My Horror Story

shannon: We were sitting on the couch watching tv.

It was the whole family.

It's an old house, and it's got a lot of potential.

Shannon: We hear the footsteps coming up the stairs.

We just started to pray and pray.

I saw somebody in the window.

Shannon: This presence would lift me up

and push me against a wall.

It would hold me all the way up till my head

was touching the ceiling.

Kelly: All of sudden, I hear three hard knocks at the door.

I sat down on the front porch with a shotgun in my lap

and just waited for the sun come up.

Lori: We walk into the house. It felt like home.

Erin: I met this really lovely girl.

Jessica: My daughter was going to share her birthday.

Man #1: And there were a billion stars out, just gorgeous.

Chris: The room got cold. - Something's not right.

Oscar: I know what waits for me in the dark.

Lori: We weren't alone in this house.

Erin: I saw somebody staring right at me.

Lori: Blood coming out of his eyes.

Man #1: We're under the control of something.

April: I felt like I was dying.

Maddox: she wouldn't wake up,

and she wouldn't respond to me, and her little body was cold.

John: It was pure evil.

People need to know that they're never really alone in the dark.

kelly: My mother was very spiritual, and she said

since a young age there were spirits around me.

I grew up one of 10 children in my family.

In champaign, illinois.

It was fun having a big family,

but financially, it was kind of tough.

My mom was a manager of a hotel.

She always had another job to support our family.

My father was in a construction field.

The time was limited with my mother and father.

So when I was 7 years old, my mother signed me up

for the big brother big sister program,

which matches kids with adult mentors.

And I got paired up with michael, who was a student

at the university of illinois at the time.

We seen each other probably on a weekly basis.

He was a big basketball fan. I was a big basketball fan.

I was a bears fan. He was a bears fan.

started coming to some of my football games.

We became really good friends.

Michael, he was a very good role model.

After school, he'd pick me up. I'd go do homework on campus.

It was pretty awesome.

I realized the importance of getting good grades

and staying on track.

It made me a better student.

If I never met michael, I don't think I would have

ever attended college.

After college, I did a whole bunch of different jobs.

And in between work, michael would call me,

and I would go work for him.

He bought properties, and he'd fix them up.

But his dream was always own a bed and breakfast.

So one day in 2005, I got a call from michael.

He says, "hey, kelly, I bought a place.

It's in a town called st. Joe, missouri.

It's an old house and needs lots of repairs,

but it's got a lot of potential.

I got a deal on it.

Help me fix this place up.

It's gonna be exciting."

this was an opportunity of a lifetime to spend time

with my best friend, but also help remodel it,

get it up and going and just turned into this ideal place

that he talked about.

And plus, I'm getting paid for it.

That evening, I said yes to michael.

And one week later, I was in st. Joe, missouri.

I pull up the hill,

and I see a very vintage, spooky looking building.

It looks like something from the early 1900s.

I was just looking at how big it was.

I was in awe with it.

I was also shocked to see this building

and the condition that it was in.

It hasn't been kept up.

It was in really bad shape.

I turned to the right and looked toward the basement,

and I saw somebody in the window.

It looked like a female.

As I walk up toward the stairs and look back toward the window,

that figure was gone.

I didn't think much of it.

I thought that it was maybe

one of the people that was already doing repairs.

In the house, it smelled very old

and very stale.

The rug was ripped up.

The paint was peeling off the walls.

There was clutter everywhere.

I was just thinking that so much work needed

to be done to this house.

It was in really bad shape.

And I finally see michael, and I mentioned to him

I'd seen a figure standing in the window of the basement.

And michael said, "we haven't started any repairs

in the basement.

No one is working in the basement.

Like, "okay, whatever."

I still didn't think anything of it.

"no, everybody's upstairs in the west wing working."

that first night, I enter the bedroom I was sleeping in.

at the time in the house, no air conditioning,

it was hot and kind of muggy.

and so I step up to the window and pull back the curtains.

I see a woman standing in the window.

I was afraid.

What in the hell?

shannon: I grew up in leominster, massachusetts,

which is a small town outside of boston.

Our house was probably around a 900-square-foot home.

It was a very charming neighborhood.

We had a lot of people our age that we played with.

Prayer and religion were very much a presence in my home

growing up.

It was a way of life for us.

My childhood consisted mostly of going to church.

I went to catholic school.

I actually sang in the church with my parents.

We read a lot from the bible and said our prayers before bed.

It consumed a lot of our time.

one night we were sitting on the couch watching tv.

[ indistinct talking on television ]

we hear very heavy footsteps coming from the basement.

They were so loud.

And then we hear

the footsteps coming up the stairs.

[ footsteps approaching, child whimpering ]

very slow and deliberate and constant.

I am paralyzed to the core.

Is it gonna open?

Is it going to be the boogeyman?

My mom locked the dead bolt going down to the basement.

She immediately pulled out the bible and said,

"let's start praying out loud."

my brother and I sat on the couch,

picked a random page from the bible, and started reading.

I was terrified.

Whatever was coming up those stairs

was no human being.

girl: Protect us.

kelly: I was helping fix this old house up

and turn it to a bed and breakfast.

That first night, it started to rain pretty heavily.

I step up to the window and pull back the curtains.

that's when I seen a woman figure standing in the window.

Is that somebody standing there?

a just kind of looked away for a second,

and when I look back...

...The figure was gone.

Maybe it was my imagination.

the next few weeks, everything was going fine.

It's me, michael, the other workers,

and michael's dogs at the house.

He had two puppies.

They're very active, fun loving dogs.

they would run throughout the house.

I carried treats in my pocket sometimes during the day.

I give them a treat, you know?

after about three months of getting a lot of repairs done,

it was time for us to take a break.

For the holiday, michael asked me to stay

at the house to do some work

but also to care for the two puppies.

I said yeah because I could work at my own pace space,

I could spend some time, have fun with the dogs.

first night, I'm at the house by myself.

Just finished dinner.

I decide to take a shower about 10:00.

Then all of a sudden, all of the electricity went out.