SeanPaulMurphyVille: The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3

Sunday, December 8, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3

Your Truly during the 1990s

My upcoming novel Chapel Street was inspired by my experiences growing up in a "haunted" house at 21 St. Helens Avenue* in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Lauraville. This series of blogs will examine the actual haunting that inspired the book. In the previous entry, I discussed my paranormal experiences in the house in a narrative form. This is the second part of my interview by my mother and my niece Natalie.

Here's a video clip from the interview:

Below you will find the transcript of the second part of the interview. The transcription was made by my niece Emily. The interview has been edited for clarity, and to make it look like I don't say "uh, like, you know, um," every other sentence.

NATALIE: So Sean, when you returned to the house when it was up for auction, did you have any experiences or feelings or anything while you were there, like the house knew you and recognized you, was waiting to pounce on you or anything weird?

SEAN: I had no feelings whatsoever. No tingling in the spine, no doors slamming in my face. Nothing like that at all. And part of it was because it was the middle of the day. You both lived in that house, and stuff did happen during the day.

NATALIE: Mmhm.

SEAN: But if you really wanted to get the house, it was at night. That was when it was most active. In fact, I'm thinking about my own previous experiences in the house, other than that knocking on the door that the last day I was there. The knocking on the door doesn't do it justice to what it was actually doing.

CLARA: No.

SEAN: And banging on the door doesn't even do it justice.

CLARA: No.

SEAN: But most of everything I experienced at that house was in the night. And I know it may be different for other people. And that's the kind of stuff I want to know, is like how different was it for other people? But no, I didn't feel anything there, and I did warn anyone I talked to. Because I was telling people I was a former resident in the house, so people were happy to talk to me and ask me questions. My telling them that there was a ghost there or an entity in the house did in no way discourage anyone. They seemed excited by the prospect, as if it were an added bonus. It wasn't.

CLARA: Right.

NATALIE: So what about since starting this venture? Have you had any experiences? Do you feel like the house has been reaching out to anybody, you, since we're talking about it?

SEAN: Yes, very much so. I think it has -- for one thing, I've had this idea in my head, almost implanted because it was so frequent, and I've really been fighting the impulse, to do an EVP.** You know, just using my phone in front of Saint Helen's Avenue. And I have this thought in my mind, or is it my voice or whatever saying, you know, you could do it at home. If you call it, it will come to wherever you are.

CLARA: No, you don't want to do that.

NATALIE: I would advise against that.

SEAN: Yeah, but I'm not going to -- I wasn't going to do that. Then it was like, you should go to the cemetery.

NATALIE: No.

SEAN: To like Laurie and Mark's grave and do an EVP there.

CLARA: I don't think you would find anything there --

SEAN: I'm thinking that whatever it is, is trying to tell me to do this. So I think no matter where I did it, it would show up.

CLARA: In that case, it's still embedded in your brain.

SEAN: Well, I know. That's what I'm saying.

CLARA: Or in your soul.

SEAN: But that's the thing, and this is what I tell Debbie, She's like, "You're bringing it here." I'm like, "I don't think I'm bringing it here. I think it's already here," you know? I think it's --

CLARA: Well, I would hope you're wrong on that.

SEAN: But okay, forget -- forget the EVP. There were three other incidences. And one was I was putting Mara in her car seat. Now, this could have been just a weird thing that's unrelated, but I was putting her in her car seat and I had the car keys in my hand, and while I was there -- and this was like a Thursday, it must have been before I went back to work, and the doors just locked, and I know I didn't push the button.

CLARA: Was she inside and you outside, is that what you're saying?

SEAN: No, we were all inside. I was putting her in the seat, so my feet were out and I was leaning across, and the car seat's in the middle of the back seat, and the doors all locked on Debbie's car. And I'm like, my finger's nowhere near close to this button. You know, so I don't know what that was. And maybe I was mistaken, you know. Maybe it was an electrical thing. So I'm willing to discount that one. ***

CLARA: Okay.

SEAN: Three days later, Debbie and I were visiting her mother in Ohio. This had to have been August, before I went back to Discovery. Debbie's mother only has one bathroom in her house, and I'm a guy that lingers in the bathroom a long time. And so I always wait till everyone has been in the bathroom before I go to the bathroom.

At this time, the only people that were there were myself, Debbie's mother, Debbie, and two of our grandnieces, you know, the daughters of our nephew Jeremy. And Debbie was in the pool and so were the two little girls, and Debbie's mother was sitting on a picnic bench near the pool. They're all chatting, Debbie wants me to go in the pool. I said, "Ah, maybe later." And of course I really didn't want to go in because it's Ohio and it's cold.

The Crum Pool

I went back into the house to go to the bathroom, and I wasn't in there long, and I heard a knocking. It was sort of like [knocks on table twice then drags fingers] sort of like a double knock and a scratch. And it was low on the door. You know, it was just a foot or a foot and a half. Because when you hear somebody knocking, you know where the knocking is coming from. And I immediately thought it was one of the kids, so I mean, I jumped up, I was just playing Candy Crush anyway. So I jumped up and said, "Wait a minute, I'll be right out," and you know, there was no one out in the hallway.

CLARA: Does she have an animal, a cat?

SEAN: No, there were no animals. They don't have any animals.

CLARA: Okay.

SEAN: So I went out back and the kids were out in the pool with Debbie, and her mother's sitting there, and I asked Debbie, I said, "Did one of the kids just go into the house?" She was like, "No, they're right -- they've been out here." I'm like, "Oh, okay." She goes, "Why are you asking?" I said, "Someone knocked on the door and it was really low." And she goes, "Well, maybe it's the ghost," joking. I'm like, "Yeah, I think it was."

It's funny, because I told her this story weeks later. She goes, "You never told me that!" I said, "Yes I did, you know. And I told you, and you said it was the ghost. I said, 'Yes, it probably was.'" So that's Ohio.

And recently, I think after I did the interview with my mother, it was a weekend, I think Debbie was working, and we have two bathrooms. Strange, all my stories involve the bathroom.

NATALIE: [Laughs.]

SEAN: Yeah, I don't know what that means. Maybe I should see a --

NATALIE: There might be some medical condition related.

CLARA: Maybe you got to stop using the bathroom.

SEAN: Yeah, I think that's the key. But I was in our basement bathroom because Debbie was sleeping. Debbie works nights every other weekend. And I was down in the bathroom in the basement because I didn't want to wake her up in the upstairs bathroom, and I came out and I saw like what many people at the house would see. I believe I saw a shadow figure walking towards the outer wall of my house, like where I have a little bookcase down there. It was like it was going to disappear into the bookcase. But as soon as I turned to it, it wasn't there.

CLARA: So maybe you think you're conjuring it up?

SEAN: Well, that could possibly have been a trick of the eye. But I know light. I'm in the movie business, and there was nothing that would have caused --

CLARA: Well, that's what you always think when you see one of them in the beginning. You think, "Oh, that was just a --"

SEAN: A trick of the light.

CLARA: Like the old house. That's how it started, with, "I don't really -- I didn't really see that. It just must have been the way the curtain blew."

Sean and Debbie****

SEAN: Now, Debbie thought she saw something on the top of the stairs at our house, too. But she had just been hearing some of these stories, so I don't know whether she was frightened or something. It is possible. But I'm comfortable in the house. I said prayers to seal the house and I don't think I'm going to see it at the house again. Because in many ways I think this thing is more dangerous, or at least it was for me, more dangerous when you don't see it than when you do. Because once you know what you're dealing with, I think you begin to think you're not crazy. Or maybe we're all crazy.

NATALIE: All right.

SEAN: So any other questions.

NATALIE: How would you respond to people that think our family is just experiencing a group psychosis or some other kind of phenomena?

SEAN: Well, the group psychosis thing is, I think anyone in the family would say, is completely absurd because we all experienced this on our own without talking about it. And you could say, well, your sister said that the organ played, but that isn't what we were experiencing. You know, I mean, that they were experiencing. From what I heard, other people in the family were experiencing stuff, and my mother, from, like, day one.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: And no one discussed it with anyone. You know, I would more likely believe it was radon than I would believe that it was -- that it was some group psychosis, because we didn't discuss it. And that's why for doing these interviews, I was really -- though some people are saying, more people, and today we have three people in the room, you know, who've all experienced it, is because I don't want us necessarily feeding each other, you know, ideas.

But you know, we did not -- you know, we did not discuss this. I did not discuss this with anyone for ten years, so I was not influenced by anyone else's psychotic visions or, you know, delusions or hysteria. You know, I had my own hysteria that came entirely on its own, if you read my thing. It just started with those noises. You know, no one else told me they heard footsteps. No one ever told me they heard footsteps on the roof for sure. You know, so -- and it was so easy, too, because it sounded like an animal for a while. You know, but it was just -- you know, so it's not a group psychosis.

And we will be -- that's one of the reasons why also I am putting this up on the thing, because I want other people to come forward. And people are volunteering, nonfamily members are volunteering to come forward. And my -- one of my goals is also to talk to someone who has lived -- who had experiences in the house before we got there, and hopefully talk to someone who had experiences in the house after we left. And I think -- you know, I think all of these things are going to come to us as this process goes on.

But it takes a lot of guts to talk about this stuff because otherwise -- you know, people will think you're crazy. I was at my 40th high school reunion yesterday and you know, someone was mentioning my blogs, and a lot of people were asking, "So tell me about this." They're like "You know, Murphy, I think you're crazy probably. You know, it sounds like it's some sort of hysteria," you know. And I mean, that's the --

CLARA: Well, most people, if I mention it, they think I'm joking.

SEAN: Yeah.

CLARA: They think, "Oh, you've got to be kidding," you know. "Oh, yeah, fine, hahaha." Like I'm having problems with my sewing machine, "Oh, maybe it was the ghost fooling with it, hahaha." And actually, I think it could, actually.

SEAN: Yeah. I do think it definitely can manipulate -- it could definitely manipulate equipment.

CLARA: Yeah.

SEAN: You know, and I think other people might be experiencing that now. Natalie, have you had any experience, people saying you -- they thought you were crazy?

NATALIE: Always.

SEAN: Yeah, but I mean about this.

NATALIE: I know, right. Isolated to this event. Yes. You know, I have a lot of people that -- I've had people tell me that there's no way I could be -- have faith in God if I'm going to believe stuff like this.

SEAN: Well --

NATALIE: And I just say, if you believe in God, then you have to believe in something like this. I mean...

SEAN: It seems like this stuff is in -- exactly, it's in the Bible, so...

NATALIE: Yeah. I mean, demons walk on earth.

CLARA: Did Jesus not cast out demons?

SEAN: Yeah. And there were disciples -- and there were demons the disciples could not cast out too, as well.

CLARA: Exactly.

SEAN: So that's why I'm not saying it's for sure. Like, you don't think we could cast it out.

CLARA: I don't think it's possible.

SEAN: It may be impossible. You know, I think a lot of people -- and here's one thing you got to remember about the Bible and demons, is that there are very few references, and they don't tell you everything you would want to know if you were in this kind of a circumstance. ***

NATALIE: Yeah.

SEAN: So what were you saying?

CLARA: I said why would we want to scare ourselves? I mean, I was scared to death in my own bedroom at night. I was scared to death a lot of times to be in that house by myself, without mentioning to anyone else because I didn't want to scare them, which was one of the reasons that we didn't talk about, because we were all going through our own little thing there, our own little hell.

NATALIE: There were times I was afraid to go out of my room to the bathroom, just to go through the hallway or something.

CLARA: Yes. Right. I mean, you know, people -- normal people don't just -- aren't afraid to go to their bathroom, aren't afraid to go into their bedroom when they're alone in the house, or even when there are other people. When there are other people in the house, why am I afraid to go into by bedroom?

SEAN: Yeah.

CLARA: But I was.

SEAN: Yeah. And here's one thing that's coming out as the evidence comes out, as the stories come out, is like the consistency of seeing -- it isn't like everyone's seeing an old lady or an old man.

CLARA: No.

SEAN: People are seeing a black shape.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: And no one told them that, "Oh, there's a black shape you got to watch out for."

CLARA: Or red eyes.

SEAN: Or red eyes. This is only coming out.

CLARA: Or a cat. You know, I mean...

SEAN: Yeah. Like, I mean, that's freaky. Now, you told me about the cat at the time, but apparently the same thing that happened with Jeanne a long time ago, long before that. So it isn't like anyone said, "Oh, there's a dark shape," and then suddenly we're mentally setting ourselves up to see it. We're only getting these details now. And what is really weird is that although we didn't discuss it, there are certain similarities to it.

CLARA: Right. It went on for years in advance. Being held down in the bed, not being able to move, having something creeping in the bed with you. I mean, these are all --

SEAN: That's -- I heard nothing like that.

CLARA: Right. Nobody ever said it out loud until we had our -- until we had the --

SEAN: Till this.

CLARA: Well, before we had --

SEAN: Because we didn't even discuss -- I don't think we discussed the creeping into the bed thing until --

CLARA: No, maybe not.

SEAN: Until. Because that would have freaked me out even more.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: You know, I think we were basically talking about noises, and Jeanne was saying something talked to her about the baby. And you know, but Jeanne hasn't given us the story yet so we -- but I think what we're seeing is that we're seeing a lot of similarities between the events.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: But I think it may have treated the guys differently than the girls.

CLARA: Well, I know, because John mentioned it to me, that he had a similar nighttime experiences with being held down, not being able to move, which --

SEAN: Which he dismissed as sleep paralysis.

CLARA: Well, he didn't, but which the Internet disputes.

NATALIE: We haven't done my amended interview yet, where I mention that.

SEAN: Yeah, so by the way, tell us about your circumstances in bed.

Yours Truly with Natalie

NATALIE: You know, you would be sleeping, and I never would sleep without the TV on or a light on or something, you know. You just didn't stay in the house in the dark. But you would just be sleeping and like, I'd always sleep on my side, and all of a sudden you'd feel something come up behind you, and also feel like it's like cuddling you, like spooning you, and like, you would want to move, but you just couldn't move. And I mean, you know, there's people that say that's sleep paralysis, but then all of a sudden, it was like, you could just feel it, like, go away. And I think maybe there might have been a couple times where I was like, "Get off of me."

SEAN: Yeah. And it did?

NATALIE: And it did. But it would always come from the same corner of the room.

CLARA: See, and I had the same experience in that room.

NATALIE: It didn't come from any other area. If my back -- the foot of my bed was toward the door when I was in the room that John was in.

SEAN: Yeah.

NATALIE: And I'd sleep facing the window to the street, and it would always come from, like, the corner, that little tiny corner behind the door.

SEAN: Yeah.

NATALIE: It would also just start coming up. And sometimes if I was sitting in there and I was watching TV on my bed and I had the TV on and no other lights on, you could all of a sudden just start seeing, like, it was just all this darkness just rise in that corner. And it would like -- and we'd turn on the light or something. But the light switch is right next to the door, so you're like, do I just sit here or do I, like, make a dash to turn it on? Like, what do you do? You just sit there and be like, please don't actually be happening.

CLARA: And the thing that killed me too was like when the German boy was here.

SEAN: The exchange student, we had an exchange student.

CLARA: The exchange student was here and I asked him the next morning how he slept, and he said, "Every time I fell asleep, something would push my head and wake me up."

NATALIE: Are you serious?

SEAN: And that's the guy's first night at the house?

CLARA: That was his first night at the house.

SEAN: Yeah. So it isn't --

CLARA: And I was very upset about that, but I didn't say, "Oh, that's our ghost."

SEAN: Yeah.

NATALIE: I mean, I'll be curious to hear John's story because John's really the first baby that grew up in that house.*****+

SEAN: Yeah.

NATALIE: So that would be interesting to hear.

SEAN: Yeah. And I think --

NATALIE: Because I mean, like we said, none of us ever talked about it, so...

CLARA: Right.

NATALIE: I mean, maybe here and then John and I later, like probably just a couple years ago, we were watching something and he was like, "I used to have that at the house," and I was like, "I used to have that at the house." But I mean, that was just in the last three years.

CLARA: I think John and I discussed it as he -- when he was older, you know.

SEAN: Were you still in the house at that time?

CLARA: Oh, yeah, yeah. When we tore out the old kitchen. But he was having the sleep paralysis and all that also. You know, because that's what we were discussing.

SEAN: I will also say, I had a lot of depression while I was living at the house, but I have never had suicidal depression since I left the house.****** You know, never. Not since I -- you know, when I went to the new house, you know. And it's funny, because I really appreciate this, the lady, Mrs. Preller, who sold me my house, said, "This has always been a very happy house." And I'm like, "Oh, good."

CLARA: Well, that's new.

SEAN: Yeah, that's a change. You know. So yeah, so I had that thing in the mattress, if you read my blog. I had the mattress thing. And you said your bed would bounce when it was on the --

CLARA: Upstairs.

SEAN: Your bed would shake up on the --

CLARA: Like somebody was at the foot banging it into the wall.

SEAN: Yeah. Yeah. My bed --

CLARA: Not shaking like that, but bang bang bang.

SEAN: Yeah. Well, you know, that's what we get for buying those used beds from Hugh Hefner.

CLARA: Yeah, that's true.

NATALIE: This is true.

SEAN: Just kidding, that was an old Mad Magazine joke, they did a spoof of The Exorcist and that's what they said. Turn --

CLARA: Another thing, I think that's why we have to have a group meeting afterwards.

SEAN: Yeah.

CLARA: Because I didn't know Natalie had that experience, the same experiences in the bed that I had in the bed.

SEAN: That freaked me out because, I hadn't heard either of those stories. And I didn't have that -- I'm wondering if John had that. I'm wondering if it treated the guys differently than the girls. And what does that say about gender?

NATALIE: You know, I had a friend stay over one time, and this is back when the front bedroom was just like the extra bedroom.

CLARA: Right.

NATALIE: We had that futon in there.

CLARA: Right.

NATALIE: And my friend stayed over and she stayed in that room, and she's like, "Did you have, like, a furnace or something come on?" I was like, "No. She said her bed -- the bed started vibrating in the middle of the night. And I was like, "Oh, well that's kind of weird."

SEAN: Yeah. Also one more thing about the purpose of this and the reason to come out is that the psychological attack was to keep us isolated.

NATALIE: Mmhm.

SEAN: You know, so this stuff is just coming out now, 40 years later, you know? We moved in there 45 years ago.

CLARA: Yeah, which is why I think a lot of brain nudging needs to be done with a lot of us. Because it's been a long time to remember all that -- the different things that happened. Then you hear, oh, so and so, oh, yeah, that happened -- I had that too.

SEAN: Yeah. But it's like trying to put it all in context.

CLARA: Right.

SEAN: But there was an escalation.

CLARA: Yes.

SEAN: But I'm wondering whether it was a general escalation or was it a bunch of individual escalations. It escalated with Jeanne right away, but then you later, and then me even later. But then there was a time where it was going on in a group way. No one wrote anything down at the time. To me, is the only way I can try to figure out when something happened is to figure out who was living in the home at the time, and who was in what room at the time. Then you can kind of place it in a context, you know. So okay. Well, I think we are done.

21 St Helens Avenue, during the blizzard of 1996

Notes:

*21 St. Helens Avenue was the original address of the house when it was built. The street name and number changed over time, but I use the original address to protect the privacy of the current owners.

**Electronic Voice Phenomenon. People believe paranormal entities can speak or make themselves known in electronic recordings. My niece Natalie attempted one at the house. I will play a clip of it in a later blog.

***The problem with the door locks was entirely mechanical.

****Photograph, courtesy of J. Bryan Barnes.

*****I hope to interview experts in this field regarding spiritual warfare before the end of this series. From the Christian perspective, there is much Biblical evidence regarding individual possession, but very little, if anything, about places being "haunted."

******My younger brother John was the first baby in the house. Prior to the arrival of the Murphys, the only "child" in the house was Charles Immler. He was eleven-years-old when his family became the first owners of the house in 1915. They sold the house in 1927. The youngest member of next family to live in the house was Miriam Mayfort. She was twenty-six-years old upon arrival.

*******My niece Emily asked if my depression was possibly a result of being over thirty and still living at home. No. I was perfectly happy living at home -- until my mother started asking for rent. I found that outrageous. After all, I was already paying the cable bill which included all of the movie channels.

My novel Chapel Street was inspired by the haunting. You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.

Learn more about the book, click Here.

Listen to me read some chapters here:

Chapel Street - Prologue - My Mother
Chapel Street - Chapter 1 - RestingPlace.com
Chapel Street - Chapter 2 - Elisabetta
Chapel Street - Chapter 3 - The Upload
Chapel Street - Chapter 4 - The Kobayashi Maru

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SeanPaulMurphyVille

Sean Paul Murphy, Writer

Sunday, December 8, 2019

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3

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