#thestorybehindthetale

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The Story Behind ‘The Exorcist’

William Peter Blatty’s novel THE EXORCIST (1971), later adapted into a film by William Friedkin in 1973, sparked an intense curiosity in the world of demonic possession. Exorcisms were rarely practiced before the novel, and film brought the practice to the main stage. So then what was the inciting incident that inspired Blatty to delve into the world of possession? To find out we have to go back to the late 1940s, and the first exorcism ever performed in the United States. 

Ronnie Doe aka Ronald Hunkeler, was born in 1935 to a Lutheran mother and Catholic father in Cottage City, Maryland. At the age of fourteen, Ronald was introduced to the Ouija Board by his Aunt Tillie. Although a direct correlation between Ronald’s possession and the Ouija Board is never made, it was believed that the ghost of Aunt Tillie was one of the first spirits to visit Ronald. It wasn’t long before this friendly spirit turned sinister. The family first noticed angry voices and sound of furniture moving across the room. Not long afterwards they began seeing claw marks on Ronald’s body. That year, the family traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, believing that getting away from their home might end their troubles.

While in St. Louis and noticing no change in Ronald’s behavior, the family enlisted the help of Father Bishop, a Roman Catholic Priest teaching at St. Louis University. According to his diary, when Father Bishop entered the home he found Ronald lying on his bed perfectly still as the bed shook under him. The bed ceased moving once Father Bishop sprayed holy water on the boy. However, Ronald quickly began experiencing sharp pains in his stomach. His mother pulled back the covers to reveal a series of scratches all over his mid-section.

Two days later, Father Bishop returned with Father Bowdern from St. Francis Xavier College Church. Not long after entering the room and finding Ronald asleep, a bottle of holy water was thrown across the room by an unseen force. Five minutes later, a book case moved across the room. A few days later, St. Louis Archbishop Joseph Ritter gave the permission to carry out an exorcism on Ronald. During the course of the next several days, the priest’s prayers were met with violent actions and profanities all emanating from the demonic presence they believed infected the boy. After a week of what must have been an incredibly stressful experience for Ronald, the family and priests agreed to take him to the psychiatric ward at Alexian Brothers Hospital. Once there, the rites of exorcism continued. Then on Monday April 18th, the day after Easter, the evil spirit made one last violent attempt at remaining inside Ronald before finally being expelled forever.

Twenty-four years after Ronald’s ordeal, William Peter Blatty penned his novel THE EXORCIST. Although heavily influenced by the actual events of Ronald Hunkeler, Blatty did make a few changes to divert attention away from Ronald, changing the subject of the exorcism to a twelve-year-old girl and setting it in the Washington DC neighborhood of Georgetown. Whether you believe Ronald was possessed or just a disturbed young boy, THE EXORCIST and the events that inspired the book and the film have impacted our society immensely. The film created an entire sub-genre of religious horror that is still popular today. As for the number of exorcisms performed just in the US, since the release of the film and the book, some say that number has gone from 10 to 15 a year to 10 to 15 a week. However, this number is based off of reports from so-called “professional exorcists” and some reportedly unscrupulous con-artists touting mental illness as demonic possession.

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The Story Behind the ‘Linda Vista Hospital’

The hospital opened to great fanfare in 1904 and even had its own Jersey cows, chickens, and a garden to provide patients with the freshest milk, butter, eggs, poultry and vegetables. This original Moorish-style hospital building designed by Charles Whittlesey, known as the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital, was razed and rebuilt in 1924 in the current Mission Revival Stylestructure. In 1989 it was renamed the Linda Vista Community Hospital. 

By the late 1970s, the railroad hospital association facilities were experiencing declining use, as more railroad workers began to use conventional medical-insurance policies. The area surrounding the hospital also became a less-affluent area and hospital funding was affected.The Santa Fe Railroad sold the 150-bed hospital to a managed healthcare company in 1980. According to a California Health Law News report, when Linda Vista tried to reduce operational expenses in response, the hospital was blamed for an increase in facility death rates. During that time, the hospital was regularly treating a fair number of gunshot wounds and stabbings from the local neighborhoods, which affected its mortality statistics. An increase in uninsured and under-insured patients forced the hospital to close its emergency services department in 1989. The quality of care at Linda Vista Community Hospital continued to decline as doctors moved to other hospitals. In 1991, the hospital ceased operations.

In the decades since its closure, it has become the center of several paranormal investigations; the most notable investigation was initiated by Ghost Adventures, where the crew stayed a full night in the hospital. Since that time, it has been used primarily as a filming location. In January 2006, the hospital was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2011, the 4.2-acre Linda Vista Hospital complex was purchased by AMCAL Multi-Housing Inc. The structures on the historic registry, the main hospital and former nurses dormitory, were renovated into the Linda Vista Senior Apartments and now provide a total of 97 apartments for fixed-income seniors plus a medical facility.

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The Story Behind ‘The Hills Have Eyes’

In 1977 Wes Craven first introduced us to Papa Jupiter’s family. THE HILLS HAVE EYES is a classic horror tale of a family trapped in the Nevada desert and terrorized by a family of inbred mutants living in mountains. The film was then remade in 2006 with the inbreed mutants having been exposed to radiation via government testing. Craven’s original nightmarish family outing and the remake both still terrify audiences today, and the story was actually inspired by the legendary story of Alexander “Sawney” Bean. 

 As this 15th century legend goes, Sawney, the son of a landscaper, had no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps.  Instead he took his wife and headed for a coastal cave in Bennane Head, Scotland. There he would live and raise his family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters, most of which were the product of incest. 

Sleeping the days away in their cave, the Bean clan would come out at night to apply their trade. Under the cover of darkness, the Bean’s would ambush travelers robbing and then murdering them. The bodies were then taken back to the cave where they were dismembered and prepared for dinner. For twenty-five years, the family operated in secret. Although nearby villagers were aware of the disappearances, as well as the occasional body-parts which washed up on their shores, they were unaware of who was responsible for the crimes.

The Beans were eventually taken down when they attempted to ambush a young man who was more skilled at swordplay then they were expecting. The young man managed to hold his attackers at bay until help arrived. Overwhelmed, the Beans headed for the safety of their cave. Now aware of their presence, the people of Bennane Head sent word to King James VI of Scotland, who dispatched his soldiers to track down the fiends.

The soldiers were lead by bloodhounds to a cave along the shore. Inside they not only found the entire Bean clan, but also the scattered remains of their half eaten victims. The Beans were taken to Edinburg where they were immediately condemned to death, without trial. The men were castrated before having their hands and feet severed; they eventually died slowly of blood loss.  After being forced to watch the men of the family die, the women and children were then burned alive. Their twenty-five years of terror was now over. In the end, it is believed the Sawney Bean family claimed over a thousand lives.

There are those historians who dispute Sawney Bean’s existence and others that say the mythos, if true, has been greatly exaggerated. The first printed version of the tale didn’t come about until the 18thcentury. Additionally, there are no reports of over one thousand people going missing in the Bennane Head region during the 15thcentury, and there’s also no written evidence of such a grisly family style execution. However, there are several records from the 15thcentury that do document periods of famine, forcing some to resort to cannibalism. Several people, after visiting the alleged Sawney Cave, believe the family’s victims still haunt the surrounding area.  It is also believed that the Sawney Bean family may have existed centuries earlier, during Scotland’s dark age, and their exploits were passed down by word of mouth for centuries, eventually being recorded in the 18th century, but incorrectly attributed to the 15th century.  Fact or fiction, it made for great source material for Wes Craven’s landmark tale of terror. 

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The Story Behind ‘Bloody Mary’

As humans there’s one thing that bring us all together — we’re scared sh*tless by chanting Bloody Mary into a mirror. It’s become one of the most well-known urban legends of all time. Many a sleepover have been spent chanting her name into a mirror. But few people know where the legend comes from.

Once you have a nickname, it’s hard to shake it off. No one knows that better than Queen Mary I, or as history better remembers her — Bloody Mary.

The name didn’t come out of nowhere. She was responsible for burning nearly 300 Protestants at the stake in her attempts to make England more Catholic.

Unfortunately, the queen that brought so much death into the world was unable to bring any life. She had a frightfully believable false pregnancy. 

Queen Mary I (pronounced “Queen Mary the First”) certainly looked pregnant to everyone around her and even said she could feel the fetus move. When she was a few weeks away from the expected labor she was bedridden and doctors prepared for birth. But the baby never came, and soon Mary’s swollen belly began to recede.

Turned out she was never actually pregnant.

A short time later, in 1558, Mary thought she might be pregnant again. This time, she kept the joyful news quieter. Unfortunately, once again, it was again a false pregnancy. Even more unfortunately, Queen Mary I died in the middle of it.

Besides the fact that she has the name for it, Queen Mary I makes quite a convincing case to be Bloody Mary. Those that believe she’s Bloody Mary say she is searching for her lost children and ready to steal one if she must.

Another theory is that Mary Queen of Scots is the Bloody Mary. 

Unlike the other women on this list, Mary Queen of Scots was not believed to cause much bloodshed, it just *seemed* to happen around her. Her ill-advised marriage to her cousin, the Earl of Darnley, turned sour when he stabbed a man 56 times in front of a pregnant Mary. Following the vicious murder, Darnley died mysteriously. While there was never any proof, fingers at towards Mary — who happened to marry one of the main suspects of Darnley’s murder.

After even more tarnish to her name, Mary scooped up her infant son, John (later to become the King of England) and traveled to her cousin Queen Elizabeth I to beg for protection. Elizabeth feared there would be an uprising for Mary Queen of Scots to take over her throne, so she had her thrown in jail. Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned for 19 years. Due to more conspiracies whispered in Elizabeth’s ear and a few elaborate escape plans on Mary’s part, she was sentenced to death by beheading. Unfortunately, the executioner was unskilled and it took several attempts to kill Mary.

Once she’d been successfully beheaded, the executioner tried to lift up her head and yell “Long Live the Queen.” But he’d only grabbed her red wig, and Queen Mary of Scots’ real hair and head fell to the ground.

It’s possibly this gruesome death and all the bloodshed that seemed to surround her entire life that has made Queen Mary of Scots a strong candidate for Bloody Mary.  

Also, Elizabeth Bathory is considered to be the Bloody Mary.

Okay. Her name isn’t Mary, but I wouldn’t leave Elizabeth Bathory out of the equation.

Actually, I wouldn’t do anything that might upset the spirit of Elizabeth Bathory. Also known as the Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian royal in the 1500s, and remains the most prolific female serial killer in history. She’s thought to be the inspiration behind Dracula. Quite the bloody resume, and believe me — she earned it.

Elizabeth Bathory had an unquenchable thirst for killing, and could get away with it because of her vast wealth (even the king owed her money). Hundreds of girls “disappeared” in her castle. There were reports of cannibalism, beatings, stranglings, stabbings (with needles) and even lacerations from Elizabeth’s own teeth. There is no way to get an official count of how many girls died in the Blood Countess’s castle, but the estimated figure is more than 600.

It would be no wonder that even in death Elizabeth Bathory’s thirst for young blood would continue, making her just as strong a contender as the others.

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The Story Behind the ‘Sallie House’

There are a lot of haunted houses all around the world, and such structures really do spark the human imagination.

For some people haunted houses are scientific anomalies which require scientific investigation, while others regard them as centers of paranormal activity that must be revered or even feared.

Whatever the truth may be about haunted houses, it's undeniable that many of them have terrifying reputations.

Among the most notorious haunted houses in the world is the Sallie House located at 508 N. Second Street. A lot of people in Atchison, Kansas believe that the Sallie house contains evil spirits, while others believe that the entities within are simply lost souls seeking help.

Despite people's opinions about the matter, the Sallie House has become one of the most important attractions of Atchison, Kansas and has been the subject of many TV documentaries.

This simple 19th century house originally got its name due to the haunting of a little girl, who was later given the name "Sallie." The couple who owned the house believed that the little girl was trying to warn them about the evil spirits which dwelt within the house.

Due to the numerous sightings of the little girl, the haunted house became known to both local residents and investigators as "the Sallie House." Over the years however, the house began to exhibit other hauntings besides that of the little girl.

These hauntings lead observers to conclude that other entities may be inhabiting the house or perhaps some other force was at work within the area.

People have always wondered about the entities which inhabit this house. Are they simple ghostly visitors, or are they lost souls trapped within the house? Were they looking for help or were they just malevolent entities that seek to do harm on the house's human occupants.

This is not an easy question to answer, but for those who seek clues to the nature of the Sallie House, it's important to look at its long and interesting history.

The House that will later be known as The Sallie House was first built in 1867. The land on which it was built on was purchased by one Michael C. Finney, who moved in with his family to start a new life.

Finney had a wife, two sons and daughter, and the house remained in the possession of the family until the death of Agnes and Charles Finney, both of whom were Finney's descendants, in 1939 and 1947 respectively. When the Agnes and Charles died, the house was rented out to various boarders. However, people never stayed long in the house and for whatever reason, there were few records on the people who stayed there. The only person who seemed to tolerate the house's peculiar characteristics was one Ethel Anderson, who lived in the house until the early 90's. After Ethel Anderson, Tony and Debra Pickman moved into the Finney home, that's when the Sallie House's notorious reputation began to become quite popular. Aside from Sallie appearing to Tony and Debra, numerous attacks were also carried out on anyone who lived inside the house or investigate its mysteries.

Tony Pickman, for example, sustained several injuries back when he and his family owned the house in the early 90's, while investigators who visited the house reported sustaining minor injuries, such cuts and burns, during their stay.

What's most disturbing however, is the fact that investigators of house have endured cuts and burns while gathering paranormal data from the house.

Although such attacks are usually directed at certain groups of people, it has lead a lot of people to believe in the hostile nature of house and the possibility of demonic presence within its walls.

In addition to the attacks, visitors and witnesses also reported full bodied apparitions, flying objects, phantom furniture, sounds of strange animals, human voices and mysterious items appearing and disappearing at random points throughout the house.

In addition to witness accounts, a surprisingly large amount of Electronic Voice Phenomenon was also recorded of strange voices from men, women and children, not to mention strange smells emanating from various areas around the house.

These data is yet to be authenticated, but over the years a surprising amount of legends and theories has sprung up about the nature and secrets of the Sallie House.

The first major investigation on the Sallie House was carried out in the early 90's by the Television show, Sightings. Since that time, several psychics and paranormal investigators have attempted to uncover the secrets of the house.

With them came technicians and other researchers who were also interested in learning about anomalies which occurred within the house.

In addition to paranormal investigators, mainstream journalists, such as the Travel Channel, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel have also investigated the house to gather materials for their own shows and articles.

Even Paramount Pictures visited the house in order to gather information for a movie adaptation.

Those who have investigated the Sallie House have used a variety of equipment to determine the nature of the hauntings. Among the tools that were used were digital voice recorders, laser microphones, infrared video cameras, electromagnetic measuring devices, and even radiation meters.

Those who were less inclined to use technical devices used Ouija boards, crystals, and pendulums to contact the unknown.

These psychic devices were used by paranormal investigators and due to their findings and experiences, some of the psychics believe that demonic entities may be inhabiting the house.

Other investigators incorporated ESP and other psychic phenomenon in their investigations.

Given the frequent appearance of paranormal and supernatural activity in the house, various groups and investigators have begun using the area around the house as a kind of testing ground for paranormal experiments.

Thanks to the unusual and inexplicable phenomenon found in the Sallie House, not only have the researchers understood the complex history surrounding the house, it has also helped them better understand the nature of certain psychic and paranormal anomalies.

Even today, new materials and data are still being gathered on the Sallie House, and as far as many psychic investigators are concerned, their work has only just begun.

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The Story Behind ‘Child’s Play’

Since the first movie was released in the 1980s, the Child’s Play franchise and its cursed doll Chucky have become horror-movie classics.

But did you know Chucky is based on an actual voodoo doll? The real thing is so much creepier than the Hollywood version. It even looks creepier. 

Key West artist and author Robert Eugene (Gene) Otto was given the homemade “Robert the Doll” in 1906, when he was six years old. One of his family’s Bahamian servants made the spooky-looking thing out of a wire frame, cloth, straw, and hair from Gene’s own head. This same servant was apparently mistreated by the family, had recently lost her own child when she was ordered to take care of Gene, and was skilled in black magic and voodoo. Of course she was. If you’re going to mistreat a servant, maybe choose one who doesn’t know voodoo. Or at least don’t let her use your child’s own hair on a doll.

Gene loved his creepy new friend, and his parents didn’t think much of it when their son began chattering away to the doll. However, it did give them pause when the doll answered back–in a completely different voice.

Robert the Doll was apparently the jealous type, and soon Gene’s other toys were mutilated. Neighbors reportedly saw the doll watching them from different windows when the family was known to be away from the house.

As Robert’s hold over the family grew stronger, Gene’s parents heard the doll giggle. They caught glimpses of it moving through the house. (This maybe would have been a good time to get rid of the doll.) When their son screamed in the middle of the night, they would rush to his room, only to find furniture knocked over and Gene terrified. Of course Robert the Doll was blamed for the destruction.

Soon people outside the family learned that Robert was not an ordinary doll. A plumber fled the house after it snickered at him. Other visitors swore the doll blinked and its expression changed.

Robert’s influence didn’t end when Gene grew up. Once Gene’s parents died, he moved back to his childhood home with his wife Anne, and was soon reacquainted with his old fiend. Anne took an instant dislike to the doll, swearing she had seen its expression change.

When the doll was confined to the attic, guests heard unexplained footsteps, laughter, and movement upstairs, even though no one was there. Pedestrians saw the doll staring at them from the home’s windows, and children began crossing to the other side of the street as they approached the house. Some kids claimed the doll taunted them. Gene found Robert in a rocking chair on the main floor time and time again. He kept putting the doll back in the attic, but it always returned to the chair.

Gene died in 1974 and his house was sold, along with Robert the Doll, who was in a trunk in the attic. The new family’s ten-year-old daughter claimed the ugly thing as her own, but soon regretted it. Her other dolls were mutilated, and it wasn’t long before she began having night terrors. She claimed that Robert moved about the room and had even attempted to attack her on multiple occasions.  When the family discovered their dog tied tightly with cord, they returned the doll to the attic.  As an adult, the girl still insisted that Robert the Doll was alive – and evil.

You can visit Robert in the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West. If you want to take his picture, you have to ask his permission. The museum is full of letters of apology from those foolish enough to snap a photo against the doll’s wishes.

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The Story Behind ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’

Wes Craven’s

A Nightmare on Elm Street

will celebrate its 30th anniversary on November 9… the day the original opened up in theaters and introduced sleepy teens to the terror that is, was and forever shall be Freddy Krueger. 

In preparation for the milestone, Craven has been sharing a ton of information about the creation – and impact – of his incredibly influential horror franchise, including how he came up with the idea in the first place.When he wasn’t busy sharing vital Nightmare on Elm Street information on Twitter, Wes Craven was taking part in a comprehensive oral history of Elm Street for Vulture. 

The primary players behind the film open up in great detail about what went in to the hiring of the cast, the creation of Freddy, and the landscape of horror in the early 1980s. With Craven coming off of Swamp Thing and The Hills Have Eyes Part II at the time, he needed to find something that was truly terrifying. And he found it in real life, so to speak.

The way Wes Craven describes it, he came up with the idea for A Nightmare on Elm Street after reading an L.A. Times article about a family that had survived the Killing Fields in Cambodia. They made it to the United States, but a young boy in the family still found himself haunted by terrible nightmares while he slept. Craven says:

He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street."

The origin of Freddy Krueger? That’s awesome. And far more psychologically chilling than the parental vendetta that led to the birth of the on-screen Krueger – which also is explained in greater detail in the Vulture oral history. Burning the neighborhood child murderer in the boiler room of the local school? Vicious. The 1980s were a different time, man.

People forget how terrifying the original Nightmare on Elm Street actually was. Because over the years, Freddy became more of a huckster, or a punchline, and the Elm Street sequels went for laughs as much as they went for scares. Now’s a good time to go back and revisit Wes Craven’s film, to remember why it became a classic in the first place.

In the late 1970s to the mid 80s, more than 110 men died in their sleep. Until their quiet final moments, they were young and healthy. Their families were stunned. Investigators were bewildered. With the victims all being Asian, medical authorities named the sleep scourge “Asian Death Syndrome.” Witnesses and families called it the night terror.

The first case was reported in California’s Orange County in 1977. By the summer of 1981, 20 people had fallen victim to the night terror. Authorities and medical responders were powerless as men across the country went to sleep and never woke up. 

The exotic morbidity of the night terror caught the media’s attention, with the Los Angeles Times running a string of stories on the “medical mystery” in 1981. The New York Times and newspapers in Connecticut, Florida and elsewhere devoted column inches to the sleep deaths.

Freddy Krueger’s real-life victims weren't white, middle-class teens, as played by Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street. They didn’t talk in mall slang, excessively blow dry their hair or dress in early 80s-style pastels. They were mostly male and were uniformly Asian. They were refugees with poor English skills who had fled their homeland to escape a nearly genocidal conflict.

They were the Hmong, a largely pre-literate or non-literate nomadic people from the mountains of Southeast Asia. Originally from southern China, they fled what had been their homeland for thousands of years in the mid-19th century, when the Manchu dynasty labeled them barbarians. They escaped to neighboring countries, notably Vietnam and Laos.

For the Hmong who relocated to Laos, their struggle continued first under French Colonial rule before settling down for the decades of Laotian royal power. When the Vietnam War spread to Laos and Cambodia, the American supported Royal Lao government recruited the Hmong to fight the Communist Pathet Lao troops.

The Hmong gained a reputation as fierce fighters, but the war devastated their people. An estimated one-third of the Hmong population in Laos was wiped out in the conflict. Following the 1975 Communist takeover, about 100,000 Hmong fled Laos to seek asylum in Thailand. Of the Hmongs who remained in Laos, thousands were detained in reeducation camps.

Away from their home, the Hmong struggled to adapt. They were mountain farmers and warriors with a unique religion centered on animals and spirits. They farmed by growing opium and cleared fields with fire. Their written language only came into being in the 20th century; many couldn’t read it anyway.

Then they came to America and began dying in their sleep.

The first modern recorded victim of the so-called “Asian Death Syndrome" was Ly Houa, of Orange County. Before his sudden 1977 death, he had acclimated to American life and worked as a medic. An Orange County social worker who knew him told the L.A. Times said she was shocked to hear of his passing. Houa was in robust physical condition, she said, and health-conscious through his professional expertise.

By the summer of 1981, the L.A. Times reported, 20 Hmong men living in America died under the same circumstances. All were young and showed no signs of ill health until death took them in their sleep. Their families said most didn’t smoke or drink. Some witnesses said they heard troubled breathings and groans right before the death.

Only about 35,000 Hmong lived in America at the time. For the communities scattered throughout the states, the deaths were more than morbid curiosities. They were a seeming existential threat to their people. The ratio of victims to total Hmongs in the country equalled all five leading causes of death for other American men in their age group. Orange County Medical Examiner Tom Prendergast told a reporter that the mysterious incidents accounted for half of all deaths among the Hmong in America during that period.

The deaths prompted an inquiry by the Federal Center for Disease Control. They tried to contain the unexplained horror of the sleep death in the dry wording of “Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome,” or SUNDS.

Officials suspected cardiac failure, but were otherwise baffled. Many blamed the stress of culture shock for refugees moving to the U.S. Minnesota Medical Examiner Dr. Michael McGee told the New York Times he thought Hmong victims in St. Paul may have been frightened to death. Hang Pao, a former Laotian general and a political leader for the Hmong, publically attributed the deaths to wartime gassing attacks. Pao, eager to turn public opinion against the Hmong’s old communists foes, said the nighttime seizures were delayed reactions to the chemical toxins the Pathet Lao used to poison villages.

No definite cause emerged. The mystery deaths peaked in 1981, when 26 men, mostly Hmong refugees from Laos, died in their sleep. A few victims of the seizures who were immediately treated by CPR survived.

While the sudden sleep death hit the American Hmong refugees the hardest, the mystery illness wasn’t limited to their people alone. The sleeping death was striking Asian men across the globe.

The disease had a long history in Asia, even in countries with no Hmong population. In 1983, the Associate Press reported that Japanese and Filipinos were dying from similar unexplained deaths. Researchers estimated that between 500 and 1,000 Japanese men, described in their 20s and 30s and healthy, died in their sleep of the condition known in Japan as “Pokkuri,” wordplay slang for death that occurs in a “snap.”

Recently uncovered research indicated it wasn’t new. CDC official Roy Baron and forensic pathologist Robert Kirscher published a report saying the attacks predated the Hmong arrival in America.

As researchers dug into the cultures with histories of SUNDS, they found something surprising. Freddy Krueger wasn’t the only killer stalking its victims through their dreams. According to Asian folklore, monsters had been preying on sleepers for years.

Hmong traditional beliefs revolve around nature spirits and ancestor worship. Among the most feared spirits is a nightmare monster known as the Dab Tsog. When Hmong fail to perform religious rituals properly, their ancestor and village spirits stop guarding them, leaving them vulnerable to the Tsog Tsuam, the crushing attack the Dab Tsog uses to press the life out of its victims.

Shelley Adler, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, conducted dozens of field interviews among the Hmong population while researching her 2011 book Sleep Paralysis. She found people who survived SUNDS, who related tales of dream visitations from dark creatures. One interviewee said a large, hairy monster, which he likened to an American stuffed animal, accosted him in his dream. As the oversized creature set on him with claws and teeth, the dreamer was paralyzed but still able to hear voices in his home.

The Dab Tsog doesn’t haunt the dreams of Asian men alone. In the Philippines, where 43 people out of 100,000 die from SUNDS per year, the death was known as Bangungut, a Tagalog word meaning “to rise and moan during sleep.”

Filipino folklore holds that malevolent spirits called Batibat are behind Bangungut. The Batibat have the appearance of ugly, obese women and live in trees. They infest houses when the trees they live in are used to build a home. Enraged by their displacement, they wait until the homeowners are asleep they kill them in the style of the Tsog Tsaum, sitting on their victim’s chest and face to force out their life force like air from a balloon.

By the time A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, the Hmong SUNDS was slowing to a halt after its 1981 peak. It hadn’t been cured, but after taking the lives of 116 healthy young men, the night terror shuffled back into whatever dark dream it came from.

As Freddy Krueger grew increasingly cartoonish and prone to one-liners in his follow-up films, the real-life sleep deaths became less deadly. Officials like Kirschner took an optimistic assessment, postulating that stress from American culture shock caused the previous attacks. With the Hmong more used to life in the states, Kirschner said, the stress was reduced and the danger was over.

The same year, SUNDS researchers made a breakthrough. After studying the medical histories of three survivors of the attacks, medical examiners were able to identify ventricular arrhythmias as the cause of the fatal cardiac arrests. The cause of the arrhythmias wasn’t yet known, but medical authorities now knew what happened to the heart before the SUNDS deaths. In 1988, CDC pathologist Roy Gibson Parrish published a study proposing that SUNDS victims were likely carriers of hereditary defects that affected tissues that conduct electric signals. While in most cases the defects wouldn’t be a problem, they could become fatal in a body undergoing stress.

And while the Hmong were moving past their twin traumas of warfare and displacement, the night terror was attacking displaced Asian elsewhere in the globe. In 1990, two Thai men working construction in Singapore died in their sleep on the same night.

The coincidence of two SUNDS death in a single night was shocking. But they weren’t alone. About 200 Thai people living in Singapore are believed to have died in their sleep since 1983. In Sleep Paralysis, Adler quoted heart specialist Michael Brodsky attributing the deaths to stress, saying that the men were working 13-plus hour days while enduring slavery-like conditions.

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The Story Behind ‘The Girl Next Door’ (WARNING- GRAPHIC)

There are people that seem very trustworthy. You know, the kind of people you would let babysit or keep an eye on your kid while you’re away. But what happens when these people seem like angels only to turn out to hide the devil in them? The plot of  ‘The Girl Next Door’, a movie released in 2007 and directed by Gregory Wilson, seems so twisted and makes you feel so uncomfortable that you just don’t want to believe that it happened in reality. Unfortunately, it did.

Carnival workers Lester Likens and Elizabeth “Betty” Grimes had 5 kids together. Sylvia (16) was the “middle” child, born between 2 sets of twins. She was given the nickname “Cookie”,had a good sense of humor and loved The Beatles.

Between the late 40s and 60s the parents had to travel a lot following the carnival around in order to make a living, which resulted in leaving their kids behind, most of the time under the care of relatives in Indiana. Their marriage was not ideal, with minor and major problems leading to divorce.

After the divorce, Sylvia went with her sister Jenny (polio patient) to live with her mother who was later arrested for shoplifting. The girls had to return to their father who was not able to take care of them at the moment. That is why he decided after talking to Gertrude Baniszewski, a neighbor with 7 kids of her own, to let them under her care while he was away for the price of 20$ per week. Lester did not inspect the house before “surrendering” the girls. 

Gertrude’s house was not an ideal environment for kids. Gertrude’s 7 kids, Paula(17), Stefanie(15), John(13), Marie(11), Shirley(10), James(8)and baby Dennis along with the Likens girls had to get used to the fact that there was no stove but only a hot plate available to make food for everyone. They also had to share 3 spoons since these were the only cutlery available in the house.

The first week at Gertrude’s home went by uneventfully. Then Lester forgot to pay on time and the torture started. The girls were taken down at the basement and were beaten up with a paddle. The 20$ arrived the next day but the damage was already done. Gertrude realized her power and focused her anger onto Sylvia.  She started acting tough towards the poor girl accusing her of being promiscuous and stealing from grocery stores. She would beat her up for no reason and even encouraged her kids, neighborhood youngsters and on occasions even her own sister (Jenny) to mistreat her. 

One time, Gertrude took Sylvia down the basement and using a hot needle that one of her daughters assisted on heating up, carved “I am a prostitute and proud of it” on her stomach. Another of Gertrude’s sick “rituals” against Sylvia included locking her up in the basement for days, starving her, and denying her bathroom access. One of the most disturbing things that happened at that time is when Sylvia was forced to insert a glass bottle of Coke into her vagina for the “entertainment” of the kids. After multiple tortures Sylvia eventually died from internal bleeding, shock and malnutrition. 

Gertrude tried to cover up Sylvia’s murder by showing to the police officers a fake letter from Sylvia stating that she went out and had sex with a bunch of boys who were the ones to blame for all the tortures she suffered. When the police was ready to leave the house, Sylvia’s sister Jenny approached an officer and informed him that there are more things they need to know about the case, starting a massive investigation.

Gertrude pleaded “Not Guilty” by reason of insanity but in the end was convicted of first degree murder and got life imprisonment along with her older daughter who was convicted of second degree murder. John Baniszewski with 2 neighborhood kids that constantly assisted in the beating and torturing of Sylvia were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 2-21 year terms. The charges towards the younger members of the family were dropped.

Gertrude was released several years later (1985) despite the public’s outcry for justice, and changed her name to Nadine Van Fossan. She died in 1990 from lung cancer. Paula was released in 1971 after she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter during her second trial. The boys were released two years after their incarceration.

Gertrude never showed any remorse for the murder of Sylvia even after she took full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia. She allegedly stated that “Sylvia needed to be taught a lesson”.

The public never really forgot the disturbing incident. Some months after the release of the film ‘The Girl Next Door’, another film based on the same events called ‘An American Crime’ by Tommy O’ Haver hit the big screens around the US.

[thestorybehindthetale]

The Story Behind ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’

In 1974, director Tobe Hooper revolutionized horror with his film “inspired by a true story,” THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Almost immediately after the film’s release, rumors began to circulate that there was an actual chainsaw wielding madman living with his deranged family in the town of Poth, Texas. The inspired events were also said to have taken place on August 18th, 1973. However, a quick check of that date reveals that the film had just wrapped four days’ prior, making it fairly difficult to base a film on an actual event that had yet to occur. Despite this, there was an actual skin-wearing maniac that was the film’s inspiration. 

He may not have had a chainsaw, but serial killer Ed Gein was a key inspiration for the infamous Leatherface. Born in 1906 in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Ed Gein lived most of his life as a reclusive loner. Born to an alcoholic father, George, and a fanatically religious mother, Augusta, Ed Gein suffered heavy psychological and physical abuse at the hands of his parents. Classmates remember Ed as being reclusive with strange habits. One of his most unnerving habits was to randomly laugh out loud as though someone had told a joke that only he could hear.

A severe alcoholic who could not hold a job, Ed’s father, George, was despised by his wife, creating a heavy amount of tension in the home.  Augusta’s strict biblical teachings were extremely instrumental in shaping Ed’s attitude towards women. Fond of preaching from the Old Testament, Augusta instilled the fear of God as well as a fear of sexuality and a general mistrust of women in Ed and his brother Henry. Hidden away on the family’s secluded farm, the family kept to themselves. Both Henry and Ed were strictly forbidden from having visitors and were punished for even making friends. The brothers were also reminded on an almost daily basis that they would never be loved by a woman.

George died on April 1, 1940 of alcohol-related heart failure. Four years later, brother Henry would die under mysterious circumstances revolving around a fire on the family farm. Although never proven, many suspect Ed played a role in his brother’s death. Regardless, this left Ed as the only outlet for his mother’s insane devotion until her death on December 29, 1945. Despite their abusive relationship, Ed was devastated by his mother’s death.

Ed remained on the family farm, boarding up his mother’s room to ensure that it would remain just as she had left it on the day she died. Confining himself to a room off of the kitchen, Ed became obsessed with reading about Nazis and cannibals. Ed took odd jobs but remained reclusive and unsuspecting. The full extent of what he was up to on his family farm would not be revealed until over ten years later. 

After the November 16, 1957 disappearance of hardware store owner Bernice Worden, police began to suspect Ed, who was the last person to see her alive. Police searched the family farm where they found Bernice’s decapitated body hanging upside down inside the barn. On a further search of the property, authorities also found various human remains including a trashcan made out of a human skull, chairs covered in human skin, and skull bedposts. Perhaps the trait that mostly links Ed back to Leatherface was his fondness for turning human skin into apparel. Among the other remains, the police also found a corset, leggings, masks, and a dress all made from the skin of young women.

Ed was arraigned on November 21, 1957 where he pleaded “not guilty” by reason of insanity. Found mentally incompetent, Ed was sent to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. On November 7, 1968, doctors determined that Ed was capable of standing trial, and he was found guilty on November 14th. However, a second trial regarding his sanity found that he was once again not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed was the returned to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. On November 7, 1968, doctors determined that Ed was capable of standing trial, and he was found guilty on November 14th. However, a second trial regarding his sanity found that he was once again not guilty by reason of insanity. Ed was the returned to the Central State Hospital for the Criminally Insane where he died on July 26, 1984. He was buried at the Plainfield Cemetery where his grave was routinely vandalized.

Ed Gein found himself the subject of many interpretations. Robert Bloch used him as inspiration for his 1959 novel PSYCHO, which went on to be adapted for the screen in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film of the same name. Ed also went on to see his likeness portrayed in the 1974 film DERANGED, as well as in Rob Zombie’s HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. Yet, the isolationism, the overbearing nature of his parents, and Ed’s desire for accessorizing in human flesh will always most notably connect him to Leatherface.

[talesofterror]

The Story Behind ‘The Winchester House’

The story of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House is bizarre, intriguing, and spooky as hell. Though it's been a fairly well-known tale for some time, it's attracted more attention due to the upcoming thriller Winchester: The House That Ghosts Built, starring Helen Mirren as the titular character. So, what do you need to know about the eerie history surrounding the infamous real-life home?

Sarah Lockwood Pardee was born in New Haven, CT, around 1839. In her early 20s, she married Oliver Winchester of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Several years later, Sarah gave birth to a daughter, Annie. Tragically, Annie died just a month later from marasmus, or severe malnutrition. From that point on, Sarah's luck only worsened. In the early 1880s, her father-in-law passed away, and then her husband succumbed to tuberculosis a year later. Though she received an inheritance of $20 million — as well as partial ownership of the family's firearms company — she never remarried and was alone for the rest of the her life. 

Then, things got weird. For some reason, Sarah got in touch with a medium. Legend has it that Sarah started to feel as though she was being haunted, but it's more likely that she spoke to the medium in an attempt to communicate with her late husband. The medium allegedly told Sarah that her family was cursed by all of those who had been killed by Winchester guns. Inexplicably, she recommended that Sarah move out west, build a home, and continue working on that home basically forever to appease the spirits. If she stopped adding to her property, Sarah would meet her untimely death. 

Given the supernatural element to this origin story, it's been debated by historians and biographers. However, around 1886, Sarah did end up moving to San Jose, CA, where she bought an unfinished eight-room farmhouse. Sarah promptly began construction, and from that point on, she did not stop expanding and adding to the home. There were windows where there didn't need to be, staircases leading nowhere, and an unusual amount of fireplaces. The house ended up having somewhere around 160 rooms. Sarah had pretty much become an obsessive HGTV host. 

When an earthquake hit in 1906, Sarah reportedly got trapped in a room for several hours and felt as though she was being punished once again by the Winchester curse. Thoroughly freaked out, Sarah stopped construction on the house, boarded it up, and began living full-time in her other two properties. Her sudden departure can also explain why the architecture of the house is so strange — it's technically unfinished.

In 1922, Sarah died of heart failure at 83. Now, the Winchester Mystery House is a National Historic Landmark and visitors are able to explore the house through guided tours. If you're especially brave, you can also take a candlelight tour during the month of October. 

[talesofterror]

The Story Behind ‘Scary Stories to Read in the Dark’

Alvin Schwartz, the author and adapter behind the Scary Stories trilogy, actually began his career as a journalist, writing for The Binghamton Pressfrom 1951 to 1955. He also had a penchant for wordplay, saying that creating rhymes is a good way for “people to express their feelings without getting in trouble.” After Schwartz left journalism, he started working for a research corporation, which he couldn’t stand, and began doing that part time, devoting the rest of his hours to writing books. One of his first published works: a Parents’ Guide for Children’s Play. His journalistic instincts and whimsical leanings are probably to thank for the Scary Stories’ characteristic surrealism and eerily matter-of-fact storytelling.

Research was a huge part of Schwartz's process for all his books. When writing his book Witcracks, Schwartz turned to the archives at the Library of Congress and those of the president of the American Folklore Society, using that research and his connections for Scary Stories. Among his sources were books like American Folk Tales and Songs and Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Tales. He also drew from publications like The Hoosier Folklore Bulletin and interviewed folklorists.

"Some of these tales are very old, and they are told around the world," Schwartz wrote in the foreword to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. "And most have the same origins. They are based on things that people saw or heard or experienced—or thought they did."

When asked about his writing process for an interview with Language Arts magazine, Schwartz said, “Basically, what I do with every book, is learn everything I can about the genre. This will involve a lot of reading and scholarly books and journals and sometimes discussions and scholarly folklorists … In the process of accumulating everything on a subject, I begin setting aside things that I particularly like. What's interesting is that eventually patterns emerge.”

The first Scary Stories book was released in 1981, and Schwartz would go on to write two more—More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones—before his death in 1992. By the time the Scary Stories series reached the height of its popularity in the early '90s, the book was condemned by parents nationwide. "There's no moral to [the stories]," former elementary school teacher and mother Sandy Vanderburg told the Chicago Tribune. "The bad guys always win. And they make light of death. There's a story called 'Just Delicious' about a woman who goes to a mortuary, steals another woman's liver, and feeds it to her husband. That's sick."One parent even made a connection between Schwartz’s book and a serial killer, citing the story “Wonderful Sausage,” about a butcher who puts people through his sausage grinder and sells the meat to his patrons. “Right away I thought of Jeffrey Dahmer," Jean Jaworski, then the mother of a fifth grader, told The Argus-Press in 1995. "It's just not appropriate for children." She asked the school board to remove the book from the library, but a special committee voted unanimously to keep the books, and the school turned down an appeal. In an interview with the journal The Lion and the Unicorn, Schwartz said that he didn’t deal directly with complaints about his books. “My editors deal with them,” he said. “Every letter is answered and the point is made that this is traditional material and that, in addition, it has developed a lot of interest in reading.”When discussing how a Christian group had tried to get his book, In a Dark, Dark Room, banned from a Denver library, Schwartz said he wasn't surprised. Instead, he said, he was “pleased to have that kind of attention. It was ironic and pleasing that, at the same time, their ideas were rejected by the children.” The books’ nightmarish illustrations are perhaps as well remembered as the stories themselves—and even less pleasing to parents. One father, J. Daniel Merlino, who called for the books’ removal from his local school’s library, told The Hartford Courant that “I can appreciate the creativity. But the images in those books are surreal. A throat being torn out. A liver being eaten. These images are the stuff of nightmares.”Michael Wohlgenant, whose 7-year-old daughter had nightmares for months after reading “Wonderful Sausage”—its illustration involved a dismembered hand holding a forkful of human flesh—also pushed for the books’ removal. “You entrust your child to the care of school officials when you send them to school,” he said. “You don’t expect them to be traumatized and harmed.”Stephen Gammell, the mastermind behind the creepy drawings, won a Caldecott Medal for picture book illustration for his work in Karen Ackerman’s Song and Dance Man in 1989. Though these illustrations were slightly more lighthearted, they showcased the splotchy, watercolor-heavy style that’s exemplified in the artist's grim, surreal Scary Storiesillustrations. (You can watch a fun time-lapse of Gammell’s process here, in the trailer for his book Mudkin.) "Stephen Gammell has made a very important contribution to these books because he has such a wild imagination," Schwartz later said.  When HarperCollins released a new version of the Scary Stories books to commemorate the series' 30th anniversary, fans were dismayed to see that Gammell's illustrations had been removed. The reprint features new illustrations by Brett Helquist, whose excellent work you may recognize from the Series Of Unfortunate Events books.The newer, less creepy illustrations provoked outcry from those who grew up with the books, even prompting a BuzzFeed article called “They’re Ruining Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark.” According to Meredith Woerner in an article for io9, “[…I]f your child couldn't handle Gammell's paintings, they're certainly not going to be able to stomach a short story about a scarecrow who skins a farmer alive and dries out his skin sack trophy on the roof. Gammell's art is an integral part of this collection. The least they could do is release a special art book as a companion. This is just supernatural blasphemy.” The series topped the American Library Association’s list of the Top 100 most frequently challenged books for 1990-1999. Ten years later, the Scary Stories books remained in the top 10, coming in at No. 7 on the list for 2000-2009. The books were most frequently challenged for reasons of “insensitivity, occult/Satanism, violence, (and being) unsuited to age group.”About that last thing: The books fall between the 600 and 760 Lexile mark (a system used to organize reading levels), meaning that the books' vocabulary level is most suited for fifth graders. Some of the Scary Stories vocabulary words highlighted by the Lexile system were “clink,” “blunt,” “shrouds,” “drafty” “afire,” and “shatter”—further proving that the series’ simple vocabulary doesn’t rule out spooky content.  The story “The Red Dot” may have instilled a deep fear of spiders laying eggs in your face, but don’t worry—according to the National Geographic, it's not likely to happen. May Berenbaum, entomologist at The University of Illinois, explained that a spider’s egg-laying structure isn’t equipped for injecting. “I suppose a spider could drop or plaster eggs on the skin’s surface,” Berenbaum said, “but it’s not clear why a spider would want to do such a thing.”  “The Big Toe,” the notorious story in which a starving boy finds a human toe in the ground and makes the terrible mistake of eating it, is based on an old folktale that dates back to early 19th century Germany. (Maybe not surprising; this is the country that brought us Der Struwwelpeter, after all.) Mentions of the tale were first found in the Grimm Brothers’ notes, and a version of the story—with an arm replacing the titular toe—was later a prominent feature of Mark Twain’s public speaking appearances. When he was done speaking, Twain would jump into the crowd and scream at an unsuspecting audience member. Because the tales featured in the Scary Stories books came from folklore, there were many different versions of the stories floating around—and “High Beams,” which Schwartz told The Lion and The Unicorn was “one of the most popular stories” in the series, was no exception. The story features a girl driving home alone from a nighttime basketball game. “There is a car following her and periodically the other driver will turn up his beams,” Schwartz said. “She can't understand what is going on, and she becomes progressively more frightened. As it turns out, there was somebody sitting in the back seat. He had slipped in when she left and each time he rose up to assault her the guy in the car in back of her turned on his high beams.”The story, he said, is one that’s “told all over … It appears in a dozen different versions. … All of these stories, and there are scads of them, are really saying: ‘Watch out. The world's a dangerous place. You are going out on your own soon. Be careful.’”  Schwartz told The Lion and the Unicorn that he’d heard a fragmented version of the tale, “which is about a butcher who is sort of a prototypical Sweeney Todd,” in New Orleans. But it was also inspired by a song he learned as a kid at Scout camp called “Dunderbock and the Sausage Machine.” That butcher in the song, Schwartz explained, made sausage from dogs and cats, “and one day the machine slips or falls and he goes into the machine himself. This is the end of [the song]: ‘His wife had the nightmare. / She walked right in her sleep. / She grabbed the crank, gave it a yank, / And Dunderbock was meat.’” You can listen to a version of the song here. Schwartz told The Lion and The Unicorn that he only implied violence in his stories, and opted for gore instead. There was at least one story that he said he found very upsetting:“Infanticide … is a theme in American folklore and European folklore. There is an Ozark folktale ... in which a man in his youth goes away and travels and becomes quite successful. His parents are quite poor. He comes back one night after many many years have elapsed and he looks completely different. He thinks he will therefore surprise them. He has come back with a lot of money and he wants to give it to them. They have an inn and he takes a room there for the night. They don't recognize him and he thinks that in the morning he will announce that he is their son. Well, they murder him during the night for his money. It's a marvelous story but I would not put it in one of my books. … This kind of thing I avoid.” 

The Scary Stories trilogy is currently being adapted into a feature film by CBS Films and John August, writer of Big Fish and Frankenweenie. The movie, which had originally featured Saw writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, is currently in development. http://go.redirectingat.com/?id=102000X1558244&xs=1&isjs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F140869525&xguid=5654c334e78e511664f86c0e84da7999&xuuid=33f0ff2eb203a2236ecea1fb665dd3d7&xsessid=fdb9e6f33358e52b6678eb6cb953b530&xcreo=0&xed=0&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fmentalfloss.com%2Farticle%2F69886%2F14-terrifying-facts-about-scary-stories-tell-dark&pref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&xtz=480

[thestorybehindthetale]

The Story Behind the ‘Villisca Axe Murder House’

Long before serial killers and mass murders had become a way of life, two adults and 6 children were found brutally murdered in their beds in the small mid-western town of Villisca, Iowa. During the weeks that followed, life in this small town changed drastically.

As residents of this small town reinforced locks, openly carried weapons and huddled together while sleeping, newspaper reporters and private detectives flooded the streets. Accusations, rumors and suspicion ran rampant among friends and families. Bloodhounds were brought in. Law enforcement agencies from neighboring counties and states joined forces. Hundreds of interviews filled thousands of pages.

And yet, the murders remained unsolved, the murderer unpunished.

In 1994, Darwin and Martha Linn of Corning, Iowa purchased the former home of murder victim J.B. Moore and his family. The house was returned to it's original condition at the time of the murders on June 10th, 1912. It was listed on the National Registrar of Historic Places and opened for tours.

Films and books on the murders have recently captured the interest of an audience who had never heard of this horrendous crime. Psychics claim they've identified the murderer and history buffs continue collecting piles of documents they say point to the truth.

In all honesty though, we will never really know what happened on that dark night inside the home of J.B. and Sarah Moore. The murderer or murderers were never caught and given the many years that have passed, their dark secret was obviously carried with them to their own graves.

For some, the speculation was almost too much to bear and in 1912, townspeople began to distinguish and identify themselves by who they believed committed the crime. Friendships became strained and in many cases, irretrievably broken. The town stood then and in many cases still stands divided.

I have visited the home, read the newspaper articles of 1912, pored over the grand jury testimonies and the coroners inquest. I have spent hours looking into the eyes of the victims in the few tattered photographs that remain. I have come, in a sense, to know the townspeople of Villisca in 1912. I share their frustration, their anger, their suspicions and their fear. But most of all, I share their pain.

The pain of the unknown. The pain of a terrible tragedy that forced neighbors to look with suspicion upon neighbors. The pain of the 20th century.

Originally, the construction of this website was simply a favor to a friend. Over the past several years, however, it has become a way of life. The Moores have become family. Once you've entered this site and been drawn into this story, I can guarantee that it will become a part of your life. At first, you'll feel an insatiable need for information. Until this site went live, that was difficult if not impossible to find. Secondly, you'll find within yourself a desire to know the truth, to unmask the identify of the murder or murderers and see justice done. Finally, you'll feel the pull to the house. You won't be satisfied with anyone else's experiences there and you'll need to have your own. I know. I've been in your shoes.

I can only hope that as you sift through the information I have compiled, that you will find the peace that ultimately comes with this story. According to Sarah Moore, "we can heal and we can overcome" ~ even a tragedy as gruesome as this. Read the documents, know the people, and if you must- play detective. But know that each lesson learned in Villisca is personal. Each person that visits this site or this home will come away with something that will change their lives. The murders will never be solved. The tragedies we'll face in our lives, however, can be. 

Lena and Ina Stillinger, the daughters of Joseph and Sara Stillinger, left their home for church early Sunday morning. They planned on having dinner with their grandmother after the morning service, spending the afternoon with her and then returning to her home to spend the night after the Children's Day exercises concluded. The girls, however, were invited by Katherine Moore to spend the night at the Moore home instead. Prior to leaving for the exercises, Mr. Moore placed a call to the Stillinger home to ask permission for the girls to stay overnight. Blanche, Lena and Ina's older sister, told Mr. Moore that her parents were both outdoors but she would pass the message along to them.

The Children's Day Program at the Presbyterian Church was an annual event and began at approximately 8:00 p.m on Sunday evening June 9th. According to witnesses, Sarah Moore coordinated the exercises. All of the Moore children as well as the Stillinger girls participated. Josiah Moore sat in the congregation. The program ended at 9:30 pm and the Moore family, along with the Stillinger sisters, walked home from the church. They entered their home sometime between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m.

The following morning, at approximately 5:00 a.m., Mary Peckham, the Moore's next door neighbor stepped into her yard to hang laundry. At approximately 7:00 am. she realized that not only had the Moore's not been outside nor the chores began, but that the house itself seemed unusually still. Between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m., Mary Peckham approached the house and knocked on the door. When she received no response, she attempted to open the door only to find it locked from the inside. After letting out the Moore's chickens, Mary placed a call to Josiah's brother, Ross Moore, setting into place one of the most mismanaged murder investigations to ever be undertaken.

Upon arriving at the home of his brother, Ross Moore attempted to look in a bedroom window and then knocked on the door and shouted, attempting to raise someone inside the house. When that failed, he produced his keys and found one that opened the door. Although Mrs. Peckham followed him onto the porch, she did not enter the parlor. Ross went no farther than the room off the parlor.

When he opened the bedroom door, he saw two bodies on the bed and dark stains on the bedclothes. He returned immediately to the porch and told Mrs. Peckham to call the sheriff. The two bodies in the room downstairs were Lena Stillinger, age 12 and her sister Ina, age 8, houseguests of the Moore children. The remaining members of the Moore Family were found in the upstairs bedrooms by City Marshall Hank Horton who arrived shortly. Every person in the house had been brutally murdered, their skulls crushed as they slept. Josiah Moore, age 43, Sarah Montgomery Moore, age 39, Herman Moore, age 11, Katherine Moore, age 9, Boyd Moore, 7 and Paul Moore, 5 -as well as the Stillinger Sisters.

[thestorybehindthetale]

The Story Behind the ‘Camarillo State Hospital’

In 1932, the State of California purchased 1,760 acres (710 ha) of the Lewis ranch, located three miles south of the city of Camarillo, and established the Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Camarillo State Hospital was in use from 1936 to 1997. During the 1950s and 1960s, especially, the hospital was at the forefront of treating illnesses previously thought to be untreatable, for instance, developing drug and therapy procedures for schizophrenia. Programs initiated at Camarillo helped patients formerly relegated to institutions to leave the hospital and move to less restrictive group homes or become (at least nearly) independent. The hospital continued to be a leader in the research of drugs and therapies in subsequent years. They also had one of the first units of any hospital to deal with autism. A dairy was built adjacent to the hospital for the patients to grow vegetables and work with the animals as a form of therapy.

This hospital was also known to treat alcoholism. One of the former patients, Wilma Wilson, wrote "They Call Them Camisoles" (Lymanhouse, 1940) about her short stay in 1939. The "camisole" was referring to restraints that were used on some of the patients. Jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker stayed at the hospital in 1946 after a term in jail. His six-month stay inspired the tune "Relaxin' at Camarillo", which has become a bebop standard.

There was a youth program from 1947-1986 known as the Children's Treatment Center Complex. It was for 168 youth ages 7–18.

Violent criminals were typically housed at Atascadero State Hospital and not at Camarillo State Hospital. Sexually violent predators (SVPs) were housed at Atascadero State Hospital from the mid-1990s until beginning in September 2005, when they were transferred to the new Coalinga State Hospital built to house that population.

In January 1996, Governor Pete Wilson announced plans to close down the hospital by July 1997, citing low patient numbers and rising costs per patient. Various members of the community, family members of patients, and employees of Camarillo made several last-ditch efforts to keep the hospital open, arguing in part that current patients were already accustomed to the facility and questioned where they would go. Some tried to get mentally ill criminals placed in Camarillo in an effort to save it, a proposal that had come up several times before, but again community members were concerned of the risk of criminals escaping into the community.The hospital closed down in late June 1997, with the patients and research facilities moved to other locations. 

[thestorybehindthetale]

The Story Behind the ‘Clown Motel’

Stephen King once said 'Nobody likes a clown at midnight,' but if you're trucking through Nevada down the I-95 or I-6 and need a late-night rest stop you might not have a choice.

That's because the interstate road happens to play home to what may be America's creepiest spot for an overnight stay: The Clown Motel, which houses hundreds of pale-faced, grinning clowns in its lobby, and also uses them for decoration on the bedroom doors.

And just to complete the Stephen King 'IT-meets-The-Shining' vibe, it's located in Tonopah, a town infested with black cats, and is located just next to an old cemetery.

Would you stay here?

Despite - or perhaps because of - its uniquely creepy decor, the Clown Motel most commonly plays host to bikers and truckers passing down the I-95, which connects Oregon to Southern California, and the I-6, which can be used to get from California to Utah and Idaho.

The main lobby features shelves lined with hundreds of glassy-eyed dolls and pottery statues, and a love-sized clown in the chair to cozy up to.

The front desk also sells red noses for when you give up fighting the gnawing terror of the grotesque decor and decide to join 'em instead.

Even the cleaning man wears clown pants.

But those with coulrophobia - the fear of clowns, of course - might still be able to get a good night's sleep, if they can bear to step foot on the property at all.

That's because the interiors of the rooms only have pictures of clowns, not dolls, and they can be covered up on request.

But the creepiness doesn't end there: The site next to the hotel is a cemetery where 300 people have been buried beneath leaning crosses and tin signs.

Several of those interned there died of a mysterious plague in 1902, and 14 of them were miners who died in a fire in 1911.

And the town has a number of ghost sites nearby, including the Mizpah Hotel, according to the Pahrump Valley Times - although even that is surely not as creepy as the Clown Motel.

[thestorybehindthetale]

The Story Behind ‘Annabelle’

Annabelle is real.

One of the creepiest parts of the truly scary The Conjuring is the evil possessed doll Annabelle, who makes up the cornerstone of Ed and Lorraine Warren's spooky museum of trophies. Director James Wan redesigned Annabelle for the movie, giving her a much more disturbing appearance, but in real life Annabelle was just your run of the mill Raggedy Ann doll.

Donna got Annabelle from her mother in 1970; mom bought the used doll at a hobby store. Donna was a college student at the time, and living with a roommate named Angie, and at first neither thought the doll was anything special. But over time they noticed Annabelle seemed to move on her own; at first it was really subtle, just changes in position, the kinds of things that could be written off as the doll being jostled. But the movement increased, and within a few weeks it seemed to become fully mobile. The girls would leave the apartment with Annabelle on Donna's bed and return home to find it on the couch.

Their friend Lou hated the doll. He thought there was something deeply wrong with it, something evil, but the girls were modern women and didn't believe that sort of thing. There must be an explanation, they reasoned. But soon Annabelle's actions got even weirder - Donna began to find pieces of parchment paper in the house with messages written on it. "Help us," they would say, or "Help Lou." Just to make the whole thing that much creepier nobody in the house had parchment paper. Where the hell was it coming from?

The escalation continued. One night Donna returned home to find Annabelle in her bed, with blood on her hands. The blood - or some sort of red liquid - seemed to be coming from the doll itself. That was enough; Donna finally agreed to bring in a medium. The sensitive sat with the doll and told the girls that long before their apartment complex had been built there had been a field on that property. A seven year old girl named Annabelle Higgins had been found dead in that field. Her spirit remained, and when the doll came into the house the girl latched on to it. She found Donna and Angie to be trustworthy. She just wanted to stay with them. She wanted to be safe with them.

Being sweet, nurturing types - they were both nursing students - Donna and Angie agreed to let Annabelle stay with them. And that's when all hell broke loose.

Lou started having bad dreams, dreams where Annabelle was in his bed, climbing up his leg as he lay frozen, sliding up his chest to his neck and closing her stuffed hands around his throat, choking him out. He would wake up terrified, head pounding like all blood had been cut off to his brain. He was freaking out. He was worried about the girls.

A few days later he and Angie were hanging out, planning a road trip, when they heard someone moving around in Donna's room. They froze - was it a break in? Was there an intruder in the apartment? Lou crept over to the door, listening to rustling within. He threw open the door and everything was as it should be - except Annabelle was off the bed and sitting in a corner. As he approached the doll Lou was consumed with that feeling, a burning on the back of the neck that indicates someone was staring at you and he spun around. Nobody was there. The room was empty. And then sudden pain on his chest. He looked in his shirt and saw a series of raking claw marks, rough ditches in his flesh that burned. He knew Annabelle had done it.

The weird claw marks began healing almost immediately. They were totally gone in two days. They were like no wounds any of them had ever seen before. They knew they needed more help, and they turned to an Episcopalian priest, who in turned called in Ed and Lorraine Warren.

It didn't take the Warrens long to come to their conclusion: there was no ghost in this case. There was an inhuman spirit - a demon - attached to the doll. But they warned that the doll wasn't possessed; demons don't possess things, only people. It was clinging to the doll, manipulating it, in order to give the impression of a haunting. The target was really Donna's soul.

A priest performed an exorcism on the apartment and the Warrens took possession of the doll. They put it in a bag and began the long drive home; Ed agreed to stay off the highways because there was a concern that the demon might fuck with the car, and at 65 miles an hour that would be disastrous. And sure enough, as they drove on the back roads, the engine kept cutting out, the power steering kept failing and even the brakes gave them trouble. Ed opened the bag, sprinkled the doll with holy water and the disturbances stopped... for the moment.

Ed left the doll next to his desk; it began levitating. That happened a couple of times and then it seemed to just quit, finally laying quiet. But in a couple of weeks Annabelle was back to her old tricks; she started appearing in different rooms in the Warren home. Sensing that the doll was ramping back up the Warrens called in a Catholic priest to exorcise Annabelle. The priest didn't take it seriously, telling Annabelle "You're just a doll. You can't hurt anyone!" Big mistake: on his way home the priest's brakes failed, and his car was totaled in a horrible accident. He survived.

Eventually the Warrens built a locked case for Annabelle, and she resides there to this day. The locked case seems to have kept the doll from moving around, but it seems like that whatever terrible entity is attached to it is still there, waiting. Biding its time. Ready for the day when it can again be free.