The Second Visit
The drive back into the Deep South wasn’t any easier the second time around—even with me bringing back some interesting audio clips and a photo for Joanne to review. But after drinking a Waffle House worth of coffee, I eventually found myself pulling into the local Unitarian church’s parking lot for my meeting with our house-blesser, Frank, the Unitarian minister from Alabama.
After discussing the particulars of the Martin case with Frank via email, he had thought it best if we met outside the Martin household prior to his arrival. This would give him the chance to check out the evidence I had gathered, as well as to hear some firsthand tales from Terri and her crew. Frank would also have the opportunity to run down what he had in mind for his visit to the trailer.
The minister met me at the door of the church with a smile and, once we were past the hellos and pleasantries, I briefed him on what, exactly, he would be getting into at the Martin house. He never blinked an eye as I detailed the environment and situation at the residence.
I watched him closely as I described the questionable living conditions, the myriad paranormal experiences, and gave a rather vivid depiction of the residents. His expression never changed. When I pointed out that he seemed rather calm about all the information that I was feeding him, he simply said, “I preach in Alabama. I’ve seen it all.”
It was only a few moments later when the members of the Mississippi team arrived at the church, so soon we all sat down to look at the evidence I had gathered during my first evening at the trailer.
It was kind of fun to watch the expressions on the minister’s face change as I played the EVPs I had captured with my audio recorders. It was a mixture of surprise, intrigue, and disbelief. Pretty much what I experienced when I first heard the odd voices. When I got to the mysterious photo, however, Terri and Patricia informed me that they believed they had debunked the image.
After I had sent it to them via email, they were so excited about the photo that they had immediately revisited the trailer. They found that when they looked at an air-
conditioning unit from the angle I had taken the picture, it eerily resembled the “eyes” in the photograph. As a result, they came to the conclusion the photo didn’t contain anything of a paranormal nature.
Inwardly, I was quietly relieved that there was an explanation for the photo—mostly because I didn’t want to see the effect it would have on Joanne and company. She was panicked enough without having a photograph to refer to! But I would have a look at the air conditioner for myself once I got back to the trailer.
Photo aside, though, we all decided that it would probably be best for the minister to meet Joanne and her family before we investigated the trailer that evening, and then he could return to perform the house blessing the following day once he was finished with his Sunday sermon (in addition to preaching in Alabama, he worked occasionally at a local Unitarian church as well—hence the reason he was available to perform the blessing in Mississippi).
So after we were through with the obligatory briefings at the church, Terri gave Frank the same warnings about the Martin trailer that she had passed on to me prior to my first visit. Then we packed up all the gear and convoyed over to the Martin residence.
The Scene of the Crime
We arrived at the trailer to find Joanne waving at us from the driveway like we were relatives visiting for the weekend. As we parked in front of the residence, I noticed that the grass and surrounding foliage were in a terrible state and that the trailer was missing another window (I would later learn that this broken window was the result of vandalism). With a deep breath I exited the vehicle, greeted Joanne, and suggested that we all go inside to talk. This was an immediate mistake.
If it was possible, the home was in even worse condition than it was on my first visit. Apparently, shortly after my first investigation, Tim and Sarah had moved out of the trailer.
According to them, they were simply tired of dealing with the all the scary activity. And since Joanne and her two young daughters were now left alone, they too suddenly found the environment to be too frightening to live in. As a result, they had also moved out to stay with some nearby relatives.
But the worst news was yet to come: Since nobody had been living in the home for some time, Joanne had turned off the power, so we would be working entirely from battery power. This was a detail that would have been nice to have before driving down, as I could have prepared for the situation by bringing more batteries. Now I would have to be more strategic about where I placed my gear and how long I let the audio and video gear run in one location.
Furthermore, with no air conditioning or fans, the place was sweltering. Spending even a few minutes inside the massive heat-box produced rivers of sweat and induced gasps for air. There would be no way we could seriously perform an investigation during the daylight hours. We would have to wait until sundown before working inside.
I asked Joanne how often she had visited the place since she had moved out, and was told “never.” Only a cousin had been by to check—and he had done that only once. According to her, this male relative had scoffed at her claims regarding the property, so he planned to spend the night alone in the trailer. Much to her amusement, he didn’t even make it until nightfall.
He reported that he had entered the residence, dropped his overnight bag, and then proceeded to look around the trailer for ghosts when he heard a loud thud. He rushed back into the living room to find that his bag had been thrown across the room. This was more than enough proof for him, so he grabbed his things and fled. He had no intention of waiting around to actually see a ghost!
As Patricia introduced Frank to Joanne, I decided to take a look at the area in front of the trailer that contained the “face” in my mysterious photo. It didn’t take long to see how the air conditioner could be the phantom eyes in the photograph (there were two square areas on the side of the unit that match up with where the eyes were in the photo)—but I couldn’t figure out what anything else in the photo could be.
There was clearly a tree branch in front of the figure in the photo, but any kind of material that would make the hair and beard on the figure’s head was nowhere to be found. The tree branch (as well as the whole tree) that was in the photo was bereft of any leaves or branches that could be mistaken for a spirit. If the eyes were the air conditioner, then what was making up the rest of the figure’s features? Suddenly I was not so sure the photo was completely debunked.
I was unsure enough of the authenticity, though, that it justified me not showing it to Joanne (I really didn’t want to give her another reason to be afraid), but I would have to get some more opinions on the photograph before making a final decision. After I snapped a few new reference photos, I went back inside the trailer scratching my head.
Now that everyone had met each other, I decided to formally interview Joanne again for the minister’s benefit. I also wanted to interview young Julie this time, so while Terri left to go pick her up, I switched on an audio recorder and began going over the details with Joanne again regarding the haunting of the house.
Now that I had thought about the case extensively while reviewing my footage I captured the first time around (as well as during two lengthy drives into Mississippi), I was armed with a whole new batch of fresh questions and ready to learn more about the background of this case.
More Details
Before Joanne could get too comfortable with talking to all of us, I decided I would immediately attempt to get more information about the entity “John.” Was there any reason to believe that there was such a spirit in the house other than “Tim said so”?
After a moment of deep thought, Joanne revealed more details about the family rumors that had circulated down through the years regarding the possible murder of a local black man named John. In fact, there were three such rumors. They went like this:
Though Joanne wasn’t sure which, if any, of the stories were true, she certainly believed (thanks to Tim) that there was a John present in the home. This new information was disturbing to me on a few levels. If there was, indeed, a murder, this would have to be reported to the local authorities—even if it happened more than half a century ago. With such a sparse local population, if a man had gone missing, there was a good chance he would still have family in the area. And I was quite sure that they’d like to know what happened to him!
I asked Joanne if she even thought her grandfather was capable of such a thing. To this, she would only say that there was a history of abuse that ran through her family and that such a crime could most definitely have occurred with him or any number of her relatives that lived in the area. (Adding on to this information is the fact that the trailer’s land has been in her family for over 150 years, so there had been plenty of generations of Martins living there to do such a thing.)
After hearing all this, I decided to let Frank have a moment alone with Joanne to counsel her. Speaking about her relatives seemed to upset her. While he did this, I pulled the Mississippi crew aside and mentioned that we might have to let the local police know about these rumors; Tom and Blake were friends with several officers in the sheriff’s department, so they would definitely bring it up with them to see if it warranted further legal attention. This made me feel better about the situation, though I still hated the idea that there could be a family in the vicinity who was missing a loved one.
When I returned to the conversation between Frank and Joanne, they were talking about the activity she had witnessed in the trailer. I listened as she told Frank the same basic stories that we had briefed him on earlier that day. But before she could finish with her narrative, I thought this might be a good time to address another issue I had with the first investigation: the occult/magical paraphernalia scattered about the home. So I quickly interrupted their conversation and asked her straight out, “Tell me about the magic herbs and wand we found while we were here.”
With a sheepish grin, Joanne freely admitted that she had “dabbled” a bit in various sorts of religion—but, again, reiterated that she believed in almost everything. According to her, most of this dabbling occurred after the trailer was already haunted, and this was just one of the ways they had tried to cope with it. And from the way she was telling me all of this (“we tried,” “we were scared,” etc.), it was clear that she had included her daughters in these acts.
I was still digesting all this information when the front door slammed shut with a bang, startling everyone in the kitchen. A quick “Sorry!” came from the living room. Terri had returned with Julie for my interview. Frank gave a nervous laugh as the young girl was brought forth for introductions.
As Frank met with Julie for the first time, I decided to go over my audio findings from the first visit to the trailer with Joanne. I went over each audio clip with her, explaining what an EVP was and what to listen for. She nodded and smiled as each piece of evidence was presented—and I could tell by the expression on her face that she was grateful to have something tangible to back up her claims.
Though I feared that my evidence might make her even more uneasy in the home, all I saw on her face was relief. Finally, someone understood and believed her. I did not show her the photo, however—again, I was not sure the photo was something paranormal or if I was simply matrixing something out of nothing. So no mention was made. Once we were finished with the audio clips, though, I went into the living room to meet with Julie for myself.
Interviewing Julie
Speaking to Julie was like speaking to a fully grown woman in miniature form. Patricia, one of the Mississippi investigators, had described the girl as having an “old soul”—and now I had to agree. Of course, when you grow up in a dysfunctional household, you pretty much have to grow up fast and, at the very least, learn how to take care of yourself. And it was clear that she had done this.
Once we had all gotten comfortable in the kitchen (or at least as comfortable as you can be when it’s over 90 degrees with high humidity), I thought I’d start the conversation with her by focusing on the most pertinent subject to my investigation: Emily.
I had thought that speaking about Emily might be a difficult thing for Julie so I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. It turned out that the exact opposite was true; Julie liked talking about Emily. You might even say she loved it.
Julie described speaking to the dead girl as if it was an ongoing conversation that she had been having with the spirit since she was about four years old. When I asked for details concerning Emily, I was told that she had “blonde hair” and that she “wore a dress”—the same description that Joanne had given me during my first visit.
I asked why the spirit of the girl was in their home. According to Julie, Emily had drowned in a nearby creek and now her spirit was wandering the area, looking for her family, which was now long gone. I asked Julie how she knew Emily’s family was long gone. “Well,” she pointed out, “Emily wears an old-time dress.” Ahh …
As I spoke with the young girl, another thing became crystal clear: Julie was a fan of paranormal television. She threw around terms like “intelligent spirit,” “residual haunting,” and “paranormal activity” like a seasoned ghost hunter.
And, along with her mother, Julie had delved into the basics of magic. In fact, the wand we had come across during the first investigation was actually made by Julie for her own personal use. I made a note of this and found myself now beginning to wonder how much of what was happening around them (or at least their opinion of what was happening) was being influenced by what they had been watching on television.
All too often, when people experience strange things, they turn to paranormal programs and books for answers. But since most people lack any real experience dealing with such matters, they often come to erroneous conclusions or they blow certain events out of proportion. As a result, common-sense answers are often overlooked—especially if there’s a more exciting answer that’s similar to what they saw last week on TV!
After I wrapped up the interview with Julie, Terri and Patricia pulled me aside and told me something else about the young girl: Julie was known by local children her own age to be quite promiscuous. Terri’s son went to school with Julie and knew a lot about the girl—and Terri and Tom had actually caught the nude Julie attempting to seduce their son in their own house!
While I found this information to be disturbing on a whole new level, it did seem to confirm that there was a young girl within the throes of puberty in the trailer—a classic ingredient for poltergeist activity. It also confirmed, though, that Julie craved attention and that she might be trying to get it any way that she could.
Having finished with my interview, I called Joanne into the room with us. With Julie and Joanne both being present together with me for the first time, I decided it would be a good time to broach the subject of Keith again.
I wanted to know if either of them had actually seen anything that would indicate that Julie’s dead father was in the trailer. Again, at this point, this particular haunting was based entirely on Tim’s word. So I asked them, “Other than Tim telling you that Keith is here in the trailer, what makes you think he is here?”
To my amazement, Joanne became indignant and answered me by pointing at Julie and saying, “Grab her titty and see what happens!”
What do you say to an answer like that? The implication was that if I acted in such a manner to Julie, the spirit of Keith would retaliate in some way. Of course there would be no underage titty-grabbing happening any time soon, so I thought this might be a good time to end the interviews. With more than a few laughs erupting around me, I went outside for a breath of fresh air.
At this point, I was pretty much through with interviewing everyone, so I decided it was probably a good time for us all to go grab some food. We would need to fuel up for another evening of investigating and the trailer still needed to cool down considerably.
But before we left, I decided to go ahead and set up a couple audio recorders in the trailer to run during our absence. It was a great opportunity to catch some EVPs without anyone being on the premises. Once this was done, we all loaded up in the vehicles again to go into town for some food at a local pizzeria.
Dinner and the Ride Home
Our meal went pretty much like any other and ended with us saying goodbye to Frank for the night. He promised to contact us after his Sunday services the following day before returning to the house to perform the blessing.
But as he sped off into the night, things took another interesting turn; Joanne asked if she and Julie could ride with me back to the trailer (they had commuted to the restaurant with Terri and Tom). I stammered an “okay,” and soon we were off.
We were in the car for maybe two minutes when Joanne began asking me how I “went about” shooting a movie. She had heard from Terri and Patricia that I was involved with Ghosts of War (a documentary I produced/directed about haunted Civil War sites) and she was interested in making a movie about her ordeal in the trailer. I don’t have to say that, at this point, alarm bells were going off all over the place. She was actually asking how they could capitalize on their haunting!
Giving her the benefit of the doubt (instant television/movie fame is one of the bad side effects of paranormal
reality TV), I told her that making a feature film is quite difficult and that it can cost a lot of money. I understood that Joanne and her family were in dire financial straits; she was a single parent raising her kids with a difficult budget, a home that was fast becoming unlivable, and (of all things) a haunting to contend with. Of course she would want to explore the possibility of improving their lives financially.
This led us into a whole conversation that involved me explaining the production process of movies and the need for her to write out her story so that a script could be formed (it seemed she was speaking of a narrative feature rather than a documentary). She then told me that one of her daughters was an actor in Austin, Texas, and that she’d like for her to have work.
Again, I gave Joanne the benefit of the doubt and just assumed that her questions about a movie was just her desire to help out her daughter in Austin with some work. I did not want to think that she, or anyone else in the home, was attempting to use their ordeal to simply make a profit. Either way, I pushed all this out of my mind as I pulled up in the driveway of the trailer.
I’d just have to get back to the basics; I knew from my first investigation and review that the place was most likely haunted. In the end, it would be the evidence gathered from my investigations that would determine any validity to any/all claims being made—not any hasty judgments made by me or anyone else concerning the intentions of the household.
With the last remnants of daylight hovering on the horizon, we quickly unloaded the remainder of our equipment for the night while Joanne and Julie made their way to a relative’s house that was just a short distance away. The ghost hunt was on!
The Second Investigation
Much like the first investigation, we spent the first part of the evening setting up additional audio recorders and video gear while staking out various areas of the trailer for activity (often called a “vigil” in the paranormal world). Blake and I manned the master bedroom, while the remaining team members went to do some EVP work in the bedrooms at the back of the trailer.
After we settled in, we almost immediately began to hear a strange scratching sound coming from the kitchen. Armed with a couple of EMF detectors, we cautiously approached the area. The sound was coming from the kitchen sink. The sudden elation that something paranormal might be happening quickly went south, though, when we discovered it was a mouse trapped in an empty two-liter soda bottle. Rats!
We returned to the master bedroom and concentrated on trying to get another rumble—or at least some EVPs—on audio. After about an hour with nothing discernible happening around us, we rallied up with the other team members so that we could rotate to different areas of the trailer.
Breaking off on my own, I soon found myself in the rear room of the trailer—an area that seemed to function as a second living room, though was now a general dumping area for miscellaneous objects. This was also the place where we had spotted the various occult/magic objects during our first visit. While I performed some EVP work there, I decided to take a closer look at the various items scattered about the room.
Besides the same assorted bottles of herbs and oils that we saw the first time we investigated, I found an odd bottle of powdered incense. Upon examination, the scent of the incense was actually called “Exorcism.” If Joanne and her family were not instigating any of the activity in this house—nor had any belief it was anything inhuman—why were they purchasing this kind of incense? Suddenly I was angry.
Clearly Joanne was saying one thing and doing another. Not only did I now believe she was creating—or at least exacerbating—all the activity in the trailer herself, but I was sure she was manipulating us and the information she divulged to get herself more attention than a simple haunting warranted. I crammed the bottle of incense in my pocket, determined to confront Joanne about it later that evening.
About an hour after I discovered the incense, Terri and Patricia gave a shout from the trailer’s bathroom. They, too, had found an interesting item: a makeshift Ouija board drawn onto the bathroom floor. It was drawn on the wooden floor under some loose carpet, but was plainly visible to everyone present (even though it looked to have been made using a ballpoint pen or small marker).
This was just too much now. It’s one thing to believe you are assisting a victim with a haunting—it’s quite another to find out that, not only are they performing acts that could possibly cause or invite a haunting, but they are hiding this information from the investigators.
But I was also struck again by the similarities of this case to the Cottage City, Maryland, exorcism. The activity that plagued the poor young man (and that led to an exorcism) began in part because of the use of a Ouija board and séances. The Ouija board part was even included in the movie, The Exorcist. All that was missing in this case was the séance!
Once again, I had a good reason to confront Joanne. Were the details just coincidentally similar to the exorcism case or was this yet another detail that they may have picked up from watching the movie and decided to try it in their home? Either way, it was one more example of how the Martins were not being completely truthful with us. Luckily, the whole evening wouldn’t be discoveries of the bad sort.
Not long after uncovering the Ouija, we started getting activity in the long hallway outside the bedroom doors. This was the same area that I had witnessed the shadow figure in during my first time around. Much like the first trip to the house, we found a strange reading on a K2 EMF detector—only this time it was sustained. This was especially interesting because there was no power at all in the trailer to cause a false or natural reading.
Over the course of about an hour, we managed to follow a fairly contained energy source at it roamed between several rooms of the trailer. The K2 would spike in the kitchen, I’d ask a few EVP questions, and then the meter would go flat—as if it had fled the room. Then a quick search of the area would find the energy in a new spot.
This impromptu game of hide-and-seek went on for quite a while, but, eventually, the energy dissipated entirely and we couldn’t find it any more. I was just hoping we got something on our audio recorders during this extended Q&A/chase period.
After this burst of activity, not much else seemed to be happening. We set up motion detectors, we peered through camcorders, and we patrolled the place almost constantly with EMF detectors and digital thermometers. Nothing.
With the night winding down, we decided we may as well start packing up the gear. The Mississippi team seemed a little disappointed that the evening had been relatively slow, but I know from past experience that in a lot of cases things just seem to be slow, but lots of great evidence gets captured on the audio and video devices. I hoped that this would be the case again.
Once we were finished packing up for the evening, Joanne returned to the trailer to lock up. I immediately sat her down and confronted her about the incense and Ouija board.
At first she used the “defense” argument; she claimed she had purchased the incense to ward off any possible spirits and that she didn’t know who had drawn the Ouija on the bathroom floor (the drawing had been covered by a rug/piece of linoleum, but was now clearly visible—even to Joanne).
After I pressed her for a bit, she finally did admit that the family might be to blame for some of the things going on, though she still believed John had been around since her grandfather’s days on the property. She also confessed that not long after they had all moved into the trailer, one of her older daughters (the actor in Austin) had decided to host an impromptu séance in the trailer with a couple of her friends.
According to Joanne, they were getting nowhere with the séance until they decided to try to speak to the spirit of Marilyn Monroe. It was then that things began to happen—things like a picture flying off the wall in front of the now-terrified girls. The séance was quickly ended at that point, and (interestingly) it wouldn’t be long before young Julie would start seeing and hearing Emily.
I was dumbstruck. I had joked earlier that evening with the Mississippi team that a séance was the last missing piece to this case having “everything possible” that could cause their haunting to take place. It was also another key element to the exorcist case as I mentioned before. The similarities now were getting ridiculous; either they were on the same path as the Cottage City, Maryland, family or Joanne’s family had somehow read about the previous case and was actually attempting to duplicate the happenings.
I, of course, found this hard to believe. While some folks may be a little to blame for getting into ghosts too much, I have yet to meet anyone who would willingly wish demonic infestation upon themselves! And on another note, the book that detailed the particulars of the séance was Possessed, not The Exorcist. Would Joanne even know there was a second book about the story? I doubted it.
So the family had done a séance in the trailer. Was Marilyn Monroe now haunting the trailer along with the rest of the ghosts there? Yeah, right … Could the specter of Emily have “come through” while they were attempting to speak to Marilyn? Possibly. With my brain now reeling with the various elements affecting this case, I decided to wrap up for the night. I would need several days back in the comfort of my own home to decipher all the information I had ingested over the evening—not to mention to go over all the data I had collected.
Blessing the Home
Though I would already be on the road back to Memphis when the minister visited the trailer for the blessing the following day, I would hear all about the experience from Terri via telephone. Once Frank had finished his duties at the local church on Sunday, he joined the Mississippi group at the trailer and, once again, talked with Joanne about the blessing.
When he had finished explaining how he would go about the task, he began making his way room to room throughout the trailer, stopping to bless each individual area. According to Terri and Patricia, everything was going pretty much as expected until Frank saw something strange for himself.
He had just stepped into the hallway that leads back to the second family room (the “magic room”) when he saw a large, black shape—possibly a figure—move into that area. He didn’t want to alarm Joanne, so he said nothing, but when he got to that particular room and performed the blessing there, he actually witnessed the large, black mass move up from the floor and pass through the ceiling!
This was startling, but he continued blessing the home and managed to finish up without another incident occurring. So, after a few quick goodbyes, he was on his way with a nice, scary story to tell of his own experience in the Martin residence.
I asked Terri if Frank had placed any significance to the black mass moving, seemingly, out of the trailer. She said that Frank had not indicated any special significance. I thanked her and hung up my phone. I would have to email Frank again once I was home to get his thoughts about the affair.
Did the exiting mass mean at least one of the spirits left? Or was the entity simply avoiding the clergyman who was reading scripture in the room? Who knows? Ironically, it wasn’t long after the blessing that Joanne told the Mississippi team that the place was still haunted; she said that she was on her way down the driveway to pick up her mail the day following the blessing when she heard the sounds of gravel falling around her and all-too-familiar footsteps following her …