Devil in the Delta (15 page)

I, of course, found this hard to believe. While some folks may be a little to blame for getting into ghosts too much, I have yet to meet anyone who would willingly wish demonic infestation upon themselves! And on another note, the book that detailed the particulars of the séance was
Possessed
, not
The Exorcist
. Would Joanne even know there was a second book about the story? I doubted it.

So the family had done a séance in the trailer. Was Marilyn Monroe now haunting the trailer along with the rest of the ghosts there? Yeah, right … Could the specter of Emily have “come through” while they were attempting to speak to Marilyn? Possibly. With my brain now reeling with the various elements affecting this case, I decided to wrap up for the night. I would need several days back in the comfort of my own home to decipher all the information I had ingested over the evening—not to mention to go over all the data I had collected.

Blessing the Home

Though I would already be on the road back to Memphis when the minister visited the trailer for the blessing the following day, I would hear all about the experience from Terri via telephone. Once Frank had finished his duties at the local church on Sunday, he joined the Mississippi group at the trailer and, once again, talked with Joanne about the blessing.

When he had finished explaining how he would go about the task, he began making his way room to room throughout the trailer, stopping to bless each individual area. According to Terri and Patricia, everything was going pretty much as expected until Frank saw something strange for himself.

He had just stepped into the hallway that leads back to the second family room (the “magic room”) when he saw a large, black shape—possibly a figure—move into that area. He didn't want to alarm Joanne, so he said nothing, but when he got to that particular room and performed the blessing there, he actually witnessed the large, black mass move up from the floor and pass through the ceiling!

This was startling, but he continued blessing the home and managed to finish up without another incident occurring. So, after a few quick goodbyes, he was on his way with a nice, scary story to tell of his own experience in the Martin residence.

I asked Terri if Frank had placed any significance to the black mass moving, seemingly, out of the trailer. She said that Frank had not indicated any special significance. I thanked her and hung up my phone. I would have to email Frank again once I was home to get his thoughts about the affair.

Did the exiting mass mean at least one of the spirits left? Or was the entity simply avoiding the clergyman who was reading scripture in the room? Who knows? Ironically, it wasn't long after the blessing that Joanne told the Mississippi team that the place was still haunted; she said that she was on her way down the driveway to pick up her mail the day following the blessing when she heard the sounds of gravel falling around her and all-too-familiar footsteps following her …

[contents]

8

Getting Clarity

I returned home even more confused than usual. Tired and confused. The two investigations at the Martin home had turned up a mixed batch of conflicting information and nothing seemed to strictly adhere to any one type of paranormal activity. With my head spinning from all of the possibilities, I decided it might be best to make a pro/con list concerning the question, “Is the Martin trailer haunted?”

Grabbing a pen and paper, I sat down and began to tally up the facts that supported the idea that something of a paranormal nature was happening on the property. Here are the pro-haunting things I came up with:

1. Multiple witnesses had seen and heard things in the trailer that are typically associated with a haunting. And while I could discount some of the testimony (especially the possibly drug-induced eyewitness accounts), activity was also witnessed by seasoned paranormal investigators—including myself! These things included objects moving (such as the utensil flying through the air), disembodied voices, and sightings of an apparition (the ghost girl in the window and several instances of a shadowy figure/shape).
   
2. Evidence gathered at the trailer seemed to support the idea that something paranormal is happening. Though I couldn't reliably call the photograph taken of the “face” paranormal, I had captured at least two voices—one male, one female—on audio during my first investigation. And the audio of the loud rumble can be debated by no one!
   
3. The Martin family history, as well as local history, supports the idea that something traumatic (possibly murder) may have happened on the property. With the area being a hotbed for racially driven crime in the past—and local law enforcement confirming that the neighboring forest was once a popular spot for such activity—it is definitely within the realm of possibility that a “John” could have been murdered there. And Joanne herself admitted that members of her family were entirely capable of committing such an atrocity.
   
4. Joanne confirmed that in the past there had been a séance, the use of a Ouija board, and occult/magic rituals all performed in the trailer. As documented during my visit, there were still items related to these activities on the premises. This included the Ouija board drawn on the bathroom floor, herbs used for magical purposes, the presence of incense (one expressly used for exorcism), a ward/mandala hanging on a wall, and a magic wand carved with some sort of runes.
   
5. Several types of rare activity most likely occurred at the site. These acts included the phantom rock-throwing that was witnessed by deputies, materialization of objects such as coins (which happened at least twice) and the watch that appeared in the master bedroom, and the spontaneous combustion that sent the television set into flames and then through one of the front windows—though that act was not paranormal.
   

These seemed to be the five strongest arguments for a haunting taking place in the Martin property. Before moving on to the cons, though, I decided to make a “maybe” list. This list would itemize the events and occurrences that were alleged, but not much in the way of evidence seemed to support them. Here are the maybes:

1. A young girl named Emily could be haunting the house. Though a female face had been witnessed peering in one window—and I had EVPs of a female voice—there was nothing that definitively pointed to an entity being a child named Emily. Furthermore, there was no supporting evidence of any Emily drowning in the area. All the information regarding an Emily came from Julie and Julie alone.
   
2. Julie's father Keith could be haunting the house. Anything to do with Keith came from “feelings” that the residents there had; they
   felt
   like Keith was there protecting his daughter. And all information/details provided about Keith being in the trailer came from an entirely unreliable witness: Tim. I had captured a few EVPs of a male voice—but there was no way to know if the voice was Keith, John, or simply some other male entity (there's no telling how many Martin family members had perished on the family land over the decades).
   
3. Several types of activity had happened only once or twice and/or were unable to be documented or recorded. These events included the strange scents of rotten eggs and feces that had appeared during the worst of the activity, but also included all the instances I detailed where something happened with only a single person in the home to see it.
   

Now came the cons—the things that hurt the case for the Martin family experiencing a haunting. They are few, but they are big ones …

1. Joanne Martin. She is her own worst enemy. She had conveniently left out key pieces of information throughout the investigation, she had seemingly drawn upon events from horror movies to build support for her home being haunted (such an instance would be the demonic moth incident), and worst of all, she clearly had at least contributed to her own situation by allowing her family to indulge in séances, the use of a makeshift Ouija board and incenses, and the like. But worse than all this, she wanted to capitalize on what was, according to her, terrifying her family. This was confirmed by her interest in wanting to shoot a movie about her family's ordeal—even if it was for a good reason (improving her family's financial situation, etc.).
   
2. The use of drugs. With paraphernalia littering the home, it was obvious that some members of the household were quite probably under the influence of drugs when some (or all) of the activity was happening in the trailer. How reliable could such people be as witnesses? I hoped that Julie and Katie were free of such influences, but nobody else in the household could be ruled out in this regard.
   
3. Conflicting information and rarity of activity. While this cannot definitively be called a “con,” it still has to be noted as a negative aspect of this case. Interviews with the members of the household had brought to light aspects of poltergeist activity, possessions, and (possibly) demonic activity, and even suggested that multiple types of sometimes extremely rare activity were occurring in the home (as mentioned above). How could one double-wide trailer in the heart of the Mississippi delta have so much going on? Was it possible?
   

Just writing down all this information and detailing
what I had gathered from my two trips was cathartic. Though I still had no explanation for what was happening at the Martin property, it was nice having all the facts and details listed in front of me. I felt like I could now move forward and take a look at the audio, photographic, and video data that I had collected during my second visit.

Since I had been limited to the battery power I had on hand during the second investigation, there was significantly less to go over this time around. This would get no complaints from me, however …

Back to the Drawing Board

With one successful session of reviewing evidence under my belt, the second go at it was tackled with a bit more enthusiasm, though peppered with the occasional yawn. It helped to know going in that I had already captured some great evidence at this location, so this increased my odds of getting something great this time around, too.

As I have learned in the past, even though you may have had a dead investigation (excuse the pun), careful attention must still be given to the data collected during any investigation. As with the Devil's Backbone case mentioned earlier in the book, you never know what you will end up with.

In addition to all this, I was also motivated by the fact that, since I had been on a battery-powered excursion, it meant that I could wrap up my review in a mere three days instead of five or six. Sweet! So, once again, I sat down at the computer, sipped coffee, listened to hours of audio, watched hours of video, and sifted through hundreds of still photographs. All with the hope of finding a definitive piece of evidence that would point me in the right direction with this case.

As I slowly waded my way through all the files on my computer, it became clear that this review was going to be basically like every other one I had done in the past: photographs would mostly serve as reference material, video would be boring and eventless, and audio would be the bread-and-butter of the trip. Big surprise.

The second batch of files yielded no video evidence—and unlike the photo of the “face” captured during my first visit, there would be no interesting images to dissect this time around. As is the case with so many investigations, the evidence would have to come from the hours of audio recordings captured at the site.

More Findings

The first interesting audio clip I found during the review was captured while performing an EVP session in the master bedroom. Patricia and Terri were attempting to communicate with the entity called John when they thought they heard a voice in the room with them. Unfortunately, other investigators were chattering away in the next room, so they had a hard time hearing what was happening. Fortunately the audio recorder in the room had no such difficulty.

On the recorded audio, you can clearly hear Patricia state that she cannot hear over the people in the next room, so Terri gets up and goes to the door to shush them. Right after Terri admonishes the neighboring investigators, you can clearly hear a harsh, whispered voice say, “Shut up!” Apparently one of the entities in the trailer was as frustrated with the chatty investigators as Patricia and Terri were!

I made a note to contact Patricia with this particular EVP just to make sure it wasn't her or Terri chiding the talkers (even though the voice doesn't sound female) and moved on to more of the audio. It wasn't long before I heard the next interesting EVP.

This one was captured in Julie's bedroom—when it was completely empty. It was faint, but definitely there: a long breath and the sound of a girl humming. The voice sounded young, like a small girl, but Julie was not there during the recording. A minute or so later, on the same recorder, the voice is followed by the clear sound of something hard banging/moving in the bedroom.

Around the same time these particular clips were captured, a second audio recorder—this time in the second family room—turned up a male voice while Patricia, Terri, and I were doing some EVP work.

You can clearly hear a gasping voice say two quick words, though I have not been able to decipher what's being said (another typical occurrence in the paranormal field). I had to suppress the urge to try and form words out of the syllables. Though I knew that whatever I
thought
was being said, it could be debated by others and would most likely be a form of audio matrixing (or wishful thinking).

This same EVP session would also reveal a second piece of evidence. Patricia was attempting to speak to the spirit of Emily. She was asking why Emily was there in the trailer and if she could “see the light.” This question was answered by a young female voice quickly saying either “Uh huh, uh huh” or “Unh uh, unh uh.” My instinct says it's the latter because the voice sounds distressed rather than upbeat (which I would hope would be the attitude associated with “seeing the light”).

The part of the audio review that paid off the most for me, though, was the portion that was captured during our little K2 chase between Julie's bedroom and the bathroom. While we were pursuing the strange burst of energy that seemed to be avoiding us, the audio captured a loud and clear EVP of a young girl. It is clearly a frustrated sigh that attests to the fact that this particular entity was attempting to get away from us. And though the spirit did, indeed, get away, we had managed to get evidence on our audio recorder.

A few hours later into my review of the audio, I found even more. Besides the EVPs already noted, two more interesting clips were captured on the audio recorder that was placed in the trailer's kitchen. During what was clearly the chase of the entity with the EMF detector (an act that all the investigators present were participating in), the sounds of whispered voices were recorded in the kitchen.

At first, the words are unintelligible. Then there's the clear phrase, “I know it.” It was almost as if there was an otherworldly discussion going on in the kitchen while we were working just down the hall—a rather spooky-sounding discussion.

Later on, on the same audio recorder, the sounds of Joanne returning to the trailer can be heard. I had left it running as we wrapped up the investigation for the night. This is a practice I recommend for investigators in general; many times over the years I have gotten my best EVPs/evidence during our set-up or tear-down of the gear. I attribute this, once again, to the fact that we are “ignoring” the spirits during these periods.

Once we were packed up, I had sat down with the other investigators and Joanne to confront her about the makeshift Ouija board and exorcism incense. You can hear all of this in the recording. At one point, Joanne began to reiterate some of the facts regarding the land's history and was mentioning her grandfather when a strange EVP is heard.

Specifically, Joanne says, “When my grandfather was alive, he came down here … ” At this point, a loud male groan is heard in the background—a very loud groan. And it is clearly an EVP because nobody in the room reacted to the sound at all (something we would obviously do if we heard a male voice make that sound). The groan itself is interesting in that it could either be interpreted as angry (maybe John?) or simply as a response to the word “grandfather.”

Could the spirit of the grandfather still be in the trailer—
or more accurately—attached to the land in some manner? This was an angle that had not been considered, but made a lot of sense.

Oftentimes spirits seem to want to stick around to atone for the deeds they did while alive—or are so attached to doing worldly things that they don't want to move on. Both of these could be a great excuse for Joanne's relative to still be present on the property. It was just one more detail that had to be considered in the case. Now that I had even more audio evidence to relay to the Martins, it seemed that I would get the chance to discuss the grandfather again with Joanne.