Devil in the Delta (12 page)

It's also much more acceptable to admit you actually work in the paranormal field, you are a ghost hunting enthusiast, or that you have a haunting. Of course this openness has also created a whole new marketing strategy for a number of places (the haunted tourist stop) and created rock stars out of certain televised paranormal groups, but you take the good with the bad, right?

That said, I doubted that the “reveal” at the Martin trailer would be anything like the shows on television.

Making a Few Calls

The evidence we gathered during our first night at the trailer, coupled with some of our personal experiences, seemed to confirm that the place was haunted. Whether or not any of the entities could be considered “nonhuman,” though, was still up in the air. I had found nothing that would support this (and I couldn't seriously consider the moth)—though if I were to take the possessions seriously, this type of event would be more likely to occur with such a presence in the trailer. I decided this would be a good question to ask some clergy.

Not surprisingly, as soon as I started contacting various churches in Joanne's area, it became clear that nobody was interested in visiting the trailer. The home was square in the middle of Baptist/Pentecostal country, and the idea of blessing a haunted trailer was simply a nonstarter.

I kept searching, though, and while looking on the internet I came across an interesting blog that was written by a Catholic priest named Father Joe Jenkins (his real name), who is the pastor of the Holy Family Church and a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.

Father Joe had written an article about the infamous possession case portrayed in the movie
The Exorcist
and seemed quite knowledgeable on the subject. Furthermore, he actually knew one of the priests involved with that case. After reading his articles on possession, I decided to contact him for some advice concerning the episodes involving Tim, even though I knew I might not get a reply from him before heading back to Mississippi (or at all).

In the meantime, my search for a home blessing had paid off. I received an email from a minister I'll call “Frank” who serviced a Unitarian church in Alabama. He was open to the possibility of hauntings and ghosts and was more than willing to visit Joanne's home to bless it. I thanked him (and my lucky stars) and decided to make another call: to the sheriff's office where Joanne lived.

After much explaining to the amusement of the deputy on call at the sheriff's office, I managed to get a few pieces of information about the Martin home and family:

1. The trailer was known locally for being haunted. According to this deputy, stories about the ghosts there were spread by local kids who heard first-hand tales from (probably) Julie. As a result, not
   all
   the rocks and the like thrown at the trailer were done by invisible hands.
   
2. Officers had, indeed, responded to several calls at the residence—including a night where two squad cars were sitting in Joanne's driveway getting bombarded by rocks that came from nowhere. The angry officers quickly scouted the area, flashlights in hand, looking for the perpetrators, but could find no one. They even called out a fire unit that brought along a thermal camera, hoping to see the heat signature of someone hiding in the trees. But nobody was there and the rocks still came.
   
3. The officer also confirmed the area's history of racial violence. In the not-too-distant past, quite a few people had turned up missing or dead there. As he asked me more about this subject, I realized I had gotten very few specifics concerning “John” or what may have happened to him. I resolved to correct this when I returned to the trailer.
   

Not long after getting this information, I received an email from Father Joe Jenkins, the priest I had contacted. He told me some interesting things …

The Exorcist

Whether or not most people know it, the case of possession that's portrayed in the movie
The Exorcist
is a true one. Only it didn't involve a young girl. The real victim was a young boy who lived in Cottage City, Maryland. Author Peter Blatty read about the case in the local paper there and then went on to write his best-selling book about the subject.

More recently, author Thomas B. Allen penned a book titled
Possessed
that details the actual events surrounding the real exorcism of the boy from Maryland. Though this book is, in itself, quite riveting reading, I picked up a copy for an entirely different reason.

Though I was interested in reading the book, I was mostly intrigued by the “diary” that was kept by the performers of the original exorcism during their ritual. This diary is included in the back of the book
Possessed
for everyone to read. And riveting stuff it is.

According to the book, after the boy consulted with a local priest in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, concerning the strange things that were happening to him, he actually traveled with his mother to St. Louis, Missouri, to undergo the ritual of exorcism. During this ceremony, the Jesuit priests involved (Fathers Bishop, Bowdern, and Halloran) documented what happened in the diary. I was curious how many of the documented “symptoms” of possession, as well as personal experiences that occurred during the exorcism, would apply to Tim and his episodes.

Interestingly, there were a few parallel events. Specifically, the young boy was initially plagued by the sounds of scratching in the floor/walls of his bedroom and objects that seemed to move around him of their own accord. Both of these things had happened in the Martin home—with Tim present in the living room.

When the clergy looked into the background of the boy's household, there was evidence that an aunt who was into Spiritualism had used a Ouija board on the premises, and also possibly held a séance. These were elements that, to my knowledge, did not occur in the Martin property, though I would specifically find out on my return visit.

Also, the boy would go on to experience his bed vibrating/banging and priests attending the boy would witness pieces of heavy furniture moving by themselves. Again, this was just a little
too
close to the furniture/bed flying about the master bedroom at the Martin trailer for my taste. But that was where the comparisons stopped, since Tim had never remained for any length of time in a possessed state.

Father Joe Jenkins had mentioned much of this information on his website, as well as debunked many of the myths that now surround the famous possession case (mostly due to the sensational nature of the movie). Luckily, the priest had found the time to respond to the email I had sent him regarding the Martin case and the possible possession there.

In his email to me, he wrote that, “Various elements you describe are familiar,” in reference to the events surrounding Tim's bouts of possession, and then he related to me something that I did not know.

According to Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist to the diocese of Rome, most (if not all) hauntings have a demonic element to them. He states that these demons delight in mimicking the dead and that the more the family dwells/obsesses on the ghost/demon, the more power it has. Gulp.

I had also asked the priest in my email whether or not he believed in the famous exorcism case portrayed in the movie/book, and whether he thought the boy was, indeed, actually possessed, as many have claimed. Not only did Father Joe think the boy was possessed, but he personally knew a priest in Maryland who was involved with the case and who was forever changed by what he had witnessed from the boy.

While I was digesting all of this information, a strange thought suddenly struck me. Didn't the movie
The Exorcist II: The Heretic
have a moth in it? I took a trip to my local movie store, bought the movie, and gave it a watch—and, sure enough, the demon in the movie would often fly around as an insect (I couldn't tell if it was a moth or not, but it sure looked like one).

Could the exorcist movies be influencing Tim and Joanne's opinion of their haunting? If they were, this wouldn't be a first. As I previously mentioned, rectories all over the country were flooded with false possession cases when the original movie was screened.

It was obvious that this case wasn't getting any easier. As amazing as the eyewitness accounts were with the Martin case, it was clear that I would have to be open to the possibility that they could be experiencing exactly what they claimed.

Planning a Second Trip

Armed with all this new information and having arranged for a blessing of the home, I felt like I could now return to the Martin household. Despite the opinion of Father Amorth, I still decided to avoid any reference to possession, exorcism, or infestation regarding this case.

I feared that if the investigation spiraled down this path, things could go very bad, very fast. I was barely able to arrange a house blessing, so I didn't want to imagine the difficulty involved with getting a Catholic priest to the home to investigate the possible need for an exorcism (if the ritual could even be done for a non-Catholic).

I was convinced a blessing would put the Martin family's minds at ease and that despite the evidence I had gotten, they could come to terms with the idea of ghost or two residing on their property.

Unfortunately, it would take a few weeks to make the return voyage into the delta and a few things would change in the Martin household. It was also at this time that I started experiencing some strange activity myself …

[contents]

6

Trouble at Home

As I mentioned earlier, I once lived in a house with a mild haunting. And though the ghost there did little to indicate its presence, I always lived with the knowledge that it was, indeed, there.

Over the years, though, I slowly became accustomed to my unseen guest—especially when I looked at the whole situation as a mystery that needed to be solved. But, unfortunately, having a ghost wasn't the only unexplainable thing to happen to me while living in this house.

In addition to having a resident spirit in my bedroom, two other events took place while I lived in Scott City, Missouri, that could be labeled as being paranormal. The first of these happened to be a recurring incident that investigators over the years have dubbed “getting hagged.”

Since ancient times, people have reported experiencing the feeling of waking up from their sleep during the night and being unable to move. In many countries, this condition is called “Old Hag Syndrome.” This is due to traditional folklore that tells of an old woman who would visit people during the night and sit upon their chest as they slept. According to these stories, this old woman was typically a demon who would use this opportunity to leech the life from her victims. It is this very legend that has spawned such creatures as succubae, incubi, and vampires. And it is the Old Hag who is said to ride her victims much like a “night mare”—a term that is still used today to describe a particularly nasty dream.

Prior to living in the haunted house in Scott City, I had never experienced this condition. But not long after moving in, I started being hagged on a regular basis—about once every other week.

It is a horrible affair—especially to children. I remember waking up, being unable to move, but aware of everything going on around me. I could hear the silence of the room (itself a powerful and heavy thing), feel the bed beneath me, and even smell familiar scents. But I could not move at all. This would have been bad enough, but the attack did not end with just that. Oh, no. There was more.

In addition to being paralyzed, there was also the overwhelming sensation of a presence being in the room with me. It did not specifically feel as if something was sitting on me, as the legend suggests, but in my mind I knew there was something in my bedroom with me. And it wasn't pleasant.

What's more, I could sense that it was moving, approaching the bed. This was when things got terrifying. I would try to cry out, but my voice would not cooperate. Eventually, if I was scared enough or the presence got too close, I would suddenly snap out of the ordeal. I would wake up with a jerk and sit up in the bed in a cold sweat.

After experiencing this very event many times, I soon began to dread going to sleep. It was bad enough that the closet door would eventually open by itself, but now I had to worry about some mysterious entity that paralyzed me in my bed at night! Back then I did not have the information that I have now about hagging; all I knew was that my room was a hall of terror when the lights went out.

These days, scientists have correlated Old Hag Syndrome with a medical condition called “sleep paralysis,” but paranormal investigators have learned (including me) that people who live in haunted locations seem particularly afflicted by this malady. Could it be that this sensation is not always a simple medical condition? Maybe there's a little bit more to do with this syndrome than meets the eye—something that gives a bit of credence to all the old tales. Something that science simply cannot explain away.

When my family moved from the haunted place in Scott City, I never had another hagging incident. Not once in the remainder of my childhood. Not once in my adult life. That is to say, I
didn't
have any further haggings until I visited the Martin place …

Nightmares, Etc.

While I was involved with and investigating the Martin case, I was also experiencing a few life changes of my own. I had recently moved into my first house (that I owned) along with my wife, and now we were going to have our first child.

So, needless to say, reviewing all the evidence from my investigation, as well as coordinating my visits to Mississippi, was being juggled with all the mundane logistics involved with maintaining a new place and preparing for a baby. Somehow, I managed to get through all of this—but not without experiencing some strange evenings in the new house.

Not long after finishing my review of all the footage captured during my first visit and planning the details of my second visit to the Martin home, I woke one night to an all-too-familiar sensation. It was a hagging—though slightly different from those I had experienced as a young man. I still could not move, and I was still aware of everything in the room (such as my wife lying beside me), but there was no fear. There also didn't seem to be anything in the room with me. Or at least I didn't sense anything.

When the event was over, I simply sat up, shook off the heebie-jeebies, and took a long look around the empty room. Maybe it was a product of being “all grown up,” but it wasn't quite the horrible experience that I remembered having as a child. But this wouldn't be the end of it.

This experience happened a couple of times and eventually culminated in one strange evening. On this particular night, I had a relatively nasty nightmare. I can't remember the specifics, but it had something to do with an intruder in my house. I have a nightly habit of personally checking every door (wherever I am) before I go to sleep, so I can remember thinking in my sleep, “I know I locked all the doors. How did someone get in?”

The dream must not have lasted long, though, because I woke up not long after falling asleep, once again, to the strange feeling of paralysis. But this time, by sheer willpower, I snapped almost instantly out of it, jerking up in the bed. Now, believe it or not, here's the weird part …

For a moment, when I first woke up, I could have sworn that I saw the silhouette of a short person (perhaps a child) standing beside my side of the bed. I instantly jerked away from the figure, which woke my sleeping wife. She asked what was wrong, I mumbled something about a bad dream, and she immediately dozed off to sleep again. Sleep took a bit longer for me, however.

Why was I suddenly experiencing these things again? I was relatively sure I hadn't moved into a new haunted place, so I assumed I was simply having nightmares because of being in a new house, the combined stress of moving, and expecting a baby. And, certainly, the evidence I had captured at the Martin trailer was weighing on me (as well as the prospect of returning there to explain it all to Joanne).

But I had no reason to believe that a ghost, or anything else paranormal for that matter, had followed me home. Though many investigators believe that spirits can follow a living person to a new place, I could not imagine any spirit wanting to follow me home (though my wife has always jokingly warned me to not bring home ghosts from the cases I investigate). And I certainly didn't feel like I was obsessing over the subject of ghosts or demons.

It was all quite perplexing and before long I began to question whether or not I had actually seen a figure by the bed. “Maybe I was still asleep and dreaming somehow,” I would tell myself. But I knew otherwise.

Experience has taught me that when a person has some-
thing unexplainable and/or terrifying happen to them, that person's mind will immediately begin to doubt what was witnessed. Sometimes within hours, a person will even recant their own eyewitness account and write it all off as a mistake or imagination at work.

During the interviews at the Martin trailer, Tim (aka Hot Boy) had said something about one of the entities there that had stuck with me. “It won't let you sleep,” he said. “It constantly messes with you, messes with your head.”

In the end, I decided to chalk up the whole affair as a product of me delving into the Martin case too intently and working far too many hours. Since I was re-experiencing a paranormal event from my past, though, I began to wonder if another type of activity would start to reoccur as well …

Corner Demons

As I mentioned above, there were two additional, strange things that happened while I was living in the haunted home in Scott City, Missouri. The second concerns the subject of “corner demons.”

I don't remember where I first heard the term—though I believe it was actually at a church I went to with a friend (a Church of God or Church of Christ, I do believe). The gist of it is this: supposedly, every single person who walks the Earth has a guardian angel and a demon that is assigned to watch over them, and these beings have the ability to influence our decisions on a daily basis.

According to the spinner of this yarn, it is said that we can, on occasion, actually catch a glimpse of one of these entities—though to look directly at it would mean instant madness. I, of course, queried how this was possible. I was given this example:

Have you ever been watching television or reading a book and you thought you saw something move out of the corner of your eye? That was one of your assignees. It simply stopped moving for a moment and you noticed it. Because of this apparent ability to see these creatures out of the corner of our eye, they are simply called corner demons (since nobody is particularly afraid of angels, the story deals mainly with the demon side of things).

According to the same tale, if you were to accidentally see one of these so-called corner demons straight on (especially if you saw or looked right into its face), you would go insane from fright.

I was immediately intrigued by all this information, though nobody I knew had ever heard of such a thing. This was because I often saw dark shapes out of the corner of my eyes while I lived in the old, haunted house. And after hearing the story, I always wondered if, someday, I would accidentally find myself staring face to face with some demonic entity.

Over the years since I first heard this story, I've never managed to find anything else out about corner demons. For all I know, this was just a spooky yarn made up by the preacher at that particular church.

Today, seeing dark shapes out of the corner of your eye or anywhere else (sometimes in the shape of an actual person) is a common paranormal experience—especially in haunted locations. Sometimes they are called shadow people or black masses, but investigators tend to have a great deal of disagreement concerning the nature of these beings. Are they evil? Or are they simply another form a spirit can take on after death?

Since I have little faith in the existence of demons, I have always chosen to believe that these dark entities are just another type of ghost—the spirit of someone who has passed on from this life. Or it's a bug or some other common thing that we are all glimpsing out of the corner of our eye! I certainly do not think all these things we are seeing are demons or the Devil.

But, as mentioned before, it does not mean that I'm not afraid of the Devil. Like most who have grown up in a Christian household, I have a particular fear of just such a being. And I definitely do not want to have any kind of run-in with such a thing. This is mostly for the obvious reasons, but this is also because I have had a personal experience concerning the Devil in the past.

A Sad Tale of Warning

As with the Martin family and other people mentioned in this book, I will keep the names associated with the story I'm about to tell anonymous. The details of the sordid tale I will tell here, though, are entirely and verifiably true—much to my everlasting dismay.

This story takes place when I was nineteen years old and dating a local girl in Scott City I'll call “Tara.” She was much like any other American teenage girl, but her sister—I'll call her “Sarah”—was someone altogether different. Tara still lived at home along with her family, but Sarah was living on her own in a mobile home with her young daughter “Tiffany.”

Since the father of Tiffany was in prison (no lie), it was just Sarah living alone in the trailer with the baby. For most folks, this would pose no problem, but Sarah was not most folks.

First of all, Sarah was quite popular with the local male population—even while she was married. Second of all, she liked to party—often and hard. And while she did take care of her baby, all of us who knew Sarah still had to wonder why she tended to get drunk so much around her child. Of course, being nineteen and unable to legally drink myself, Sarah's trailer was a sort of illicit wonderland for Tara and me.

On many a night, Tara and I would hang out at Sarah's trailer to party with the older folks, and then I would walk Tara home to make sure she was there by her curfew. On the particular night of this story, we had done just this, but unlike other nights, I would return to the trailer to sleep until morning. This was because I was planning to meet a friend there early in the morning to go to a job interview with me. (We were both attempting to get employment at the same place). And it was easier to just crash there than it was to go home.

After I had walked Tara home, I returned to the trailer to find the aftermath of a party that had clearly gone to sky-high proportions. Amidst the beer bottles, half-eaten bags of chips, and cigarette butts lying around the place, Sarah sat in a drunken heap on the floor beside a small bassinet that contained baby Tiffany.

I told Sarah that I was going to get some sleep for my interview the following day, but Sarah told me that there was a couple already sleeping in the spare bedroom. This was no big deal, however, as I had crashed on her couch more than a few times in the past.

But as I made myself comfortable on the sofa for some sleep, Sarah suddenly became agitated and quite animated. She crawled around on the floor like a mad woman, babbling about how “some day” she was going to get away from everything and everyone and have it made. I attempted to ignore her, hoping she would eventually wind down from her drunken state and go to sleep, but soon she was crawling right up to me on the couch and ranting even more.