The Holzer Files

...Was hans holzer, new york city.

Hans holzer, london, England.

Hans holzer in switzerland.

Now going up the stairs in the old house.

Please speak to us.

Get out!

It is not your house anymore.

You died.

You must go away from this house.

No, no, no.

What happened to you?

They buried me alive.

Are you ready to begin?

Hat was horrific.

What was that?

That was hans' investigation,

The peck house of rye, new york, 1963.

My father talked about this case all the time.

In fact, he went there three times during his career,

And each time, he documented the same paranormal experiences

With three different owners.

When he went back the final time in 1985,

The house was owned by a family called the behrendts.

I was a little girl then, but I do remember

The kids were terrified.

What type of experiences were they having?

A lot.

Doors were locking on their own.

Water would kind of bleed from the walls and ceilings,

But the thing that scared the kids was an apparition

Of a little girl who had died in the attic from a fire.

Her name is lottie peck.

Lottie was mentally disabled,

And she was confined to the attic,

And in 1884, she tried to use a candle

To burn through the door to escape.

The fire spread, and she was burned alive.

Oh, my god.

Her spirit remained there for over 100 years, until 1985,

And this is where it gets really weird.

Barbara behrendt found a painting

Of one of the past owners, mollie giglione,

Had made of lottie, and she hung it in the home.

Immediately, the activity ceased,

And hans believed the spirit had moved on.

Has there been any activity in the house since?

I spoke with the current family, and they haven't heard a peep

In the 21 years they've owned the home.

A haunting just stops after decades of reported activity

Just because somebody hung a painting?

It's in the file.

Well, my father believed that a paranormal case

Is never really closed.

There was something about this case

That had him coming back to it,

Even after lottie supposedly had moved on.

Well, it certainly seems that the resolution here

Is just as mysterious as the haunting itself.

If there is something left to find in this case,

Then the painting would probably be a good place to start.

Well, I'll call the behrendts and let them know

That you're on your way.

This is hans holzer in rye, new york,

At the beautiful 19th-century home of mr. And mrs. Smythe.

The house still shows the elegance

Of a bygone age.

There's something about this case

That kept hans coming back over the span of three decades,

But could a haunting really stop just by hanging a painting?

Now, the behrendt family moved out of that house 20 years ago,

And the painting of lottie now hangs in their new residence.

So that's where we're going to need to begin,

But before I meet with them, our psychic medium,

Cindy, who knows nothing about the case file yet,

Has asked for their house to be cleared

While she performs a psychometry reading on the actual painting.

Psychometry is a form of extrasensory perception, esp,

Where a medium can actually pick up on the history

Of an object just by touching it.

Hans holzer believed that this strategy

When employed by the right medium

Could actually provide some insights into a haunting.

Something happened to her.

I just keep hearing, "my father, my father, my father.

I didn't do it."

There's a period where she's confined to one room,

Or she's punished or locked in a room.

There must have been a window that she could see out of.

Her father must be the one that locked her in that room.

There's got to be that tie-in.

Did she have a rocking chair in the attic?

I keep seeing that in my mind --

The rocking chair back and forth,

The rocking chair.

What is wrong with this painting, though?

It feels different.

Is it, like, a re-creation or a remake

Of the original painting?

This painting was created from an original picture.

Mm-hmm.

Now I'm seeing a fire, too,

So I feel like there would have been a fire,

And, um...

Her death was not an accident,

But I still feel she's locked in this room

Where people thought she was crazy, and there's --

But I think this fire was 100% intentional.

I do not think it's an accident.

Do you understand that part where,

"I can't get out. I can't get out"? Yeah.

Okay.

Do you know if she has a brother?

You don't know.

No. I don't know.

I just saw an image of that, like, a man in an attic,

Because I just went up into an attic

And I saw a younger brother that would have been very sick.

Then I'm being taken into the woods.

Man, this is so weird.

It's interesting with the psychometry.

Sometimes, it does jump all over,

And you'll pick up different pieces,

But I know there's a whole story here, but I'm confused by --

I don't think she was always in the attic.

I see her being in a different house, as well.

I know she's on the other side,

But I still think she has a lot of unfinished business.

What little we know about the history of the peck house,

Cindy saw with eerie accuracy,

But those other things that she picked up on,

Things that we don't know anything about yet,

Those are what have me unnerved.

I'm going to meet with the previous owners of the house,

The last family to actually reach out

To hans holzer for help.

Take me back to when you were a child

And you were having these experiences in this house.

I had a room that was closest to the attic

Where lottie lit herself on fire.

I heard a lot of noises -- doors unlocking

And locking by themselves.

Tony, what you're telling me,

I've heard in hans' files.

Other residents have experienced the same thing.

Were you ever able to physically see the lock turn in place?

Yes.

I know the downstairs lock had three locks on it.

The biggest lock was a chain lock.

I know that we closed it at night.

An hour later...

...That chain would just be swinging.

She really didn't like parties, either.

I definitely do remember when there was a party,

Water would fall down and leak through the roof.

And was it raining outside?

It was not raining outside.

I'm sure your parents had got to check to see

If their pipes were leaking.

They would call contractors, and they would tear up the wall,

And they'd have no explanation for it.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for her

Locked away in the attic and to hear these parties

And all these kids getting the attention she never got.

Yeah, but after we hung lottie in the entrance hall,

All strange activities seemed to stop.

Tell me about the visit with hans holzer

And what that was like.

He really felt that he had gotten rid of the spirits,

That he had put them to rest, so he was a little surprised,

I think, to hear about the incidents that we had had.

He said, "well, sometimes the spirits just haven't moved on."

Now, when hans visited the peck house twice in the 1960s,

He brought with him a transmedium named ethel meyers.

I have some actual audio from those visits.

Would you like to actually hear it?

I would love to hear it. Alright.

We believe this is ethel channeling lottie.

I wonder if we just had a glimpse

Into just how tortured she really was

And that that might have been her spirit

Trying to make sense of it all.

Just chills listening to it.

Since you hung the portrait up,

Where do you think the spirit of lottie is now?

I don't know, but I did hear immediately after that

That there was another house in rye, the knapp house,

Where they started having very similar activities.

I see her being in a different house, as well.

Since you hung the portrait up,

Where do you think the spirit of lottie is now?

I don't know, but I did hear immediately after that

That there was another house in rye, the knapp house,

Where they started having very similar activities.

I see her being in a different house, as well.

This is interesting.

Apparently, when the painting was hung at the peck house,

Almost immediately, activity began across town

At this place called the knapp house.

Now, I did some digging, and this home

Is no longer a private residence