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| Laurie and Jeanne, circa our arrival at the house. |
Anyone who read my blog about my intended methodology will know I wanted to post an interview with my mother first, since she was the home owner. I planned to post an interview with my sister Jeanne next since she was first of my surviving family members to experience the entity. However, she proved reticent to do an interview. That surprised me. After she read the rough draft of my novel, she summoned her siblings to her house to finally discuss the haunting. Over time, I came to understand her hesitation. Her connection to the entity went deeper than it did with most of us. Her story reinforces my thoughts that the intensity of the "haunting" hinged, to a degree, on the spiritual awareness of the person. Her story deals heavily with her spiritual gifts, which seem to be passed down our maternal line.
Here's a short clip from the interview:
My wife Deborah, and Jeanne's dog Daisy, were also present for the interview. My niece Emily kindly transcribed it. It has been edited for clarity.
SEAN: First a little background. I don't know if you realized this, but when you moved into 21 Saint Helens Avenue, you were, at that time, the youngest person to have ever lived in that house.
JEANNE: Wow.
SEAN: The first owners had a child when they moved in, but that child was 11. I'm assuming you were probably --
JEANNE: I was nine.
SEAN: -- eight or nine years old, depending on the month.
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: So you were -- at the time we moved in, you were the youngest child. So prior to moving to 21 Saint Helen's Avenue, did you experience any paranormal activity.
JEANNE: Not that I know of. I mean, I was nine. I remember we would go to our grandmother's house and play with the Ouija board and that just kind of felt like a game. So no.
SEAN: That was Grandmom Murphy's** house?
JEANNE: That was Grandmom Murphy's house, down in the basement.
SEAN: Yes, we had seance in the basement.
JEANNE: Yeah.
SEAN: So it's good to know that the incident with your mother and Ted was not the first Ouija board experience in the Murphy family.
JEANNE: Right, not at all. It was back in the good old days when that was a game.
SEAN: Yeah. So how did you feel when you moved into 21 Saint Helen's Avenue?
JEANNE: Well, just a little bit of background about me, even though I'm one of five, I was a very lonely child. It seemed like all of my siblings had someone in their age group that they would hang out with, and I really didn't. I really didn't hang out with many friends. You know, mostly I would hang out with my mother or go to my grandparents' house. But I remember feeling -- I was very shy. Oddly for such a young child, I did not have a great self concept. I felt kind of no one liked me, I was very lonely, very sad.
SEAN: You didn't bond with your second in age Mark?
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| The Original Five at Hamlet Avenue Mark, Jeanne, Dougie, Sean and Laura |
JEANNE: We did when we were younger, but I mean up until we were, like, five or six. But it wasn't like when we were in that middle childhood or younger childhood that we hung out, no. Because he was also trying to be the bad boy, because he had two older brothers that he needed to live up to.
SEAN: Well, I think he was trying to live up to one brother in particular.
JEANNE: Yeah, I agree.
SEAN: I would say his life was defined by that.
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: Since you've gone there, how was your relationship with your sister Laura?
JEANNE: Laurie and I were always close. We always were -- we shared a bedroom at both houses. In our first house, it was a very small bedroom. She was really big into David Cassidy and I just liked listening to the music, and we had a lot of fun. And then even when we moved to Saint Helens we were still in the same bedroom. We were -- I would say we had different types of personalities, but we were very close.
SEAN: Okay. I will say that when I saw an open house for our old house on Hamlet Avenue, your bedroom was I think a closet for storage.
JEANNE: I think -- yes, I went in there with you and it was. We had bunk beds in there. We couldn't even have a door. We had curtains and beads because if you had a door, you couldn't even get in the room.
SEAN: So moving to Saint Helen's Avenue was a big deal for the ladies.
JEANNE: Oh, my God. Well, moving there anyway was a huge deal. It was like we hit the lottery, it was crazy. This was like this big beautiful house up on this hill with, like, yards. You could tell it had gardens at some point and you know, it had this beautiful staircase, like a golden staircase when you come in. There were two staircases and they came together up where there was a beautiful stained glass window. It was crazy. I couldn't believe it. It was like a world of wonderment, it was like Alice in Wonderland. It was amazing.
SEAN: And probably because of your years of having to have the smallest bedroom, you guys got the biggest bedroom in the house.
JEANNE: Yes, we did. We got the biggest, most beautiful bedroom. Not only was it the biggest bedroom, it also had the sunporch extended off of it, and the only door to it was through our room. And another great thing about the house was that it was on a hill, so where we were, Laurie and I, our bedroom, kind of jutted out and you could see all of Baltimore, you could hear people over at the stadium, you could see the Inner Harbor. It was -- like I said, it was like winning the lottery. And we had then this sunporch area where we could -- it was like having our own like little apartment. It was really cool.
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| The Sunporch |
SEAN: Now, let me go a little to the geography of that room a bit.
JEANNE: Okay.
SEAN: I'm not sure if I remember, but I believe both of your beds were against the wall where the sunporch was. You had twin beds.
JEANNE: When we first moved in, we went back and forth a couple times. I think when we first moved in, maybe we did put them against the sunporch. Yes, we did, against that far wall.
SEAN: Yeah. And who got the bed closer to the windows that overlook Harford Road and one bed would be closer to the sunporch door and the closet?
JEANNE: Well, Laurie got the one with the beautiful view, and I thought it was cool at first that I had the one near the sunporch door. And right across from my bed, that way (motions to her left), was the closet, and the sunporch went that way (motions behind her). So yeah, so the closet for me was the center of it.
SEAN: So how long were you in the house before you first experienced something?
JEANNE: Well, it's hard to remember. But I'm pretty sure it had to be within the first year. For all I know, it could have been within the first few months. So I've answered that question. It's hard for me -- it's still a little hard for me to talk about this. I'm getting better about talking about it, but it was such a big thing in my life that it's like telling my life story, and a lot of it was very frightening to me.
SEAN: Yes. And in a sense, it's kind of good that you're going last rather than going first. When I say that, because more interviews are coming, but of the principle inhabitants of the house, the actual Murphy family members, you're the last of the surviving ones that we will be bringing in.
JEANNE: Right. And I also feel like I was the first one. I know I was the first one that made -- contact was made to me.
SEAN: Well, according to your mother, she said that Laurie, on the first day or two that we were there, said she saw a woman looking at them from the sunporch.
JEANNE: Hm.
SEAN: Are you familiar with that?
JEANNE: No, I don't remember that. But what it was with me wasn't like a person. I mean, there may have been ghosts and spirits. I'm talking about the actual being. The evil thing. That's what I'm talking about, not like a -- a ghost might have been fun.
SEAN: Yeah, a ghost might have been fun. And we'll get into what was in the house. But first, you've already seemed to indicate that the main presence in the house was evil.
JEANNE: Oh, yes. Well, do you want me to go on about that a little bit?
SEAN: Yeah go on about that. What made you think it was evil?
JEANNE: Well, first of all, there were -- I almost feel like it was two different things wrapped up in one. But both of them, when I was sitting on my bed, there was just like this blackness in the closet, and then I remember in front of me would rise up this almost like a cloak. And I -- you know, sometimes I would think it's a man and sometimes I would think it's a woman, and I thought like it was fooling me anyway, so it didn't matter. But anyway, so this thing, I would see it rise up and it would like envelope everything so that I couldn't see the ceiling anymore. And then it would be, like, right on me. It never touched me or anything, but I have never been so scared nor have I been since. It was almost like it was very close to me and, like, you could almost feel like as I was breathing that it would be moving or something. But it was like, boom, you know? It was like steel.
SEAN: So it sort of runs up toward where the ceiling is and came down?
JEANNE: Yeah.
SEAN: By the way, anyone listening to that, that's the dog, if you could take that away. That was Daisy. It's a very dramatic moment and you're doing a clown toy or whatever.
So how early in your experience at the house would you say that happened?
JEANNE: Oh, that was within the first year.
SEAN: So was this your first event?
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: Now, when you're talking about -- when this thing was over your face, did it have a face or was it just an innocuous form?
JEANNE: I don't even know, because my eyes were here and it was just (holds hands over face). It was like being in a black MRI machine. I mean, it was just like that. I couldn't see a face. I don't think it would have had a face. I just know it as being black.
SEAN: And it gave off a feeling that it could have been -- would you say it was sexless or would you say it was just inhuman?
JEANNE: Well, that's what I mean, I could never tell if it was a man or a woman. And maybe that's because in my mind I was trying to tell if it was a man or a woman, but it wasn't. You know what I mean? So it would confuse me.
SEAN: So it was inhuman?
JEANNE: Yes, I would say it was definitely inhuman.
SEAN: Not a ghost?
JEANNE: Absolutely inhuman. There was not a personality, there was not, like, any distinguishing thing.
SEAN: Any distinguishing human thing?
JEANNE: Right.
SEAN: Now, did you get the sense that it had intelligence?
JEANNE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. It almost felt like there wasn't any time anymore. And it was like, you were just there almost like stuck in time. So anything -- there wasn't anything that came before or after, you were just there. It was just happening.
SEAN: Now, did this wake you up or were you already awake when this happened?
JEANNE: I don't know.
SEAN: And here's another question. I wish I asked everyone this. Did you sleep on your back or your side?
JEANNE: I slept on my side.
SEAN: Okay. Because a lot of people are going to look at this and say sleep paralysis, but I believe sleep paralysis mainly happens to people on their back.
JEANNE: Really? I did not know that.
SEAN: So if you're on your side, it's much less likely that it was sleep paralysis.
JEANNE: Right.
SEAN: Not that sleep paralysis can explain everything that happened in the house.
JEANNE: Right, yeah. Like I say, there were the two things. There was that, that I would see just periodically. But then there was whatever the hell was going on in that closet, which felt like the heart of the house.
SEAN: So you definitely felt that the closet was the heart of the house?
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: The heart of the haunting.
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: So what do you think was going on in that closet?
JEANNE: Okay. So how can I say this. It was -- at first it just felt like it was in the closet and it was just like this darkness and like this drawing of you. Like drawing you in. But it wasn't necessary drawing you into the closet, it was drawing you into the blackness. And as I got older, it seemed that it was then more and more in other areas of the house. So you know, I lived with it for I guess like a year or two, that I remember, and just kind of being horrified by it.
But then I felt as I got a little bit older, and maybe it was only a year later, that's when I kind of felt like I was offered a deal. Like I said, I was very lonely, thought people hated me, and then I felt like I could -- that changed over night. I feel that it, like, enticed me. You know, it was like black and scary, but drawing, and then there was a little promise almost of like, hey, this is a different thing, different -- extra -- not extraterrestrial, but it was a different soul, a different -- you know. I mean, we were Catholic, we went to church and I was pretty religious, and I felt that this was a world beyond our world. And then it would start -- I can't say I ever heard it speak.
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| Jeanne, First Communion |
SEAN: So you felt this thing was offering you something?
JEANNE: Yes, I felt it was offering me something. And it was kind of offering me -- it was almost like more of you. Like you could be more. Let your mind go, you know. And I did. And I would say my personality changed and it was kind of like a really good thing for me. Suddenly I wasn't as self conscious, and the killer, well, whatever, was that it really gave me -- I felt like I really bonded with this thing. And it gave me the capacity to see through its eyes and to kind of wear some of the cloak that I thought was -- like, I became very psychic. I would go to friends' houses, and stuff I knew was things that no one else could know. Like, I could walk into a room and maybe there'd be ten people there and I would walk around the room and then I would see like a person with a person that to me, I'm like, oh, my God, that's their grandmother.
SEAN: So you would actually see like apparitions with people?
JEANNE: Yeah. I mean, I knew that they weren't real, but it was like you get this third eye of things.
SEAN: But you actually saw an individual, not just like a...
JEANNE: Oh, yeah, no, it wasn't like a ghost. It was like a person.
SEAN: Yeah, okay.
JEANNE: Now, whether I would be able to say, did your grandmother have, like, curly hair with a blue ribbon? It wasn't anything like that. It was more of like the presence of a person that would then draw me to the person that was actually in front of me. And then I would be able -- you know, I really felt like I was sometimes helping people. You know? So I thought it was a good thing. And then I became kind of a hit in middle school because I could do the levitation, I would have friends over.
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| Jeanne and friends |
SEAN: Stiff as a board.
JEANNE: Yeah. Right. And I could lift myself and people would be like, what? You know, they would be there and they're like, I'm not doing it, who's doing it?
SEAN: You could lift yourself?
JEANNE: Yes. I would just like go. So it gave me a lot of powers.
Let me just say within the past month or two, I've been thinking better about this. I think it had me fooled up until like a month ago. I think I had these powers given from God, or whatever that is that I had. I had psychic ability, and then I was offered to use it. That's what I realize now.
SEAN: So in other words, what you're thinking is, is this at the very most triggered something that was already in you?
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: Or pointed you towards the direction and took credit for it?
JEANNE: Yes. It absolutely played with my mind. I felt like -- so I've always felt guilty about having -- I feel like I made first contact with it and I invited it into the house because it was almost like an exchange. Like I get to see some of your world and, yeah, you get to see a little bit of my world. Okay. And so then I felt like it did spread. And I didn't -- I never told any family members about it. Like my friends, because you know, I was kind of popular now, they'd be like, what is with you? And I'd be like, yeah, I got this house. Like, things started happening to me with that house.
SEAN: Now, did it in any way give you, like, foreknowledge of things?
JEANNE: So now I want to watch how I term it. Yes, I get foreknowledge of things. I get -- I remember, you know, years later when I went to England, obviously somewhere I'd never been before and I was walking with my future ex-husband, and I -- we were just walking on a country road and I was, like, I know what is around this corner, and I described it. It was a huge house. It went down to the sea, and I knew something terrible happened there. And all of that is exactly true. It was just as I had seen. There had been this horrific accident back in the '30s or '40s or something where people went out on the boat and they all drowned. But I could absolutely see it in my mind, I could see the house, and I could just feel it. I felt a lot of psychic stuff when I was in England.
SEAN: Now, do you think that in any way the entity from the house was in any way there with you in England?
JEANNE: I don't think so. I think it was -- I felt like it gave me a gift and I was finally away from it in England.
SEAN: You felt you were away from it?
JEANNE: Yeah, yeah, I did. It was great. And I guess it's like you don't realize how much a part of your life -- what it's like to live in fear until you don't live in fear anymore.
SEAN: I just remember, this was in the '80s when things got kicked up a notch, that you don't know the spirit of a oppressiveness that was in the house. I remember going to housesit somebody and the other house felt so weird.
JEANNE: Yes.
SEAN: And it was like, the second day I was there I figured it out, was that you didn't have that oppressiveness, which was very real.
JEANNE: It was very real.
SEAN: It was a tangible thing, in that house.
JEANNE: It was. And I mean, I just remember I hated to be in the house alone, but often you were. And I was a teenager, so part of you wanted to be in the house alone, and then the other part didn't want to be alone. And I remember even like if dad was there, down watching TV, drinking his beer, I felt that there was a tether. So if something happened, there was a real person there.
I would often have the feeling, I would be in my room and I would hear something, something's going on, something's going on out in the house, and I'd open the door -- this happened a number of times -- opened the door, and it was black. Like, I was not going out in that house. One time I heard -- one of the times I heard the organ play, and I was right over top of the organ, no one else in the house. I go to open the door to go down there, and it was like freezing cold and black, and I'm like, (winces), I close my door, put the music on, start dancing.
So within the house, I often felt -- like, I always -- I'm going to say -- no, I'm not going to say always. There were times when the house was just a charming house. When the sun was up and lights were a certain way and you could kind of go like, wow, this is really cool. And then just something happened, it was always -- it was at night all the time, but sometimes you would feel it during the day. But if there were people --
SEAN: That was my next question.
JEANNE: If people were moving around and things were happening, I never really felt it. Now, if I was alone in the house or there were only a couple people in the house and we were at separate places and I was upstairs, I would definitely feel it. I would definitely feel -- and it's hard to say what I felt. But it would just mess with my mind. And it was like this energy, but it was like dark and below. And it was almost like everything would go still and then like... It was almost like an anti-energy at first. Like, you wouldn't feel anything, and then you'd have to stop yourself from, like, sinking into it or something.
SEAN: Yes. So did you discuss any of this with your sister? And second question, do you think your sister was experiencing anything like this?
JEANNE: I don't think Laurie was experiencing anything like this. She may have been experiencing other things. For some reason, part of the bargain with this thing was that you didn't really talk to other people about it. It was almost like the big dark secret. You didn't talk about it. There may have been a couple of -- I can't remember if people were just like, oh, yeah, big old house, must be a haunted house kind of thing, but I never revealed until I was older. But even then, I don't think I ever revealed the whole story until I had left the house.
SEAN: So when you heard the organ, did you hear single notes or was it actual playing?
JEANNE: Oh, they were just some notes playing.
SEAN: But not a song?
JEANNE: It wasn't a song. No, it was like bum bum bum. Like someone just kind of going down the scale or something.
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| Jeanne playing the notorious organ. |
Here is part two: The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 198, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
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.
**Margaret Angie Robertson Murphy (1914-2006). She was a serious Presbyterian. She later destroyed the Ouija board after learning of its occult reputation.
Additional blogs about the haunting:
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 1, An Introduction
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 2, The House
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 3, This Is Us
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 4, Arrival
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 5, Methodology
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 6, Clara's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 7, Clara's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 8, My Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 9, My Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 10, My Tale, Pt. 3
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 11, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 12, Natalia's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 13, John's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 14, John's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 15, Come Inside!
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 16, Marion's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 17, Marion's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 18, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 19, Jeanne's Tale, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 20, Lisa's Tale
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 21, Recap, Pt. 1
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 22, Recap, Pt. 2
The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 23, Recap, Pt. 3
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.
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
Let's stay in touch:
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
Let's stay in touch:
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