication, know anything. I mean, it wasn't
treated in any way other than through you know, which
I mean again, you could make a case for it
being a psycho somatic thing that maybe this exorcism jarred
him out of it. But boy, when you hear some
of the details and read some of the details that
were chronicled in the diary then in the you know,
(21:12):
the chronology of the exorcism that was kept by one
of the priests, you it doesn't sound like a standard
just mental illness. Now again, there's lots of different things
that you can say about it, you know, and lots
of suggestions that have been made to me, and you know,
I've made some of my own, and it was religious, hysteria,
all kinds of things. But there's no way to know
(21:34):
for sure. But I don't know. There's something about that
whole thing that it's really hard to shake. It really is.
So yeah, So when I did the book the books
called the Devil came to Saint Louis, And when I
did the book, it was it was an exciting book
for me. And then when I did the new edition,
it was, you know, I finally felt like I could
(21:55):
tell the whole story, you know, for the first time,
which was kind of a relief, you know, because I've
been keeping it for years at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
So, you know, have you written any books about similar events.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
But not not not like a full book like that.
When I have written about other exorcisms, including some that
you know, leave a lot of questions. There are some
that probably the most famous one that most people know
is the Annalis mckel story from Germany. Uh and that's
(22:29):
the one that became the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
And that's a that's a really sad story because I
don't think in any way, shape or form was she possessed.
I think she really was mentally ill and was untreated
for more than a year while undergoing this brutal exorcism,
and I really think that her mental illness is what
(22:51):
killed her. That's the only time that I've ever heard
of someone just dying because of it, because of an exorcism.
But you know, I've written about others, but that's that.
The one from Saint Louis is the one I've talked
about the most. I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
What are some of your other more recent books.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Uh, I've done a lot of different things. I very
all over the place. I write what I'm just most
interested in. I did a book about uh. Late last year,
I did a book about circuses and side shows and
freak shows in the ghost stories that kind of go
along with some of those. It's a It's the biggest
book I've ever written, and I had to make myself stop.
(23:32):
It was it was kind of ye. I'd had uncles
who were in the carnival business when I was a kid,
so I love that stuff. It's one of the reasons
that I opened the museum is because of collecting all
these weird things over the years, and I've never had
a place to display them, and now now I do.
But so I got excited about it because I just
(23:52):
love that kind of thing, So that that book was
a lot of fun to write. I I've just gosh,
I've done a lot of different things. I've written about,
you know, cults and religious groups, and lots and lots
of books on the hauntings and the belwitch and cursed.
You know, music stories, the Donner Party, the you know,
(24:17):
I mean you you. You could probably name a lot
of things that I've probably written about it. But I've
got a list I'll never stop. I Well, for one thing,
I can't retire, but I wouldn't want to anyway. Why
what would I do with myself? I have absolutely no idea.
Oh yeah, I've got a constant list of things that
will always be ongoing.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So yeah, Well, one of the places I was just
investigating was Pithy and Castle in Missouri.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
There, yeah, years ago. I haven't been there recently. I
was just talking to somebody about it recently, and I
need to get back down there. But this has been
a long time since I've been. That's a nae place.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Do you remember if there? Did you have any experiences
or paranormal No?
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I didn't, not, not that time, which you know I've
been to. I can't think of any prisons or big
buildings like that. I probably haven't been to at this point.
I mean, I've had experiences at a lot of different
places now, I didn't have anything in that one, which
is a reason why it would be fun to go back,
because I, you know, always hope for one.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how about.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
You, I mean you were there, how was it?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
I mean, dude, well, I didn't know. I didn't really
feel like the stories that were being told were one
hundred percent accurate, although I have no way, of course
of checking that. Sure there there was only one place
where I felt the dark energy that was in the basement.
The rest of it, nothing was that went on. Yeah yeah,
(25:51):
but it's a cool place, not like fifty three rooms.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah yeah, I can. I can think of times and
places I've been that, you know, I'll have an experience
once and I'll go back and nothing happens, and it
feels like the police is just completely empty, and you know,
and I don't think you have to be a psychic
to get a feeling about stuff like that, because I
can remember times going to like the Ohio State Reformatory
(26:16):
in Mansfield, Ohio, and you know, having experiences there and
then going the next time and it just feels like
the place is just a big empty building, you know,
and it's you know, that's happened to me quite a
few places over the years. So that's why always tell
people don't just go once, because you just never know,
you know, what the next.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Will be you know, okay, well we are going to
take a short break. We'll be back right after these messages.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
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register today? That's Ghostconference dot net.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And we're back. This is our next news and I'm margiek.
My guest this evening is Troy Taylor. That last little
message we had is about your conference coming up. Troy,
tell us about that.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Well, the Home in America conference was actually the first
most conference in the country. I just thought it would
be fun. It was again kind of how I get
mixed up in all these things. Back in nineteen ninety
seven or I guess ninety six, I a friend of
mine had gone to a Sherlock Holmes conference and told
(29:49):
me about it, and I said, well, why couldn't we
do something like that for people who like ghostuff And
so we decided to do it. And at the time
I lived in Decatur, Illinois, and we wrangled an old
haunted theater in town for this conference. And I had
an acquaintance who worked at the local newspaper, and he
wrote up a tiny little article about it. But he
(30:11):
thought it because he thought it sounded ridiculous, and he
again with that whole you know, no one's going to
want to do that kind of thing, and so he
put it out on the up wire just for the
heck of it. And so I spent the last week
before the conference every day from about six am to
(30:31):
about five in the afternoon taking phone calls from radio
stations all over the country. Who were you know, mostly
just laughing about a bunch of people talking about ghosts
getting together to talk about ghosts. And it was fun,
and so I just decided to keep doing this. So
now twenty eight years later, here we still are. We
(30:53):
haven't missed a year yet, except for during the pandemic
we had to skip twenty twenty, but other than that,
we've been doing it every year and it's a lot
of fun. We we like to call it like paranormal
summer camp because it's a chance for people to get
together for a weekend and just hang out, you know,
with people who are similar minded, you know, we have
(31:15):
a no politics rule. You don't get talked about anything
like that. It all has to be you know, everybody
just gets together and has fun. And you know, it's
gone from having you know, one hundred people to about
five hundred people. And you know, it's it's not a
it's not a convention. It's not a there's nobody just
sitting at tables signing headshots. It's it's a speaker based conference.
(31:40):
We've got a set schedule. You can see everything, every speaker.
You don't have to miss anybody because you're doing something else.
And then we do a lot of after our events
and then you kind of have to choose. But during
the days, the two days of the conference, you know,
you get to see every speaker, and we try to
come up with a variety of people. It's mostly authors.
(32:01):
I always try to go with people who really have
something to say. And it's it's just it's a blast.
It's it's really a lot of fun. And you know,
I look forward to it every year because these are
people that I may only get to see once a year.
So the fact that I get to see them, you know,
at all, is is a you know, is a delight
(32:22):
and you know, when somebody's not there, you you notice,
even with all the you know, the people that are there,
you're like, where's so and so. You know, they didn't
make it this year. And that's how it's become after
all this time. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun
and you know, we've got we always have a good turnout.
We always try to do a lot of things that
we can offer to people to do. You know, after
(32:44):
the conference is done for the day, it doesn't have
to end. You know, We've got ghost hunts and ghost
tours and you know, workshops, lots of how to workshops
and things. So I try to make it entertaining but
educational too, and I think that's kind of been the
key is to why we're You've been able to do
it for so long and it just sort of has
(33:06):
just kind of continued to you know, keep going after
all this time. I get so many people that want
to be speakers, and it's like, you know, you can't,
you just can't. You can't have them all, you know,
because we we don't. We don't have ten things going
at the same time. I don't I don't want to
do it that way.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, I don't like the oversized conferences where you have
to pick from three or four or five different speakers
we're talking at the same time, you know, make it,
make it smaller, make it accessible. I really like your
format and with your evening events too.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It sounds like a lot of fun and I'm looking
forward to being there. We're going to have a booth
there of the uniced booth, so stop buying and and
say hi to us when we're there. Everybody who yeah, well,
people who.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Are are are listening, who are coming to the show.
They we got a discount that's available when people check
out if they sign up for the conference and they
put in the pre promo code listener get ten percent off,
so you know, can't beat that either. So that's something
we wanted to do for your network. So this year,
(34:15):
I've got Jim Willis is an old friend of mine
from Ohio. He has done Haunted Ohio books, he did
the Weird Ohio books, and he is also probably one
of the funniest people that I've ever met. And he
has had twenty five plus years of adventures, you know,
tracking down ghost stories and hauntings and things, and people
(34:39):
love him and I always put him first thing. When
he comes, I put him first thing on Saturday morning,
because that way everybody that stayed out too late on
Friday night at a ghost tunt, he'll wake them up.
So I've got Jim, I've got Aaron Taylor, who, while
we like to claim we're related, we're not. But she's
dealing with she's a psychotherapist and she's dealing with the
(35:03):
combination of the paranormal and psychotherapy and that kind of thing.
So that's something that we've never done before. Richard Eastep
will be returning this year. Richard has written quite a
number of books. He is a great speaker. He has
done a lot of different things, including most recently, he
(35:23):
did a book about Fox Hollow Farm in Indiana, which
got turned into a series, a short a three part
series on Hulu about the serial killer and the hauntings
at the farm. So Richard will be talking about that.
Victoria Day is a new speaker. She has not been
here before this year. April Slaughter is a friend of
(35:45):
mine that I've known for gosh, maybe fifteen years or so.
She'll be returning with a couple of different workshops. She
is a very She's one of those people that are
the few people that I will vouch for. When I
start to talk about people, ask me, do you know
anybody who's truly psychic who really has gifts? April is
that person for me. She is the first person that
(36:08):
always comes to mind, and I think she really genuinely
has something and she really does a lot with people
when they come to our events. Sherry Break from West
Virginia will be returning this year. She again is somebody
who's super knowledgeable. She is also an old friend of
(36:30):
Rosemary Guilees like I am, and we kind of all
just kind of, you know, put a lot of things
together together. So Sherry will be here. Carrie Bergen from Colorado.
She is not only doing a workshop on making pendulums,
but she also is a collector of haunted dolls and
(36:51):
she is nobody to joke about when it comes to
haunted dolls. She gifted me one before I opened the museum,
and I didn't really think anything about it until he
started misbehaving, so to speak, when the opened. So she
(37:12):
knows what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
There's nothing to mess with. I have four haunted dolls. Yeah,
I know what they can do exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Yeah. Amanda Woomer, she does. She's not only is a ghostwriter,
but she also owns her own museum. It's a traveling
museum of mourning and death items. I've got some of
that stuff in our museum, but she's got an extensive
collection of that kind of stuff. The Three Appalachian Witches,
(37:42):
they've been coming to a lot of our events and
they're super entertaining and they really do a great job
of guiding groups through all kinds of different things. I
try to offer a mixture of not just hardcore solid
ghost investigation people. Larry Eisler does a lot of high
tech stuff, Tobias Whalan does, and they're doing workshops and things.
(38:07):
The Witches are more of a kind of a psychic
blend of things because, you know, just because I don't
do all of it, I know that a lot of
our guests do, so I like to have a little
bit of something for everybody. So yeah, we've got a
We've got a really great bunch of people coming this
year again, you know, doing workshops and doing different after
(38:30):
hour events and tours. And my co host Cody is
from the American Hauntings podcast. Always he always sits up
and does a booth where he listens to people's personal
ghost stories and we record them, and then we'll do
a special episode for the podcast of people's collected stories
from the conference. That's always a lot of fun. And
(38:51):
then I added, kind of belatedly, I added Jeff with him,
he has a very large museum of talking boards that
he is bringing to the conference. So we'll be setting
that up and people can look at all these different
boards and things that he's got that he's been collecting
over the years. So, like I said, there's something for
(39:13):
everybody that comes. I don't think no one's going to
walk away going, oh wow, that was boring there. I mean,
after twenty eight years, I've been able to handpick pretty well.
I've had very few and I'm not going to say
zero duds over the years, but not very many. And
I know I don't have any this year. So I'm
(39:35):
excited about it. And everybody that's coming will be too,
or already is. And you know, I'm sure we'll start
to see a few more people trickling in here as
we get closer and closer to the date.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
So well, it sounds wonderful. I can't wait to attend.
I've been up in New yr Neck of the Woods
quite a bit lately. I was just at the DURAS
conference Grafton, Illinois, just north of Alton. So have you
investigated the Pear Marquette Lodge there.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, that we've done a couple of things. I do
a regular thing at the Peer Market Lodge is part
of a tour, not necessarily investigation. We have done that,
and I've stayed there quite a bit, but it's also
part of one of the tours that I do too,
is you know, the ghost stories and things with Peer Marquette.
But yeah, Grafton is a is a neat town. I
(40:30):
do a river couple of river road tours that goes
from Alton to Grafton, and we talked about ghost stories
along the river and you know, and then talk about
things when we get to Grafton. And there are several
different locations in Grafton that have their ghost stories and
their legends and lore, and I always recount all of them.
But I'd have to say that my favorite spot, in
(40:51):
addition to Peer Marquette, is the rublel Hotel, which I
think you're familiar with.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
We stayed at the Ribe Hotel and I had no
idea was on until we got in there.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Yeah, I heard about I first heard about the Ruble
when I first moved to the Alton area, and that
was in the mid nineties, and they at that point
were just restoring it. You know, it had started back
in eighteen eighty four, but most of the building that's
there now was a rebuild from nineteen twelve after it
(41:22):
burned down. But you know, i'd heard about it and
it sat empty for like fifty years after Grafton just
sort of dried up, you know, no more riverboats, the
railroad left, so there was just nothing to bring anybody there,
and the river road hadn't been built yet. So when
I first heard about it and they were talking about
it being haunted, I will confess that I just automatically
(41:47):
assumed that, you know, it's just a little hotel and
they've got a ghost story, and that's you know, might
lure some people in, you know, even though that was
kind of early on in paranormal travel at the time.
But I never really thought much about it. And when
people would ask me, oh, is there any place haunted
to stay? I would just sort of laugh and I go, well,
you know, the Rubel Hotel is supposed to be haunted.
(42:08):
That might be a place that you'd enjoy, and it is.
It is a neat place. And a few years ago,
I was coming back from an event and I lived
in at the time, was living in central Illinois, and
I thought, well, rather than go home, you know, I
think maybe I'll spend the night in Grafton. I was
with my partner at the time, and so we checked
(42:31):
into the we got a room at the Ruble, and
we stayed there and went out to dinner and came
back late and went to bed. Now what a lot
of people probably listening don't know is that the Ruble
is supposed to be haunted by a ghostly little girl
named Abigail. And the stories date back to really just
when they started remodeling the place. Some of the contractors
(42:52):
and the workmen started reporting seeing this little girl in
a nightgown in the building. And you know, and there
were plenty of other there's other activity too, but she
seems to be the center of it. And after they opened,
you know, they had staff members and customers who were
also seeing this little girl. So that always just kind
of been the story. So we had returned to our
(43:13):
room at the end of the night and had just
had gone to bed, and both of us woke up
not realizing the other one was awake about two am,
because we heard what sounded like a small child crying
in the hallway outside our room. Now we did not
think neither one of them from one thing. We didn't
discuss it at that point. We didn't even have any
(43:35):
idea that the other one was awake. And I didn't
think it was a ghost. I just assumed it was
a guest with a child, you know, that was staying
that you know, was crying and they were trying to
settle it down, and you know, I went back to sleep.
And so the next morning we were downstairs having breakfast
and we were chatting about and the subject of this
crying child came up, and I just sort of laughed
(43:57):
about it, and I said, well, it's no wonder you know,
people thought, you know, think this place is haunted, because
you know, every time there's a kid here that cries,
people just probably automatically assume it's a ghost. And so
we were getting ready to leave, and my partner was
waiting on the check and so I went up to
the desk and was getting ready to leave, and the
owner at the time was there, and I knew him,
(44:19):
and we got to chatting, and I said something about
you know this, about the ghost stories in this Crying Child,
and he said, well, I mean, I suppose that's possible,
he said, but not last night. And I said, well
why and he said, well, because you two were the
only people here last night. There was no one else
(44:39):
staying in the hotel. We were the only ones in
the building. This school wasn't even there. And so at
that point I realized, wait a minute, the Rubel Hotel
really is haunted. This is not just a ghost story.
So I always vouch for the Ruble whenever we go
there with the tour, and we'll always stop and I'll
tell this story, and you know, I'll take people inside
(45:01):
and let them wander around a little bit. The owners
are really great about that kind of stuff. So yeah,
it's it's a very cool place. And I mean town
of Grafton is a really cool place. But yeah, that's uh,
that's that's one of my favorite spots in this area
for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Well. I love old buildings, you know, just for the architecture,
but when they're haunted, it's a bonus, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
You know, exactly, Yeah, It's kind of like it's the
history that drew me to all this stuff. And the
ghost stories are are you know when I write about
them or I talk about them or take people on tours,
that the ghost stores are the bonus. You know. That's
that's how you get people to listen to history, is
by giving them a ghost story to go along with it. So, yeah,
(45:44):
I agree with you on that for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well, I've got to ask you this about the Pair
Market because every time I've been there, I've been there
three years in a row, and every time I see
a man standing next to the big giant fireplace and
no one else sees him, I'm like, okay, but what's
(46:07):
going on here? Have you seen him?
Speaker 1 (46:09):
No?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
I haven't, but enough people have that. I mention it
every time we take a tour, I tell people as
we're going through the lobby, I will always say, one
of the ghosts that is supposed to appear is right
here by the fireplace, and he's been seeing for years.
Nobody knows who he is. But if you see somebody
standing there, there's a good chance that it's a ghost,
(46:31):
not you know, a living customer. But then that place
is an interesting history because you know, it sits right
at the mouth of the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers,
so it was kind of a strategic spot to Native Americans.
It was a strategic spot during the Civil War. There
was a Union encampment there. You know, with Missouri being
(46:52):
right across the river, it would have been easy for
Confederates to go up the river to Chicago, so there
was a camp there. So there was already a lot
of history there when they decided to turn that into
a state park. And then during the New Deal and
the CCC decided they built the park lodge and constructed
the state park. And they spent almost ten years building
(47:15):
that lodge and getting that park together. And so right
after they opened, you already had four park rangers talking
about seeing you know, people walking around out on the grounds.
You had almost immediately had people reporting ghosts in the lodge,
seeing figures who disappeared, doors that open and close, you know,
(47:35):
all the stuff, the footsteps, the lights that turn on
and off. There's a room in the hotel that none
of the house and this is a true story, none
of the housekeepers will clean it by themselves. Most of
the time. They don't even rent that room. Out because
they've had so many weird incidents that have happened in
that room that people were panicked over it, and so
they just don't usually rent it out. So if we
(47:56):
ever do anything there, they give us that room to
use a sort of as a hangout spot, because they
don't rent it most of the time, you know, unless
you specifically ask for the haunted room kind of thing.
But yeah, I've talked to you know a lot of
the people that worked there over the years, and they
tell you stories about the you know, the restaurant, the
(48:17):
you know, anywhere in that place. I mean, it all
dates back to not well in nineteen thirty nine when
they opened it, but there have been thousands and thousands
of people that have been through that place, and it's
already sitting on this property that already had a weirdness
to it already. And I know it's a you know,
it's a it's an old trope about you know, Indian
(48:38):
burial grounds, but there really are Indian burial grounds on
the property. In fact, the swimming pool when they added
the new wing in the sixties, where the swimming pool sits,
was actually a burial ground when they excavated it they
had to move all the bones that were there to
another location. So people talk about, you know, odd things
(49:01):
happening in what appears to be now a remodeled, almost
brand new looking swimming pool. You wonder how it was haunted. Well,
that might have something to do with it, you know that. Yeah,
the disturbance that happened. So yeah, the Pure Market is
a great location for anything. It's another one of those
spots I recommend to people as a great place to stay.
(49:23):
And you know, like I said, we do a lot
of events with them, and they do that. They got
great food, that's for sure. Because I do a dinner tour,
so you know, we'll stop and have dinner at Paar
Marquette before we continue the tour. So it's a lot
of fun.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Oh yeah, give people a chance to get the feeling
of the place because it is unique.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
As you're driving on the grounds, you can just feel
the shifted energy.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Yeah, that's master place. Now.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
We've had some other experiences there with sasquatch sightings, yeah,
and UFOs right overhead.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
It's a it's an odd I mean, it's that it's
that junction of the river I think has a lot
to do with all of it. You know, not only
do you have all the history from around the area
when it comes to the ghost stories, but I think
the junction of the river and all that energy probably
attracts a lot of things. There's also did you know
that there's a Nike missile base there on the property
hidden herd. Yeah, it's kind of in the back part.
(50:21):
You can hike back there as part of the trails.
So at one time there was a lot more activity
there than there even is today. So it's not surprising,
you know that you get a lot of stuff and
as far as like you know, bigfoot sidings and things go.
I mean, that's a there is a lot of property
right around our area and along the river road that
is just dense forest. You know that it's largely untouched
(50:45):
and all these springs and caves and you know, secret paths,
and it's a it's a it's a really mysterious area.
I always invite people to come. It's a part of
Illinois that most people don't even know exists, you know,
and it's really cleo.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, I didn't until I until I went there. Yeah,
as soon as I saw it, I was with a
friend of mine, and I said, this is very squatchy.
Yeah right, right, it looks very squatchy. So oh gosh,
we got people in the up.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Yeah, here, there you go. You need to do a
Sasquatch beer tour.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
There you go, there, you go, sit out on the way.
Eventually you'll see anything, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
So right, and plus all those bars in Grafton, Oh
my god.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
There is that. Yeah, there's a lot of that in
Grafting too. That's never going to run dry, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
So yeah, I don't I don't think so. I think
they've got party in all summer.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, as we were leaving, the bikers were coming in.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, all summer long. Yeah, that's a
pretty standard. So yeah, it's a very unique place, it is.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Oh goodness. Well we've got just got a few more minutes.
So I'm going to ask you of all the places
you're taking tours, where you take your tours, which one
is the most haunted.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
Well, the most haunted location, I think, as far as
the tours go, is the same building where we have
our museum, which is the Mineral Springs in Alton. The
Mineral Springs was built literally on top of a natural
spring that was excavated when they were building it back
in nineteen fourteen, not to be a hotel. It was
supposed to be actually an ice manufacturing plant, and then
(52:33):
not knowing what to do with it, they ended up
turning it into a hotel because the water had a
very high sulfur content, and you know when spas were
all the thing in the early nineteen hundreds, So they
built this luxury hotel which endured for years, didn't close
down until nineteen seventy one. Now, the springs closed long
before that, but the hotel finally closed, sat empty for
(52:55):
a while, reopened, and it has had ghost stories told
about it for years. It was one of the first
places that I got interested in back in the nineties,
you know, exploring it and chronicling all the ghost stories
and digging through all the research and finding all the
people who died and committed suicide there. And you know,
(53:15):
we've got resident ghosts, you know, that have been around
for a while. It's a it's a very unique place.
It's a very interesting place, and I always encourage people
to if they get a chance to stop in and
see it, whether they go to the museum or not. Uh,
the Mineral Springs itself is worth seeing, and you know,
it's it's a kind of a faded glory kind of
(53:38):
on It's it's definitely not in its heyday these days,
but it's still a really cool place and it's got
a heck of an atmosphere to it. You could kind
of again, like you were saying, you could kind of
feel it when you go in. There's something to it.
So yeah, I always try to send people there or
to you know, the Micpike Mansion in town. There's there's
(53:58):
some really cool haunted places in all for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Okay, well, I'm looking forward to attending the conference, and
so listeners, if you will use promo code Listener, you
will get a ten percent discount off tickets at the
Haunted America Conference and the website is ghostconference dot net
(54:23):
or you can also go to American Hauntings dot net
to see everything that Troy's got going on. You're a
busy guy, Troy, and thank you so much for spending
the evening with us.
Speaker 4 (54:33):
Thanks a lot, Thanks for having me, and I'll see
you at the end of June.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
Okay, we'll do great, see you later. Thanks all right,
stay tuned for the next show everybody. We're going over
to the other link with Laura Eisenhower
M HM.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's time for the Unexed News News. Extraterrestrials, time anomalies,
dimension dimensions, remote viewing, UFOs, UAPs and USO's, ghostly encounters, abductions, Bigfoot,
and more and more, your end of the week news
(00:37):
source for everything everything unexplained. Here is your host for
the unex News podcast, Margie K.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to an ex News. I'm
your host, Margie KA, and we have a special two
hour broadcast this evening. First step is Troy Taylor and
after at the top of the hour that we're going
to have Flora Eisenhower on our other channel, So we'll
(01:19):
be checking out here and we'll be checking in on
the new one. So I'm sure you have the links already,
and let's get to it. Troy Taylor is the author
of more than one hundred and fifty books on history, haunting's,
true crime, the unexplained, and the supernatural in America. Troy
is the founder of American Hauntings, Inc. Which offers books,
(01:41):
events and ghost tours, and he's in the owner of
the American Oddities Museum in Alton, Illinois. He's also the
writer and co host of the American Hauntings podcast. He's
appeared in numerous television shows and documentaries, and his book
about the Saint Louis Exorcism of nineteen forty nine is
currently under option to be turned into a film by
(02:03):
a major production company. Welcome to the program, Troy.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Well, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Well, thank you so much. You're such a busy guy.
I appreciate you taking some time out to talk to
me for a little bit about you. And then of
course the conference coming up, we will definitely get to that.
But first, you know, I always have to ask this question,
how did you get started in the paranormal?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Well, I I think I guess the best way to
say is I sort of grew up in it. My
great granddad was a cop. He was an Irish immigrant
who was a police officer, and when I was a kid,
I got to spend quite a bit of time with
him and he would always tell me all his stories.
And his stories were, you know, a lot of stories
(02:51):
you take with a grain of salt, but you know,
there were always stories about you know, murders and probably
things that eight year old kids shouldn't have heard. But
he was always full of ghost stories because he would
talk about ghosts that he'd encountered when he worked. He
had a friend who was actually murdered in the line
of duty, and he and a number of other cops
(03:14):
in the tower I grew up used to talk about
how they saw his ghost on a regular basis near
where he died. And so I was just always interested
in this kind of stuff. When I was in high school,
I was always the kid that if you heard about
a ghost story or a haunted place or something spooky.
And I grew up in the eighties, so you know,
there was all kinds of things going on everywhere back then,
(03:37):
and people would always tell me their stories, and Halloween night,
I would take all my friends out and take them
on a ghost tour, not knowing that, you know, it
would someday be my job. But this is really the
only job I've ever had, and I like to say
it's not a real job, but it's certainly fun. And
so I just sort of grew up in it. And
(04:00):
in the early nineties, there was just not a whole
lot of this kind of stuff. There weren't a lot
of books, there weren't ghost tours or not much except
in a few of the big cities, and so I
started a ghost tour in the town where I grew up,
which was in the middle of Illinois town called Decatur,
and I thought, well, it'd be fun. I'm gonna I'm
(04:21):
gonna write a book and I'm gonna collect all these
ghost stories from Decatur that nobody's ever you know, people
tell the stories, but nobody's ever written them down. And
so I put a book together and I had it.
I always tell everybody it looked like it was printed
in my garage, and it basically was. I you know,
took photos, I glued them into the paper, took them
(04:43):
to an offset printer, had the books printed, and then
sold fifty five thousand copies of it, which was a
bit of a surprise.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
I'm still a kid at this point, you know. And
so I got this book out and I started doing it.
Or a buddy of mine who passed away just a
few months ago, said, hey, you know what you ought
to do. You ought to you got all these people
who are excited about these places in your book, you
ought to like rent a van or something and drive
everybody around so they can see these places. And I said,
(05:16):
that's a great idea. So we ended up the very
first year, we convinced a radio station that he and
I worked at at the time and to give away
the tickets. And the manager at the station said, well,
no one's going to buy tickets to some kind of
ghost tour, and so we're gonna have to pick them away, right,
And so you know, it's nineteen ninety four and they're
(05:38):
giving away the tickets on the air. They're gone in
like a half an hour whole bus, and so they
started telling everybody, well, you know, in case people don't
show up, you should just come down and wait, and
you know, maybe there'll be a seat on the bus.
So we ended up like waiting for a seat on
the bus. Needless to say, we charged for the tickets
the next year. And I've been doing it ever since.
(06:01):
You know, I've got tours in other cities, and I've
been doing tours and I you know, I do speaking
events and stuff, and so, you know, all of that
stuff was fun. I'd had some weird experiences and things.
Like I told you before we went on the air,
I'm not a psychic. I don't see dead people, I
don't hear dead people. But you know, I've been doing
(06:23):
this for thirty two years now, and every once in
a while you become part of your own story, whether
you plan or not. And so yeah, I've had some
experiences over the years. Probably the one that really convinced
me that there was something to all of this was gosh,
it had to have been probably around two thousand and
(06:44):
one or two. It was right before they opened the
Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville to the public. The people
who own it now had just bought it, and it
was a mess and people have been breaking in there
for years. And a buddy of mine took me we
walked through the building at night, and he took me
through it to show me, you know what it was like,
really excited to show it to me. And we walked
(07:06):
through the building and as we were walking down one
of the hallways, a man in a in a white
looked like a white coat, just walked across the hallway
in front of us, and I mean, needless to say,
startled me. And I you know, at first, I thought, Wow,
what's going on here? And we realized that it had
(07:27):
to be somebody who had just broken into the building
because it was happening all the time. So we went
down to the room that he'd walked into to tell
him that he had to leave, and when we went
into the room, there was no one in the room
and there was no door and no way out. And
at that point I realized, I've just seen a ghost,
and I think I'm finished with the tour now, and
(07:49):
so we left. That was enough.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Well you got what you came for.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
That's right, that's right, and so you know, yeah, see,
it's it's it's all well, people ask how do you
do this? How do you get so much stuff? How
do you write so many books? I'm like, this is
my full time job. This is what I do all day,
every day. And you know, sometimes it's seven days a
week when you work for yourself. Sometimes it's you know,
late at night, early in the morning. But you know,
(08:16):
I wouldn't trade it for anything. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I know, I've written eighteen books.
I know someone who's written thirty six books. But now
I know someone who's written one hundred and fifty books,
So that's got.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
To be the top.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well, my.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Goal was always a good friend of mine who passed
away a few years ago, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, and I
had a competition going. Rosemary and I were trying to
see who could brightley most, and we both just wanted
to beat Hans Holzer. That's all we cared about. I'm
just kidding, but we were competing with each other to
see who could write the most. So I wrote a lot.
(08:58):
She wrote a lot of books. And what a wealth
of walking encyclopedia of information she was. She was at
our conference every single year we'd had it for you know,
every year, until the one year she wasn't able to come,
and then that was she passed away just soon after
the conference. But she'd been at every single one we'd
(09:20):
ever done, and she was she was something else. She
was a great person.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So yeah, she was. I liked her. Now let's talk
about you've done numerous TV shows and documentaries. Let's name
a few for me.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Well, I did it right now. On Netflix, you can
watch The Unexplained Files. I am in the episode about
the Myrtles plantation. I am the villain of the episode.
In other words, they spend about fifteen minutes letting people
tell stories about the house at arn't true, and then
I come in and go, yes, none of that is true,
(10:01):
And then tell the real history of the house, so
that was a lot of fun to get to do.
So I enjoyed that a lot because I never say
that house isn't on it. There's been plenty of deaths
in that house, but the ones that they like to
use is their advertising. Chloe, who never existed and the
Poison family, who died from yellow fever a year apart
(10:21):
from each other, don't have anything to do with the
hauntings there. So yeah, I enjoyed that a lot. So
that's available. I recently did an episode of History's Greatest
Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne about John Dillinger and his mysterious afterlife.
I've done on Discovery. Plus there's a documentary streaming now
(10:45):
called The Exorcism of Roland Doe, which is about the
nineteen forty nine exorcism, which I've written pretty extensively about,
so I'm in that one. It actually came out before
the boy who was the center at the Baziz passed away,
and I'd made an agreement with him about twenty years
ago that I would not use his name as long
(11:06):
as he was alive, and I never did now I can,
so I have since put out a new edition of
the book that does include more of the information that
I've had for years that I couldn't use. So that's
why you get a rolling dough as the name of it.
But it's still a decent documentary. So I don't know.
I've done other episodes of stuff and Halloween time, I
(11:28):
pop up in varying ages and different beard links and
different hair over many years, you know, pop up. So
I'm around.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Okay, yeah, well you have been. I've seen you on
some shows. So you've got this extorcism though, back to
that in nineteen forty nine, is that the event that
The Exorcists was about.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
Yeah, well, yeah, movies in inspired hired William Peter Bladdy's
book in nineteen forty nine. When it happened. The family
that was involved in it, the Hunkler family, were actually
from Cottage City, Maryland, outside of Washington, d C. And
they were originally from Saint Louis and most of their
family was in Saint Louis. So when events started to
(12:19):
happen in their home in Maryland, you know, kind of
Poultergeist type events, you know, they were pretty shaken up
by it and ended up going to Saint Louis, thinking,
you know, hey, we'll be closer to family, and then
things escalated into what the Jesuits who were involved in
the case believed was a full blown possession, and it
(12:40):
went on for almost six weeks, and it was the
possession of the exorcism took place in several different places
in Saint Louis, and eventually, in the summer of nineteen
forty nine, after it was all over, there was a
newspaper article in Washington, d c. That talked about the
kind of poltergeist event that happened in Maryland, and then
(13:01):
there was mention in the article that an exorcism was
performed in Saint Louis. Well. One of the people who
read that article was William Peter Blattie, and he was
at that time going to seminary school at Georgetown studying
to be a priest, and was interested in the article,
asked questions about it to his advisors. Had heard there
(13:23):
was a diary kept about the exorcism, but you know,
it wasn't accessible to anybody, and the church had decided
to kind of keep things quiet at that point. They
didn't release Ronnie's name. Ronald was the boy they didn't
release his name or anything, and so he just sort
of filed it away. And then you know, twenty years later,
he's not a priest, he's a writer and he decides
(13:45):
to write this book about a little well, initially about
a boy who was possessed, and he starts writing to
one of the priests in Saint Louis who was involved
in the real case, who asked him to spare the
embarrassment of the family, could he make some changes to
his manuscript and not talk about this being a young
boy because it would be, you know, an embarrassment to
(14:07):
the family and things. And so he changed it to
a girl. And that's how we ended up with Reagan McNeil,
and that's that was part of what inspired the Exorcists.
Some of the wilder stuff came from another case that
dated back to the nineteen twenties, but this was this
was the one that first got his attention and caused
him to decide to write about an exorcism and a possession.
(14:31):
And so, yeah, I've been talking about it for a while.
It's one of those things that I got interested in
in the early two thousands and started doing research and
you know, living close to Saint Louis as I do.
It was easy in those days too, even then before
we had you know, the internet so widely at our fingertips.
It was easy to do research because it was close by.
(14:55):
Plus it helped that everyone, or well several of the
people that were in the actual exorcism, we're still alive
at this point. So I interviewed everyone who was still alive,
including years later, interviewed an Alexian monk who was also
involved in the exorcism at the Sant Alexias Hospital in
(15:16):
Saint Louis. And I didn't know he existed. He was
dying and his family contacted me and he wanted to
tell his story, and so I went to see him
in Milwaukee and where he was retired and got his
story too. So there is anybody left now, everybody's gone,
now that Ronald has since passed away, there isn't anyone
(15:37):
left who was involved. So I, you know, can't see
me adding a whole lot to the story at this point.
But it is an interesting story now now. Whether or
not he was demonically possessed, I don't know. That's that's
really my answer. I I just present everything that I've
got on the whole case, whether I'm doing it in
(15:59):
a lecture or in my book, I give people all
the information and all the facts, and I let people
decide for themselves what they want to believe, because there
are lots of possibilities. But I will say, whatever it
was that happened to this family, it was so earth
shattering to them and so upsetting to them and so
(16:20):
momentous that, you know, seventy plus years later, we're still
talking about it. So something happened to that family, whether
you no matter what you want to believe it, it
was something happened. So that's kind of where I leave things.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So well, we don't want to give away a lot
of information because you get this book coming up, but
I will ask you this, did the young man involve
this Ronald?
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Did he ever experience anything like that again after that
after that incident? No?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
And that's what's one of the things that's sort of
interesting about it, because when people have tried to offer
me alternative explanations, and I've searched for them myself, I
just don't accept the fact. I don't just go, oh, yeah,
he must have been possessed. There are lots of possibilities, so,
you know, I take the case too. I've talked to
psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors just to get their opinion
(17:17):
on it. And the interesting thing about it is a
lot of people will say that it was probably some
sort of mental disorder, or it was you know something
you know, childhood schizophrenia or something, but no one has
an explanation as to how he was well magically cured
because it did go away. It stopped, and for the
(17:37):
rest of his life he never had anything like that
ever happened to him again. It just came to an
abrupt stop at the end of this exorcism. And again
nothing else, there was nothing else that ever bothered him.
So it makes you wonder, you know, you have to
kind of wonder what was going on and what really happened. So,
(17:57):
you know, I I've done a couple of different editions
of the book. The first one, you know, had to
use his pseudonym, but the more recent one I did
after he passed away. You know, I get into a
lot more detail about the family dynamic and things, and
you can see where there were issues, you know, with
a lot of things issues with him, and he admitted that.
(18:20):
But that's one of the things that was interesting about
him is that he, you know, really didn't have much
of a memory about what had occurred. When I finally
did get a chance to interview him, he and that
was kind of a standard thing going on. He wouldn't
remember how he behaved during the extras and ritual, which
they would do at night, not because it was spooky,
(18:41):
but because that's the only time that Jesuits were free
to be able to do this, because they were all
involved in other things during the day, so in their
spare time, so to speak, they had to perform an exorcism,
and so you know, he wouldn't have much memory of that,
and as time went on, it was more and more.
One of the things he told me is that he
always kind of felt like it was someone else's life
(19:03):
because he only knew about it from the memories and
the remembrances of other people, not his own. And so yeah,
and so he was, you know, it was really great
to talk to, but he very polite, very nice guy,
but he just really couldn't tell me a whole lot.
But you know, when all this stuff was over, he
(19:25):
went on and went to work for NASA. He worked
for NASA his entire career. A guy was a genius.
I mean, he was real. He's got patents for things
we still use on space vehicles today, and that's you know,
the Exorcist boy, you know, you know, did all these
things that people don't even know about. And you know,
he was always afraid that somebody would find out who
(19:47):
he was. You know, when I this was when I
talked to him back in like two thousand and five.
He was always afraid someone would find out who he
was and that you know, he'd never get any peace.
But no one ever did none of his co work.
I mean, he retired and no one ever had any idea.
It wasn't until after he passed away that his name
was revealed. Now, I mean I knew what his name was.
(20:09):
I found it years before, but it wasn't widely known
until more recently. And you know, it was I kind
of spilled the beans on it once he passed away,
and then I started to see it being picked up
in other places. But that was the arrangement I had
with him, is that I would never use his name,
and that's why he gave me the interview.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
So just yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well that's that's quite an
amazing story and you do have to think there had
to be something to it. If he was miraculously cured,
he didn't have a memory of it, and then he
went on with the normal life exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I mean, no medication, know anything. I mean, it wasn't
treated in any way other than through you know, which
I mean again, you could make a case for it
being a psycho somatic thing that maybe this exorcism jarred
him out of it. But boy, when you hear some
of the details and read some of the details that
were chronicled in the diary then in the you know,
(21:12):
the chronology of the exorcism that was kept by one
of the priests, you it doesn't sound like a standard
just mental illness. Now again, there's lots of different things
that you can say about it, you know, and lots
of suggestions that have been made to me, and you know,
I've made some of my own, and it was religious, hysteria,
all kinds of things. But there's no way to know
(21:34):
for sure. But I don't know. There's something about that
whole thing that it's really hard to shake. It really is.
So yeah, So when I did the book the books
called the Devil came to Saint Louis, And when I
did the book, it was it was an exciting book
for me. And then when I did the new edition,
it was, you know, I finally felt like I could
(21:55):
tell the whole story, you know, for the first time,
which was kind of a relief, you know, because I've
been keeping it for years at that point.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
So, you know, have you written any books about similar events.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
But not not not like a full book like that.
When I have written about other exorcisms, including some that
you know, leave a lot of questions. There are some
that probably the most famous one that most people know
is the Annalis mckel story from Germany. Uh and that's
(22:29):
the one that became the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
And that's a that's a really sad story because I
don't think in any way, shape or form was she possessed.
I think she really was mentally ill and was untreated
for more than a year while undergoing this brutal exorcism,
and I really think that her mental illness is what
(22:51):
killed her. That's the only time that I've ever heard
of someone just dying because of it, because of an exorcism.
But you know, I've written about others, but that's that.
The one from Saint Louis is the one I've talked
about the most. I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
What are some of your other more recent books.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Uh, I've done a lot of different things. I very
all over the place. I write what I'm just most
interested in. I did a book about uh. Late last year,
I did a book about circuses and side shows and
freak shows in the ghost stories that kind of go
along with some of those. It's a It's the biggest
book I've ever written, and I had to make myself stop.
(23:32):
It was it was kind of ye. I'd had uncles
who were in the carnival business when I was a kid,
so I love that stuff. It's one of the reasons
that I opened the museum is because of collecting all
these weird things over the years, and I've never had
a place to display them, and now now I do.
But so I got excited about it because I just
(23:52):
love that kind of thing, So that that book was
a lot of fun to write. I I've just gosh,
I've done a lot of different things. I've written about,
you know, cults and religious groups, and lots and lots
of books on the hauntings and the belwitch and cursed.
You know, music stories, the Donner Party, the you know,
(24:17):
I mean you you. You could probably name a lot
of things that I've probably written about it. But I've
got a list I'll never stop. I Well, for one thing,
I can't retire, but I wouldn't want to anyway. Why
what would I do with myself? I have absolutely no idea.
Oh yeah, I've got a constant list of things that
will always be ongoing.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
So yeah, Well, one of the places I was just
investigating was Pithy and Castle in Missouri.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
There, yeah, years ago. I haven't been there recently. I
was just talking to somebody about it recently, and I
need to get back down there. But this has been
a long time since I've been. That's a nae place.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Do you remember if there? Did you have any experiences
or paranormal No?
Speaker 4 (25:03):
I didn't, not, not that time, which you know I've
been to. I can't think of any prisons or big
buildings like that. I probably haven't been to at this point.
I mean, I've had experiences at a lot of different
places now, I didn't have anything in that one, which
is a reason why it would be fun to go back,
because I, you know, always hope for one.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how about.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
You, I mean you were there, how was it?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
I mean, dude, well, I didn't know. I didn't really
feel like the stories that were being told were one
hundred percent accurate, although I have no way, of course
of checking that. Sure there there was only one place
where I felt the dark energy that was in the basement.
The rest of it, nothing was that went on. Yeah yeah,
(25:51):
but it's a cool place, not like fifty three rooms.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah yeah, I can. I can think of times and
places I've been that, you know, I'll have an experience
once and I'll go back and nothing happens, and it
feels like the police is just completely empty, and you know,
and I don't think you have to be a psychic
to get a feeling about stuff like that, because I
can remember times going to like the Ohio State Reformatory
(26:16):
in Mansfield, Ohio, and you know, having experiences there and
then going the next time and it just feels like
the place is just a big empty building, you know,
and it's you know, that's happened to me quite a
few places over the years. So that's why always tell
people don't just go once, because you just never know,
you know, what the next.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Will be you know, okay, well we are going to
take a short break. We'll be back right after these messages.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
The new book How Do Research a Haunted House by
paranormal investigator Margie k and professional researcher Violent Wisdom, is
now available from an ex Media. This one of a
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with uncommon methods and resources used by historic home researchers,
and how to determine who may be doing the haunting
(27:06):
and why. How to Research a Haunted House can be
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the library of all professional paranormal investigators. Get this unique
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(28:12):
supernatural event of twenty twenty five. The biggest, best, and
original ghost conference in America, returns June twenty sixth through
the twenty ninth in Alton, Illinois. The Haunted America Conference
returns to one of the most haunted small towns in
all of America for our twenty eighth annual event.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Join us for new and.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Returning speakers on ghosts, hauntings, the paranormal and the unexplained,
plus how to workshops, question and answer sessions, special events,
haunted tours, and much more. The Haunted America Conference is
always the most fun you'll have at a paranormal event.
We look forward to seeing you in June twenty twenty five.
(29:00):
You won't be sorry that you've come to help us
celebrate twenty eight years. Is it ghostconference dot net? To
register today? That's Ghostconference dot net.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And we're back. This is our next news and I'm margiek.
My guest this evening is Troy Taylor. That last little
message we had is about your conference coming up. Troy,
tell us about that.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Well, the Home in America conference was actually the first
most conference in the country. I just thought it would
be fun. It was again kind of how I get
mixed up in all these things. Back in nineteen ninety
seven or I guess ninety six, I a friend of
mine had gone to a Sherlock Holmes conference and told
(29:49):
me about it, and I said, well, why couldn't we
do something like that for people who like ghostuff And
so we decided to do it. And at the time
I lived in Decatur, Illinois, and we wrangled an old
haunted theater in town for this conference. And I had
an acquaintance who worked at the local newspaper, and he
wrote up a tiny little article about it. But he
(30:11):
thought it because he thought it sounded ridiculous, and he
again with that whole you know, no one's going to
want to do that kind of thing, and so he
put it out on the up wire just for the
heck of it. And so I spent the last week
before the conference every day from about six am to
(30:31):
about five in the afternoon taking phone calls from radio
stations all over the country. Who were you know, mostly
just laughing about a bunch of people talking about ghosts
getting together to talk about ghosts. And it was fun,
and so I just decided to keep doing this. So
now twenty eight years later, here we still are. We
(30:53):
haven't missed a year yet, except for during the pandemic
we had to skip twenty twenty, but other than that,
we've been doing it every year and it's a lot
of fun. We we like to call it like paranormal
summer camp because it's a chance for people to get
together for a weekend and just hang out, you know,
with people who are similar minded, you know, we have
(31:15):
a no politics rule. You don't get talked about anything
like that. It all has to be you know, everybody
just gets together and has fun. And you know, it's
gone from having you know, one hundred people to about
five hundred people. And you know, it's it's not a
it's not a convention. It's not a there's nobody just
sitting at tables signing headshots. It's it's a speaker based conference.
(31:40):
We've got a set schedule. You can see everything, every speaker.
You don't have to miss anybody because you're doing something else.
And then we do a lot of after our events
and then you kind of have to choose. But during
the days, the two days of the conference, you know,
you get to see every speaker, and we try to
come up with a variety of people. It's mostly authors.
(32:01):
I always try to go with people who really have
something to say. And it's it's just it's a blast.
It's it's really a lot of fun. And you know,
I look forward to it every year because these are
people that I may only get to see once a year.
So the fact that I get to see them, you know,
at all, is is a you know, is a delight
(32:22):
and you know, when somebody's not there, you you notice,
even with all the you know, the people that are there,
you're like, where's so and so. You know, they didn't
make it this year. And that's how it's become after
all this time. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun
and you know, we've got we always have a good turnout.
We always try to do a lot of things that
we can offer to people to do. You know, after
(32:44):
the conference is done for the day, it doesn't have
to end. You know, We've got ghost hunts and ghost
tours and you know, workshops, lots of how to workshops
and things. So I try to make it entertaining but
educational too, and I think that's kind of been the
key is to why we're You've been able to do
it for so long and it just sort of has
(33:06):
just kind of continued to you know, keep going after
all this time. I get so many people that want
to be speakers, and it's like, you know, you can't,
you just can't. You can't have them all, you know,
because we we don't. We don't have ten things going
at the same time. I don't I don't want to
do it that way.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah, I don't like the oversized conferences where you have
to pick from three or four or five different speakers
we're talking at the same time, you know, make it,
make it smaller, make it accessible. I really like your
format and with your evening events too.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
It sounds like a lot of fun and I'm looking
forward to being there. We're going to have a booth
there of the uniced booth, so stop buying and and
say hi to us when we're there. Everybody who yeah, well,
people who.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Are are are listening, who are coming to the show.
They we got a discount that's available when people check
out if they sign up for the conference and they
put in the pre promo code listener get ten percent off,
so you know, can't beat that either. So that's something
we wanted to do for your network. So this year,
(34:15):
I've got Jim Willis is an old friend of mine
from Ohio. He has done Haunted Ohio books, he did
the Weird Ohio books, and he is also probably one
of the funniest people that I've ever met. And he
has had twenty five plus years of adventures, you know,
tracking down ghost stories and hauntings and things, and people
(34:39):
love him and I always put him first thing. When
he comes, I put him first thing on Saturday morning,
because that way everybody that stayed out too late on
Friday night at a ghost tunt, he'll wake them up.
So I've got Jim, I've got Aaron Taylor, who, while
we like to claim we're related, we're not. But she's
dealing with she's a psychotherapist and she's dealing with the
(35:03):
combination of the paranormal and psychotherapy and that kind of thing.
So that's something that we've never done before. Richard Eastep
will be returning this year. Richard has written quite a
number of books. He is a great speaker. He has
done a lot of different things, including most recently, he
(35:23):
did a book about Fox Hollow Farm in Indiana, which
got turned into a series, a short a three part
series on Hulu about the serial killer and the hauntings
at the farm. So Richard will be talking about that.
Victoria Day is a new speaker. She has not been
here before this year. April Slaughter is a friend of
(35:45):
mine that I've known for gosh, maybe fifteen years or so.
She'll be returning with a couple of different workshops. She
is a very She's one of those people that are
the few people that I will vouch for. When I
start to talk about people, ask me, do you know
anybody who's truly psychic who really has gifts? April is
that person for me. She is the first person that
(36:08):
always comes to mind, and I think she really genuinely
has something and she really does a lot with people
when they come to our events. Sherry Break from West
Virginia will be returning this year. She again is somebody
who's super knowledgeable. She is also an old friend of
(36:30):
Rosemary Guilees like I am, and we kind of all
just kind of, you know, put a lot of things
together together. So Sherry will be here. Carrie Bergen from Colorado.
She is not only doing a workshop on making pendulums,
but she also is a collector of haunted dolls and
(36:51):
she is nobody to joke about when it comes to
haunted dolls. She gifted me one before I opened the museum,
and I didn't really think anything about it until he
started misbehaving, so to speak, when the opened. So she
(37:12):
knows what she's doing.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
There's nothing to mess with. I have four haunted dolls. Yeah,
I know what they can do exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:21):
Yeah. Amanda Woomer, she does. She's not only is a ghostwriter,
but she also owns her own museum. It's a traveling
museum of mourning and death items. I've got some of
that stuff in our museum, but she's got an extensive
collection of that kind of stuff. The Three Appalachian Witches,
(37:42):
they've been coming to a lot of our events and
they're super entertaining and they really do a great job
of guiding groups through all kinds of different things. I
try to offer a mixture of not just hardcore solid
ghost investigation people. Larry Eisler does a lot of high
tech stuff, Tobias Whalan does, and they're doing workshops and things.
(38:07):
The Witches are more of a kind of a psychic
blend of things because, you know, just because I don't
do all of it, I know that a lot of
our guests do, so I like to have a little
bit of something for everybody. So yeah, we've got a
We've got a really great bunch of people coming this
year again, you know, doing workshops and doing different after
(38:30):
hour events and tours. And my co host Cody is
from the American Hauntings podcast. Always he always sits up
and does a booth where he listens to people's personal
ghost stories and we record them, and then we'll do
a special episode for the podcast of people's collected stories
from the conference. That's always a lot of fun. And
(38:51):
then I added, kind of belatedly, I added Jeff with him,
he has a very large museum of talking boards that
he is bringing to the conference. So we'll be setting
that up and people can look at all these different
boards and things that he's got that he's been collecting
over the years. So, like I said, there's something for
(39:13):
everybody that comes. I don't think no one's going to
walk away going, oh wow, that was boring there. I mean,
after twenty eight years, I've been able to handpick pretty well.
I've had very few and I'm not going to say
zero duds over the years, but not very many. And
I know I don't have any this year. So I'm
(39:35):
excited about it. And everybody that's coming will be too,
or already is. And you know, I'm sure we'll start
to see a few more people trickling in here as
we get closer and closer to the date.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
So well, it sounds wonderful. I can't wait to attend.
I've been up in New yr Neck of the Woods
quite a bit lately. I was just at the DURAS
conference Grafton, Illinois, just north of Alton. So have you
investigated the Pear Marquette Lodge there.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Yeah, that we've done a couple of things. I do
a regular thing at the Peer Market Lodge is part
of a tour, not necessarily investigation. We have done that,
and I've stayed there quite a bit, but it's also
part of one of the tours that I do too,
is you know, the ghost stories and things with Peer Marquette.
But yeah, Grafton is a is a neat town. I
(40:30):
do a river couple of river road tours that goes
from Alton to Grafton, and we talked about ghost stories
along the river and you know, and then talk about
things when we get to Grafton. And there are several
different locations in Grafton that have their ghost stories and
their legends and lore, and I always recount all of them.
But I'd have to say that my favorite spot, in
(40:51):
addition to Peer Marquette, is the rublel Hotel, which I
think you're familiar with.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
We stayed at the Ribe Hotel and I had no
idea was on until we got in there.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
Yeah, I heard about I first heard about the Ruble
when I first moved to the Alton area, and that
was in the mid nineties, and they at that point
were just restoring it. You know, it had started back
in eighteen eighty four, but most of the building that's
there now was a rebuild from nineteen twelve after it
(41:22):
burned down. But you know, i'd heard about it and
it sat empty for like fifty years after Grafton just
sort of dried up, you know, no more riverboats, the
railroad left, so there was just nothing to bring anybody there,
and the river road hadn't been built yet. So when
I first heard about it and they were talking about
it being haunted, I will confess that I just automatically
(41:47):
assumed that, you know, it's just a little hotel and
they've got a ghost story, and that's you know, might
lure some people in, you know, even though that was
kind of early on in paranormal travel at the time.
But I never really thought much about it. And when
people would ask me, oh, is there any place haunted
to stay? I would just sort of laugh and I go, well,
you know, the Rubel Hotel is supposed to be haunted.
(42:08):
That might be a place that you'd enjoy, and it is.
It is a neat place. And a few years ago,
I was coming back from an event and I lived
in at the time, was living in central Illinois, and
I thought, well, rather than go home, you know, I
think maybe I'll spend the night in Grafton. I was
with my partner at the time, and so we checked
(42:31):
into the we got a room at the Ruble, and
we stayed there and went out to dinner and came
back late and went to bed. Now what a lot
of people probably listening don't know is that the Ruble
is supposed to be haunted by a ghostly little girl
named Abigail. And the stories date back to really just
when they started remodeling the place. Some of the contractors
(42:52):
and the workmen started reporting seeing this little girl in
a nightgown in the building. And you know, and there
were plenty of other there's other activity too, but she
seems to be the center of it. And after they opened,
you know, they had staff members and customers who were
also seeing this little girl. So that always just kind
of been the story. So we had returned to our
(43:13):
room at the end of the night and had just
had gone to bed, and both of us woke up
not realizing the other one was awake about two am,
because we heard what sounded like a small child crying
in the hallway outside our room. Now we did not
think neither one of them from one thing. We didn't
discuss it at that point. We didn't even have any
(43:35):
idea that the other one was awake. And I didn't
think it was a ghost. I just assumed it was
a guest with a child, you know, that was staying
that you know, was crying and they were trying to
settle it down, and you know, I went back to sleep.
And so the next morning we were downstairs having breakfast
and we were chatting about and the subject of this
crying child came up, and I just sort of laughed
(43:57):
about it, and I said, well, it's no wonder you know,
people thought, you know, think this place is haunted, because
you know, every time there's a kid here that cries,
people just probably automatically assume it's a ghost. And so
we were getting ready to leave, and my partner was
waiting on the check and so I went up to
the desk and was getting ready to leave, and the
owner at the time was there, and I knew him,
(44:19):
and we got to chatting, and I said something about
you know this, about the ghost stories in this Crying Child,
and he said, well, I mean, I suppose that's possible,
he said, but not last night. And I said, well
why and he said, well, because you two were the
only people here last night. There was no one else
(44:39):
staying in the hotel. We were the only ones in
the building. This school wasn't even there. And so at
that point I realized, wait a minute, the Rubel Hotel
really is haunted. This is not just a ghost story.
So I always vouch for the Ruble whenever we go
there with the tour, and we'll always stop and I'll
tell this story, and you know, I'll take people inside
(45:01):
and let them wander around a little bit. The owners
are really great about that kind of stuff. So yeah,
it's it's a very cool place. And I mean town
of Grafton is a really cool place. But yeah, that's uh,
that's that's one of my favorite spots in this area
for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Well. I love old buildings, you know, just for the architecture,
but when they're haunted, it's a bonus, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
You know, exactly, Yeah, It's kind of like it's the
history that drew me to all this stuff. And the
ghost stories are are you know when I write about
them or I talk about them or take people on tours,
that the ghost stores are the bonus. You know. That's
that's how you get people to listen to history, is
by giving them a ghost story to go along with it. So, yeah,
(45:44):
I agree with you on that for sure.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Well, I've got to ask you this about the Pair
Market because every time I've been there, I've been there
three years in a row, and every time I see
a man standing next to the big giant fireplace and
no one else sees him, I'm like, okay, but what's
(46:07):
going on here? Have you seen him?
Speaker 1 (46:09):
No?
Speaker 4 (46:10):
I haven't, but enough people have that. I mention it
every time we take a tour, I tell people as
we're going through the lobby, I will always say, one
of the ghosts that is supposed to appear is right
here by the fireplace, and he's been seeing for years.
Nobody knows who he is. But if you see somebody
standing there, there's a good chance that it's a ghost,
(46:31):
not you know, a living customer. But then that place
is an interesting history because you know, it sits right
at the mouth of the Mississippi and the Illinois rivers,
so it was kind of a strategic spot to Native Americans.
It was a strategic spot during the Civil War. There
was a Union encampment there. You know, with Missouri being
(46:52):
right across the river, it would have been easy for
Confederates to go up the river to Chicago, so there
was a camp there. So there was already a lot
of history there when they decided to turn that into
a state park. And then during the New Deal and
the CCC decided they built the park lodge and constructed
the state park. And they spent almost ten years building
(47:15):
that lodge and getting that park together. And so right
after they opened, you already had four park rangers talking
about seeing you know, people walking around out on the grounds.
You had almost immediately had people reporting ghosts in the lodge,
seeing figures who disappeared, doors that open and close, you know,
(47:35):
all the stuff, the footsteps, the lights that turn on
and off. There's a room in the hotel that none
of the house and this is a true story, none
of the housekeepers will clean it by themselves. Most of
the time. They don't even rent that room. Out because
they've had so many weird incidents that have happened in
that room that people were panicked over it, and so
they just don't usually rent it out. So if we
(47:56):
ever do anything there, they give us that room to
use a sort of as a hangout spot, because they
don't rent it most of the time, you know, unless
you specifically ask for the haunted room kind of thing.
But yeah, I've talked to you know a lot of
the people that worked there over the years, and they
tell you stories about the you know, the restaurant, the
(48:17):
you know, anywhere in that place. I mean, it all
dates back to not well in nineteen thirty nine when
they opened it, but there have been thousands and thousands
of people that have been through that place, and it's
already sitting on this property that already had a weirdness
to it already. And I know it's a you know,
it's a it's an old trope about you know, Indian
(48:38):
burial grounds, but there really are Indian burial grounds on
the property. In fact, the swimming pool when they added
the new wing in the sixties, where the swimming pool sits,
was actually a burial ground when they excavated it they
had to move all the bones that were there to
another location. So people talk about, you know, odd things
(49:01):
happening in what appears to be now a remodeled, almost
brand new looking swimming pool. You wonder how it was haunted. Well,
that might have something to do with it, you know that. Yeah,
the disturbance that happened. So yeah, the Pure Market is
a great location for anything. It's another one of those
spots I recommend to people as a great place to stay.
(49:23):
And you know, like I said, we do a lot
of events with them, and they do that. They got
great food, that's for sure. Because I do a dinner tour,
so you know, we'll stop and have dinner at Paar
Marquette before we continue the tour. So it's a lot
of fun.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Oh yeah, give people a chance to get the feeling
of the place because it is unique.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
As you're driving on the grounds, you can just feel
the shifted energy.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
Yeah, that's master place. Now.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
We've had some other experiences there with sasquatch sightings, yeah,
and UFOs right overhead.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
It's a it's an odd I mean, it's that it's
that junction of the river I think has a lot
to do with all of it. You know, not only
do you have all the history from around the area
when it comes to the ghost stories, but I think
the junction of the river and all that energy probably
attracts a lot of things. There's also did you know
that there's a Nike missile base there on the property
hidden herd. Yeah, it's kind of in the back part.
(50:21):
You can hike back there as part of the trails.
So at one time there was a lot more activity
there than there even is today. So it's not surprising,
you know that you get a lot of stuff and
as far as like you know, bigfoot sidings and things go.
I mean, that's a there is a lot of property
right around our area and along the river road that
is just dense forest. You know that it's largely untouched
(50:45):
and all these springs and caves and you know, secret paths,
and it's a it's a it's a really mysterious area.
I always invite people to come. It's a part of
Illinois that most people don't even know exists, you know,
and it's really cleo.
Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, I didn't until I until I went there. Yeah,
as soon as I saw it, I was with a
friend of mine, and I said, this is very squatchy.
Yeah right, right, it looks very squatchy. So oh gosh,
we got people in the up.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Yeah, here, there you go. You need to do a
Sasquatch beer tour.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
There you go, there, you go, sit out on the way.
Eventually you'll see anything, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
So right, and plus all those bars in Grafton, Oh
my god.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
There is that. Yeah, there's a lot of that in
Grafting too. That's never going to run dry, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:40):
So yeah, I don't I don't think so. I think
they've got party in all summer.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Yeah, as we were leaving, the bikers were coming in.
Speaker 4 (51:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, all summer long. Yeah, that's a
pretty standard. So yeah, it's a very unique place, it is.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
Oh goodness. Well we've got just got a few more minutes.
So I'm going to ask you of all the places
you're taking tours, where you take your tours, which one
is the most haunted.
Speaker 4 (52:10):
Well, the most haunted location, I think, as far as
the tours go, is the same building where we have
our museum, which is the Mineral Springs in Alton. The
Mineral Springs was built literally on top of a natural
spring that was excavated when they were building it back
in nineteen fourteen, not to be a hotel. It was
supposed to be actually an ice manufacturing plant, and then
(52:33):
not knowing what to do with it, they ended up
turning it into a hotel because the water had a
very high sulfur content, and you know when spas were
all the thing in the early nineteen hundreds, So they
built this luxury hotel which endured for years, didn't close
down until nineteen seventy one. Now, the springs closed long
before that, but the hotel finally closed, sat empty for
(52:55):
a while, reopened, and it has had ghost stories told
about it for years. It was one of the first
places that I got interested in back in the nineties,
you know, exploring it and chronicling all the ghost stories
and digging through all the research and finding all the
people who died and committed suicide there. And you know,
(53:15):
we've got resident ghosts, you know, that have been around
for a while. It's a it's a very unique place.
It's a very interesting place, and I always encourage people
to if they get a chance to stop in and
see it, whether they go to the museum or not. Uh,
the Mineral Springs itself is worth seeing, and you know,
it's it's a kind of a faded glory kind of
(53:38):
on It's it's definitely not in its heyday these days,
but it's still a really cool place and it's got
a heck of an atmosphere to it. You could kind
of again, like you were saying, you could kind of
feel it when you go in. There's something to it.
So yeah, I always try to send people there or
to you know, the Micpike Mansion in town. There's there's
(53:58):
some really cool haunted places in all for sure.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Okay, well, I'm looking forward to attending the conference, and
so listeners, if you will use promo code Listener, you
will get a ten percent discount off tickets at the
Haunted America Conference and the website is ghostconference dot net
(54:23):
or you can also go to American Hauntings dot net
to see everything that Troy's got going on. You're a
busy guy, Troy, and thank you so much for spending
the evening with us.
Speaker 4 (54:33):
Thanks a lot, Thanks for having me, and I'll see
you at the end of June.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
Okay, we'll do great, see you later. Thanks all right,
stay tuned for the next show everybody. We're going over
to the other link with Laura Eisenhower
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