Ghost Hunters - Sixteenth Season

Dude, is she okay?

I kept hearing something this is opening behind me.

Holy crap.

A 135-year-old mansion...

This house was built in 1887.

...with a history of tragedy...

All their funerals were held in the upstairs landing.

...has the team digging up secrets from beyond the grave.

"They took grave dirt?" -

So, this man doesn't like... Whoa.

Oh. - Oh.

Oh, my God.

We want to hear your side.

Ooh.

Quite a long ways from Rhode Island.

I know, I've never been to Alabama before.

Nice to have you two with us, Satori, Cody.

It's great to be here. Thanks. - Thank you for having us.

TAPS has been called to Bessemer, Alabama

to investigate the Moody Mansion,

a 135-year-old home beloved by its current owners

and past residents that refuse to move on.

Moody Mansion. This house dates back to 1887.

That's the same year that the town of Bessemer was founded.

And we're being called in by the current owners,

Jerett New and his husband, Michael Allen.

There's been activity happening at this house for years.

They heard stories from the previous owners

and from the owners before that.

Some of the activity's crazy. I mean, we're talking about a dog levitating,

doors slamming violently.

Aggressive type activity.

If stuff like that's happening, that's... that's not good.

And guests have experienced a full range of apparition

throughout the whole property.

And I know their kids live with them

and their daughter is frightened to be in the house alone.

So, helping ease her fears, that's the priority.

Absolutely.

And supposedly, there's unmarked graves

on the property as well, so... - Really?

We're going to have our hands full.

I'm excited to see how we can help.

There it is, right here on the corner.

Wow.

Look at this.

TAPS case. The Moody Mansion, Bessemer, Alabama.

Hey, how are you? Jason. - Hi. Michael.

Very nice to meet you. - Jerett.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

Hey, Steve. Oh, my God. - Nice to meet you.

Thank you, all, for coming. - Look at this.

When did you guys buy the property?

So, we purchased the property in 2014.

Saw it sitting here needing some renovation.

Wanted to do everything we could to save the house.

So, we've owned it ever since, working through the restoration process.

So, what's some of the history of this home?

This house was built in 1887,

same as the start of the city of Bessemer.

Prominent real estate and newspaper owner,

William Henry Harrison Judson, also nicknamed Harry,

moved his family to Bessemer in 1887

and started the local newspaper, The Bessemer Weekly.

The Judson family quickly became beloved members of the community,

and in 1902, moved into what is now known as the Moody Mansion,

hosting parties and formal social events on a regular basis there.

Harry had two daughters,

Lula and Grace,

and was married to Eliza.

Lula and Grace took husbands,

and the husbands moved into the house,

so it became a three-family household.

So, when did it become the Moody Mansion?

Lula married Lee Moody.

He was president of the first national bank here.

They were also socialites,

much like the Judsons,

and during that period,

the neighborhood began to refer to it as the Moody Mansion.

Do you know of any deaths

that have taken place on the property?

Harry and Eliza both passed away here.

Eliza died in 1920, at the age of 72,

and William two years later, at 80.

Lee Moody then took over the home until 1957,

when he was gravely injured after his car collided with a train in Bessemer.

Lula and her husband, Lee Moody,

passed away in local hospitals around the same time.

It's our understanding that all their funerals were held

in the upstairs landing.

Now, we also heard about a possible grave on the property.

Yeah, there is a small granite slab.

It looks like it had some etchings on it at one point of time,

but nothing legible.

So, not sure if it is a grave or who it may belong to.

Wow. - All right.

And I know that there's a lot of different claims of activity.

Fill us in a little on that.

The previous family had told us a lot of stories.

Oh, I see. - They talked a lot about a party

going on in this room.

What they were telling us was, they were all dressed very formally,

they were almost, like, having a party.

So, when that happened, though, did they say if these people noticed them,

or did they just go about their time like they weren't there?

They acted like they didn't pay attention.

Oh, more like a residual type, sure. Okay.

Previous owners also reported seeing the apparition

of a male banker in the study

and a dog levitating off the ground.

In the upstairs children's bedroom,

a housekeeper was seen walking in with towels for a bath time.

There were two housekeepers that we know that were live-in housekeepers here

for, we believe, their whole lives.

Lizzie and Mattie.

We do believe that Mattie may also have passed

while she was working in the house. - Mmm-hmm.

What have you two experienced here?

One day, I'm going through some books and things.

As I'm standing over the box,

it feels like someone walks up behind me and... and pushes me over the box.

And I turn around and there's no one there.

Also, when we redid the kitchen,

I called for a clock to be over the main hood piece of the oven.

There's been four clocks over there,

they've all come off the wall at some point or another and shattered.

A shard of glass went in Jerett's leg one time.

Oh, Jeez. - That was very traumatic.

Another time, we woke up,

and the clock was all the way across the room.

We're talking about a 16-foot span and an island between the two.

So, it just didn't make any sense how that could've happened.

But I'm as persistent as maybe some ghosts are,

because I kept a clock up there,

and there still is one there now.

We've actually been in the backyard

and saw a curtain move upstairs,

and nobody else was in the house.

It's our daughter's bedroom, and she wasn't there.

Curtains are opened, and they shut back immediately.

Some others have experienced things here, right?

Yeah, we've had a couple of guests that have had some weird experiences.

We've had individuals tell us

that there's a lady that sits in our pantry.

We've had others tell us that there are gentlemen in formal wear

that just walk around the main house.

We were having a brunch one day,

and I looked over into the study.

And a man just casually walked from one door of the study

across the study to the other door and was gone.

Well, at that moment,

I knew I saw a ghost for the first time in this house.

I definitely believe the Moody Mansion is haunted.

It's not just you two who live here, right?

There's others who reside in the house.

Right. We have a daughter and a son, Sophie and Colin.

Colin's 16 now, and Sophie is 20. - Okay.

Sophie may be more frightened than Colin.

Oftentimes, she'll ask Colin to walk upstairs with her,

or she'll have one of the dogs go upstairs with her. We also have two dogs,

Allie and Pearl.

Have they shown any attention to anything that you guys don't see?

One of the dogs, randomly one night,

just got up started pacing the master bedroom.

She would go to one side of the bed and just stare in the corner.

And she did that for several minutes.

Okay. So, what are you guys hoping that we're able to accomplish here?

I'm hoping that, you know, you guys can help us fill in the gaps.

What happened, when and who may still be here.

With everything that we've experienced,

what is the house trying to tell us? - Yeah.

We'll do our best, try to figure everything out for you. - Certainly.

Thank you so much, guys. - Thank you.

Thank you for trusting us with the house.

Absolutely. - All right, we'll see you guys soon.

Yeah, hey.

Hey, guys. - Hey.

All right, so we just got done talking with, uh, Jerett and Michael.

Lot of great information.

William Henry Harrison, uh, Judson. - Mmm-hmm.

Goes by Harry. - Harry. That's good to know.

But they're saying Harry and his wife,

possibly some housekeepers, died here. - Yes.

And activities everywhere.

So, I think let's start getting set up.

All right, sounds good.

Great. - Awesome.

Michael and Jerett put a lot of blood, sweat, tears

and money into the house.

They want it to be a place where everybody feels comfortable.

But unfortunately, things are happening here

that are frightening people.

These concerns, of course, we don't take lightly.

Bottom line is, we're here to help,

so we're going to try to figure out what's happening

and just help Jerett and Michael and the rest of the family

to the best of our abilities.

A little more.

Pan right a little bit. Yes.