Haunted Home

Location: Private Residence; Centerton, AR

Date: May 26, 2012

The entire SPI crew (Don, Beverly, Hayley, John, Samantha, and myself) made a trip to Centerton, Arkansas to investigate a private residence.  The house was purchased several years ago during foreclosure.  It was the old, run-down “haunted house” of the town, and they have since done extensive renovations.  The homeowners and their children told us of numerous paranormal occurrences during their time in the house, some minor (like noises), some more severe (like one of the children being “clawed” in the back).  Unfortunately, they could not tell us much about the house’s history, as most of it is unknown.

We arrived at the residence with plenty of daylight still available and were given a tour of the two-story house and its deep back yard, which goes back at least a hundred yards and contains numerous old buildings, most in shambles, that most recently have been used as chicken coops—but they almost certainly housed people at one time, probably for the nearby railroad.

Our investigation began shortly before dark and yielded several interesting occurrences.  Unfortunately, all but the first hour of our video footage was lost from the DVR, and we came away with very little tangible evidence.

The night’s first event came in the front upstairs bedroom.  Samantha and I entered the room and asked any possible presence to reveal itself.  A couple of seconds later, the door (which I had shut but not latched) creaked open a couple of inches.  I shut it and asked the presence to do it again.  And it did.  Later in the night, we turned off the upstairs fan to rule out the possibility of the door being moved by a draft.  Not only did the door once again open, it shut as well, with considerable force.  It’s hard to say with certainty that this phenomenon was paranormal in nature—the house is old, and old houses have creaking, uneven doors—but many aspects of it, such as it seeming to open upon request, were certainly strange.  It should also be noted that we kept our eye on the door all night via an infrared camera, and it did not move again, despite being left unlatched. In the first hour of footage that survived on our DVR, we were able to capture the door opening once. This video can be seen below.

Most of the night’s other events occurred upstairs as well.  In the oldest daughter’s bedroom, Hayley and my parents asked a series of questions to any possible presence and asked it to communicate with them by turning a flashlight on and off.  They learned that the presence in this room was apparently something the residents called a “shadow man.” 

In the living room area outside the two upstairs bedrooms, a door creaked when there was no one in the area.  And about this same time, Hayley and my parents again used the flashlight method to communicate with a spirit that turned out to be that of a seven-year-old girl.  My dad narrowed her age down by asking her if she was younger than ten but older than five.  And the flashlight came on strong when my mom asked if she was seven. A few days after our investigation, the homeowner found out through historical research that the original property owners (the Womacks) had in fact lost a daughter who was between 7 and 8 years old to typhoid.

The night’s only event to not take place upstairs occurred outside, at the edge of a ravine beyond the back of the property.  My dad and I hiked back to this location once it was dark outside because the homeowners had mentioned that a train used to run through this ravine.  We did not see or hear any sign of a train, but we did hear something in the woods across the ravine from us.  It was a noise that almost sounded like rushing water—or perhaps a very large animal crashing through the brush.  It came and went several times, and it was most certainly not caused by birds or wind and seemed even stranger because the noise often occurred when my dad asked it to.

The house was active and definitely worth our time.  We regrettably did not come away from it with large amounts of evidence, but we did have several interesting encounters.  The residents were kind in letting us into their home, and perhaps they’ll allow us back in the future for a follow-up investigation.

Mitch.