The Dead Files (2011) s01e04 Episode Script

This is my house of dolls.
Dolls were originally, vessels for the dead.
My 9-year-old daughter, she walked in her room and saw a little girl playing in her closet.
She just wants something bad to happen.
Ghosts can't harm you.
Only the living can.
I feel like I'm just out of my league with this one.
The living people can hear the dead people talking.
No.
I'd like some answers.
You need to leave because it's not safe.
Why isn't it safe? Because so many people died around here.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's something down there.
I see dead people.
He doesn't want me back there.
I speak to dead people.
She's pissed.
And they speak to me.
She doesn't like the people who live here.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
Someone did hang themselves here.
- Where? - There.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective.
Did you want to kill him? And I know every person, every house has secrets.
She did die in this house.
It's my job to reveal them.
Would you be surprised if there were bodies in the basement? No.
But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
Not good.
Will we uncover if it's safe for you to stay Will it get worse? Or time to get out? - Oh, yes.
- Whew.
Steve will dig into the history of a location.
He'll talk to the people involved.
He'll gather all the facts so that later when we come together, we can see if our research has drawn any significant conclusions.
I'm down in Cramerton, North Carolina, which is just outside of Charlotte.
Cramerton used to be the location of the country's largest cotton mill.
This is classic America.
I got a call from a couple named Lisa and John.
They have a 9 year old daughter, who's been seeing apparitions and hearing noises.
They're obviously concerned.
So Amy and I are down here to see if we can find out anything to help them out.
Matt will come in and do what we call a cleaning of the location.
So he'll remove anything like Personal family photos, artwork, names.
Any type of leading information, so that I won't lose my focus during the investigation.
Whoa.
Somebody pushed me.
- My head, man.
- What happened? I don't know.
Maybe somebody got hit in the back of the head Really, really, really Really hard.
Like, eh.
I got hit! And I'm on the ground now.
- Steve? Hi.
- Lisa.
Hi, how are you? - Good.
Come on in.
- Thank you.
This is my house of dolls.
I have over 2,000 dolls.
- Here, in the house? - Here, yes.
Yeah, they're they're everywhere.
Just every place you can find to fit a doll, there is one.
Yeah, I mostly keep and collect dolls.
My dolls go back to over 100 years old.
I got to be honest with you.
I'm a little creeped out.
- This doesn't bother anybody else? - Nobody in the house it bothers.
I've had people that we hire to do work for us, come in and not want to come in and work.
Yeah, I could see.
If I have five or six dolls, I could put them away.
I'm not putting away a hundred so you can work on my house.
We just have to get somebody else that's not creeped out by eyes looking at him.
Lisa, beside yourself, who else lives in the house? - My husband Johnny - Okay.
And my 9-year-old daughter Salem and me.
All right, so why don't you tell me what's going on? Well, Salem has been coming and telling us about people sitting on her bed and talking to her since we moved in.
She would say, the lady was on my bed last night.
You know, the lady talked to me last night.
And just recently, about a month ago, she walked in her room and saw a little girl playing in her closet.
She said a little girl was messing in her clothes.
Do you think she's getting that from you guys, or is there something that she just picked up on her own? She brings home books from the library on World War II, and Yellow Fever epidemics.
And she's very interested in war and death.
- Really? - But I got to really Really stop her on some of the things she's interested in.
Like, no, that's all you can see of this.
It's just kind of weird.
All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Hmm, that's interesting.
Yeah.
Uh Just a lot of dolls, which are creepy.
Dolls are creepy.
My goodness.
Oh, my.
My, my goodness.
Dolls were originally Vessels for the dead.
Like to So that the dead could be within the dolls because the dolls are hollow shells.
Yeah, they were vessels made for the dead.
And the dead are talking about being trapped.
They want to leave.
Oh, my.
My, my goodness.
I have never seen this many dolls in my life.
In some cultures, dolls were created as vessels or resting places for the human soul.
Problem is they can also attract souls that haven't moved on yet.
This is Salem's room.
This is where she sleeps.
- And she's gonna be home soon? - Yeah.
- It won't be long, yeah.
She'll be home.
- Okay.
I'll be able to talk to her when she gets here.
And you mentioned something about, there being somebody by the bed? Yeah.
She has woken up many times and said that she talked to a lady at her bed.
One time, she said she could feel the lady's weight of her arm when she laid her arm across her legs.
And there's the closet where she saw the little girl playing in her clothes.
There's, like, a little dead girl in the closet.
Uh And I think She just Wants something bad to happen.
Why do you say that they want something bad to happen? Because the little girl just told me that.
What did she tell you? Uh, that they want something bad to happen.
What does that mean? She just is giggling.
Have they tried to make bad things happen? Well, what did they say? That she doesn't like the people who live here.
- Hi, Salem.
- Hi.
I'm finally able to sit down with Salem, who I'm the most concerned about in this case.
She's the only one that's seen any paranormal activity.
So I wanted to dig a little bit deep to find out what she's seen and what she's heard.
I was wondering if you can explain some of the things that were going on, if that's okay with you? Yeah.
Okay, why don't you tell me about what you experience when you're sleeping at night? There was this lady that came up on my bed.
I was able to feel the pressure.
And this happened while you were sleeping? Yeah, I woke up and saw her, and I talked to her, but I really can't remember what she said.
You said you felt? Mm-hmm, she was sitting like right over here while I was laying down.
- And you weren't frightened? - No.
- At all? - I felt kind of calm.
So seeing the apparitions doesn't scare you.
No.
I just find that a little strange, you know, that it wouldn't scare you.
When I was younger, it scared me because I didn't understand, but when I got to, like, wait, ghosts can't harm you, only the living can.
I mean, I'm a retired Detective, and I've been in a lot of situations where I get scared.
And I can sit here and say that that would scare me.
Mm-hmm.
Now you have an interest in World War II? Yeah.
My mom started watching movies about Anne Frank.
Okay.
And I wasn't there back then in the 1940 to 1945 and 1944 when it happened.
All right.
And so that's when I got interested in, and I got some books and started reading about it.
And I still have an interest in The Civil War with the Confederate and Union.
I think it's, like, scary and cool at the same time.
See, this is where voices There's a lot of voices in here.
Lots of voices because people are coming and going here.
Dead people are coming and going here.
And they're walking back and forth, and they're walking back and forth.
And there's a lot of talking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's people can hear it.
People can hear people talking.
The living people can hear the dead people talking.
And they don't want to hear it.
And so they're like closing it off.
Like, No.
Lisa's concerned with their daughter.
Quite frankly, so am I.
It's time for me to sit down with her husband John.
And find out what he thinks about all this.
Now, John, I'm curious about Salem.
She's pretty young.
She's 9.
Now she's seen quite a few things.
I mean how do you have a concern about that? Oh, yeah, I'm very concerned about that.
That's been going on since we bought the house.
We need to know is this something that is good? Is it evil? Is it what is it? I'd like some answers.
And, hm, somebody used to like Walks up here, walks up here, right here, right here and then Somebody's standing here, and they're trying to talk.
Yeah, they're trying to talk.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
What are they trying to tell them? To leave.
- To leave? - Yeah.
Why? You need to leave because it's not safe.
Why isn't it safe? I think because so many people died around here.
When I walked into the basement, I was struck with the image of death and disease.
Bodies were just stacked up all over the room, all the way up to the ceiling.
And then I saw this evil man that was torturing this girl.
Oh, I get this, like, kind of like weird Like like Like he had the black hat and the black jacket and the black slacks.
And.
.
He's doing weird things to this girl.
Not even like oh, man.
[Bleeps.]
I'm getting these weird pains that hurt.
He might be poking her, and it's over a long period of time.
She felt poking it, poking it, didn't hurt.
I'm like, really? Because it hurts me.
No, mnh-mnh.
It didn't hurt her.
It was, like, poked.
Like, poking, poking.
Doing my usual background investigation on a home.
Nothing really jumps out at me on this case.
The trail goes cold around 1946.
That's when Cramerton Mills owned this town as well as this house.
So I've set up a meeting with a man who literally wrote the book on the history of Cramerton.
I'm conducting an investigation, actually, at a home that's in Cramerton, so I was wondering if you could give me some background information on the area, on some of its history.
The area that the house that you were looking at, is in what we called old town.
Which was the original part of town that was built to support, the families that lived and worked in the original mill.
I'm trying to figure out if anything bad happened during that time? There was an earlier plague that came through the area In 1902, 1903.
I can't tell you for sure how many people were affected in Cramerton, but most of them died.
And there would have been no mortuary.
No way to keep that many dead bodies.
So they lived in a segregated area called a Pest House.
You know, there's people laying down down here.
And I don't know about that.
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
How many? People, how many people were down here? Quite a few, yes.
Quite a few stacked.
Ewe.
Ugh, I don't know what that's about.
Eh, they're like in sacks and, uh, sheets.
And uh There's a lot of women.
And, uh And there are children, a lot of children.
And and women, and, um And they got sick.
They were sick.
And people are like this.
I'm sick, I'm sick.
And they're all, like, cold.
It's cold, and they're sick.
And And some of them, they don't have shoes, and, you know, and some of them don't Don't even have, like, much clothing on.
They don't feel so very well.
And, um, very Um Sad.
And, um There's no building.
There's just the Earth.
All of them are dying.
After speaking with Larry, he told me that Cramerton was overrun with two epidemics.
One in the early 1900s, and another one when the Native Americans inhabited the land over here.
So now I'm gonna meet with a local historian.
Maybe he can shed some light on Cramerton's history.
I'm doing an investigation regarding a home in and around the area of Cramerton.
I understand there were two major plagues that happened in the history of this area.
Right.
And it would severely debilitate the population.
I had read somewhere during the research I was doing that there was things called a Pest House? And was there a certain area where they would keep people quarantined? The idea of a quarantined area Was particularly associated with diseases like um Well, Smallpox.
And there was disfigurement and scarring, and there was isolation.
There's a lot of activity inside the house, but there's even more dead people outside.
And I'm being drawn to the edge of the woods that run behind the property.
I've never seen anything like it.
They're going down.
That's really weird.
They're just yeah, they're just going Being sucked right into the Earth.
And then the other ones are just crawling out, crawling up, standing up, and walking.
I mean, obviously, I think there's water there.
Hmm.
Is that happening now? Like, the people who are coming up, though They don't look so good.
They don't look good at all, like, initially.
Like, when they come up, and then they're like They're like all, ugh, and they're, like, crawling.
And then they then they get and they stand up.
Can you describe them? Native American.
Dr.
May, I know that once white man settled, - they brought a lot of disease with them.
- Right.
So when Smallpox did hit the Native American population, what did they do with their dead? They would have used the river as a means, of disposal of the remains.
To get it out of the community.
They're going down Like, into the water.
They're just going.
People are coming up, walking.
People and then people are walking, and they're going down into the Earth.
Like, literally down into the Earth.
Is there any kind of opening or anything or I don't know.
Are they just kind of walking through it? Like No, it's like they're being sucked into it.
- Like is there any kind of - Like I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing.
I feel kind of weird about it.
Like, it's kind of freaking me out a little bit.
There are just a lot of people Dead people that are just everywhere here.
And this man came up, and he was trying to touch me.
And I don't like him.
He's not a good person.
And I don't know if he's, like, manipulating himself or what because he's super tall.
Like abnormal, like long arms and long legs.
It's, like, doesn't look really normal to me.
It looks really creepy.
Uh He looks like a mortician would.
I see dead people every day, and it takes a lot to scare me.
But this guy scares me.
And There's this woman Who he Keeps prodding her Poking her, cutting her.
Digging deeper into the case, I found that they have these places called Pest Houses that quarantined people that fell sick to Typhoid Fever and Smallpox.
In 1902 alone, there were 400 people confined to these Pest Houses.
In a town whose population was that's a big chunk of the people.
Most interesting were the doctors that worked in these Pest Houses and the measures that they took to prevent themselves from getting infected.
The dead man who looked like a mortician really scared me, and I saw him very clearly.
So I'm gonna have the sketch artist draw him.
So in this situation, it's a little bit different.
The reason why it's different is because he Is projecting how he wants people to see him.
Which is not normal.
So we're gonna draw that entire person.
- Is that okay? - Okay, that's no problem.
What kind of a shape, the head? It's elongated.
So the thing is is that he was very thin.
Like, abnormally thin.
His eyes were deep-set so his cheekbones were a little bit pronounced.
That's good.
What kind of clothes was he wearing? He had on a long black jacket.
Okay, then, you think we're almost there? Yeah.
How's that look? So I finally uncover some real facts about this house.
But that doesn't necessarily explain these experiences that Salem's having.
She's a 9-year-old kid.
Frankly I'm concerned about her.
So I'm gonna break the rules a little bit here and ask Amy for help.
Amy, listen, this case has got me a little perplexed as far as the kid.
- What's her name? - Her name is Salem.
Okay.
She's got an incredible infatuation with the dead.
Now she's seen apparitions.
She's not afraid of the paranormal whatsoever.
I mean, she's pretty adamant about it.
I've never seen a 9 year old so Confident in the way she feels.
I feel like I'm just out of my league with this one.
And I think you're better suited to speak with her.
I mean, I've talked to her as a Detective talks to a witness, - and once she speaks with you - Mm hmm.
I think you'll get a better idea of what's going on than I will.
You know, myself, like, when I was a child and dealing with all of this, I was very fascinated and fixated on death as well.
Like, I would see these things on television.
Lizzie Borden, became obsessed with that, became obsessed with Anne Frank.
You have this fear of death.
Because all you know of it is these people wandering around.
It's funny you mention Anne Frank because she mentioned the same thing to me.
Anne Frank specifically? - Yeah.
- Interesting.
- So - Okay.
The more you can help with her interview, I think its gonna bring a lot more to the table.
So I understand that you've had some unusual experiences? Mm-hmm.
Can you tell me about a few of those? Like, maybe two or three that really stick out in your mind? - Well, one time, uh, in my room - Mm hmm.
And I saw a little girl playing through my closet, I was about like right here, and she was like right in there.
In the other room or in the closet? - Closet.
- Okay.
Playing through my clothes, and it looked like she was like a, girl maybe about 7 or 8.
Maybe about a year younger than me.
All right.
And one time, I was sleeping in my bed, but I woke up, I feel Feeling something, it looked like an old woman.
And I was able to feel the pressure on the leg.
- She was touching you? - Mm hmm.
Why was she touching you? Because I think I got in trouble that day, and I fell asleep crying.
- So she was comforting you? - Mm hmm.
Okay, okay.
You know, Salem and I are not that different.
I started to see the dead at a very young age, too.
And hopefully I can help her understand what she's been experiencing.
How long have you been kind of seeing the dead? Since we came here.
- Since you moved here.
- Yeah.
Okay, so you never had any experiences before? No.
My last house was calm.
Like, it was a brand-new house, like a modern house.
- Like, nobody was able to die in it yet.
- Hmm.
And so I did want to ask you about the dolls in the house.
Mm-hmm.
And I want to ask you how you feel about having all these dolls.
Um, I feel pretty all right with it Except they get in your way, and they get on your nerves.
- But not my mom, though.
- Mm hmm.
She's like, don't bother them! They're all right.
- They're not living.
- Mm hmm.
- Do you want them to move the dolls or - I want to scoot them out and - Or stretch out the house.
- Right, right, yes.
So you feel good about the friendly dead? I believe that Jesus and God will be able to protect me.
Okay, good.
That's very good.
So do you have any questions that you'd like to ask or anything like that? Have you ever seen anything, like, that you believe was bad or really bad? Yes, I have.
It's kind of like the living.
There are some bad ones, and there are some good ones.
Ooh.
Have you felt, like, really, really calm when you see a ghost? Like, it made you happy to see it? Mm-hmm, yes, I've had some really good Really good encounters with the dead.
- Um, you okay? - Yeah.
Yeah? What's going on? - My eyes are watery.
- Okay.
So, yeah, there, there are bad entities.
And It's good that you know to protect yourself.
Mm-hmm.
It took me a long time to learn that because - Yes, that absolutely works.
- Yeah.
John, Lisa, it's good to see you again.
This is my partner Amy.
Now the reason we're here is to try to give them a hand with some issues they're having in the house.
Normally I don't meet with Amy until the end of our investigation.
In this case, after speaking with Salem, I felt that I was a little bit out of my league.
I thought Amy would be better suited to speak with her.
She doesn't know what I uncovered till the end anyway.
Um, and I don't know what she sees on her walk.
So this is the part where we both find out each other's findings in the investigation, and we share them with you.
Right.
Now I did a lot of research as far as the house goes.
And the house is very old.
It was built in 1900.
There was a mill here years ago.
Owner ran the mill and built these homes for the people that work there.
This being one of the homes.
But I got to be honest with you.
I didn't come up with anything, documentation-wise, that brings me any validation to what you've seen here.
So I talked with an historian.
Years ago, this was a Large Native American area.
Wow.
Okay.
So I wanted to know what the Native Americans did with their dead.
He mentioned that if there were so many bodies that they couldn't do anything with them, they would throw them into the water, in the river.
They're going down Like, into the water.
They're just going.
People are coming up, walking.
People and then people are walking, and they're going down into the Earth.
I mean, obviously, I think there's water there.
Hmm.
Like No, it's like they're being sucked into it.
- Like is there any kind of - Like I didn't get a positive feeling off of it.
I felt very concerned about what the dead were doing, and why were they being sucked into the ground? Why were they coming out a mess? So I think that possibly, the mass disposal of their bodies in the creek May have harmed their souls.
On top of everything else, when Settlers came here, they brought along, their new ways, and they also brought along disease.
- Smallpox - Okay.
- The flu, stuff like that so - That's something else I got.
- You caught that? - Right.
You know, there was people laying down down here.
And I don't know about that.
How many? People, how many people were down here? Quite a few, yes.
Quite a few stacked.
Ewe.
Ugh, I don't know what that's about.
Eh, they're like in sacks and, uh, sheets.
So here's kind of the bad news.
Um, there's quite a bit of activity here.
Um, there's a lot of dead in the area.
So this is the man that I encountered, and he does look very strange.
This is How he looked when I initially met him.
Oh, God.
And then I wanted um Them to do just his face.
And that's kind of how his face looks.
Oh, my God.
So He's definitely a menacing Person.
And he was looking for something.
I don't know what it was, though.
Well, it's interesting you mentioned about all that, because back when we were talking about these epidemics, when everybody was dying.
They had these homes called these Pest Houses.
Now what a Pest House was was a location where they brought all the sick.
Now I came across a photo of It's a doctor that treated these people, like in let's say a leper colony.
They wouldn't want to get too close to their patients because they were afraid of contamination.
This is what they wore.
Wow.
Now I came across a photo of It's a doctor that treated these people, like in let's say a leper colony.
This is what they wore.
That's weird.
These bird masks worn by these Pest House doctors were basically like Medieval gas masks.
So they went and put these long noses on these masks because they thought it would stop the infected air from getting into their systems.
And they also wore clothes from head to toe so that their skin wouldn't be exposed to the infected air.
I mean, it looks bizarre, I don't know He would poke them.
And he was looking for something inside of them.
So he would make little cuts, and he was looking for something.
Now they did use a tool In order to examine the patients at that time, because they didn't want to get too close.
- So they would prod at the bodies so - Oh.
I don't know if that all plays into what you saw.
My gosh.
When I was over there, this man came up, and he was trying to touch me.
He looks like a mortician.
And there's this woman Who he Keeps prodding her Poking her, cutting her.
Oh, my gosh, this is so much to take in.
Yeah.
I feel like all this is from some fiction book, or a movie.
Well, do you believe us now? I tried to tell you something was weird, but you didn't want to listen.
Is it gonna bother Salem? Yes.
When I spoke with Salem And with her interest in death And seeing the dead.
Is that Wanting to Have these experiences You know that saying, be careful what you wish for? And so the dead are going to stay.
And you want them here.
And that want, whether it be consciously or subconsciously, keeps them here.
And I think They Want something bad to happen.
Why do you say that they want something bad to happen? Because the little girl just told me that.
She doesn't like the people who live here.
When I spoke with the little dead girl, she indicated That they were unhappy with the situation, and the situation is That they don't want you guys in the house.
And that they're plotting.
They want you out of the home, or they want things to change so that the trapped, dead that are here can leave.
Why are they trapped? There's too many things.
There's too many dolls.
There's too much.
Dolls were first created Um, in order to house the dead.
Or to be vessels for the dead.
Um, because they're human-looking, but they're empty inside.
So one of the things that crossed my mind was is it possible that, some of them have been trapped inside the dolls? I hope not.
So you're options are you can clear out the dolls or Yeah, you can move.
But basically, this is just gonna continue to happen.
It is, uh It's very scary.
What you brought us tonight is very scary, very scary indeed.
- I feel horrible.
I mean - Yeah.
- This is not what I expected.
- No.
I thought it was something you could deal with or be taken care of or - Yeah.
- I feel really terrible.
- I love my dolls.
That's part of my - Right.
- 90% of my life has to do with dolls.
- Right.
And now, you know, I'm like what should I do? Should I, you know should I move? Or should I get rid of the dolls, or? - I don't know.
I'm just very horrified.
- Well, that's - And I really don't feel well right now.
- Mm hmm.
And it makes me scared for Salem.
I don't want her frightened.
And I hate it that whoever they are that they don't like my dolls.
They don't want us in the house, but, you know, I feel like it's my house now.
- Right.
- And I don't like them going through it.
And I don't know if I want to continue living here or not.
Um, also, you have the fascination with The death and the paranormal, which, you know, they will linger around for that.
Well, so far, things aren't that bad.
But will it get worse? Oh, yes.
I'm horrified.
I just It's just scary.
It's creepy, and it's not what I expected.
You know, I'll never be comfortable again.
Mm-hmm.
There are ways to alleviate it.
You can't stop it, but you can alleviate it.
There's ways to do that, one of them would be to remove as many dolls from the house as possible.
And then do a thorough cleaning and cleansing of the house, top to bottom.
And I can tell you how to do this.
But you feel that you can take that first step of trying to make room and cleansing some of the dolls - Yeah.
- And the house.
I would like to until, you know, it can be - Okay for us to move.
- Right, right, exactly.
So a lot of good may come out of this in the long run.
Mm-hmm.
And you might have stopped something before it got out of hand.
Mm-hmm.
Having to tell a family that their children could be in danger Is probably the hardest part of my job.
But if the dead want them out, it's my responsibility to tell them.