The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 24, Bad News Betty

21 St. Helens Avenue circa 2013

My 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 provides an oral history of the actual haunting that inspired the book. 

I'm back.

It's been a couple of years since I wrote any new blogs about the haunting. That was mainly due to my inability to interview people during the pandemic. Now I feel I can continue my work.

In Part 5, I explained my intended methodology and goals. This is not an esoteric exercise for me. I am attempting to answer a question my mother asked me a few years ago: "Do you think the entity in the house was responsible, in part, for the deaths of Laurie and Mark?"

In these blogs, I first established the history of the house itself and our background as a family. Then I started interviewing people who had supernatural experiences related to the house. The interviews I conducted to date were the first time many of the people involved talked in any detail about their experiences. After I finish the interviews, which were interrupted by the pandemic, I plan to look into the facts concerning the deaths of my siblings. Then, finally, I hope to present the assembled data to paranormal investigators and experts in spiritual warfare to explain what we experienced and whether the entity or entities had a hand in the deaths.

Although I have started interviewing again, I am jumping slightly ahead with this blog about Betty Wells, aka Bad News Betty, a noted psychic/medium based in Hagerstown, Maryland, known for her amazing accuracy. She is the inspiration for the villain, Betty Kostek, in my novel Chapel Street . My sister Laura visited Betty a few days prior to her suicide, and I believe Betty's words directly contributed to her death but I'll let you be the judge of that.

Betty Wells

This will be a controversial blog within my family. My mother Clara, who was first introduced to Betty through a co-worker, thought it was very unfair of me to base the villain of my novel on the woman. She believes Betty was a kind and helpful woman. Others, many others, agree. Every time I mention Betty on social media, I am shocked by the number of people who say they met with her and swear by her abilities. Surprisingly, one of my fellow TouchPoint Press authors, Tina Shyver-Plank, discusses an inspirational meeting with Betty in her memoir Second Chance: A Kidney Between Us.** 

However, despite the accolades Betty still receives post-mortem, I wasn't the one who started calling her Bad News Betty. I can't remember who first used the term around me, but she had that reputation long before she met the Murphy family. Check out the story below:

The Frederick News (Maryland), 6 May 1971:

YOUR WHOLE WORLD IN THE

PALM OF YOUR HAND

     AS NATIONAL INTEREST INCREASES IN HOROSCOPES, occult meetings and Jeanne Dixon is heard in the land, (especially around Washington), we also have someone in our midst who can read your palm as if she had shared your yesterdays with you, and will be sharing your days to come.

     Betty Wells has been reading palms now for quite a few years, and if anything, she has become better at it. Recently, TV's Barbara Coleman, who has been to about every well-known palm reader and psychic, went to Betty and had her palm read. When she left, she declared, "She is the greatest one I have ever been to. And I've been to quite a few. She is incredible."

     How Betty is able to glance in your palm and tell you so much about your past, present and future is difficult to say. She will not discuss her powers. She simply enjoys them, along with her clients.

     Betty lives in a trailer-like construction five miles east of Hagerstown on Route 40 West. She does not read on Sundays. On Tuesdays, she reads only after 3 in the afternoon. Her hours otherwise are from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Maryland does not require palm readers to be licensed, so Betty does pay taxes on the money she takes in.

     Betty is not the sort of palm reader you should go to if you want a golden, rosy forecast. "I only tell them what is there," she says. "and sometimes what is there is not very pleasant for the client."

     To be on the safe side, it's best to call for an appointment before going, although you can appear without one. The number to call is 739-2840.

In later years, you couldn't call for an appointment. Trying to see Betty then was like getting tickets to the hottest rock concert pre-internet. You had to spend the night waiting in line. To see Betty, you would arrive the evening before your intended appointment. You'd wait in your car in the parking lot with the other supplicants. Sometime in the evening, one of her sons would come out and say who could stay and who had to leave. Then, if you were one of the lucky ones, you saw Betty the next morning.

In later years, she didn't work as many hours either.

Here's Tina Shyver-Plank's description of meeting Betty from page 68 of her memoir Second Chance: A Kidney Between Us:

     There was a psychic/medium in Frederick, Maryland, now deceased, who really helped me stay on track with my writing career. It wasn't the psychic, Louise Killinger, I had written about in my first book. The other psychic's name was Betty, and she was an older, humble woman who lived in abject poverty. She charged very little for a reading but was very accurate, unlike some psychics.

     There was a shed on the property where she did her readings, probably to keep her home free of negative energy. The shed was very neat and clean, a homey little space. I remember sitting at a table, and she sat across from me. She kindly instructed me to place my hands with palms upward on the table. She did not touch my hands or even really look at them. It was like a window or door had opened in her mind with my hands that way....

Tina had a great deal of admiration for Betty. Betty encouraged her to continue her education and keep writing. 

If everyone loves her, why do I consider her a villain? Let me explain why.

In the last weeks of her short life, my sister Laura visited Betty twice: once with her husband Frank and once with her aunt Debra. At the time, her life was spiraling downward out of control for a variety of reasons. She was clearly distraught, although none of us suspected for a second she would take her own life.

The visit to Betty with Frank, which took place about two weeks before her death, was uneventful. Frank was a skeptic, and he wasn't impressed with Betty at all. He said everything she said was general BS. (Frank is literally the only person I have spoken with that wasn't amazed by her!) However, the second visit with my Aunt Debra, which was only about two days before her death, was devastating.

Here's the gist of the entire reading:

Laura

What do you see in my future?

Betty

I see nothing.

WTF?!

What would you do if you were contemplating suicide and your trusted spiritual advisor said that? I know what Laura did.

Let's say Betty was a fake. That she was just a great cold reader. She would have still noticed my sister's fragile emotional state. It was obvious. So why would she say something like that? She'd have to be some kind of sadistic monster.

Members of my family were interviewed about the haunting on a podcast by a very well-known psychic medium named Marianne Coleman from New Zealand. Here's what Marianne had to say on her Walking The Shadowlands podcast:

I, as a medium I take my role very, very seriously. It's a sacred trust. And I never, ever will look at a person, or read a person without their explicit permission. You just don’t do it! It is unethical. I will - and I have this thing with spirit. I see it – I set boundaries. With them, really firm boundaries. Don't give me any information about people that’s not helpful to them. That's not going to be of positive benefit to them in their lives. Don't tell me things that they can't alter. Don't tell me things about their health, unless, something can be done to improve it. So those are the guidelines I set with Spirit. So when I, and I hardly ever do consultations these days, because, it just takes so much energy. I'm really blunt with people. I'll tell people what Spirit tells them. Like, I don't, I don't sugar coat it. I’ll say, look, this and this, and this is happening in your life. Because of this, or this behaviour. You need to perhaps look at the way you're doing this. So, it's like a positive thing. So even if they're getting growled by whoever is in spirit, they come away feeling uplifted. And they come away knowing that they can make changes in their lives, that will make a positive difference to them.

Obviously, Betty didn't share Marianne's ethical concerns.

Okay, now let's say Betty wasn't a fake. What if she was really communing with a spiritual entity? I can't imagine that an angel of light would instruct her to say something so destructive to my highly vulnerable sister. But I could imagine a dark entity doing so. Were Betty's words evidence of direct demonic manipulation into her death?

Either way, whether Betty was real or a fake, I believe her words helped push my poor sister over the edge.

One more Betty story.

After Laura's death, my surviving sister Jeanne decided to visit Betty herself. My sister had a different last name than Laurie and gave no clues to her identity as she sat down at the table in the trailer. Betty just looked at her and said, "I did not kill your sister."

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Here's her grave:

I'm not sorry I made her the villain in my novel.

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.

**Here's a video trailer for Tina's book:

 

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 24, Bad News Betty

The Haunting of 21 St. Helens Avenue, Part 25, Joe's Tale

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.

Watch the book trailer:

  

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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