Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (22 page)

I once saw a documentary on Weird Al Yankovic and was convinced he had the strangest fans in the world. Not anymore.

Territorial Spirits

This is mine and that’s yours. It’s a basic rule of society. We have fences, property lines, borders, and even firewalls on our computers to keep the unwanted out and protect the things we have. When it comes to our loved ones the protection gets even more rabid and emotional. Ever hear the phrase “don’t mess with a momma bear’s cubs?” It’s true. A parent can be downright violent and deadly when it comes to the protection of their offspring. Lovers can be hyperprotective, especially when jealousy or the thought of losing control over a mate is involved. How many times have you heard those stories about a man who keeps his girl too close because he’s terrified of losing her?

That willingness to protect a loved one can carry over into the spirit world. I’ve seen it several times. At Bobby Mackey’s Music Hall in Wilder, Kentucky, we caught an EVP of a spirit saying, “Precious . . . no.” I’m convinced it was a male spirit holding back a female spirit and possibly the disembodied voice of Scott Jackson trying to keep his former lover Pearl Bryan from contacting us. Scott Jackson (a known devil worshipper) was convicted and executed for the murder of Bryan, who was pregnant at the time. On the gallows swore he would haunt Mackey’s.

If this was Jackson talking to Bryan, what was he trying to stop her from doing? Was he afraid of her contacting me? Was he afraid of losing her? There are so many possible scenarios when an EVP like this is captured that I have to stop myself from obsessing over it. Who is Precious? Who is the man trying to stop her and why? This is my conflict, my drama, and my gossip. The paranormal is my
Desperate Housewives
,
Survivor
, and
Ultimate Fighter
rolled into one.

The worst case of good and evil locking horns that I’ve experienced was at the Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa. Built in 1868, this quaint southern Iowa home is nothing extraordinary. If you didn’t know a hideous crime had been committed there, it would be an ideal prairie home in a tight knit community where everyone knows everyone. It was bought by Joe Moore and his family in 1903, and became infamous in 1912 when Joe, his wife, their four children, and two visiting children were all found hacked to death in their beds one morning. It was a grisly crime that caught the attention of the country and, of course, fueled ghost stories for almost a century.

Though there were several suspects, the killer was never caught, and all suspects are now long dead themselves. William Mansfield, an ex-con, seems to be the most likely killer. His own wife, his infant daughter, and his in-laws were murdered by an axe in Blue Island, Illinois, two years later using the same techniques as the Villisca murders. Similar axe murders had occurred in Kansas and Colorado, to which Mansfield could be connected too, but he was never convicted of any of them. Another suspect was a drifter and possible schizophrenic named Andy Sawyer, who was arrested and questioned for the murders, but released.

I’d like to think that what the justice system could not discover, we did. In the middle of the night, when there’s nothing left but you, the spirits, and the darkness, the truth can be found if you know where to look.

“Who killed you?” I asked, waiting in the silence. Moments later when I reviewed the digital recording of the Spirit Box, I got a response that I did not expect.

“Andy.”

I think one of the spirits, probably Joe Moore, knew Andy Sawyer and knows he was responsible for killing his family. I also think he does not want his deceased family to know they are dead and is keeping that information from them because during the night we also got another revealing EVP.

“We’re gonna keep them in the dark,” a voice said, “’Cause they don’t step in heaven yet.”

This was certainly an intelligent spirit who was responding to our questions on the upper floor. It was one of the best fullsentence EVPs I ever caught, and it fit perfectly with the lore of the house.

So is it possible that a spirit can still reside in a building and hold back other spirits that also reside there? Can one spirit keep information from the others that are also trapped in the building? Can one spirit prevent others from crossing over to the other side? Can he prevent them from getting closure? Eight people were killed in the Villisca Axe Murder House. Six of them were children and two were adults. Is it possible that those adults are still looking after the kids, keeping them away from intruders like me? The big question is why would they do this. Could they be unwilling to let go of their family and this is their last attempt to keep them together in death?

Maybe there’s another layer to this mystery. Maybe the spirit of the killer has returned and that’s really who Joe Moore is protecting his family from. We’ve seen in the past that spirits can return to a place of extreme emotional attachment, even if it’s a long way from where they died. Another EVP we caught seems to suggest this might be the case.

“Do you know who killed you?” Aaron asked in the basement.

“They’re upstairs,” a voice responded. Whoever was upstairs, the spirit that contacted Aaron seemed afraid of it. Maybe it was the spirit of the man who had committed this heinous deed, who had returned to the scene of the crime and was now terrorizing the family again.

Good and evil spirits are definitely at odds in Villisca, and the energy there is very strong. Paranormal energy has been recorded by so many groups that it’s impossible to discount that the spirits of the dead still reside there. But why do we capture both good and evil EVPs and poltergeist activity in the same building? Why is there a fight going on inside the house on a plane that we cannot see? Is it possible that these killings were not the product of a psychopath, but were triggered by an evil that sprang up to possess William Mansfield, Andy Sawyer, or whoever the killer was? Is it possible that the killer was possessed by an evil entity that left its host once the crimes were done? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

You can read about a place like Villisca all you like, but it’s not until you walk through the door, talk to the people who lived there, and feel the torment inside that you realize how heavy a place like this is. A family that once lived in this house as kids couldn’t even return to it, and when we interviewed them, they shook with fear and had to step outside. Up until that investigation I’d never experienced a possession personally, and I have to admit, I was hoping to at Villisca. It didn’t happen, but I wouldn’t have to wait long.

The Island of Rage

Poveglia. The name still haunts me. Looking at it from the nearby island of Venice, where millions of people lounge away their European vacations cruising a gondola through the Grand Canal, you would not think of it as being so hideous. But this quiet island in Northern Italy is as sinister a place as has ever existed on Earth and has seen hundreds of thousands of death in its long and tortured history. Naturally it’s considered one of the ultimate places of paranormal energy and calls out to investigators like me with an unavoidable power. But this black hole of evil, which could have been a pleasant little brother to the legendary Venice, is not for the weak or casual traveler. Here are the highlights of its dark history:

During the days of the Roman Empire it was allegedly used to isolate victims of the black plague. That set a bad precedent that would be repeated many times over. In 1379 Venice was one of the most powerful societies in the world. It was a light at the end of the tunnel known as the dark ages and had everything going for it. Suddenly it was under attack (again) from the neighboring city of Genoa and its powerful navy, so the people living on Poveglia (there were a lot by then) were moved to Giudecca to protect them. In their place the Venetian government built a permanent fortification called “the Octagon” on the island to help keep the Genoese navy away. The Octagon is still visible today.

The island was reportedly uninhabited during the fifteenth century, though I cannot find a reason why. In the sixteenth century, a plague outbreak ravaged Italy, and with an empty island sitting just a few miles away, it was an easy decision to transform Poveglia into a quarantine facility (also called a
lazaretto
). After all, no one wanted the place, so why not keep the unwanted there, especially since most of Venice’s economy depended on trade and people from all over the world traveled through it? This move probably helped save Venice from experiencing a lot of death, but it also made Poveglia an island of hell.

For a long time Poveglia was empty, so in 1527 the Venetians offered the island to a group of monks, who refused to take it. Bad omen. In 1661 the Venetians offered to reconstruct a village for the descendants of the original inhabitants of Poveglia, but they also refused the offer. You would think a free island with a rebuilt village is an offer you can’t refuse, but they did. Another good call. The Venetian government was getting the hint that no one wanted to live there.

By 1805 most of Italy was under the iron fist of Napoleon, and under his rule Poveglia (the island that no one wanted) became a
lazaretto
again during a new outbreak of plague. This lasted until 1814. During these Napoleonic wars, it is said that the English occupied the island, ambushed French ships, and burned the crews alive on Poveglia. The last time anyone made an attempt to use the island was in 1922. Its buildings were converted into a hospital that housed both the insane and the homeless, but by 1969 it was completely abandoned.

So Poveglia was a magnet for suffering and death. Hundreds of thousands of people (that’s right, hundreds of thousands) died on its soil from plague, war, tsunami, mental illness, suicides, and executions. It’s the perfect storm for darkness, death, dread, and murder. Locals say half the island is made from the ashes of the dead who were burned and buried there, which I can somewhat verify. As I stabbed my machete into the soil, it penetrated it like a hot knife in butter. It wasn’t sand. It wasn’t soil. And it wasn’t dirt. It was ash.

Where does the raw energy from all these tormented souls go? I mentioned before that people abruptly killed while caught in a whirlwind of emotion (anger, rage, excitement, agony) are unable to cross over to their final plane. Their energy is still in chaos, and they have to wander the Earth until that energy is put at rest. We all generally believe spirits of the departed need to be put at rest. It makes us uncomfortable to think there is no peace after death, so RIP (Rest In Peace) has become a common wish in English for the departed. I experienced that wandering energy pass through in the middle of the night. It was exhilarating, terrifying, and overwhelming.

I personally think Poveglia is infested by an evil that manipulates the living. I don’t think the English would have killed so many French sailors if they had been on any other island. I believe an evil calls Poveglia home and causes the spirits there to know nothing but negative emotions. They can do a few things: they can manipulate the human spirits on the island, they can manipulate the humans who visit it, or they can take it to a new level and try to possess humans like me who visit. I think this is what happened. I was being influenced by the angry and evil spirits of Poveglia like the devil’s marionette. Once you set foot on this island you have fallen into a whirlpool to hell. You either swim your way out or get sucked deeper and deeper into the control of the only current it has—evil.

I don’t call what happened to me in that place a possession, at least not in the literal sense of the term. We’re a society that’s been affected heavily by pop culture and the media. People think a possession means your head spins around, you puke green bile, and you suddenly have the ability to walk on the ceiling. I can tell you that I don’t know anyone that this has happened to.

Possession by a spiritual being, either human or animal, is something almost every religion has accepted for centuries. Roman Catholic doctrine states that angels are non-corporeal beings, purely spiritual creatures that have intelligence and will. Fallen angels, or demons, are able to “demonically possess” individuals without the victim’s knowledge or consent, so they are not responsible for their actions while being possessed. Possession can last for as little as a few minutes or as long as several months.