The Dead Files (2011) s05e01 Episode Script
Plagued - Cressona, PA
I think they see him.
We have a gremlin crawling up on the ceilings.
It's kind of like a shadow person.
He's bad.
I see a lot of blood.
I'm not gonna let something drive us out of our home.
I feel very panicked.
This is a terrible place.
I hate it.
It's really bad in here.
My name is Amy Allan.
Something is not right.
I see dead people.
This person might have been a serial killer.
I speak to dead people.
You get those chills.
And they speak to me.
He is darkness.
He is evil.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
I think she broke her neck.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective.
Telling me the truth? And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I think the Devil is down here.
It's my job to reveal them.
Who the hell would do this? But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
Who's he looking to kill? We uncover if it's safe for you to stay You need to get out of here right now.
Or time to get out.
That was, like, endless darkness.
Steve: Amy and I work the same case, but from two separate angles.
I interview living witnesses and look for secrets buried deep in the property's past.
While Amy talks to the dead.
I'm in the tiny town of Cressona, Pennsylvania.
It's a couple hours outside of Philly.
I got a call from a man named Randy.
Randy and his fiancée are both Army veterans.
And they both know what it's like to be in a war zone.
They just never expected to find one in their own home.
I'm hoping Amy and I can help them out.
Matt: Before Amy enters a location, I need to remove anything that could influence her findings.
This house is filled with family photographs and military memorabilia.
So I need to conceal all of it before tonight's walk.
Amy: There's this really tall, really skinny Weird Crazy Guy.
He has, like, a long cape.
And a hat.
He is very excited for us to be here tonight.
Because he Thinks he's all that as far as Being able to mess with people and scare them.
He said, I'll see you soon.
I can't wait.
Like, you'll know when you get there.
Uh You know, what I'm all about.
Steve: Now, Randy, I understand you and your fiancée, Angela, have got some pretty serious things going on here for you to call us in.
- Yes.
- Give me an idea what's going on.
There's apparitions.
There's shadows.
There's been things moved from one area of the house to a completely different area of the house that I know nobody has touched.
Now, is everybody in the house being affected by this? - Yes.
- Who lives in the house? Myself, Angela, my two daughters 8 and 11 And my stepson, who's 9.
- Are they frightened to be in the house? - Samantha is.
Samantha actually lived here with me last year for the school year and moved out because now she's so afraid, she doesn't want to move back.
- That's got to be heartbreaking for you.
- It is.
It is.
That's my little girl.
It's hard to be a father and protect your children when you can't How do you protect them against something like that? Do you guys ever consider moving out of here? It's not an option.
Monetarily, we couldn't afford to move.
Secondly, this is the best school district in the area, and we want our children to grow up in a secure, safe environment.
- Okay.
- And this is it.
Okay, do you know anything about the house? A little.
I know that the houses were built for the employees of the rail road by the owner of the rail road.
Now, are there any parts of the house you can show me where you've experienced or seen things? Actually, there is.
This area right here.
- You've seen stuff here? - I have.
What did you see? It's kind of like a shadow person.
Okay, so how often do you see it? - A few times a night.
- A few times a night? Could it be lights coming in from outside or some kind of reflection issue? No.
Not in that direction.
It couldn't be.
Matt: Do you know if this tall guy interacts with the living here? Yes, he does.
I think they see him.
He makes them scared, he stares at them.
Is there any particular reason that he does this? He's bad.
Okay, Randy, so what's going on in here? Randy: I'll get migraines for a whole day, and I've never, ever had headaches before.
One evening, I had a headache so badly that I couldn't even walk.
And that was followed by a tightness Almost like a constricting of my chest like I couldn't breathe.
I had to leave the area, and once I left the area, it started to dissipate.
- You think you were having a heart attack? - Honestly, yes, I did at first.
It feels almost as if something is sitting on you, at the same time, squeezing you.
Okay.
Like, it hurts, and I can't breathe because of the pressure.
This is the tall, creepy guy.
And he's like, I'm gonna suck the [Bleep.]
life out of you.
He doesn't want me to get anything about him.
He's getting really mad.
Ah, and he's really loud, too, and he's like blowing in my ear.
The people feel that.
He said, oh, yeah, I thought you could handle me.
And I said, I can [Bleep.]
.
Randy, you got a lot going on that you're experiencing.
I mean, is there anything else? Sounds like there's things up in the attic.
There's loud bumps, bangs, noises in the attic.
It's just a really weird, eerie feeling like you're constantly being followed or watched.
In fact, I make sure I take my steps very carefully when I go up and down the steps because I feel like something will push me down the steps.
You know, Randy, I got to ask you.
I mean Stuff you've told me so far, I don't think I would stay here, to be honest with you.
- I don't know.
How are you doing it? - Because this is our children's home.
I'm not gonna let something drive us out of our home.
This is the home that we've always wanted.
Has this taken a strain on your personal life? Yes, Sir.
Yes, Sir.
We've been getting further and further apart.
- Really? - Yeah.
She's my soul mate.
I've always believed for the last Okay.
Do you think it's because of the house? I believe so.
I truly believe it has a lot to do with it.
These stairs are so bad.
[Groans.]
- Why? - They are an issue.
They're a [Bleep.]
problem.
- What happens? - I think they fall down them.
I got to say this is up there with my top 10 of hatred places.
I feel panicked, confused Scared, overwhelmed.
It's a terrible, terrible, terrible place.
I hate it.
- This is your youngest daughter's? - Yes, this is the 8-year-old's room.
Okay, what's going on in here? She had described to me a large, dark figure with a cape and a hook hand.
That's scary for anybody, let alone an 8-year-old.
The way I understand it, she sees it pretty often.
Okay, anything else in this room? She's deathly afraid of the closet.
She had me draw crosses on her closets.
All right, so what is she afraid of about the closet? She never went into detail.
She just doesn't like the closets.
She won't even go in the closet by herself.
How do you protect somebody like that? I'm supposed to be the protective figure.
That's my role as a father.
I don't even know the kid, and my heart's breaking for her.
If I think about it, I get emotional.
That's my daughter.
You can feel the fear that these people feel.
He likes the closets.
It doesn't really care for children.
They're easy mark.
The tall, thin man is making his presence felt in every room.
He likes to torment adults, but now I see his real issue is with children.
_.
Why do you say that? He's like, oh, I'm gonna [Bleep.]
with your head if you're gonna [Bleep.]
with my head.
And what is he doing? He's just making me dizzy and feel like I want to vomit.
I want to puke.
I feel like someone's pushing my throat in Just smushing me right here.
Right here.
Like that.
Just smushing it in really hard.
[Whispers.]
_.
_.
Randy mentioned you guys fight a lot.
But at the same time, he says you're his soul mate, so what's the story? I think it's something in the house trying to - Come between you? - Yeah.
So, what are some of the things you're experiencing? Every night, we have a gremlin crawling up on the ceilings.
- A gremlin? - Yep.
scales going down the back of him.
Steve: I've heard a lot of bizarre stories working cases with Amy.
But when a witness tells me she's seen a gremlin, I need to know where her head is at.
I got to ask a question you may not like, but are you on medications? No.
Anything else going on? I get the occasional poking in the back, hair pulling at night.
- Okay.
- And it's not Randy.
No, Randy's downstairs.
- How the hell are you sleeping at night? - I don't sleep.
I have a reoccurring nightmare.
I'm laying in bed, and the Devil comes up and puts his arms around me and is pulling me through the bed, through the first floor, and once we hit the basement He turns around and he says, I finally got you.
By then, I'm usually screaming, and Randy wakes me up.
Wow.
I see this woman.
And she's screaming.
And I'm seeing The tall, creepy guy.
But his face is always changing.
This tall, creepy guy is able to read people's minds and project back their most horrible fears.
He's very advanced and has mastered his physical environment.
I think they feel like he might be poking them, but he's actually grabbing them.
He makes them have nightmares.
Bad he's bad.
_.
Steve: You all right? I saw you grab your rosary beads on the way down.
What are you feeling when you come down here? I just get the overwhelming feeling like you don't belong down here.
I just feel evil.
Look, I understand you having that dream makes you not want to come into the basement, but is there anything else down here that wants you to keep out of here? Yes, one night, I was home alone, and um I heard banging and growling and scratching coming from the basement door.
I grabbed my rosaries, I put them on the door, and I went out and I sat outside waiting for Randy.
Could it have been an animal that got into the house and was trying to get out? No.
The back doors both sets of back doors were locked from the inside.
And once you go down into the basement, my rosaries were gone.
Really? I found them a week later, and they were broken in the closet.
I almost had a heart attack.
And what do you think's down here? I think the Devil is down here.
There's, like, this old woman, and she's, like, crying and Oh, no, no, and so sad.
She's creepy.
Like, she puts her hand on me and it's ice.
She knows this house, and this house is full of people who Are really running away from their lives.
There is something else I wanted to explain to you.
One of the things that I feel may be behind it all Is my mother.
- My mother passed away in '98.
- What did she die of? She died of bone-marrow cancer.
- She was 36.
- She was 36? I had some issues with my mother.
We'd try to make amends, but it didn't happen.
I feel tremendous guilt.
I absolutely understand what you're talking about.
Same thing happened to me with my father.
I didn't get to say goodbye.
We had an argument the night he died.
[Sniffles.]
That was 33 years ago, and I still have guilt about it.
And if I can do that night over [Snaps fingers.]
I'd do that night over in a minute.
Unfortunately, before she died, we never had a chance to say goodbye to each other.
So I do believe that my mother is here.
I want to say that this old lady is somehow Related to the house or related to the people in the house now.
She keeps saying that she's very sorry About everything that's happened.
Somehow, she feels responsible.
I think she knew someone bad a male.
He was trying to hide it but she knew she could've stopped It from happening, but she didn't do anything about it.
Oh, my God.
Something about cancer.
I think she died from it.
Do you know when this was? Late '90s.
I don't know.
She might be death come to this house.
She's coming to take the lady.
[Whispers.]
Randy mentioned that one man owned the entire town of Cressona.
That actually sounds like a pretty good place to start my investigation.
I'm on my way to meet with a local historian who says the town's father left a very mixed legacy.
John Chapman Cresson was the founder of Cressona.
In 1847, he became the President of the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad.
Which ran through Cressona.
This is his picture.
His contemporaries describe him as quite a tall man with very expressive eyes.
Now, Rick, did he get rich just from being the President of the company? No, he made the lion's share of his money through land and property acquisition.
We have a sales agreement here.
Where in 1847, when he became President, he purchased 200 acres for $9,000.
He was a very shrewd businessman.
And how's it go from the land into a town? What John Cresson did is he broke the land up into individual plots, and had homes built on the plots.
And then what he did is he sold them to the rail road workers.
So, on one hand, he was putting money into their pocket, and on the other hand, taking it out.
So, what wound up happening with this guy? What, did he stay in the area? Well, as much as he built up the economy of Cressona, he also pretty much ruined it in 1864.
What he did was he leased the rail line to the Reading Railroad.
And by doing that, it outsourced a lot of the employees from Cressona, and the jobs weren't here as much anymore.
So, during all this recession time, he's still making a lot of cash.
Yes, he is.
So, it sounds like this guy's kind of ruthless.
He was.
He was a true capitalist of the day.
Amy: I think that this is the tall, creepy guy.
He does not want Anybody to know who he is.
Do you know how he looked in life? Well, he was taller than average.
I think he had, like, kind of a slender face, a kind of a hook nose.
Dark eyes.
He's saying, stop, stop! Because I'm, like, trying to get into his head.
Able to get any more about what he did in life? I think he sells a variety of merchandise, I think.
And I know he's bad.
And I know he was a very, very bad person.
Steve: I need to find out everything I can about my client's property.
So I head to the local library.
Digging through the archives, I discover a deadly rail road crash in Turns out he used to live in my clients' home.
So, I've reached out to a local train historian, who tells me this tragedy could've been prevented.
Now, Dale, you mentioned that this guy John Gray was in the middle of this train wreck that I had read about.
What did you mean by that? Well, he was responsible for maintaining equipment as a Foreman.
And foremen generally were involved with making sure locomotives were repaired properly.
Dale, can you explain exactly how the train wreck went down? It happened at 2:00 in the morning on a cold November night.
And this is especially tragic because the crew brought this train to Cressona from Reading.
And another crew had gotten on to replace them to take the train North, so instead of having three men on the locomotive, there were six.
And just two minutes later, the locomotive exploded and killed five of them, and the other man died later in the hospital.
- So, two sets of crews gets killed.
- Correct.
In connection to my clients' property, how far away from that was the explosion? Basically, just down the hill.
This is what a boiler explosion looks like.
That's not that actual locomotive but, a photograph of a steam locomotive that had a boiler explosion.
Okay, we don't have any photos of that explosion itself? No, we don't.
- Okay, was anybody ever charged? - No.
So, Dale, I got to assume, in a small town like this, this had to be the biggest accident they ever had.
Well, it was up until that time.
But in 1918, the Spanish Flu hit.
Interestingly, John Gray's son, James, was a Doctor in the town at that time.
Amy: Something doesn't want me back here.
I'm, like, hearing yelling.
I feel panicked very panicked.
I am seeing, like, all of these men dying.
I don't know if it's 1870 or something.
I don't know.
These men are yelling and screaming and they're jumping up and falling down And there's, like, dust everywhere, and nobody can see anything.
Like, I'm totally not ready to see this [Bleep.]
that's happening around me.
And it makes me sick.
[Whispers.]
Steve: You know, I made some calls, and Dale's story checked out.
The Spanish Flu devastated Cressona.
So, I'm headed over to see a local Doctor who says some of those victims may have died right in Randy and Angela's home.
Before we get into the Spanish Flu, can you tell me anything about Dr.
Gray? He was the only Doctor in Cressona during the Spanish Flu.
And his clinic and his residence were in the same building.
Okay, so did he practice out of the house I'm investigating? Yes.
Okay, so how bad really was it? The Spanish Flu was about 200 times as lethal as our typical flu virus.
Wow.
That being said, how bad did Cressona get hit? Cressona was absolutely hammered with death.
They normally had about Okay.
But it spiked around the 20th of October.
There were 30 deaths in a small community.
The Spanish Flu itself, how contagious was it? Nationally, 28% of the U.
S.
population came down with the 1918 influenza.
And there were a great number of people that died four or five days after coming down with the illness.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
So, the beginning symptoms, what would they be like? Well, initially, you'd develop a headache and body aches and cold symptoms Runny nose, sore throat, coughing.
And how does it progress to where they die? Well, in most cases, fatalities were from bacterial pneumonia.
Okay.
You would feel like your chest was being compressed or squeezed.
It would be like starvation of air.
Oh, geez.
So, basically, they suffocated to death.
Yeah.
It was absolutely scary.
Dr.
Gray had to be overwhelmed by all this.
Yes.
They would've been convalescing in his house and dying there.
Wow.
Amy: It's ridiculous how many dead people are here.
Something happened.
What the [Bleep.]
is it? There's, like, illness in here.
Oh, my God, it's bad.
The amount of dead in this location feels like it's sucking the life out of me.
I've been sick this whole time, but I can't figure out why.
Oh, God.
I can't breathe again.
I just want to vomit.
I feel [Bleep.]
Terrible.
During my walk, I was harassed by a tall, thin man in a cape.
So I'm meeting with a sketch artist to draw him as he appeared in life.
He had a long, thin, pointy nose.
His eyes are rounded on top, straight at the bottom.
Okay.
His hair came down to about the collarbone.
Next, I described his favorite place to torment the living.
There's a closet along the wall.
It needs to be open halfway.
All right.
He's facing the side of the bed from the closet.
Is that what you saw? Yes.
[Whispers.]
_.
Steve: Now that Amy and I have completed our investigations.
We're ready to reveal our findings to each other and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I want you to meet Angela and Randy.
They live here with Angela's son and Randy's two daughters.
Now, the thing about this couple, unlike any other couple we've dealt with They're both Army veterans.
And they've been trained to deal with high-stress situations.
But the activity in this house is so intense that it's literally ripping their family apart.
With that, I'm gonna ask Amy to tell us a little bit about her walk.
And see what we come up with.
This is seriously one of the worst places that I've walked.
There were just so many dead people, and They were all trying to talk at once.
I was physically and emotionally just trashed.
Pretty much every room upstairs made me sick.
Some of the symptoms I felt that night was dizziness, vomiting Um, and I did, in one room, felt like somebody was crushing my throat.
Okay, so you were sick throughout the whole walk? - Yes.
- With those symptoms? - Yes.
- That's why you sound sick? - Yeah.
Mm hmm.
- From that? That's interesting.
I might be able to explain why she probably felt that way.
Back in 1918, the Spanish Flu hit here.
the Spanish Flu in Cressona.
Approximately 20% of the town died from this flu.
James Gray, the guy that owned this house and lived here, happened to be the only Doctor in town.
And he treated a lot of those Spanish Flu patients right here in this home, where a lot of them probably passed away.
- Oh, my God.
- Oh.
Can the children get sick because of that or us get sick because of that or anything? Have you shown any symptoms? I went through exactly what you just described on many occasions.
It's like Steve had mentioned it's like a flu-like symptom.
But all of a sudden, I got a debilitating headache.
I mean, I couldn't even walk.
I crawled to the bathroom because I felt like I was gonna vomit, and I was super, super nauseated.
- I couldn't even stand up.
- Yeah, I get sick a lot.
- Same type of feelings? - Headaches, migraines.
Amy: Yeah, that makes sense.
The residual here is very thick.
Like, it hangs on to The memories and, you know Everything that transpired here.
So, how did the rest of the walk go? This guy shows up.
He was extremely tall, extremely thin, had a hat on, cape Shadowy.
He's very creepy, very powerful.
I met him when I walked through here.
Amy: And he's like, I'm gonna suck the [Bleep.]
life out of you.
He doesn't want me to get anything about him.
He's getting really mad.
He was a businessman.
I know he bought and sold things.
And I know he had a hook nose and dark eyes.
- Steve: Really? - Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's a long shot.
I mean, but what she's describing kind of reminds me of somebody who's kind of actually pretty important to this town.
Okay, well, it turns out it's a guy named John Chapman Cresson, hence Cressona.
This guy ran the rail road here, owned the rail road, and bought the land here And basically built the town.
Now, he had some shady dealings.
He built homes for the rail road workers that he employed.
Okay, now I got a photo of some of these rail road workers.
It'll give you an idea of what these guys looked like.
So, what he was doing is he built homes like this one for his employees to live in.
So, what he did was he paid them at work Then sold them the house, and they just paid him rent, so the money that he was making went right back to him.
Come 1864, he leases his rail road company out to Reading, so now all his workers, they were out of a job.
It basically decimated the town, where they went into a recession for over 20 years.
- Wow.
- Wow.
If you look at his nose He's got this hook nose that she had.
Interesting.
And he was considered tall for his time, from what I was told.
Do you think that they had the same characteristics as the guy you ran into? Definitely.
I did do a sketch of the man.
Wow.
Take a look at that.
Randy: Wow, his eyes are pretty close.
His eyes and nose are almost identical.
Identical, right? Wow, that's freaky.
I would say that's the same guy.
It looks spot on to me.
So, basically, the guy that built Cressona is hanging out in our house.
- Yes.
- Wonderful.
Angela: So, Amy, in your opinion Do you think this gentleman is the evil presence in our house? I think he's an evil presence in your house.
He likes to mess with people.
One of the things that he did to me in here was, like he was standing on my chest.
What I saw was him, like, pushing down on someone's chest.
When I was in here, I felt, like, your ear will thump.
- You know what I mean? - Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
And he'll try to whisper in your ear.
You'll feel pokes.
I get poked and my hair pulled almost every night.
He gives people nightmares, and he also likes to stare people down.
And I have tremendous nightmares.
- Really? - I am sleeping upstairs And Um I get a set of hands that come up through the bed.
Pull me all the way down, and I can feel myself going through the layers of the house.
And when I get to the basement, he says, I've got you.
I finally got you.
She sees a gremlin-type creature.
He could manipulate how he's perceived.
And it knows what scares you.
_.
The other thing that I got was, uh He hates children.
He hates kids.
And then I saw one of the things he was doing, which I thought was very disturbing, and I did sketch it, so - You sketched it? - Yeah, I did.
- Where did you see this? - This.
Oh, so it's Samantha's room.
I don't even know if I want to show this to you.
That's the closet.
I want this guy.
I'm gonna get this guy.
_.
_.
_.
[Whispers.]
I want this guy.
I'm gonna get this guy.
_.
_.
_.
I'm confronting this little bastard.
That John Cresson [Bleep.]
him and I are gonna have some dealings.
I'm gonna sit down, and I'm gonna square off with that son of a [Bleep.]
on his own.
He wants a piece of something, come and [Bleep.]
me.
- Steve: You all right? - Yep.
I know a few people that won't be, though.
Problem is you're not dealing with the living here.
I know.
Samantha is deathly afraid of the closets.
Because of that, she had me draw crosses on every one of her walls.
And a huge three-foot cross on the one closet door.
Wow.
Do you have any idea why he doesn't like kids? He's just a jerk.
And he's just a coward.
Very much so.
A sick, sick, sick coward.
I hate to even ask this right now, but was there anything else you saw? I saw an old lady.
And I got that she might have been a relative of someone who lives here.
That she died of cancer, and she died in the late '90s.
Oh! Oh, my God.
Her mother died of cancer.
I told you she was here.
_.
If it's Angela's Mom, why would she be here? She had a lot of regret.
She felt guilty.
And she kept saying that she felt responsible about everything that happened.
She Knew that there was a bad male.
She felt like she could've stopped it from happening, but she didn't.
My stepfather was a very evil man.
And towards the end, before she died, I tried to make amends, and he would not let me speak to her on the phone or come and see her.
And she died a week later.
She's back to take the woman of the house.
Death was gonna come to the house, but she came instead.
Whoa.
When I was leaving, she said, my job's done.
Tell her I'm waiting.
What? Somebody's coming to kill her? No.
But someone's coming to take her when she dies.
Okay.
I mean, for her to take death's place so that she'll be comfortable.
- So, it's out of love.
- Yeah.
Is her mother really feeling guilty? Yes.
And you feel guilty, as well.
Why do you feel guilty? Because I didn't say goodbye.
I didn't get to say that I forgive her.
I knew she'd be there when I died.
Well, listen, it's been a tough night.
And I think you guys got a lot more than you bargained for.
- For sure.
- Definitely.
But the reason we're here and why you called us is to see if you And your family can live here peacefully and straighten out what the hell you got going on.
Yes.
I can't answer that, but I'm gonna turn it over to my partner, Amy, and hopefully, she can.
Me, personally, I don't like this house or this area.
If it's at all within your means, I would move.
Randy: I won't let it beat us.
If we made it this far, we went through everything we went through so far, I'm not gonna just roll over and say go ahead and take it I'm fighting for what's mine this is our house this is where our children are gonna grow up this is where we're gonna be safe whether they like it or not they're getting the hell out.
You know, monetarily, they can't leave.
It would devastate them, so is there anything else they can do? Basically Because it seems to be encompassing the town, like, you need to build your fortress.
So, the first thing being for you to get bags of salt.
And go around the entire property line Thick so you see the line on the ground.
When you can do it, I would suggest, building a fence surrounding the entire property.
And when you purchase those building materials.
Have them blessed.
- Wow.
- So, who should do the blessing? Any real Holy person.
Then, with a holy person, again, of your choice.
They're gonna bless the house.
While this person's blessing the house I want you to take this Follow them around, and after they're done in each room Blessing each room sprinkle this in the room.
What is this? This is brimstone.
And it's used in exorcisms.
Oh, my God.
And what will that do? It'll get rid of the dead people here.
- What about her Mom? - That woman will stay.
That process cannot stop.
It's natural, organic.
I'm mortified.
I thought there was Maybe four things here and one of them was evil.
But not to this extent.
- Okay.
- We're gonna be fine.
I'm not gonna let nothing happen to the kids.
Now, I'm gonna ask you, are you gonna follow Amy's advice? - Without a doubt.
- Angela? Yeah.
This is one of those investigations, I got to tell you, especially because I'm a vet.
The fact that we were able to hopefully help you here makes me feel good.
I know it makes her feel good.
Randy: But from the bottom of my heart, I really appreciate it from both of you.
- Well, thank you for letting us come in.
- Mm hmm.
Thank you for coming.
Amy: I still believe Angela and Randy would be best off moving.
But since they can't, I really hope that they follow my advice.
So that their home can be freed of the dead and their kids will remain safe.
_.
_.
_.
We have a gremlin crawling up on the ceilings.
It's kind of like a shadow person.
He's bad.
I see a lot of blood.
I'm not gonna let something drive us out of our home.
I feel very panicked.
This is a terrible place.
I hate it.
It's really bad in here.
My name is Amy Allan.
Something is not right.
I see dead people.
This person might have been a serial killer.
I speak to dead people.
You get those chills.
And they speak to me.
He is darkness.
He is evil.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
I think she broke her neck.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide Detective.
Telling me the truth? And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I think the Devil is down here.
It's my job to reveal them.
Who the hell would do this? But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end.
Who's he looking to kill? We uncover if it's safe for you to stay You need to get out of here right now.
Or time to get out.
That was, like, endless darkness.
Steve: Amy and I work the same case, but from two separate angles.
I interview living witnesses and look for secrets buried deep in the property's past.
While Amy talks to the dead.
I'm in the tiny town of Cressona, Pennsylvania.
It's a couple hours outside of Philly.
I got a call from a man named Randy.
Randy and his fiancée are both Army veterans.
And they both know what it's like to be in a war zone.
They just never expected to find one in their own home.
I'm hoping Amy and I can help them out.
Matt: Before Amy enters a location, I need to remove anything that could influence her findings.
This house is filled with family photographs and military memorabilia.
So I need to conceal all of it before tonight's walk.
Amy: There's this really tall, really skinny Weird Crazy Guy.
He has, like, a long cape.
And a hat.
He is very excited for us to be here tonight.
Because he Thinks he's all that as far as Being able to mess with people and scare them.
He said, I'll see you soon.
I can't wait.
Like, you'll know when you get there.
Uh You know, what I'm all about.
Steve: Now, Randy, I understand you and your fiancée, Angela, have got some pretty serious things going on here for you to call us in.
- Yes.
- Give me an idea what's going on.
There's apparitions.
There's shadows.
There's been things moved from one area of the house to a completely different area of the house that I know nobody has touched.
Now, is everybody in the house being affected by this? - Yes.
- Who lives in the house? Myself, Angela, my two daughters 8 and 11 And my stepson, who's 9.
- Are they frightened to be in the house? - Samantha is.
Samantha actually lived here with me last year for the school year and moved out because now she's so afraid, she doesn't want to move back.
- That's got to be heartbreaking for you.
- It is.
It is.
That's my little girl.
It's hard to be a father and protect your children when you can't How do you protect them against something like that? Do you guys ever consider moving out of here? It's not an option.
Monetarily, we couldn't afford to move.
Secondly, this is the best school district in the area, and we want our children to grow up in a secure, safe environment.
- Okay.
- And this is it.
Okay, do you know anything about the house? A little.
I know that the houses were built for the employees of the rail road by the owner of the rail road.
Now, are there any parts of the house you can show me where you've experienced or seen things? Actually, there is.
This area right here.
- You've seen stuff here? - I have.
What did you see? It's kind of like a shadow person.
Okay, so how often do you see it? - A few times a night.
- A few times a night? Could it be lights coming in from outside or some kind of reflection issue? No.
Not in that direction.
It couldn't be.
Matt: Do you know if this tall guy interacts with the living here? Yes, he does.
I think they see him.
He makes them scared, he stares at them.
Is there any particular reason that he does this? He's bad.
Okay, Randy, so what's going on in here? Randy: I'll get migraines for a whole day, and I've never, ever had headaches before.
One evening, I had a headache so badly that I couldn't even walk.
And that was followed by a tightness Almost like a constricting of my chest like I couldn't breathe.
I had to leave the area, and once I left the area, it started to dissipate.
- You think you were having a heart attack? - Honestly, yes, I did at first.
It feels almost as if something is sitting on you, at the same time, squeezing you.
Okay.
Like, it hurts, and I can't breathe because of the pressure.
This is the tall, creepy guy.
And he's like, I'm gonna suck the [Bleep.]
life out of you.
He doesn't want me to get anything about him.
He's getting really mad.
Ah, and he's really loud, too, and he's like blowing in my ear.
The people feel that.
He said, oh, yeah, I thought you could handle me.
And I said, I can [Bleep.]
.
Randy, you got a lot going on that you're experiencing.
I mean, is there anything else? Sounds like there's things up in the attic.
There's loud bumps, bangs, noises in the attic.
It's just a really weird, eerie feeling like you're constantly being followed or watched.
In fact, I make sure I take my steps very carefully when I go up and down the steps because I feel like something will push me down the steps.
You know, Randy, I got to ask you.
I mean Stuff you've told me so far, I don't think I would stay here, to be honest with you.
- I don't know.
How are you doing it? - Because this is our children's home.
I'm not gonna let something drive us out of our home.
This is the home that we've always wanted.
Has this taken a strain on your personal life? Yes, Sir.
Yes, Sir.
We've been getting further and further apart.
- Really? - Yeah.
She's my soul mate.
I've always believed for the last Okay.
Do you think it's because of the house? I believe so.
I truly believe it has a lot to do with it.
These stairs are so bad.
[Groans.]
- Why? - They are an issue.
They're a [Bleep.]
problem.
- What happens? - I think they fall down them.
I got to say this is up there with my top 10 of hatred places.
I feel panicked, confused Scared, overwhelmed.
It's a terrible, terrible, terrible place.
I hate it.
- This is your youngest daughter's? - Yes, this is the 8-year-old's room.
Okay, what's going on in here? She had described to me a large, dark figure with a cape and a hook hand.
That's scary for anybody, let alone an 8-year-old.
The way I understand it, she sees it pretty often.
Okay, anything else in this room? She's deathly afraid of the closet.
She had me draw crosses on her closets.
All right, so what is she afraid of about the closet? She never went into detail.
She just doesn't like the closets.
She won't even go in the closet by herself.
How do you protect somebody like that? I'm supposed to be the protective figure.
That's my role as a father.
I don't even know the kid, and my heart's breaking for her.
If I think about it, I get emotional.
That's my daughter.
You can feel the fear that these people feel.
He likes the closets.
It doesn't really care for children.
They're easy mark.
The tall, thin man is making his presence felt in every room.
He likes to torment adults, but now I see his real issue is with children.
_.
Why do you say that? He's like, oh, I'm gonna [Bleep.]
with your head if you're gonna [Bleep.]
with my head.
And what is he doing? He's just making me dizzy and feel like I want to vomit.
I want to puke.
I feel like someone's pushing my throat in Just smushing me right here.
Right here.
Like that.
Just smushing it in really hard.
[Whispers.]
_.
_.
Randy mentioned you guys fight a lot.
But at the same time, he says you're his soul mate, so what's the story? I think it's something in the house trying to - Come between you? - Yeah.
So, what are some of the things you're experiencing? Every night, we have a gremlin crawling up on the ceilings.
- A gremlin? - Yep.
scales going down the back of him.
Steve: I've heard a lot of bizarre stories working cases with Amy.
But when a witness tells me she's seen a gremlin, I need to know where her head is at.
I got to ask a question you may not like, but are you on medications? No.
Anything else going on? I get the occasional poking in the back, hair pulling at night.
- Okay.
- And it's not Randy.
No, Randy's downstairs.
- How the hell are you sleeping at night? - I don't sleep.
I have a reoccurring nightmare.
I'm laying in bed, and the Devil comes up and puts his arms around me and is pulling me through the bed, through the first floor, and once we hit the basement He turns around and he says, I finally got you.
By then, I'm usually screaming, and Randy wakes me up.
Wow.
I see this woman.
And she's screaming.
And I'm seeing The tall, creepy guy.
But his face is always changing.
This tall, creepy guy is able to read people's minds and project back their most horrible fears.
He's very advanced and has mastered his physical environment.
I think they feel like he might be poking them, but he's actually grabbing them.
He makes them have nightmares.
Bad he's bad.
_.
Steve: You all right? I saw you grab your rosary beads on the way down.
What are you feeling when you come down here? I just get the overwhelming feeling like you don't belong down here.
I just feel evil.
Look, I understand you having that dream makes you not want to come into the basement, but is there anything else down here that wants you to keep out of here? Yes, one night, I was home alone, and um I heard banging and growling and scratching coming from the basement door.
I grabbed my rosaries, I put them on the door, and I went out and I sat outside waiting for Randy.
Could it have been an animal that got into the house and was trying to get out? No.
The back doors both sets of back doors were locked from the inside.
And once you go down into the basement, my rosaries were gone.
Really? I found them a week later, and they were broken in the closet.
I almost had a heart attack.
And what do you think's down here? I think the Devil is down here.
There's, like, this old woman, and she's, like, crying and Oh, no, no, and so sad.
She's creepy.
Like, she puts her hand on me and it's ice.
She knows this house, and this house is full of people who Are really running away from their lives.
There is something else I wanted to explain to you.
One of the things that I feel may be behind it all Is my mother.
- My mother passed away in '98.
- What did she die of? She died of bone-marrow cancer.
- She was 36.
- She was 36? I had some issues with my mother.
We'd try to make amends, but it didn't happen.
I feel tremendous guilt.
I absolutely understand what you're talking about.
Same thing happened to me with my father.
I didn't get to say goodbye.
We had an argument the night he died.
[Sniffles.]
That was 33 years ago, and I still have guilt about it.
And if I can do that night over [Snaps fingers.]
I'd do that night over in a minute.
Unfortunately, before she died, we never had a chance to say goodbye to each other.
So I do believe that my mother is here.
I want to say that this old lady is somehow Related to the house or related to the people in the house now.
She keeps saying that she's very sorry About everything that's happened.
Somehow, she feels responsible.
I think she knew someone bad a male.
He was trying to hide it but she knew she could've stopped It from happening, but she didn't do anything about it.
Oh, my God.
Something about cancer.
I think she died from it.
Do you know when this was? Late '90s.
I don't know.
She might be death come to this house.
She's coming to take the lady.
[Whispers.]
Randy mentioned that one man owned the entire town of Cressona.
That actually sounds like a pretty good place to start my investigation.
I'm on my way to meet with a local historian who says the town's father left a very mixed legacy.
John Chapman Cresson was the founder of Cressona.
In 1847, he became the President of the Mine Hill and Schuylkill Haven Railroad.
Which ran through Cressona.
This is his picture.
His contemporaries describe him as quite a tall man with very expressive eyes.
Now, Rick, did he get rich just from being the President of the company? No, he made the lion's share of his money through land and property acquisition.
We have a sales agreement here.
Where in 1847, when he became President, he purchased 200 acres for $9,000.
He was a very shrewd businessman.
And how's it go from the land into a town? What John Cresson did is he broke the land up into individual plots, and had homes built on the plots.
And then what he did is he sold them to the rail road workers.
So, on one hand, he was putting money into their pocket, and on the other hand, taking it out.
So, what wound up happening with this guy? What, did he stay in the area? Well, as much as he built up the economy of Cressona, he also pretty much ruined it in 1864.
What he did was he leased the rail line to the Reading Railroad.
And by doing that, it outsourced a lot of the employees from Cressona, and the jobs weren't here as much anymore.
So, during all this recession time, he's still making a lot of cash.
Yes, he is.
So, it sounds like this guy's kind of ruthless.
He was.
He was a true capitalist of the day.
Amy: I think that this is the tall, creepy guy.
He does not want Anybody to know who he is.
Do you know how he looked in life? Well, he was taller than average.
I think he had, like, kind of a slender face, a kind of a hook nose.
Dark eyes.
He's saying, stop, stop! Because I'm, like, trying to get into his head.
Able to get any more about what he did in life? I think he sells a variety of merchandise, I think.
And I know he's bad.
And I know he was a very, very bad person.
Steve: I need to find out everything I can about my client's property.
So I head to the local library.
Digging through the archives, I discover a deadly rail road crash in Turns out he used to live in my clients' home.
So, I've reached out to a local train historian, who tells me this tragedy could've been prevented.
Now, Dale, you mentioned that this guy John Gray was in the middle of this train wreck that I had read about.
What did you mean by that? Well, he was responsible for maintaining equipment as a Foreman.
And foremen generally were involved with making sure locomotives were repaired properly.
Dale, can you explain exactly how the train wreck went down? It happened at 2:00 in the morning on a cold November night.
And this is especially tragic because the crew brought this train to Cressona from Reading.
And another crew had gotten on to replace them to take the train North, so instead of having three men on the locomotive, there were six.
And just two minutes later, the locomotive exploded and killed five of them, and the other man died later in the hospital.
- So, two sets of crews gets killed.
- Correct.
In connection to my clients' property, how far away from that was the explosion? Basically, just down the hill.
This is what a boiler explosion looks like.
That's not that actual locomotive but, a photograph of a steam locomotive that had a boiler explosion.
Okay, we don't have any photos of that explosion itself? No, we don't.
- Okay, was anybody ever charged? - No.
So, Dale, I got to assume, in a small town like this, this had to be the biggest accident they ever had.
Well, it was up until that time.
But in 1918, the Spanish Flu hit.
Interestingly, John Gray's son, James, was a Doctor in the town at that time.
Amy: Something doesn't want me back here.
I'm, like, hearing yelling.
I feel panicked very panicked.
I am seeing, like, all of these men dying.
I don't know if it's 1870 or something.
I don't know.
These men are yelling and screaming and they're jumping up and falling down And there's, like, dust everywhere, and nobody can see anything.
Like, I'm totally not ready to see this [Bleep.]
that's happening around me.
And it makes me sick.
[Whispers.]
Steve: You know, I made some calls, and Dale's story checked out.
The Spanish Flu devastated Cressona.
So, I'm headed over to see a local Doctor who says some of those victims may have died right in Randy and Angela's home.
Before we get into the Spanish Flu, can you tell me anything about Dr.
Gray? He was the only Doctor in Cressona during the Spanish Flu.
And his clinic and his residence were in the same building.
Okay, so did he practice out of the house I'm investigating? Yes.
Okay, so how bad really was it? The Spanish Flu was about 200 times as lethal as our typical flu virus.
Wow.
That being said, how bad did Cressona get hit? Cressona was absolutely hammered with death.
They normally had about Okay.
But it spiked around the 20th of October.
There were 30 deaths in a small community.
The Spanish Flu itself, how contagious was it? Nationally, 28% of the U.
S.
population came down with the 1918 influenza.
And there were a great number of people that died four or five days after coming down with the illness.
- Wow.
- Yeah.
So, the beginning symptoms, what would they be like? Well, initially, you'd develop a headache and body aches and cold symptoms Runny nose, sore throat, coughing.
And how does it progress to where they die? Well, in most cases, fatalities were from bacterial pneumonia.
Okay.
You would feel like your chest was being compressed or squeezed.
It would be like starvation of air.
Oh, geez.
So, basically, they suffocated to death.
Yeah.
It was absolutely scary.
Dr.
Gray had to be overwhelmed by all this.
Yes.
They would've been convalescing in his house and dying there.
Wow.
Amy: It's ridiculous how many dead people are here.
Something happened.
What the [Bleep.]
is it? There's, like, illness in here.
Oh, my God, it's bad.
The amount of dead in this location feels like it's sucking the life out of me.
I've been sick this whole time, but I can't figure out why.
Oh, God.
I can't breathe again.
I just want to vomit.
I feel [Bleep.]
Terrible.
During my walk, I was harassed by a tall, thin man in a cape.
So I'm meeting with a sketch artist to draw him as he appeared in life.
He had a long, thin, pointy nose.
His eyes are rounded on top, straight at the bottom.
Okay.
His hair came down to about the collarbone.
Next, I described his favorite place to torment the living.
There's a closet along the wall.
It needs to be open halfway.
All right.
He's facing the side of the bed from the closet.
Is that what you saw? Yes.
[Whispers.]
_.
Steve: Now that Amy and I have completed our investigations.
We're ready to reveal our findings to each other and our clients for the first time.
Amy, I want you to meet Angela and Randy.
They live here with Angela's son and Randy's two daughters.
Now, the thing about this couple, unlike any other couple we've dealt with They're both Army veterans.
And they've been trained to deal with high-stress situations.
But the activity in this house is so intense that it's literally ripping their family apart.
With that, I'm gonna ask Amy to tell us a little bit about her walk.
And see what we come up with.
This is seriously one of the worst places that I've walked.
There were just so many dead people, and They were all trying to talk at once.
I was physically and emotionally just trashed.
Pretty much every room upstairs made me sick.
Some of the symptoms I felt that night was dizziness, vomiting Um, and I did, in one room, felt like somebody was crushing my throat.
Okay, so you were sick throughout the whole walk? - Yes.
- With those symptoms? - Yes.
- That's why you sound sick? - Yeah.
Mm hmm.
- From that? That's interesting.
I might be able to explain why she probably felt that way.
Back in 1918, the Spanish Flu hit here.
the Spanish Flu in Cressona.
Approximately 20% of the town died from this flu.
James Gray, the guy that owned this house and lived here, happened to be the only Doctor in town.
And he treated a lot of those Spanish Flu patients right here in this home, where a lot of them probably passed away.
- Oh, my God.
- Oh.
Can the children get sick because of that or us get sick because of that or anything? Have you shown any symptoms? I went through exactly what you just described on many occasions.
It's like Steve had mentioned it's like a flu-like symptom.
But all of a sudden, I got a debilitating headache.
I mean, I couldn't even walk.
I crawled to the bathroom because I felt like I was gonna vomit, and I was super, super nauseated.
- I couldn't even stand up.
- Yeah, I get sick a lot.
- Same type of feelings? - Headaches, migraines.
Amy: Yeah, that makes sense.
The residual here is very thick.
Like, it hangs on to The memories and, you know Everything that transpired here.
So, how did the rest of the walk go? This guy shows up.
He was extremely tall, extremely thin, had a hat on, cape Shadowy.
He's very creepy, very powerful.
I met him when I walked through here.
Amy: And he's like, I'm gonna suck the [Bleep.]
life out of you.
He doesn't want me to get anything about him.
He's getting really mad.
He was a businessman.
I know he bought and sold things.
And I know he had a hook nose and dark eyes.
- Steve: Really? - Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's a long shot.
I mean, but what she's describing kind of reminds me of somebody who's kind of actually pretty important to this town.
Okay, well, it turns out it's a guy named John Chapman Cresson, hence Cressona.
This guy ran the rail road here, owned the rail road, and bought the land here And basically built the town.
Now, he had some shady dealings.
He built homes for the rail road workers that he employed.
Okay, now I got a photo of some of these rail road workers.
It'll give you an idea of what these guys looked like.
So, what he was doing is he built homes like this one for his employees to live in.
So, what he did was he paid them at work Then sold them the house, and they just paid him rent, so the money that he was making went right back to him.
Come 1864, he leases his rail road company out to Reading, so now all his workers, they were out of a job.
It basically decimated the town, where they went into a recession for over 20 years.
- Wow.
- Wow.
If you look at his nose He's got this hook nose that she had.
Interesting.
And he was considered tall for his time, from what I was told.
Do you think that they had the same characteristics as the guy you ran into? Definitely.
I did do a sketch of the man.
Wow.
Take a look at that.
Randy: Wow, his eyes are pretty close.
His eyes and nose are almost identical.
Identical, right? Wow, that's freaky.
I would say that's the same guy.
It looks spot on to me.
So, basically, the guy that built Cressona is hanging out in our house.
- Yes.
- Wonderful.
Angela: So, Amy, in your opinion Do you think this gentleman is the evil presence in our house? I think he's an evil presence in your house.
He likes to mess with people.
One of the things that he did to me in here was, like he was standing on my chest.
What I saw was him, like, pushing down on someone's chest.
When I was in here, I felt, like, your ear will thump.
- You know what I mean? - Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
And he'll try to whisper in your ear.
You'll feel pokes.
I get poked and my hair pulled almost every night.
He gives people nightmares, and he also likes to stare people down.
And I have tremendous nightmares.
- Really? - I am sleeping upstairs And Um I get a set of hands that come up through the bed.
Pull me all the way down, and I can feel myself going through the layers of the house.
And when I get to the basement, he says, I've got you.
I finally got you.
She sees a gremlin-type creature.
He could manipulate how he's perceived.
And it knows what scares you.
_.
The other thing that I got was, uh He hates children.
He hates kids.
And then I saw one of the things he was doing, which I thought was very disturbing, and I did sketch it, so - You sketched it? - Yeah, I did.
- Where did you see this? - This.
Oh, so it's Samantha's room.
I don't even know if I want to show this to you.
That's the closet.
I want this guy.
I'm gonna get this guy.
_.
_.
_.
[Whispers.]
I want this guy.
I'm gonna get this guy.
_.
_.
_.
I'm confronting this little bastard.
That John Cresson [Bleep.]
him and I are gonna have some dealings.
I'm gonna sit down, and I'm gonna square off with that son of a [Bleep.]
on his own.
He wants a piece of something, come and [Bleep.]
me.
- Steve: You all right? - Yep.
I know a few people that won't be, though.
Problem is you're not dealing with the living here.
I know.
Samantha is deathly afraid of the closets.
Because of that, she had me draw crosses on every one of her walls.
And a huge three-foot cross on the one closet door.
Wow.
Do you have any idea why he doesn't like kids? He's just a jerk.
And he's just a coward.
Very much so.
A sick, sick, sick coward.
I hate to even ask this right now, but was there anything else you saw? I saw an old lady.
And I got that she might have been a relative of someone who lives here.
That she died of cancer, and she died in the late '90s.
Oh! Oh, my God.
Her mother died of cancer.
I told you she was here.
_.
If it's Angela's Mom, why would she be here? She had a lot of regret.
She felt guilty.
And she kept saying that she felt responsible about everything that happened.
She Knew that there was a bad male.
She felt like she could've stopped it from happening, but she didn't.
My stepfather was a very evil man.
And towards the end, before she died, I tried to make amends, and he would not let me speak to her on the phone or come and see her.
And she died a week later.
She's back to take the woman of the house.
Death was gonna come to the house, but she came instead.
Whoa.
When I was leaving, she said, my job's done.
Tell her I'm waiting.
What? Somebody's coming to kill her? No.
But someone's coming to take her when she dies.
Okay.
I mean, for her to take death's place so that she'll be comfortable.
- So, it's out of love.
- Yeah.
Is her mother really feeling guilty? Yes.
And you feel guilty, as well.
Why do you feel guilty? Because I didn't say goodbye.
I didn't get to say that I forgive her.
I knew she'd be there when I died.
Well, listen, it's been a tough night.
And I think you guys got a lot more than you bargained for.
- For sure.
- Definitely.
But the reason we're here and why you called us is to see if you And your family can live here peacefully and straighten out what the hell you got going on.
Yes.
I can't answer that, but I'm gonna turn it over to my partner, Amy, and hopefully, she can.
Me, personally, I don't like this house or this area.
If it's at all within your means, I would move.
Randy: I won't let it beat us.
If we made it this far, we went through everything we went through so far, I'm not gonna just roll over and say go ahead and take it I'm fighting for what's mine this is our house this is where our children are gonna grow up this is where we're gonna be safe whether they like it or not they're getting the hell out.
You know, monetarily, they can't leave.
It would devastate them, so is there anything else they can do? Basically Because it seems to be encompassing the town, like, you need to build your fortress.
So, the first thing being for you to get bags of salt.
And go around the entire property line Thick so you see the line on the ground.
When you can do it, I would suggest, building a fence surrounding the entire property.
And when you purchase those building materials.
Have them blessed.
- Wow.
- So, who should do the blessing? Any real Holy person.
Then, with a holy person, again, of your choice.
They're gonna bless the house.
While this person's blessing the house I want you to take this Follow them around, and after they're done in each room Blessing each room sprinkle this in the room.
What is this? This is brimstone.
And it's used in exorcisms.
Oh, my God.
And what will that do? It'll get rid of the dead people here.
- What about her Mom? - That woman will stay.
That process cannot stop.
It's natural, organic.
I'm mortified.
I thought there was Maybe four things here and one of them was evil.
But not to this extent.
- Okay.
- We're gonna be fine.
I'm not gonna let nothing happen to the kids.
Now, I'm gonna ask you, are you gonna follow Amy's advice? - Without a doubt.
- Angela? Yeah.
This is one of those investigations, I got to tell you, especially because I'm a vet.
The fact that we were able to hopefully help you here makes me feel good.
I know it makes her feel good.
Randy: But from the bottom of my heart, I really appreciate it from both of you.
- Well, thank you for letting us come in.
- Mm hmm.
Thank you for coming.
Amy: I still believe Angela and Randy would be best off moving.
But since they can't, I really hope that they follow my advice.
So that their home can be freed of the dead and their kids will remain safe.
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