The Dead Files (2011) s07e03 Episode Script
House of Mirrors - Independence, OR
These tricksters are awful awful, awful.
I saw three shadow figures here at the foot of the bed.
They're making them see things, hear things, feel things.
She found him hanging from the rafters.
Something just goes "Boom!" This is some bizarre [bleep.]
you guys are talking about.
Ohh.
I don't know what to trust.
He's making me crazy.
Something bad's going to happen.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's panic.
And it's almost like a butchering.
I see dead people.
They all died horribly.
I speak to dead people.
Get out of here.
And they speak to me.
Vicious.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
It doesn't matter where you are.
I'll find you.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide detective.
This guy's a real piece of work.
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I feel like I live in a house of Hell.
It's my job to reveal them.
This is not good.
But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end I want my life back.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay - Is he trying to kill her? - [Sobs.]
Or time to get out.
Oh, my god.
This is going to kill us.
[Wind whistling.]
[Bird cawing.]
I'm in the rural town of Independence, Oregon.
It's about an hour south of Portland.
I got called in by a guy named Terry, who sounded really desperate on the phone.
He says the activity in his farmhouse is so bad, it's destroying his health and his relationship.
He says if we can't help him, he doesn't think he's gonna last another year.
MATTHEW: Before Amy arrives, I clear the house of anything that might influence her findings.
Photos need to be removed and personal items covered.
When I'm finished, the location will be ready for tonight's walk.
[Bird screeches.]
Okay.
Okay.
I had a really hard time opening.
The thing was, was that there were, like, these tricksters.
They are treacherous thieves and liars.
They're creating illusions, and they are going into people's dreams.
What the [bleep.]
They're having bad, horrible dreams.
This is not good.
[Metal creaking.]
STEVE: Terry, I'm glad I'm here, 'cause when we spoke on the phone, you sounded pretty desperate.
What exactly is going on in the house? Oh, gosh.
We hear voices.
There's full-body apparitions.
I've been chased down the hallway.
I just feel like something's here trying to suck the life out of me.
Wow.
So, who exactly lives in the house? Me, my partner, Bobby, and my grandson, Ashton.
I think it's now starting after my grandson.
All right.
So, how long have you been living here? We've been here four years.
What made you come here? With my parents being elderly, Bobby and I decided that it would probably be best if we moved down here to help take care of the farm and my parents.
Okay.
So, did you grow up in this house? No.
This house has been moved here.
We had an old farmhouse over there that I grew up in.
Okay.
Things have progressively gotten worse over this last year.
I've been attacked in my bed.
I'm getting no sleep none.
I get very irritable when my anxiety goes up.
I know on the phone, when we spoke, it seems like your relationship's a little strained because of this stuff that's going on.
It is a little strained.
I don't want to be bothered.
I just kind of want to be alone, and that's not me at all.
Now, what about your grandson? He is so scared, he won't go to the bath alone.
He doesn't want to sleep alone.
[Sniffles.]
[Voice breaking.]
I'm sorry.
I don't know how to protect my family.
Yeah.
I am at my wits' end.
What the hell? There's a man Oh, a living dude.
He's just, like, barreling through here and yelling and screaming.
And he's got brown hair.
Kind of got a round face, kind of a roundish face.
Kind of, like, always a mess.
MATTHEW: How old? Probably in his early 40s.
Okay.
Not a happy person.
Okay, now I'm seeing a bunch of [bleep.]
I think there's a [bleep.]
telepath here who is inadvertently manipulating their environment.
How? Like, the living people here are seeing things that aren't really there.
He's making me crazy.
TERRY: One of my very first really scary experiences happened here.
I used to have a mirror that hung in my bedroom at the end of this hallway, and I was coming through one afternoon with a load of towels from the laundry, and I just got this overwhelming feeling that somebody was behind me.
And as I happened to look up down the hallway and into that mirror, I saw an old man behind me, I would say probably in his 70s.
He was kind of see-through, more of, like, a gray thing, and he was coming behind me down the hallway.
I ran and slammed the bedroom door behind me.
Could it have been an intruder or anything like that? No.
I open the door back up There's nothing here.
Interesting.
Okay, so what else is going on in this hallway? I hear women's voices out in the living room.
It's like a murmuring.
You just kind of hear [Imitating murmuring.]
That's annoying.
Very.
How many people would you think it is? Probably three to four.
Do you go investigate? Yes, I usually get up.
There have been times I've been kind of confrontational.
And what have you said? "Get out of my house.
" And what happens? It makes it worse.
They're bullying me.
I never had circles under my eyes until I came back here and moved into this house.
Okay.
[Exhales sharply.]
Oh, boy.
These, like, trickster things there's a lot of them a lot of them.
How many? But I don't know if I'm seeing the truth.
These tricksters are incredibly good at distorting reality.
Between them and the telepathy, the living must be going insane.
They'll feed into the person's paranoias and fears.
They can reach in and pull out past traumas and make it a fresh issue for them, and they, like, overanalyze it and analyze it and analyze it, talking, talking, talking, and it's like feeding it more and more and more.
One night, I woke up and I saw three shadow figures down here at the foot of the bed that I would say were probably about this tall and looked like black blobs kind of human shape.
I freaked out, jumped up out of bed, and I ran out.
I was scared to death.
You're sure there's no shadows coming in from outside? Those are block-out curtains, and they're closed.
Huh.
Actually, after we had called you, the other night, I got attacked in my bed again.
I was watching TV.
I rolled over to grab the remote, and again, there was a large shadow figure standing over me, leaning in the bed.
I started swinging.
I thought maybe somebody had broken into the house.
And it just disappeared.
When you said you were desperate, you weren't kidding.
No.
It feels like I'm being tortured.
I feel sick horrible, horrible [bleep.]
sick in here.
Awful, awful, awful.
These tricksters, they are causing their own mayhem here.
- [Groans.]
- MATTHEW: Are you okay? They're [bleep.]
with me.
Real physical.
Okay [bleep.]
Ah.
Come on.
Come on.
[Inhales sharply.]
They come.
They come.
They come.
And they do.
They surround They do They do it They'll surround any bed that has a living person in them at night.
They're like this big, and they're black you know, black humanoid figures.
And they all are standing together.
They come in the front door.
They crawl out of the closets.
They're attracted to the negativity in this house.
They're having a good time feeding this.
It's not like they're like, "I'm gonna kill this person, but if something happens, great.
That would be [bleep.]
entertaining.
" They're like, "Yeah, let's keep this going.
Let's do this!" STEVE: Terry mentioned to me about his short tempers, his mood swings.
Have you noticed what he's talking about? Yeah.
In the beginning, when we first got together, he was so lovable and just happy.
Just watching somebody go downhill, you don't want to see it.
And there's a couple of times where I've actually, like, wanted to just walk away.
Okay.
Now, what about yourself? What have you experienced? I have seen something that actually terrifies me.
Okay.
It's a little shadow figure.
It's probably about 2 feet tall, about up to your knee, and it peeks around the corner at you.
It's got kind of like a troll- or gremlin-looking shape to it, with pointed ears.
You don't think it's any kind of an animal or anything like that? You sure of that? It's too big to be any kind of rodent.
Okay.
And you would have heard it if it was some animal, huh? Yeah.
There's no sound to it.
Is there anything else going on? I saw this little fawn actually hop through the back window in the bedroom, and it went through the bedroom and then took off down the hallway.
You're talking about a baby deer? Yeah.
This is some bizarre [bleep.]
you guys are talking about.
I haven't heard this much stuff in one house.
I thought I was going crazy at one point.
- Were you boozing? - No.
I don't drink.
You don't drink? All right.
Any drugs? Nope.
I have no idea what that could have been.
You can see why I thought I was going crazy.
AMY: I'm having a lot of issues trying to figure out what is really going on here.
But these tricksters They are causing issues.
Like, there's infinite possibilities of how they can manipulate the living into making them, you know, behave in a certain way or, you know, see things, hear things, feel things.
They're causing, you know, fighting.
They'll pit people against each other so they'll fight.
They'll cause a lot of arguments and anger.
One person will hear the other person talking to them, but it's not them.
They manipulate dreams.
They are making it a very negative, volatile situation.
And they are really feeding at night.
So, Ashton, I talked to Grandpa, and he's worried about you.
He wanted me to talk to you.
How old are you, exactly? Do you see anything in the house that frightens you? Tell me about that.
I saw something come through the closet the closet in that room.
It was like red eyes, and it was like a demon or something.
And it came on my side of the bed, and I felt something tickling me right here.
Are you afraid to stay here? You are? Why are you afraid? Tell me.
Because I see stuff moving in the hallway and the bathroom.
What are you seeing? All night, I see, like, a tall man.
I stay up almost all night.
The little trickster dudes are different in here.
They're more active in here as far as what they do.
[Inhales sharply.]
Here, they're more aggressive.
They're, like, jumping on the bed like they're having a good time, barking and growling.
[Growling.]
And I see, like I see somebody's in there.
Somebody's in the bed.
And they're trying to relax.
They're seeing, like [Imitates whooshing.]
Like, um Uh, like, all this movement, like lights and, like, you know, black, streaky things and lights and, like, all this chaos.
And they're just like, "Oh, man.
This is really bad.
" Terry and Bobby have no clue about the history of their house, so I pulled the property deed and asked a local historian that I know to look through some of the names.
Turns out the original property owner was publicly disgraced and had to leave Independence in shame.
Well, Diane, I appreciate you helping me out.
So, what can you tell me about this guy Alva Shaw, who originally owned my clients' property? He was born in New York about 1819, and he came to Oregon in 1844.
Okay.
So, what did he do when he got here? He was appointed by the governor to be the superintendent of the state penitentiary in Portland.
Okay, I mean, that's a pretty prestigious job and powerful job.
- He's got to have a lot of connections.
- He did.
How'd it work out? Of the 154 prisoners that were sent to the prison during his term, and only 13 were recaptured.
So 1/3 of his prisoners escaped? Yes.
He was blamed for that.
Okay.
AMY: As soon as I walk outside, it's like a haze has been lifted off of me, and I'm able to see clearly again, and there's someone here, watching my every move.
I think that he's a dead man a very powerful man.
I think he had a lot of power that was placed upon him, a lot of strength, a lot of determination, a lot of authority, and I think that's why he's so capable of manifesting this way.
MATTHEW: Do you know when he's from? Okay.
Do people experience him in any way? I would assume so, 'cause he does have a thing with the tricksters.
You know, the only thing I could possibly say is that he would be some kind of leader.
Now, you mentioned this guy had a bad go of things.
- What are we talking about? - He did.
He had a very bad go of things, starting in August 1866.
First thing that happened is his mother died Hannah Shaw.
Okay.
She died on August 12th, and she was 71 years old.
And she was buried on your clients' property.
- She's buried on the property? - Yes.
Eight days after his mom dies, he hands in his resignation as superintendent, effective at the end of the month.
So, did his mom dying have anything to do with him resigning? You know, it's possible.
With just four days left in his term would come the event that would drive him out of Independence forever.
On August 27th, he's taken hostage with two of his employees by nine prisoners and were going to use them as shields to get out of the prison.
And as they're marching, seeing that something needed to be done, Shaw grabs ahold of a fence, and it breaks the momentum of the escape, and the guards are able to shoot at the prisoners.
That's a pretty ballsy move on his part.
It was, and one of the prisoners is killed, and eight of them escape, although five are recaptured.
The hostage standoff was big news.
Here's an article about it that was in the local newspaper.
All right.
So, it sounds like this guy finally did something right.
The public didn't see it that way.
In this editorial, they blame him for the escape.
They say that he was too liberal, that he left the shackles off the prisoners when he should have left them on, that he didn't have adequate security.
And after the escape, he feels like he's a pariah in the community, and he sells the property that he has left, and he moves to California.
Now, how old was he when he died? He was about 64.
So, what does he die of? We don't know.
The obituary just says that he died of an illness that lasted 13 hours.
Oh.
Okay.
MATTHEW: Do you know how he died? It wasn't the way he expected or wanted.
I think he would have liked to go out in a blaze of glory.
He's really affecting a large area, you know? I don't think it's just that house.
[ Woman screams.]
I think he does go into homes, and I think he spies a lot.
He might be attracted to that negativity of the living.
But I do feel like he has ill intent here.
STEVE: So far, I know the previous owner of my clients' property was run out of town and died from a mysterious illness.
But I need to see if there's anything else that could help my case.
Searching through old records, I find a deadly fight between two neighbors right next to Terry and Bobby's property.
I want to know more about this deadly feud, so I've reached out to a local police sheriff to look into it for me, and he told me that this was a controversial case and that it tore the community apart.
STEVE: Well, Sheriff Wolfe, thanks for meeting with me and helping me out with the case.
The reason I got ahold of you is because of this article I came across about a homicide that happened very close to my clients' property.
This was a neighborhood feud between two gentlemen, O.
P.
Beardsley and T.
L.
Perryman.
And in 1886, we ended up with the first violent attack, and it was Perryman that ended up attacking Beardsley with a monkey wrench and caused a pretty significant gash to him.
And then, in 1888, Beardsley is walking with a cane, and Perryman comes across him and attacks him and actually breaks several of his ribs, puts a big gash on his head, and dislocates an eye.
Now, do we have any idea what the hell they were fighting about to begin with? No one really seems to know.
They just had a real dislike for each other.
All right, so, now we got this guy Perryman giving Beardsley two beatings already bad beatings, it sounds like.
Yes, very bad.
But, according to the article, Perryman is the victim of the homicide, so what happened? Well, March 14th of 1889 Okay.
Perryman comes out and does a staredown with Beardsley, who is working on a fence with some other folks.
Thinking he might have another beating coming, Beardsley ends up going to the house Okay and he gets a gun.
Beardsley goes back outside, and Beardsley shoots him.
Just like that? There's no altercation? Just shoots him in the street.
And, apparently, was shot once in the heart and once in the back.
Oh, geez.
Okay.
So, what happens next? Oh, he turned himself in to the sheriff.
Did it go to trial? Yes, it did.
He was found not guilty and acquitted.
How's this guy not guilty when he shoots a guy down in cold blood? A jury of his peers must have felt that he was defending himself.
I'm feeling, like, an impact in my back.
Uh And it's like a wall, like something just goes "Boom!" It was daytime.
It was the middle of the day.
He's probably in his late 30s or early 40s.
And it totally shocks him like, totally out of the blue.
Terry mentioned that his house was physically picked up and moved at one point.
So I checked into it, and he's right.
It was moved about 18 miles from here.
I've reached out to an old friend of mine, Jeff Davis, who's an author, and he said he's got information that will definitely help my case.
All right, so, this is the property that the house I'm investigating was moved from? Yes, it was built here and then moved about 17 or 18 miles to where you first saw it.
You had mentioned on the phone that the original owner of this land had an interesting story.
Well, the original landowner is a man named John Johnson.
And there's his photo.
And he settled here originally in 1845.
And here's his house.
So, what happens to this guy? He had tragedy after tragedy for a period of about 15 years.
Within hours of arriving on the property, his father died of pneumonia.
Okay.
So his father dies.
- Yes.
- What else happened? And then in 1857, his 5-year-old nephew, Persis, died of meningitis.
And then three months later, in January of 1858, his father-in-law, James Taylor, died, and he lived right next door.
James, died of diphtheria.
What a horrible death.
- Yeah.
- All right.
So, now he's got all these family members dying.
Well, that's not all.
On July 9, 1877, it was about 6:00 A.
M.
, and his wife called him.
See, she was in the house, and he was out in the barn, doing chores.
And so he didn't come, and so she went into the barn to find him, and that's when she found him actually hanging from the rafters.
Why? For what reason? I don't know.
The family didn't know, either.
Okay.
So, 1877, he kills himself.
How old is he at this point? He was 61.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Are any of them buried on the property? They're all buried here.
[Groans.]
[Groans.]
Definitely a broken neck.
Oh, this is bad.
This is not done well.
It's a male old.
Uh I'd say he's, like, in his 60s.
He's white.
I think I don't know it might have been an accident.
An accidental hanging? Um Because it's so badly done.
I saw several entities during my walk, but the group of tricksters surrounding a living person had me the most concerned.
They were probably about 3 or 4 feet tall.
They had large heads, they're pitch-black, and they were all around the bed, staring at the person.
Is this what you saw? Yes, this is what I saw.
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'd like you to meet Terry, and this is his partner, Bobby.
They live here with Terry's Okay.
Now, we've been doing investigations for quite a time now, but these guys have some of the wildest stories I've ever heard.
They called us in 'cause they can't take it anymore.
It's affecting their relationship, Terry's health, and, most importantly, it's affecting Ashton.
How long have you lived here? About four years.
Four years.
When did the activity start? BOBBY: When we moved in.
This was a very unusual walk.
I've actually never encountered anything quite like this.
When I went into the house, I actually couldn't trust anything I was seeing, anything I was hearing, anything I was feeling.
It was insane, really.
It was insane.
I'm gonna back up, though, and I'm gonna talk about what I got outside first.
I walked up the driveway, and there was this older man probably in his 60s.
He was outside, and he was getting down from something, and he hung himself.
But it was horribly done and extremely painful.
I can't believe she actually saw something like this, because it didn't happen here.
Their house was actually moved here Oh.
From about 18 miles away.
Okay.
This guy John Johnson lived on the property that the house came from.
This is the farmland where he lived.
Settled in 1851.
Now, this guy had bad luck from the minute he got there.
His father died of pneumonia within hours of getting to the property, and then he lost a nephew, his father-in-law, then another nephew.
So, on July 9, 1877, he goes out into the barn.
His wife goes to find him, and he's hanging.
He committed suicide.
So, the guy you saw, you said, was in his 60s.
This guy Johnson died at the age of 61.
Now, I was able to locate a photo of him.
TERRY: Oh, my.
[Breathes shakily.]
What's the matter? I've seen him.
That's the old man from the hallway.
I was in my house one day, and I just happened to glance up in the mirror, and behind me It looked just like him.
And it looked like he was coming after me.
I ran down the hallway and slammed the door behind me, it scared me so bad.
Does this guy look familiar to you at all? Oh, yeah.
I'm a little creeped out knowing that he came from another property.
I didn't even think anything like that could be possible.
Yes, it is.
The dead can form all sorts of attachments.
Wow.
When I went into the house, the first thing that I saw was this living male.
And he seemed very angry and upset, and he was kind of yelling and screaming, very emotional, and I saw that he had brown hair and he was in his 40s.
It's me.
[Gasps.]
Yeah, I'm kind of confrontational with the ghosts.
When I can't get any sleep, I get up and I yell at them.
Okay.
The other thing that I got [Sighs.]
There is somebody at the location with abilities.
And their dominant ability is telepathy.
[Gasps.]
The telepath can manipulate the minds of those around them into perceiving what they're perceiving.
STEVE: So, there's only two guys living in this place.
Which one of these two is the telepath? Well, right away, when I sat down and you know I did not know their names I wrote this down.
Oh, geez.
Look at that.
Yeah.
She put your first initial down.
Wow.
I've always kind of felt like maybe I was sensitive or had some weird type of power.
I would say my moods are contagious.
Sure explains a lot, don't it? It makes sense.
We also have these other things that are here, and what I'll call them is the tricksters.
Typically, a trickster is associated with Native American tribes, but they're all over the world.
But that's not what's going on here.
This is where it gets very unusual.
There's about 50 of them.
[Gasps.]
These guys are causing all kinds of chaos.
They like to feed off of negative environments.
They're about like 3 or 4 feet tall, shiny very shiny black, like, glistening.
STEVE: Well, they've seen them.
One of the many things that these guys experience here.
Yeah.
I had an experience three of them at the foot of my bed.
Oh, yes.
I jumped out of the bed, I ran through them, and got out into the hallway.
I am awakened every night by these things.
Wow.
Okay.
The thing about the bed is, when I was in that middle room, I actually did see them getting and having a good time That's where I always see them.
And jumping on the bed, and they were having a blast.
Here, they're more aggressive.
They're, like, jumping on the bed like they're having a good time, barking and growling.
[Growling.]
And that's where Ashton sleeps.
One night, I heard him scream in the middle of the night, and he came running out, and he swore there was red eyes in the closet staring right at him, that they were coming at him.
He's scared to death.
These things can manipulate what you see, and, you know, most often, they'll actually appear as animals and things like that.
Tell her.
I was laying in bed one night, and I saw a little fawn actually hop through the window, and it hopped in front of the bed and then just booked it down the hallway.
Okay.
It's really bad.
[Sniffles.]
The other thing was, these guys are going to draw from you any kind of negativity because that's gonna feed them, so these things will bring up these done and over issues, like past traumas or bad things that have happened in a person's life.
They'll, like, trigger that, and then you're thinking about it and thinking about it and talking about it and talking about it, and it's just feeding it and feeding it.
Do you know what I'm saying? [Voice breaking.]
I think about that all the time.
I don't tell anybody that.
[Sniffles.]
It just makes you feel like no matter how much good you do, you'll never make up for every bad thing you've ever done in your life.
[Sniffles.]
But when I'm not here, I never think it.
Sometimes I stay long at school so I don't have to.
He thinks I don't want to come home.
I don't want to I want something to think about that's different.
I told nobody about that.
I'm sorry.
So, everything she's saying is making sense to both of you guys? So, I did have a sketch done of what I saw in the master bedroom.
Ooh.
[Gasps.]
Oh, my God.
AMY: So, I did have a sketch done of what I saw in the master bedroom.
Ooh.
[Gasps.]
Oh, my God.
And this is where I see them, is around the bottom corner of my bed.
No wonder I'm not getting any sleep.
Are they, like, physically capable of pulling the covers off of me? Yes.
Oh, no.
These tricksters have a leader.
I saw him outside.
When he was alive, he was a very strong, powerful man, and he did have a lot of power placed upon him.
He was in charge of a lot of people.
He was from probably, I think, about 80 to 100 years ago.
He was extremely pissed off about the way he died because he didn't want to die that way.
He should have died, like, in a blaze of glory.
Okay, so, this guy was powerful and was in charge of a lot of people? Yes.
So, the original owner of the property you're on now was this guy Alva Shaw.
He was very well-connected.
Matter of fact, he was so well-connected, he was appointed by the governor in 1864 to be the superintendent of the state penitentiary in Portland.
Problem was, he wasn't good at it.
When he was running the penitentiary, [Gasps.]
Only 13 were ever recaptured.
So, on August 27, 1866, eight prisoners take him hostage.
He was able to break away, but a bunch of them escaped.
Only five were recaptured.
The next morning, he wakes up to an editorial calling him a disgrace and that he doesn't know how to run a prison and he caused this whole thing to happen.
Now, this is him at a younger age.
Now, he died in 1880 at the age of 64 after a 13-hour illness.
He just died.
So, he didn't definitely go out in a blaze of glory.
That's for sure.
I don't know if this is the person or not.
I really don't.
This is so overwhelming.
I never expected this much.
I mean, I knew there was a lot going on, but wow.
So, guys, you know why you've been fighting.
You know why your moods have been changing.
You know why you're hearing and seeing things.
But the big question is, are you gonna be able to raise Ashton here in a safe place? For that answer, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
A lot of things have to be attacked at the same time to get a good, good result.
So, the first thing is the dead guy, the leader He needs to go.
So, what I would like to see happen with him is a physical medium to come in, talk to him, and get him to leave.
But, at the same time, you also need to have a shaman come in, and what I want that person to do is to set up a perimeter around your property, and I mean big.
Like, all the way around, okay? This is gonna push these tricksters out.
So, once that's done, you have to deal with your abilities.
Start keeping a daily journal.
And what I want you to do is to write up any and all issues that create strong emotions within you.
Once a week, I want you to take all those pages that you've written all this stuff in and burn it and just get rid of that.
Put it away and out from you.
Now, I spoke to Ashton.
He's 7 years old.
He really doesn't understand what's going on here, but he's scared.
How long do you think before he'll maybe feel better about things in the house? He'll feel a lot better once the shaman's moved all of the tricksters off the property.
So, are you guys gonna take Amy's advice? Every step of the way.
We're gonna get it taken care of.
I want them out of my house.
Now it's payback.
They're gonna pay.
They're gonna go.
AMY: I really hope Terry and Bobby follow my advice and deal with the tricksters terrorizing their family.
With the help of a medium and a shaman, they should be able to free themselves of the evil surrounding their home.
I saw three shadow figures here at the foot of the bed.
They're making them see things, hear things, feel things.
She found him hanging from the rafters.
Something just goes "Boom!" This is some bizarre [bleep.]
you guys are talking about.
Ohh.
I don't know what to trust.
He's making me crazy.
Something bad's going to happen.
My name is Amy Allan.
There's panic.
And it's almost like a butchering.
I see dead people.
They all died horribly.
I speak to dead people.
Get out of here.
And they speak to me.
Vicious.
But there's only one way to know if my findings are real.
It doesn't matter where you are.
I'll find you.
I rely on my partner.
I'm Steve Di Schiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide detective.
This guy's a real piece of work.
And I know every person, every house has secrets.
I feel like I live in a house of Hell.
It's my job to reveal them.
This is not good.
But Steve and I never speak We never communicate during an investigation.
Until the very end I want my life back.
When we uncover if it's safe for you to stay - Is he trying to kill her? - [Sobs.]
Or time to get out.
Oh, my god.
This is going to kill us.
[Wind whistling.]
[Bird cawing.]
I'm in the rural town of Independence, Oregon.
It's about an hour south of Portland.
I got called in by a guy named Terry, who sounded really desperate on the phone.
He says the activity in his farmhouse is so bad, it's destroying his health and his relationship.
He says if we can't help him, he doesn't think he's gonna last another year.
MATTHEW: Before Amy arrives, I clear the house of anything that might influence her findings.
Photos need to be removed and personal items covered.
When I'm finished, the location will be ready for tonight's walk.
[Bird screeches.]
Okay.
Okay.
I had a really hard time opening.
The thing was, was that there were, like, these tricksters.
They are treacherous thieves and liars.
They're creating illusions, and they are going into people's dreams.
What the [bleep.]
They're having bad, horrible dreams.
This is not good.
[Metal creaking.]
STEVE: Terry, I'm glad I'm here, 'cause when we spoke on the phone, you sounded pretty desperate.
What exactly is going on in the house? Oh, gosh.
We hear voices.
There's full-body apparitions.
I've been chased down the hallway.
I just feel like something's here trying to suck the life out of me.
Wow.
So, who exactly lives in the house? Me, my partner, Bobby, and my grandson, Ashton.
I think it's now starting after my grandson.
All right.
So, how long have you been living here? We've been here four years.
What made you come here? With my parents being elderly, Bobby and I decided that it would probably be best if we moved down here to help take care of the farm and my parents.
Okay.
So, did you grow up in this house? No.
This house has been moved here.
We had an old farmhouse over there that I grew up in.
Okay.
Things have progressively gotten worse over this last year.
I've been attacked in my bed.
I'm getting no sleep none.
I get very irritable when my anxiety goes up.
I know on the phone, when we spoke, it seems like your relationship's a little strained because of this stuff that's going on.
It is a little strained.
I don't want to be bothered.
I just kind of want to be alone, and that's not me at all.
Now, what about your grandson? He is so scared, he won't go to the bath alone.
He doesn't want to sleep alone.
[Sniffles.]
[Voice breaking.]
I'm sorry.
I don't know how to protect my family.
Yeah.
I am at my wits' end.
What the hell? There's a man Oh, a living dude.
He's just, like, barreling through here and yelling and screaming.
And he's got brown hair.
Kind of got a round face, kind of a roundish face.
Kind of, like, always a mess.
MATTHEW: How old? Probably in his early 40s.
Okay.
Not a happy person.
Okay, now I'm seeing a bunch of [bleep.]
I think there's a [bleep.]
telepath here who is inadvertently manipulating their environment.
How? Like, the living people here are seeing things that aren't really there.
He's making me crazy.
TERRY: One of my very first really scary experiences happened here.
I used to have a mirror that hung in my bedroom at the end of this hallway, and I was coming through one afternoon with a load of towels from the laundry, and I just got this overwhelming feeling that somebody was behind me.
And as I happened to look up down the hallway and into that mirror, I saw an old man behind me, I would say probably in his 70s.
He was kind of see-through, more of, like, a gray thing, and he was coming behind me down the hallway.
I ran and slammed the bedroom door behind me.
Could it have been an intruder or anything like that? No.
I open the door back up There's nothing here.
Interesting.
Okay, so what else is going on in this hallway? I hear women's voices out in the living room.
It's like a murmuring.
You just kind of hear [Imitating murmuring.]
That's annoying.
Very.
How many people would you think it is? Probably three to four.
Do you go investigate? Yes, I usually get up.
There have been times I've been kind of confrontational.
And what have you said? "Get out of my house.
" And what happens? It makes it worse.
They're bullying me.
I never had circles under my eyes until I came back here and moved into this house.
Okay.
[Exhales sharply.]
Oh, boy.
These, like, trickster things there's a lot of them a lot of them.
How many? But I don't know if I'm seeing the truth.
These tricksters are incredibly good at distorting reality.
Between them and the telepathy, the living must be going insane.
They'll feed into the person's paranoias and fears.
They can reach in and pull out past traumas and make it a fresh issue for them, and they, like, overanalyze it and analyze it and analyze it, talking, talking, talking, and it's like feeding it more and more and more.
One night, I woke up and I saw three shadow figures down here at the foot of the bed that I would say were probably about this tall and looked like black blobs kind of human shape.
I freaked out, jumped up out of bed, and I ran out.
I was scared to death.
You're sure there's no shadows coming in from outside? Those are block-out curtains, and they're closed.
Huh.
Actually, after we had called you, the other night, I got attacked in my bed again.
I was watching TV.
I rolled over to grab the remote, and again, there was a large shadow figure standing over me, leaning in the bed.
I started swinging.
I thought maybe somebody had broken into the house.
And it just disappeared.
When you said you were desperate, you weren't kidding.
No.
It feels like I'm being tortured.
I feel sick horrible, horrible [bleep.]
sick in here.
Awful, awful, awful.
These tricksters, they are causing their own mayhem here.
- [Groans.]
- MATTHEW: Are you okay? They're [bleep.]
with me.
Real physical.
Okay [bleep.]
Ah.
Come on.
Come on.
[Inhales sharply.]
They come.
They come.
They come.
And they do.
They surround They do They do it They'll surround any bed that has a living person in them at night.
They're like this big, and they're black you know, black humanoid figures.
And they all are standing together.
They come in the front door.
They crawl out of the closets.
They're attracted to the negativity in this house.
They're having a good time feeding this.
It's not like they're like, "I'm gonna kill this person, but if something happens, great.
That would be [bleep.]
entertaining.
" They're like, "Yeah, let's keep this going.
Let's do this!" STEVE: Terry mentioned to me about his short tempers, his mood swings.
Have you noticed what he's talking about? Yeah.
In the beginning, when we first got together, he was so lovable and just happy.
Just watching somebody go downhill, you don't want to see it.
And there's a couple of times where I've actually, like, wanted to just walk away.
Okay.
Now, what about yourself? What have you experienced? I have seen something that actually terrifies me.
Okay.
It's a little shadow figure.
It's probably about 2 feet tall, about up to your knee, and it peeks around the corner at you.
It's got kind of like a troll- or gremlin-looking shape to it, with pointed ears.
You don't think it's any kind of an animal or anything like that? You sure of that? It's too big to be any kind of rodent.
Okay.
And you would have heard it if it was some animal, huh? Yeah.
There's no sound to it.
Is there anything else going on? I saw this little fawn actually hop through the back window in the bedroom, and it went through the bedroom and then took off down the hallway.
You're talking about a baby deer? Yeah.
This is some bizarre [bleep.]
you guys are talking about.
I haven't heard this much stuff in one house.
I thought I was going crazy at one point.
- Were you boozing? - No.
I don't drink.
You don't drink? All right.
Any drugs? Nope.
I have no idea what that could have been.
You can see why I thought I was going crazy.
AMY: I'm having a lot of issues trying to figure out what is really going on here.
But these tricksters They are causing issues.
Like, there's infinite possibilities of how they can manipulate the living into making them, you know, behave in a certain way or, you know, see things, hear things, feel things.
They're causing, you know, fighting.
They'll pit people against each other so they'll fight.
They'll cause a lot of arguments and anger.
One person will hear the other person talking to them, but it's not them.
They manipulate dreams.
They are making it a very negative, volatile situation.
And they are really feeding at night.
So, Ashton, I talked to Grandpa, and he's worried about you.
He wanted me to talk to you.
How old are you, exactly? Do you see anything in the house that frightens you? Tell me about that.
I saw something come through the closet the closet in that room.
It was like red eyes, and it was like a demon or something.
And it came on my side of the bed, and I felt something tickling me right here.
Are you afraid to stay here? You are? Why are you afraid? Tell me.
Because I see stuff moving in the hallway and the bathroom.
What are you seeing? All night, I see, like, a tall man.
I stay up almost all night.
The little trickster dudes are different in here.
They're more active in here as far as what they do.
[Inhales sharply.]
Here, they're more aggressive.
They're, like, jumping on the bed like they're having a good time, barking and growling.
[Growling.]
And I see, like I see somebody's in there.
Somebody's in the bed.
And they're trying to relax.
They're seeing, like [Imitates whooshing.]
Like, um Uh, like, all this movement, like lights and, like, you know, black, streaky things and lights and, like, all this chaos.
And they're just like, "Oh, man.
This is really bad.
" Terry and Bobby have no clue about the history of their house, so I pulled the property deed and asked a local historian that I know to look through some of the names.
Turns out the original property owner was publicly disgraced and had to leave Independence in shame.
Well, Diane, I appreciate you helping me out.
So, what can you tell me about this guy Alva Shaw, who originally owned my clients' property? He was born in New York about 1819, and he came to Oregon in 1844.
Okay.
So, what did he do when he got here? He was appointed by the governor to be the superintendent of the state penitentiary in Portland.
Okay, I mean, that's a pretty prestigious job and powerful job.
- He's got to have a lot of connections.
- He did.
How'd it work out? Of the 154 prisoners that were sent to the prison during his term, and only 13 were recaptured.
So 1/3 of his prisoners escaped? Yes.
He was blamed for that.
Okay.
AMY: As soon as I walk outside, it's like a haze has been lifted off of me, and I'm able to see clearly again, and there's someone here, watching my every move.
I think that he's a dead man a very powerful man.
I think he had a lot of power that was placed upon him, a lot of strength, a lot of determination, a lot of authority, and I think that's why he's so capable of manifesting this way.
MATTHEW: Do you know when he's from? Okay.
Do people experience him in any way? I would assume so, 'cause he does have a thing with the tricksters.
You know, the only thing I could possibly say is that he would be some kind of leader.
Now, you mentioned this guy had a bad go of things.
- What are we talking about? - He did.
He had a very bad go of things, starting in August 1866.
First thing that happened is his mother died Hannah Shaw.
Okay.
She died on August 12th, and she was 71 years old.
And she was buried on your clients' property.
- She's buried on the property? - Yes.
Eight days after his mom dies, he hands in his resignation as superintendent, effective at the end of the month.
So, did his mom dying have anything to do with him resigning? You know, it's possible.
With just four days left in his term would come the event that would drive him out of Independence forever.
On August 27th, he's taken hostage with two of his employees by nine prisoners and were going to use them as shields to get out of the prison.
And as they're marching, seeing that something needed to be done, Shaw grabs ahold of a fence, and it breaks the momentum of the escape, and the guards are able to shoot at the prisoners.
That's a pretty ballsy move on his part.
It was, and one of the prisoners is killed, and eight of them escape, although five are recaptured.
The hostage standoff was big news.
Here's an article about it that was in the local newspaper.
All right.
So, it sounds like this guy finally did something right.
The public didn't see it that way.
In this editorial, they blame him for the escape.
They say that he was too liberal, that he left the shackles off the prisoners when he should have left them on, that he didn't have adequate security.
And after the escape, he feels like he's a pariah in the community, and he sells the property that he has left, and he moves to California.
Now, how old was he when he died? He was about 64.
So, what does he die of? We don't know.
The obituary just says that he died of an illness that lasted 13 hours.
Oh.
Okay.
MATTHEW: Do you know how he died? It wasn't the way he expected or wanted.
I think he would have liked to go out in a blaze of glory.
He's really affecting a large area, you know? I don't think it's just that house.
[ Woman screams.]
I think he does go into homes, and I think he spies a lot.
He might be attracted to that negativity of the living.
But I do feel like he has ill intent here.
STEVE: So far, I know the previous owner of my clients' property was run out of town and died from a mysterious illness.
But I need to see if there's anything else that could help my case.
Searching through old records, I find a deadly fight between two neighbors right next to Terry and Bobby's property.
I want to know more about this deadly feud, so I've reached out to a local police sheriff to look into it for me, and he told me that this was a controversial case and that it tore the community apart.
STEVE: Well, Sheriff Wolfe, thanks for meeting with me and helping me out with the case.
The reason I got ahold of you is because of this article I came across about a homicide that happened very close to my clients' property.
This was a neighborhood feud between two gentlemen, O.
P.
Beardsley and T.
L.
Perryman.
And in 1886, we ended up with the first violent attack, and it was Perryman that ended up attacking Beardsley with a monkey wrench and caused a pretty significant gash to him.
And then, in 1888, Beardsley is walking with a cane, and Perryman comes across him and attacks him and actually breaks several of his ribs, puts a big gash on his head, and dislocates an eye.
Now, do we have any idea what the hell they were fighting about to begin with? No one really seems to know.
They just had a real dislike for each other.
All right, so, now we got this guy Perryman giving Beardsley two beatings already bad beatings, it sounds like.
Yes, very bad.
But, according to the article, Perryman is the victim of the homicide, so what happened? Well, March 14th of 1889 Okay.
Perryman comes out and does a staredown with Beardsley, who is working on a fence with some other folks.
Thinking he might have another beating coming, Beardsley ends up going to the house Okay and he gets a gun.
Beardsley goes back outside, and Beardsley shoots him.
Just like that? There's no altercation? Just shoots him in the street.
And, apparently, was shot once in the heart and once in the back.
Oh, geez.
Okay.
So, what happens next? Oh, he turned himself in to the sheriff.
Did it go to trial? Yes, it did.
He was found not guilty and acquitted.
How's this guy not guilty when he shoots a guy down in cold blood? A jury of his peers must have felt that he was defending himself.
I'm feeling, like, an impact in my back.
Uh And it's like a wall, like something just goes "Boom!" It was daytime.
It was the middle of the day.
He's probably in his late 30s or early 40s.
And it totally shocks him like, totally out of the blue.
Terry mentioned that his house was physically picked up and moved at one point.
So I checked into it, and he's right.
It was moved about 18 miles from here.
I've reached out to an old friend of mine, Jeff Davis, who's an author, and he said he's got information that will definitely help my case.
All right, so, this is the property that the house I'm investigating was moved from? Yes, it was built here and then moved about 17 or 18 miles to where you first saw it.
You had mentioned on the phone that the original owner of this land had an interesting story.
Well, the original landowner is a man named John Johnson.
And there's his photo.
And he settled here originally in 1845.
And here's his house.
So, what happens to this guy? He had tragedy after tragedy for a period of about 15 years.
Within hours of arriving on the property, his father died of pneumonia.
Okay.
So his father dies.
- Yes.
- What else happened? And then in 1857, his 5-year-old nephew, Persis, died of meningitis.
And then three months later, in January of 1858, his father-in-law, James Taylor, died, and he lived right next door.
James, died of diphtheria.
What a horrible death.
- Yeah.
- All right.
So, now he's got all these family members dying.
Well, that's not all.
On July 9, 1877, it was about 6:00 A.
M.
, and his wife called him.
See, she was in the house, and he was out in the barn, doing chores.
And so he didn't come, and so she went into the barn to find him, and that's when she found him actually hanging from the rafters.
Why? For what reason? I don't know.
The family didn't know, either.
Okay.
So, 1877, he kills himself.
How old is he at this point? He was 61.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Are any of them buried on the property? They're all buried here.
[Groans.]
[Groans.]
Definitely a broken neck.
Oh, this is bad.
This is not done well.
It's a male old.
Uh I'd say he's, like, in his 60s.
He's white.
I think I don't know it might have been an accident.
An accidental hanging? Um Because it's so badly done.
I saw several entities during my walk, but the group of tricksters surrounding a living person had me the most concerned.
They were probably about 3 or 4 feet tall.
They had large heads, they're pitch-black, and they were all around the bed, staring at the person.
Is this what you saw? Yes, this is what I saw.
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'd like you to meet Terry, and this is his partner, Bobby.
They live here with Terry's Okay.
Now, we've been doing investigations for quite a time now, but these guys have some of the wildest stories I've ever heard.
They called us in 'cause they can't take it anymore.
It's affecting their relationship, Terry's health, and, most importantly, it's affecting Ashton.
How long have you lived here? About four years.
Four years.
When did the activity start? BOBBY: When we moved in.
This was a very unusual walk.
I've actually never encountered anything quite like this.
When I went into the house, I actually couldn't trust anything I was seeing, anything I was hearing, anything I was feeling.
It was insane, really.
It was insane.
I'm gonna back up, though, and I'm gonna talk about what I got outside first.
I walked up the driveway, and there was this older man probably in his 60s.
He was outside, and he was getting down from something, and he hung himself.
But it was horribly done and extremely painful.
I can't believe she actually saw something like this, because it didn't happen here.
Their house was actually moved here Oh.
From about 18 miles away.
Okay.
This guy John Johnson lived on the property that the house came from.
This is the farmland where he lived.
Settled in 1851.
Now, this guy had bad luck from the minute he got there.
His father died of pneumonia within hours of getting to the property, and then he lost a nephew, his father-in-law, then another nephew.
So, on July 9, 1877, he goes out into the barn.
His wife goes to find him, and he's hanging.
He committed suicide.
So, the guy you saw, you said, was in his 60s.
This guy Johnson died at the age of 61.
Now, I was able to locate a photo of him.
TERRY: Oh, my.
[Breathes shakily.]
What's the matter? I've seen him.
That's the old man from the hallway.
I was in my house one day, and I just happened to glance up in the mirror, and behind me It looked just like him.
And it looked like he was coming after me.
I ran down the hallway and slammed the door behind me, it scared me so bad.
Does this guy look familiar to you at all? Oh, yeah.
I'm a little creeped out knowing that he came from another property.
I didn't even think anything like that could be possible.
Yes, it is.
The dead can form all sorts of attachments.
Wow.
When I went into the house, the first thing that I saw was this living male.
And he seemed very angry and upset, and he was kind of yelling and screaming, very emotional, and I saw that he had brown hair and he was in his 40s.
It's me.
[Gasps.]
Yeah, I'm kind of confrontational with the ghosts.
When I can't get any sleep, I get up and I yell at them.
Okay.
The other thing that I got [Sighs.]
There is somebody at the location with abilities.
And their dominant ability is telepathy.
[Gasps.]
The telepath can manipulate the minds of those around them into perceiving what they're perceiving.
STEVE: So, there's only two guys living in this place.
Which one of these two is the telepath? Well, right away, when I sat down and you know I did not know their names I wrote this down.
Oh, geez.
Look at that.
Yeah.
She put your first initial down.
Wow.
I've always kind of felt like maybe I was sensitive or had some weird type of power.
I would say my moods are contagious.
Sure explains a lot, don't it? It makes sense.
We also have these other things that are here, and what I'll call them is the tricksters.
Typically, a trickster is associated with Native American tribes, but they're all over the world.
But that's not what's going on here.
This is where it gets very unusual.
There's about 50 of them.
[Gasps.]
These guys are causing all kinds of chaos.
They like to feed off of negative environments.
They're about like 3 or 4 feet tall, shiny very shiny black, like, glistening.
STEVE: Well, they've seen them.
One of the many things that these guys experience here.
Yeah.
I had an experience three of them at the foot of my bed.
Oh, yes.
I jumped out of the bed, I ran through them, and got out into the hallway.
I am awakened every night by these things.
Wow.
Okay.
The thing about the bed is, when I was in that middle room, I actually did see them getting and having a good time That's where I always see them.
And jumping on the bed, and they were having a blast.
Here, they're more aggressive.
They're, like, jumping on the bed like they're having a good time, barking and growling.
[Growling.]
And that's where Ashton sleeps.
One night, I heard him scream in the middle of the night, and he came running out, and he swore there was red eyes in the closet staring right at him, that they were coming at him.
He's scared to death.
These things can manipulate what you see, and, you know, most often, they'll actually appear as animals and things like that.
Tell her.
I was laying in bed one night, and I saw a little fawn actually hop through the window, and it hopped in front of the bed and then just booked it down the hallway.
Okay.
It's really bad.
[Sniffles.]
The other thing was, these guys are going to draw from you any kind of negativity because that's gonna feed them, so these things will bring up these done and over issues, like past traumas or bad things that have happened in a person's life.
They'll, like, trigger that, and then you're thinking about it and thinking about it and talking about it and talking about it, and it's just feeding it and feeding it.
Do you know what I'm saying? [Voice breaking.]
I think about that all the time.
I don't tell anybody that.
[Sniffles.]
It just makes you feel like no matter how much good you do, you'll never make up for every bad thing you've ever done in your life.
[Sniffles.]
But when I'm not here, I never think it.
Sometimes I stay long at school so I don't have to.
He thinks I don't want to come home.
I don't want to I want something to think about that's different.
I told nobody about that.
I'm sorry.
So, everything she's saying is making sense to both of you guys? So, I did have a sketch done of what I saw in the master bedroom.
Ooh.
[Gasps.]
Oh, my God.
AMY: So, I did have a sketch done of what I saw in the master bedroom.
Ooh.
[Gasps.]
Oh, my God.
And this is where I see them, is around the bottom corner of my bed.
No wonder I'm not getting any sleep.
Are they, like, physically capable of pulling the covers off of me? Yes.
Oh, no.
These tricksters have a leader.
I saw him outside.
When he was alive, he was a very strong, powerful man, and he did have a lot of power placed upon him.
He was in charge of a lot of people.
He was from probably, I think, about 80 to 100 years ago.
He was extremely pissed off about the way he died because he didn't want to die that way.
He should have died, like, in a blaze of glory.
Okay, so, this guy was powerful and was in charge of a lot of people? Yes.
So, the original owner of the property you're on now was this guy Alva Shaw.
He was very well-connected.
Matter of fact, he was so well-connected, he was appointed by the governor in 1864 to be the superintendent of the state penitentiary in Portland.
Problem was, he wasn't good at it.
When he was running the penitentiary, [Gasps.]
Only 13 were ever recaptured.
So, on August 27, 1866, eight prisoners take him hostage.
He was able to break away, but a bunch of them escaped.
Only five were recaptured.
The next morning, he wakes up to an editorial calling him a disgrace and that he doesn't know how to run a prison and he caused this whole thing to happen.
Now, this is him at a younger age.
Now, he died in 1880 at the age of 64 after a 13-hour illness.
He just died.
So, he didn't definitely go out in a blaze of glory.
That's for sure.
I don't know if this is the person or not.
I really don't.
This is so overwhelming.
I never expected this much.
I mean, I knew there was a lot going on, but wow.
So, guys, you know why you've been fighting.
You know why your moods have been changing.
You know why you're hearing and seeing things.
But the big question is, are you gonna be able to raise Ashton here in a safe place? For that answer, I'm gonna turn it over to Amy.
A lot of things have to be attacked at the same time to get a good, good result.
So, the first thing is the dead guy, the leader He needs to go.
So, what I would like to see happen with him is a physical medium to come in, talk to him, and get him to leave.
But, at the same time, you also need to have a shaman come in, and what I want that person to do is to set up a perimeter around your property, and I mean big.
Like, all the way around, okay? This is gonna push these tricksters out.
So, once that's done, you have to deal with your abilities.
Start keeping a daily journal.
And what I want you to do is to write up any and all issues that create strong emotions within you.
Once a week, I want you to take all those pages that you've written all this stuff in and burn it and just get rid of that.
Put it away and out from you.
Now, I spoke to Ashton.
He's 7 years old.
He really doesn't understand what's going on here, but he's scared.
How long do you think before he'll maybe feel better about things in the house? He'll feel a lot better once the shaman's moved all of the tricksters off the property.
So, are you guys gonna take Amy's advice? Every step of the way.
We're gonna get it taken care of.
I want them out of my house.
Now it's payback.
They're gonna pay.
They're gonna go.
AMY: I really hope Terry and Bobby follow my advice and deal with the tricksters terrorizing their family.
With the help of a medium and a shaman, they should be able to free themselves of the evil surrounding their home.