By Mindi Westhoff/staff
WAYNESBORO ? On a cold January evening, Janet Howdyshell sat in the dark alone. With a video camera pointed into the darkness, Howdyshell asked questions to a seemingly empty room.
?Is someone there??
?Are you a child??
The room remained silent, as it would for several hours.
But Howdyshell didn?t mind, because she rarely gets answers ? at least not right away.
ADVERTISEMENT
Like her fellow Supernatural Investigators of Virginia members, Howdyshell spent her
Saturday night searching for answers at a brick house on South Delphine Drive.
Having been there once before, the group returned hoping to find someone: Chester.
How it all began
Designated the ?Red House? by its owner, 179 S. Delphine Ave. is somewhat of a local legend in Waynesboro.
Having always wanted to ?flip? a house, Debbie Fordham and her husband snatched up the brick house, slapped on a few coats of paint and turned it into a home.
?We just fell in love with it,? she said.
But after placing it back on the market, Fordham noticed some strange things going on.
First, the circuit breakers turned off.
?Not tripped,? she said firmly. ?Physically turned off, and the breaker box is under the house.?
Then, Fordham came home to find the attic door hanging open, just one day after it had been replaced. Too high to reach without a chair and with no chair to be found, Fordham began to get curious.
When an entire light fixture fell from the ceiling with no provocation, Fordham decided to ask around.
Joking to her neighbor that she thought her new home was haunted, Fordham was surprised when her neighbor immediately responded, ?You mean the two-story brick house on Delphine??
Days later, Fordham stumbled across the Supernatural Investigators of Virginia. And on Dec. 29, the one-year anniversary of the Red House?s purchase, the ghost hunters came to visit.
Looking for answers
?On a scale of one to 10, one that it?s definitely not haunted, put me at about a three,? Fordham said.
Fordham was up front with the investigators about her skepticism, but, as she soon realized, they shared her tendency toward suspicion.
?They operate with a reasonable amount of skepticism,? she said.
Armed with infrared cameras, digital voice recorders, electromagnetic frequency meters, thermometers, motion detectors and snacks to last all night, the ghost hunters combed the house for any evidence of paranormal activity.
Mostly set up in the upstairs hallway, the spot where most strange occurrences took place, the investigation went by with little phenomena.
Out of curiosity, the group did pull out dousing rods, which told them there had been a fire in an upstairs closet, and that three children had died. Fordham commented that the closet did have a blackened ceiling, but she didn?t think much of it.
?We figured black meant mildew, but could it have been a fire?? Fordham said. ?Maybe.?
But, as most paranormal researchers will tell you, dousing rods are not enough proof on their own of supernatural activity. It wasn?t until they listened to their tapes that they got the real evidence.
Since most of the group hovered around the places Fordham had reported incidents ? the upstairs hallway and bedrooms ? the audio and tape recorders in the downstairs living room stayed relatively unmanned.
So, when the group reviewed the audio and discovered a raspy voice whispering ?Chester,? ?Hello,? and a mention of someone named ?Bogs,? they couldn?t find an explanation.
Group member Rhonda Steele had the honor of calling Fordham back.
?It was so weird to hear Rhonda?s voice on the phone (saying,) ?Do you want it to be haunted or not??? Fordham said. ?How do you answer a question like that??
Returning to the Red House
When SIVA returned on Jan. 20, they knew what they were looking for: Chester and a child. Now confident the house was haunted, they combed the living room for more
information.
With Howdyshell manning the upstairs video camera, SIVA co-founder Tracey Burnett taking digital photos in the living room, Lana Fuller measuring the electromagnetic frequency, Rhonda Steele on the dousing rods and Puffenbarger and Dan Burnett fine-tuning equipment, the group waited intensely for some action.
?I would love for something to happen, just to verify it for myself,? Dan Burnett said.
With the new knowledge that a child?s spirit may be present, group members used some new tactics.
?Sometimes in investigations, we use things called target objects ? things we put out to see if we can get them to move,? Puffenbarger said.
In this case, it was a green stuffed dinosaur, but Puffenbarger said the group often uses candy, coins or other toys to attract different types of spirits.
But after hours of work, the investigation ended pretty much like the first. It wasn?t until the group reviewed their audio footage that they discovered Chester had returned.
Just as clearly as the first time, the group picked up a sound snippet of the name, along with an indecipherable child?s voice and the name ?Shawn.?
Burnett said the group has no plans to return to the house yet, but they are trying to find history on any fires and former owners of the 179 S. Delphine Ave. house.
http://www.newsleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 17001/1002
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
