The musings of Sean Paul Murphy: Editor, Producer, Screenwriter, Author. Or, Hollywood -- and beyond -- as seen from an odd little corner of northeast Baltimore, Maryland.
This is another older episode recorded during our first season for possible Patreon usage. I was the one who brought Robert Wise's 1963 version of The Haunting to the table. Readers of my blog know that I grew up in a haunted house, and I believe that this film best captures the phenomenon my family experienced. But will the other Mother Podcasters be equally impressed by the film? (Spoiler: Not a chance!)
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
This is another episode recorded during our first season for possible Patreon usage. Guests Mark Casale and Dennis Kane brought Robert Eggers' 2015 film The Witch to the table. They will argue that not only is it the best horror film ever made, but possibly the best film ever made. This is also a special Halloween edition, and members of the team discuss some of their favorite films at the end of the episode.
This was also the first episode where we used a remote feed. I called into the podcast while driving home to Baltimore, Maryland, from Youngstown, Ohio. I loyally kept streaming even while I went to a men's room at a rest stop along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That might be why we're not releasing the YouTube version.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
Although this episode is indeed COVID free, our original crew actually recorded it during the first season. We were keeping in the can for our Patreon supporters. However, we decided to release it now for everyone.
The Mighty Wojo brought "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1989 comedy UHF to the table. At the time, we had yet to bring a guest in remotely, so I didn't attempt to contact the female lead, Victoria Jackson, who had appeared in two of my films, Marriage Retreat and Brother White. Too bad. It would have been nice to have some insight from someone on the film.
Does the humor still hold up? Listen and find out.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
Our contracting and expanding team played it safe by staying at home last week watching the charming 2006 indie hit Little Miss Sunshine. Wojo brought this film to the table, which won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, Alan Arkin, and Best Screenplay, Original, Michael Arndt. What kind of soulless spoilsport wouldn't fall in love with a film like this? Listen to the podcast and find out.
Drew Gould
This week we have a special guest: Drew Gould. Drew is an old friend of mine. He and another friend, Scott Maccubbin, ran a now defunct podcast called Story Punk. That was actually the first podcast I listened to. I was ignorant of podcasts at the time. I listened to their episodes on my computer. I didn't realize I could listen on my phone during my commute. Podmaster Ralph was the one who really turned me onto the medium, and there's been no looking back. I certainly spend more time listening to podcasts now than I do watching movies and television shows combined.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
My upcoming novelChapel Streetwas 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 provides an oral history of the actual haunting that inspired the book.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented me from continuing my research. I prefer to interview people in person as opposed to online. Additionally, I need third party information and I don't want to pursue that until we return to something closer to normalcy. However, during the break, I have worked on the timeline of events based on the interviews I have already conducted. These recaps are the fruit of that effort.
The previous blog dealt with the history of the house from 1915 through the Ouija board incident early in 1986 and the immediate escalation of the paranormal activity afterwards. While this was happening my sister Jeanne was visiting England and secretly marrying her husband Jon, whom she had met on her previous trip. That is where we will pick up the story.
I recommend reading the first part of the recap before continuing:
Winter 1986 - The inhabitants of the house at this time are my father Douglas Ernest Murphy, Sr., my mother Clara, my brother Mark, my sister Jeanne, my brother John and myself. 10 February 1986 - My sister Jeanne marries Jon in Cornwall, England. The wedding is kept secret from the family in America since my mother -- knowing of Jeanne's relationship -- had specifically asked her not to get married in England. Her daughter Laura had gotten married in City Hall. She wanted to give one of her daughters a real wedding.
Jeanne with her husband Jon and her in-laws
February 1986 - Jeanne returns to 21 St. Helens Avenue with her husband Jon. Since she married in secret, hoping to have a second wedding in America, my mother would not let them share a room in the house. Jeanne returned to the master bedroom. Jon was assigned the now very active Hell Room.
Bedrooms:
Doug and Clara. Front West Bedroom
John. Front East Bedroom
Jeanne. Master Bedroom
Jon. Hell Room
Sean. Rear Attic
Of course, young love could not be denied. Jeanne would sneak up to visit her husband at night. She had been away since the Ouija board incident and hadn't experienced the ramping up of the paranormal activity. This is what she soon experienced in the Hell Room.
That's how the Hell Room first earned its moniker. Needless to say, Jeanne and Jon did not return to the room. The secret marriage was revealed and Jon joined Jeanne in the master bedroom, which was the second most active room in the house.
At this time, we had our first family meeting to discuss the haunting. The initial participants were Jeanne, Jon, my mother Clara and myself. I invited my father Douglas to the initial meeting. A skeptic, he just looked at me like I was crazy. Neither my sister Laura or her husband Frank were present at the first meeting, but she was there for some subsequent discussions. I remember her listening, but adding little. I don't think my older brother Dougie was ever invited. My brother Mark did not participate either, but I remember asking him at the time if he experienced anything paranormal while staying the Hell Room. "No," he answered, "But I was so high the whole time I lived in that room, I wouldn't know if I did." (He did tell other friends about hearing voices in that room.)
The Murphy Family, Christmas 1985 at 3204 Evergreen Avenue
We pointedly did not invite my youngest brother John to the meeting. We felt he was too young. We also never discussed the haunting with the nieces. They are only hearing the real details now. That isn't to say that the girls didn't realize that there was something odd at the house from earliest childhood. Here's Natalie discussing her earliest memories:
These family talks were a great relief to us. Up until this point, there were few if any incidents that involved more than one person. As if to deliberately keep us isolated, the entity would only toy with one person at a time per evening. Therefore, we all tended to think we were crazy. Now we knew we weren't crazy. We were up against something.
March 1986 - Jeanne and Jon leave the house. They live at two rentals before they eventually buy their own house. After they left, the family meetings about the haunting came to halt. Fearing that the talk empowered the entity, the haunting was never discussed again in a systematic manner until I began writing these blogs.
Another reason we stopped talking about the entity was that we feared it could follow you if you talked about it. My mother frequently went to Taylor's Island on Maryland's Eastern Shore on weekends. She says it followed her there. Here she relates a harrowing suicide event she experienced on Chesapeake Bay Bridge:
When Jeanne and Jon left, Clara moved to the master bedroom.
Bedrooms:
Doug. Front West Bedroom
John. Front East Bedroom
Clara. Master Bedroom
Empty. Hell Room
Sean. Rear Attic
September 1986 - Jeanne's daughter Marion is born. Meanwhile, at 21 St. Helens Avenue, the entity was appearing more frequently to John.
Circa Early 1987 - For some reason that eludes me, my mother moved up into the Hell Room. Her stay was very brief. The clip below details some of her experiences in the room.
As you probably noticed, the entity in the Hell Room also appeared to Jeanne in the form of a cat-like creature. The entity on the second floor never manifested itself in that manner. After this incident, my mother never used the Hell Room as a bedroom again herself -- although it was sometimes used as a guest room. Very hospitable of us, eh? One of the people who stayed there briefly was a former girlfriend of my brother Mark. I do not know if she had any experiences there. (I hope to find out.)
The room was generally used only during the day. First, it was a computer room when we got our first Commodore 64. Later, my mother would use it as a sewing room. 14 January 1987 - Jane Savin Mayfort, the widow of former resident Martin Livingston Mayfort, "suddenly" dies at the age of eighty. Thus Mayfort family line associated with 21 St. Helens Avenue becomes extinct.
December 1988 - Jeanne's daughter Emily is born.
Circa 1989 - Through prayer, I was able to cast the entity out of my bedroom entirely. I asked God why I wasn't able to cast the entity entirely out of the house. He responded: "It's not yours to cast out."
Fortunately, I was able to avoid inviting the entity back into the room. My mother had many priests friends, but none of them would come over to exorcise the house. She was given advice, but essentially left to her own devices.
This was an example of the entity using mimicked voices. Interestingly, the voice it used most frequently was my mother's!
Early 1990s - Being the person who spent the most time around the house, my brother John found himself the focus of the entity's attention during this period. Below is an interesting incident my brother John experienced involving the furniture in his room.
During this period, before the death of her mother Laura, my niece Natalie first came face-to-face with the entity in the Hell Room.
Before 1994 - Brother Mark returns to 21 St. Helens Avenue. Instead of returning to his previous bedroom, The Hell Room, he built an apartment in the basement which was financed by our great uncle Butch Rosenberger.** Mark was skilled in the building trades and did an excellent job. Now the house had a "mother-in-law" apartment with a separate entrance. A six bedroom house! Who wouldn't want to live there?
Mark in his basement apartment
Bedrooms:
Doug. Front West Bedroom
John. Front East Bedroom
Clara. Master Bedroom
Empty. Hell Room
Sean. Rear Attic
Mark. Basement
February 1994 - A few days before her death, my sister Laura went to Frederick, Maryland, to talk to a fortune teller named Betty, who was renown for her predictive ability, that my mother frequented. Laura was accompanied by her aunt Debra Land Murphy, who recently died before I had the chance to interview her for this blog. I have learned what Betty told my sister, who under a great deal of stress at the time. My sister asked her, "What do you see in my future?" Betty replied: "I see nothing."
15 February 1994 - Laurie shoots herself in the basement of her home on 3020 Roselawn Avenue with a German Lugar her uncle Anthony Rosenberger**** brought home from World War II as a souvenir. Her home was located about a mile and a half from 21 St. Helens Avenue. (I plan to deal with the death of Laura, and my brother Mark, in much greater detail later during this series of blogs.)
Obituary printed in The Sun (Baltimore) February 18, 1994:
LAURA L. VALENTI HELPED RESTORE HOME
Laura L. Valenti, a meticulous gardener who was helping her husband restore an old house in Hamilton and was known for taking in unwanted dogs and cats, died Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was 31. The former Laura L. Murphy, a lifelong Hamilton resident who attended St. Dominic School and graduated in 1980 from Mergenthaler Vocational and Senior High School, had been despondent after a recent automobile accident, her family said. Mrs. Valenti was employed at All-Star Video on Belair Road from 1990 to 1993. Earlier, she was a cosmetologist and beautician. "She loved to bake and decorate cakes for birthdays and anniversaries," said her mother, Clara M. Murphy, "I love bingo and on my 50th birthday, she made a cake with two bingo cards that said 'You are a winner.'" A Mass of Christian burial was to be offered at 9:30am today at St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, Harford and Gibbons Avenue. Other survivors include her husband, Frank N. Valenti, whom she married in 1982; a daughter, Natalie Valenti; four brothers, Douglas E. Murphy, Jr., Sean P. Murphy, Mark B. Murphy and John C. Murphy; a sister, Jeanne Coe; her father Douglas E. Murphy, Sr.; two grandmothers, Margaret Murphy and Rita Pollock. All are of Hamilton. The family suggested memorial donations to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 3300 Falls Road 21211.
My sister Jeanne went to see Betty after the death of her sister Laura. Before she even had a chance to identify herself, Betty said, "I didn't kill your sister." Hmmm.
Laura's husband Frank and her daughter Natalie were in the house at the time of Laura's death. Natalie, a sixth grade student, spent a number of months living with her maternal grandmother Delores in the immediate aftermath.
The entity didn't give us any time off for mourning. (In the following clip, my mother misidentifies Debbie, Senior, as Debbie, Junior.***
Prior to Laurie's death, arrangements had been made to host a German exchange student at 21 St. Helens Avenue. My mother Clara felt it was too late to cancel the visit. The high school student stayed in the Front East Bedroom with John. When asked, after his first night in the room, how he slept, the German student said something kept pushing his head down in bed.
Mark at the beginning of the renovation.
1995 - Thinking that Frank and Natalie would need a place to stay, Clara began a major renovation of 21 St. Helens Avenue. She extended the back of the house on the first floor, increasing the size of the previously tiny kitchen, also creating a bedroom and turning the half bath into a full bathroom. She hired some maternal cousins, the Bastas, with a home improvement company to do the work. They got a small taste of the entity while working on the house.
I will have to reach out to my cousins and see if they have any direct memories of the house....
As John entered his teenage years, our house was a meeting place for his friends. The entity wasn't shy about making itself known to them as well.
Here's John's friend Joe talking about his first paranormal experience.
This is chandelier Joe saw moving. He was not the only person who saw it moving in an inexplicable manner.
Here's John's friend Lisa talking about her first paranormal experience.
25 September 1995 - Frank sells the house at 3020 Roselawn Avenue where Laura died. By now Frank is engaged to his current wife Gail. Prior to their wedding, Frank and Natalie lived at 21 St. Helens Avenue. Frank stayed in the Hell Room. Natalie stayed in the master bedroom with Clara. I hope to interview Frank about his experiences when the COVID lockdown is finally over.
Bedrooms:
Doug. Front West Bedroom
John. Front East Bedroom
Clara and Natalie. Master Bedroom
Frank. Hell Room
Sean. Back Attic
Mark. Basement apartment
Gail, Frank and Natalie
18 May 1996 - Frank marries Gail. Frank and Natalie leave the house. There would be periodic friction between Natalie and her stepmother. She would frequently return to 21 St. Helens Avenue, staying in the master bedroom with her grandmother. The entity made itself known to her in that room as well.
Jeanne's children were frequent visitors to the house. Her oldest daughter Marion became aware of the entity from her earliest youth. Her first experiences were indirect.
Summer 1996 - Mark would periodically move in and out of the house. John left the house and moved to Fells Point that summer.
The entity wasn't shy around non-family members. John's friend Joe heard it use a mimicked voice during this period.
We'll leave the tale for now. The story continues in the next recap:
*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.
**John Norbert "Butch" Rosenberger, b. 23 January 1917 - d. 18 May 2005. His sister, my grandmother Rita, was his primary caregiver late in life. When my grandmother would go on vacation, Uncle Butch would sometimes stay at 21 St. Helens Avenue.
***Debra Susan Land Murphy, b. 11 July 1953 - d. 9 January 2020. Aunt Debra was the wife of my uncle Brian Robertson Murphy. She was often referred to as Debbie, Senior, to differentiate her from my wife, who is often referred to as Debbie, Junior.
****Anthony Ignatius "Buzzy" Rosenberger, 1 February 1924 - 10 March 1988. He served in the 79th Infantry Division, Cross of Lorraine, during World War II.
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.
Our contracting and expanding team played it safe by staying at home and watching the 1997 neo-noir film LA Confidential this week. I brought this film to the group because it is one of my favorite films of the 1990s. It is well-written and directed and each cast member -- Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger, James Cromwell and accused sexual harasser Kevin Spacey -- gives the best performance of their career. It is also a sentimental favorite. This is the first film I saw with my lovely wife.
The film was also a good choice for our troubled times. This is a film about a corrupt, old school police department where bribes oil the machinery of justice, minorities are targeted as convenient scapegoats, confessions are beaten out of suspects, and brutal beat downs are routinely administered. No cop is completely clean in the film. They all bend the rules to achieve their goals. Most of them, however, learn that the ends do not always justify the means. Or do they?
Full disclosure: A producer recently sent one of my scripts out to James Cromwell with a firm offer. He turned it down..... Too bad. I would have loved to have worked with him.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
Here's the fourth chapter of my upcoming paranormal thriller Chapel Street. This will be the last official weekly chapter read of my COVID lockdown pledge since my home state of Maryland is entering Stage 3 this week. However, I might still read another chapter or two for the fun of it.
This is one of my favorite and most frightening chapters of the book. It could be said that I wrote this book for this very chapter. As I reported earlier, this book was inspired by a true haunting my family experienced at our home at 21 St. Helens Avenue. My most harrowing experiences during the haunting involved me nearly sleepwalking myself to death. A number of nights in a row, I woke up climbing out of my attic bedroom window. Had I not woken up, I am sure I would have fallen to my death and that death would have been misinterpreted as a suicide.
To make matters even creepier, this always happened exactly at 3:00am.
I feel this chapter captures that experience. I hope you enjoy it.
The book itself is now available.
The ebook is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Click Here. The pre-order price is $2.99. After it is released, the retail price will go to $7.99. Talk about savings! I'd buy it now!
The hardcover (yes, hardcover) is available for pre-order at Barnes & Nobles now. Click Here.
I'll be back with another chapter soon. Until then, stay safe!
Here's another COVID free ZOOM edition of the Yippee-Ki-Yay Mother Podcast, a multi-generational look at the movies.
Our oddly contracting and expanding team as been playing it safe by staying at home and watching the 1978 superhero filmSuperman this week. It could be argued that this father of the modern superhero movie genre, as we know it today. But is the film getting the love it deserves? Podmaster Ralph doesn't think it is. That's why we're re-examining it now -- with an extra special guest: my eight-year-old granddaughter Claudia.
My novel Chapel Street is now available! You can currently buy the Kindle and paperback at Amazon and the Nook, paperback and hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
My upcoming novelChapel Streetwas 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 provides an oral history of the actual haunting that inspired the book.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prevented me from continuing my research. I prefer to interview people in person as opposed to online. Additionally, I need third party information and I don't want to pursue that until we return to something closer to normalcy. However, during the break, I have worked on the timeline of events based on the interviews I have already conducted.
If you read the individual interviews, you will have seen the common thread of people unable to date the events. I have been endeavoring to solve that problem. I have created a master timeline, anchored with events for which we have actual dates, i.e., the births and deaths of family members. Then I have been asking people to attempt to place their experiences within that timeline. It has also been very useful to keep track of who was sleeping in which bedroom at what time. My family lived in the house for twenty-nine years. People shifted from one room to another quite a bit over time. All of these details helped us place the events in a proper chronological order.
This blog, and the following ones, will serve as a recap of the information gathered to date. I feel I am about halfway through this investigation. I want to conduct a few more interviews concerning the house and the actual haunting before moving onto the deaths of my siblings Laura and Mark, in order to discern whether the entity -- or entities -- might have influenced them. Then I will pursue expert opinions to draw some final conclusions. Hopefully, those conclusions will prove helpful to other families who find themselves in this situation. Sadly, they'll be coming too late to help us.
So here goes....
THE TIMELINE, PART 1
1915 – According to the Maryland Office of Assessment and Taxation, the house at 21 St. Helens Avenue was built in 1915. The Victorian style home had 1,940 square feet of living space above grade, and a finished basement of 912 square feet. It sat on 15,122 square feet of acreage on a breezy hilltop three hundred and sixty feet above sea level. (It is the second highest point, after Television Hill, in Baltimore City.) The paperwork seems consistent that the house was built in 1915. That said, during some home repairs, graffiti from an earlier period was found inside one of the dining room walls.
According to records dating back to colonial times, this house seems to be the first structure built on that site.
The first inhabitants of the house were the Immler family. The head of the family was John August Immler. He was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 22 January 1877, and emigrated to the United States in 1892. He took Amelia (Emily) R. Quast, who was born in Dranfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany on 29 July 1879, as his wife. They married in Baltimore in April of 1901. John was a skilled engraver, but newspaper listings over the years reveal that he also dabbled in real estate. John and Emily had a son named Charles William Immler, Sr., who was born in Baltimore City on 3 December 1901.
Sunpapers story about John Immler
John would eventually die on 19 January 1960 in Baltimore of a heart attack. Emilie would die on 4 November 1965 in Silver Spring, Maryland. Charles William Immler, Sr., would die 2 December 1986 in Stevenson, Maryland. Charles married three times, leaving three children in his wake. Interestingly, Charles would provide the only non-extinct male line of anyone raised at 21 St. Helens.
Before 1927 - Some time prior to 1927, the name of the street and the numerical designations of the houses were changed. I will continue to use the original address to protect the privacy of the current inhabitants.
1927 - John Immler sells the house to the Mayfort family. The Mayfort family would remain in it until 1974 for a total of forty-seven years.
Yours Truly at the Mayfort Family plot at Loudon Park Cemetery
The family was headed by John Mayfort. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 14 January 1867, the son of German immigrants, Martin Mayfort and Katherine Kneyer. He married Florence Virginia Hutton, the daughter of John Hutton and Katherine Goodwin, who was born in Maryland on 12 October 1867. They had four children: Catherine V.., born 4 November 1894; John Clayton, born 19 June 1895; Martin Livingston, born 17 November 1897; and Miriam E., born 13 November 1899.
Death found the Mayfort family prior to their arrival at 21 St. Helens Avenue. The mother, Florence, died on 8 August 1911 at the age of forty-three. Her early death spared her the pain of seeing the death of her oldest child. Catherine had married a man named George E. Willing and died at the age of twenty-one on 15 March 1915 in Woodbine, Long Island, New York.
Death notice for Catherine Mayfort Willing
Prior to their arrival at the house, John, Sr., married Florence's younger sister Mary Elizabeth Hutton, who was born in Baltimore on 9 March 1869. In addition to the surviving children, the family was also joined by Florence and Mary's older sister Annie R. Hutton, who was born in June 1863.
26 January 1933 - Annie R. Hutton becomes the first known person to actually die in the house. She was approximately sixty-years-old. She never married and had no children. I haven't gotten her death certificate, so I cannot yet report the cause of her demise. She was buried out of the house.**
Annie R Hutton Death Notice
After 1937 - 21 St. Helens Avenue gains another resident. The sister of John, Sr., Katherine Mayfort Olsen, born 8 February 1870 in Baltimore, Maryland, took up residence after the death of her husband George Olsen. After 1940 - Martin Livingston Mayfort marries Jane E. Savin, who was born on 6 Jane 1907. He moves out of 21 St Helens and sets up house with his wife a few blocks away at 3305 Lerch Drive. He was over the age of forty at the time of his marriage. The union produced no children.
9 February 1944 - Mary Hutton Mayfort becomes the second person to die in the house. The cause of death was ovarian cancer. She was buried out of the house.
Mary Hutton Mayfort death certificate
19 Oct 1956 - Katherine Mayfort Olsen dies of myrocarditis. She died, not in the house, but instead at the Edgewood Nursing Home at 6000 Bellona Avenue. Her funeral was held out of the house.
2 November 1958 - The long-lived patriarch of St. Helens Avenue, John Mayfort, dies. Like his sister Katherine, John's cause of death was chronic myocarditis. However, he also suffered from senility. He was ninety-one-years old and died in the house, like his wife Mary and sister-in-law Annie. His services, interestingly, were not held at the house. They were held out of a funeral home.
1 September 1960 - John Clayton Mayfort dies of a laundry list of internal injuries which seemed consistent with an automobile accident or a bad fall -- although no accident was listed on the death certificate. He died at Church Home Hospital. He never married and had no children. His funeral was held out of the house.
John Clayton Mayfort Death Certificate
24 January 1971 - Martin Livingston Mayfort dies of pneumonia and emphysema on 24 January 1971 at Union Memorial Hospital. His services are held at the Leonard J. Ruck Funeral Home on Harford Road. Martin's death notice is unique among his immediate family in that it mentions a religious affiliation. Donations are to be sent to a memorial fund at Grace Lutheran Church on Harford Road.
5 February 1974 - After living alone at 21 St. Helens Avenue for nearly fourteen years***, Mariam E. Mayfort dies at the age of seventy-four. She never married and had no children. The cause and place of her death remains in dispute. Her death certificate indicates that she died at Union Memorial hospital with a probable pulmonary embolus.
However, some of her former neighbors, whom I recently interviewed, firmly contend that Miss Mayfort died in the house after tumbling down the stairs from the second floor onto a landing under the stained glass window. She was apparently spotted lying there by the mailman. A pulmonary embolus is a blood clog blocking an artery in the lungs, which is usually dislodged from a leg. That certainly could be the byproduct of a fall, but no accident is listed in the death certificate.
The stained glass window above the landing.
When confronted with the conflicting reports, the consensus opinion seems to be that she died in the house, but wasn't officially pronounced dead until she arrived at the hospital.
Spring 1974 - The Murphy family purchases the house at 21 St. Helens Avenue. At the time of their arrival, the Murphy family consisted of Douglas Ernest Murphy, Sr., b. 2 October 1941 in Scranton, PA, died 12 March 2003 in Baltimore, MD; his wife Clara M. Murphy; their children, Douglas Ernest Murphy, Jr.; Sean Paul Murphy; Laura Lee Murphy, b. 27 September 1962 in Baltimore, MD, died 15 February 1994 in Baltimore, MD; Mark Brendan Murphy, b. 26 February 1964 in Baltimore, MD, died 14 September 1999 in Flint, Michigan; and Jeanne Murphy.
Within days of our arrival, my sister Laura told her mother that she saw an old woman looking down at her from the second floor sunporch. That timing would seem to indicate that whatever was in the house was there prior to our arrival.
The Sunporch
Bedrooms:
Doug and Clara. Front West Bedroom.
Dougie, Sean and Mark. Front East Bedroom.
Laurie and Jeanne. Master Bedroom.
We later identified the three adjoined closets between the master bedroom and the second floor bathroom as the initial center of the haunting. Not surprisingly, since my sisters Laura and Jeanne shared the master bedroom, they made first contact. Here's Jeanne describing her experience:
April 1975 - My youngest brother John Christian Murphy is born. He is the first baby brought into the house. The Mayforts had no small children. Charles Immler, the son of John and Emile, was eleven-years-old when his family moved into the house.
My mother Clara noticed an increase in the intensity of the paranormal activity after John was born.
1975 - My older brother Dougie moves from the Front East Bedroom to the Front Attic Bedroom, later known as The Hell Room. I follow him upstairs. I move from the Front East Bedroom to the Rear Attic Bedroom.
Bedrooms.
Doug and Clara. Front West Bedroom
Mark and John? Front East Bedroom
Jeanne and Laura. Master Bedroom
Dougie. Hell Room
Sean. Back Attic
Of my surviving siblings, Jeanne bore the brunt of the early haunting. Here she is discussing her early dealings with the entity -- and the bargain it struck up.
Circa 1976 - Dougie moves out of 21 St. Helens Avenue and joins his paternal grandparents about a mile away on Royston Avenue. He claims to have experienced no paranormal activity during his stay at the house. Here is the sum total of my interview with him:
Douglas Ernest Murphy, Jr.
Sean: Did you experience any paranormal activity at the house?
Dougie: No.
Sean: Do you want to do an interview?
Dougie: No.
My younger brother Mark took Dougie's place in the Hell Room.
Bedrooms.
Doug and Clara. Front West Bedroom.
John. Front East Bedroom
Jeanne and Laura. Master Bedroom
Mark. Hell Room
Sean. Back Attic
January 1982 - Laura gives birth to her daughter Natalia Marie Valenti.
Laura, Natalie, Frank
February 04, 1982 - Laura marries Natalia's father Frank. She leaves 21 St. Helens Avenue. They move to a 2nd floor apartment on Frankfurt Avenue, then later to 3020 Roselawn. Jeanne is alone in the Master Bedroom.
Bedrooms.
Doug and Clara. Front West Bedroom.
John. Front East Bedroom
Jeanne. Master Bedroom
Mark. Hell Room
Sean. Back Attic
Christmas 1982 - My father Douglas Ernest Murphy, Sr., suffers a nearly fatal brain aneurysm. He survives, but over time behavioral changes become noticeable.
May 1983 - I attempt suicide in the living room of the house. Until very recently, I viewed my suicide attempt as being unrelated from the haunting. Now, after hearing about other suicide attempts and suicide events, I am not as certain. Here I am discussing the event:
My sister Jeanne also wrestled with suicidal impulses at the house:
It is hard to tell when my brother Mark began show symptoms of the mental illness which would eventually drive him to take his own life. However, he later told friends that, while he was living upstairs in the Hell Room, that he could hear the voices of his mother and grandmother talking about committing him to an institution. Those voices were not real. That said, it is unclear whether he simply imagined them or whether that was the first recorded instance of the entity using mimicked voices.
Mark, Christmas 1986
Mark would leave the house prior to December 1985.
June 26, 1985 - Jeanne leaves to go to England. She would remain for two months. Then she would return to Baltimore in August before returning to England. In England, Jeanne would meet her future husband Jon.
Between December 1985 - February 1986 - Clara's best friend Ted wanted to talk with one of his late aunts through the Ouija board. Clara invited him over to the house. They took the Ouija board up to the currently unoccupied Hell Room and tried to communicate with the woman. This is how Clara describes the event:
I recently talked to Ted on the telephone. He has little memory of the incident. Regardless, the paranormal activity at the house increased exponentially after the Ouija board session. My younger brother John noticed the escalation:
During my first twelve years at the house, I never knowing experienced anything paranormal. I heard stories about our old church organ playing -- and I might have heard that once -- but I never experienced anything I couldn't explain away. After the Ouija board incident, the entity quickly made itself known to me. That wasn't surprising since I was sleeping across the hall from the Hell Room.
However, the entity didn't limit itself to noises and bumps in the night. The entity in the house wanted to hurt or possibly kill us. John found that out firsthand in Hell Room.
John first told me about this incident right after I had completed the first draft of my novel Chapel Street at a meeting my sister had called to finally discuss what had happened at the house. When he first told the story, he added, "If I had been standing a couple of inches over to the right in front of the window, I would have gone right out of it. And everyone would have thought I had killed myself because I was at the age when people killed themselves."
That statement inspired me to start this series of blogs. Because I also experienced something I call a suicide event. I define a suicide event as an involuntary incident that would be naturally mistaken as suicide if it played out to it's natural conclusion. Here's what happened to me:
That incident essentially fueled my novel Chapel Street. In the book, the hero Rick Bakos finds himself sleepwalking each night closer and closer to a death that would be mistaken as suicide. These incidents also make him doubt the supposed suicides of other family members. That's where I find myself now too.
Well, this to be a good enough place to stop for now. I'll be back with another entry soon.
*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.
**In an earlier blog, I said only John Clayton Mayfort had his funeral from the house. I was mistaken. Most of the members of the Mayfort family were buried out of the house.
***Miss Mayfort did have a number of pet cats.
****In my mother's defense, that wasn't the first use of a Ouija board in the house. My sister Jeanne used one during sleepovers with her friends.
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.
