31 Days of Halloween: Haunted House of the Day

[AcidDragon]

Wow, that Hotel Monte Vista looks so interesting. You've done a great job. I feel both compelled to go visit this place in person and too anxious and filled with dread to be in there. Haha.

[packerbacker180]

Well, if you're ever down in Texas you can stop there, and then maybe head down to the basement of the Alamo. There's no basement in today's Haunted House of the Day (nice segue--Bob), but it is proof that even horrors can exist in paradise.



This is the Kaimuki House, located on the corner of 8th and Harding in Honolulu, Hawaii. The house was built on a foundation of two beds of lava rock and is said to be one of the most haunted places in the islands. While the house itself looks mundane, the stories inside are anything but.



The creature said to reside in the house is a Kasha, a man-eating ghost from Japanese folklore, and the stories surrounding its haunting of the Kaimuki house have been extensively documented. In ancient Japan, the literal translation of the name, “Kasha” is “Fire cart.” It is a creature that frequented populated areas where its dietary sustenance consisted of fresh human corpses. According to the lore, these creatures are a type of Bake-Neko living among human beings under the guise of a common house cat or stray. They are bipedal and larger than most people, and they are accompanied by flames from hell where they make their advent in the evening during rainy or stormy weather. It is only during funerals that their true forms are revealed and as a result, they are known to snatch corpses and spirit them to hell for punishment. Most times a Kasha will animate a corpse as a puppet or simply eat it as a meal. More often than not, a Kasha is known to indulge in the latter.



The original tale of the house tells of a young couple who moved into the home, and their neighbors who, upon hearing loud bangs and crashes, suspected domestic violence and called the police. When the police arrived, the couple claimed that they were being attacked by a force they couldn’t see.



In 1942, police officers were called to the house by a woman who kept repeating "She’s trying to kill my children." Upon entering the house, the officers could do nothing more than watch in horror as the three children were levitated, slapped, and hurled across the room by an invisible force.



Then in October of 1972 an urgent call came from three girls who were sharing the house. The girls heard strange noises and felt unusual physical sensations, consequently, their call to the police involved a request for the officers to follow the girls to Papak Olea where one of them lived. According to the report that the police officer would later file, the girl sitting in the middle of the front seat began fighting off something that was strangling her, however, there was nothing there. The officer left his car and reached into the girls’ car to assist, but said that he was grabbed by a big, calloused hand that was not there. It was completely invisible, but it twisted his arm; that’s when he ran back to his squad car and radioed for assistance. The officer then put the hysterical girl in his car and urged her friends to follow but the squad car wouldn’t start. The second he placed the girl back in her own car, she was attacked again. The officer was able to dispel the spirit by spraying everyone with water and Hawaiian salt.



The good news for anyone planning to visit Honolulu is that the Kaimuki House was apparently torn down in 2016 so that a more modern lodging could be built. Whether that too has been plagued by paranormal activity, has yet to be determined.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Wow, one in Hawaii Packer, that Kaimuki is something else...another good one

[packerbacker180]

Indeed, you never know where or what evil will make itself known. Or sometimes it remains unknown.



On the morning of June 9th, 1912, Josiah and Sarah Moore prepared their children for the busy day they had planned. Their local Presbyterian church was hosting Children’s Day. Sarah Moore had worked as one of the co-facilitators of the event, and the entire Moore family would be attending. The activities lasted them through the afternoon and into the early evening, finally ending around 9:30 pm after all of the children had finished their performances. Two neighborhood children, Lena and Ina Stillinger, asked their parents if they could stay over at the Moore’s house that night, and their parents agreed.



On June 10, 1912, the Moore family was sleeping peacefully in their beds. Joe and Sarah Moore were asleep upstairs, while their four children were resting in a room down the hall. In a guest room on the first floor were two girls, the Stillinger sisters. Shortly after midnight, it's believed a stranger entered through the unlocked door and took an oil lamp from a nearby table, rigging it to burn so low it supplied light for barely one person. However, two cigarettes found in the attic have led many to believe that the killer(s) had snuck into the house while the family were at the church event and patiently waited in the attic for the family to fall asleep for the last time. Either way, the killer made his way through the house with just the light of the lamp he held in one hand. In his other, he held an axe.



The stranger crept into the room in which 43-year-old Joe Moore lay next to his wife, Sarah. Raising the ax high above his head—so high it gouged the ceiling—the man brought the flat of the blade down on the back of Joe Moore’s head, crushing his skull and probably killing him instantly. Then he struck Sarah a blow before she had time to wake or register his presence. Leaving the couple dead or dying, the killer went next door and used the ax, believed the be the Moore's, to kill the four Moore children as they slept. Once again, there is no evidence that they woke before they died. Nor did the assailant or any of the four children make sufficient noise to disturb Katherine’s two friends, Lena and Ina Stillinger, as they slept downstairs. The killer then descended the stairs and took his ax to the Stillinger girls, the elder of whom may finally have awakened an instant before she, too, was murdered.



What happened next marked the killings as truly peculiar. The ax man went back upstairs and systematically reduced the heads of all six Moores to bloody pulp, striking Joe alone an estimated 30 times and leaving the faces of all six members of the family unrecognizable. He then drew up the bedclothes to cover Joe and Sarah’s shattered heads, placed clothes over the remains of the children's heads, and finally administered the same terrible postmortem punishment to the girls downstairs before touring the house and ritually hanging cloths over every mirror and piece of glass in it. At some point the killer also took a two-pound slab of uncooked bacon from the icebox, wrapped it in a towel, and left it on the floor of the downstairs bedroom close to a short piece of key chain that did not, apparently, belong to the family. Authorities believe the killer stayed inside the house for quite some time, filling a bowl with water and–some later reports said–washing his bloody hands in it. Sometime before 5 a.m., he abandoned the lamp at the top of the stairs and left as silently as he had come, locking the doors behind him and disappearing into the predawn night. The next morning, disturbed by inactivity in the house, a neighbor called Joe Moore's brother to check on the family, and it was then that the carnage was discovered in the small town of Villisca, Iowa.



What makes this case all the more frightening, is that the killer was never caught, and the case remains unsolved to this day. Rumors of locals who may've perpetrated the crime were investigated as whispers throughout the town cast blame upon several suspects, but the police were never able to prove who committed the crime and the case eventually went cold. There were even possible links to similar ax killings around the country, but no one was ever identified as having committed this heinous crime.



So it would be unsurprising that a house that witnessed such horrors would go on to be rumored as haunted. But is it the victims, or does someone far more sinister still lurk inside?



Visitors and investigators reported a myriad of unexplained experiences, ranging from disembodied voices, cold spots to even apparitions. As tales of haunted encounters proliferated, the house solidified its status as one of the most haunted places in America. Paranormal investigations revealed evidences of spectral presences, capturing EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) that seemed to echo the voices of the victims, forever trapped within the confines of the house.



And when there's a vacancy, you can stay the night in one of the murder rooms or rent the whole house for the night with prices starting at $199 for a weeknight for one room.



No word yet on if prices ever get...



CHOPPED!

[BrandonDaCollector]

I think I seen the Villisca Ax Murders a while back. A great entry but horrible incident This reminds of this...

[packerbacker180]

It's one of the more famous, and most gruesome, unsolved cases in the US. Though Boston writer Bill James put out a book a few years ago that may have solved the case linking it to multiple murders across the country with similar modus operandi. I actually got the book last Christmas but haven't read it yet. I was planning on maybe doing a write up in the Monster of the Day section for it, perhaps soon...

But let's talk about houses now. More specifically, haunted houses!



The above resides in what some consider one of the most haunted small towns in America. According to legend, author Mark Twain once called Alton a "dismal little river town," largely thanks to the dark history that the city had already endured prior to its heyday as a thriving river port. From those days, through the early 1900s, Alton saw more than its share of death, disease, disaster, violence, murder, and even the scars of the Civil War.



Enter McPike Mansion (though I wouldn't!). McPike Mansion, or Mount Lookout as it’s also referred to, was built between 1869 and 1871 by Henry Guest McPike. McPike was an important member of Alton’s society. He even served as the town’s mayor for three years. McPike was also a businessman, involved with real estate and a well-known Horticulturalist. He developed the famous McPike Grape, which grew on his own 15 acres estate.



After McPike’s death, the mansion had several owners until it was purchased by Paul A. Laichinger. Laichinger stayed at the house until his death in 1951. After his death, the house was abandoned for many years, which didn’t help when it came to ghost stories. The mansion fell victim to time and vandalism. Most of the furniture and historic ornaments were either stolen or ruined. The broken windows, rusting iron fence and the private graveyard gave the mansion the stereotypical appearance of a haunted house. At some point, there were plans to tear the house down and replace it in a shopping center, but these plans disappeared back into the cupboard and the mansion was saved. It was even listed on the Register of Historic Places in 1980, but it remained unoccupied until it was purchased in auction in 1994 by Sharyn and George Luedke.



Sharyn saw her first ghost about 6 weeks after buying the mansion. She was working in the garden and when she looked up, she saw a man looking at her from behind one of the windows. She was shocked, because nobody was supposed to be inside the house. Looking at old photos in the house she came to realize the man was impossibly Paul Laichinger. He was even wearing the same clothes as in the picture. Months later she was hugged by a ghostly presence. When this ghost appeared more often, she started naming her Sarah. She was touched by the fact a psychic who contacted the ghost said her name was Sarah Wells. A book in the mansion’s library even had her name written in it. Sarah used to be a servant at the house.



Paul and Sarah are the most common spirits at the house, but there are more. During a ghost tour a group was startled when a full apparition descended the stairs. She was wearing a beautiful blue gown; her hair was flowing as if a wind-machine was blowing at her and her feet were fluttering as if she was a ballet dancer. She was floating a couple of inches above the ground. Perhaps she was the woman who mysteriously died in a bathtub at the house. Psychics are convinced of the fact Henry and Eleanor McPike still reside in the house. Pacing footsteps, vanishing objects, shadow figures, faces in the windows, orbs and the sensation of being touched are common phenomena as well.



The current owners are in the process of trying to restore the mansion to it's former grandeur, and in doing so, may've stirred up more than just memories.



The Leudkes had purchased the property on a whim with the intent of opening a bed and breakfast, but it seems past residents had other ideas. Countless reports of unexplained orbs of light, bizarre noises, mists, human-like outlines appearing in windows, and other ghostly sightings occur in person and show up on photos frequently. The Luedkes, while they still work on restoration, now spend their time sharing these mysterious experiences with others.

[BrandonDaCollector]

I never knew about the McPike Mansion. This is one of the reasons why it's important for people post & talk about stuff that's in their region and not even in their area That stuff is scary and looked quite legit to Me Another great entry Packer

[packerbacker180]

Indeed. After the first two seasons of Scariest Places on Earth they switched the format to just documenting haunted locations but Zelda Rubinstein stayed on as narrator. Her voice really adds to the show while narrating about places such as today's Haunted House pf the Day.



In Birmingham, Alabama stands a relic of industry. In 1880, Coronel James Sloss, one of the founders of Birmingham, decided to build some furnaces to create train tracks for his city. Almost 78.000 square mile (220.000m²) of land was given to him for his project. The construction was carried out by Harry Hargreaves, a recently graduated engineer. He built two types of Whitwell furnaces, each 59 feet tall and 18 feet in section. Whitwell had been his teacher. During the first year, the furnaces produced 24.000 tons of high-quality iron. In 1886, Sloss was sold to new investors that improved them even more. In 1927, a second Sloss Furnaces was built. Also, 48 tiny houses were built near the furnaces to house the manly black employees. These employees were former slaves, and they needed a job.



In the 50’s and 60’s, environment and public health became more and more important. Measurements showed these furnaces caused an enormous amount of pollution. The oldest furnaces had to be closed. In 1971, Sloss furnaces were all closed for good, and donated to the State of Alabama. The State decided to use the furnaces for industrial purposes and to house a museum in it. It also became a workplace for artists who worked with iron and concerts and festivals are held on the premises.



In the Summer, the temperatures could rise up to 120°F while working. The visibility was poor, and the workers worked for twelve hours or more per day. The money the workers earned was nothing compared to the dangers the men had to face on a daily basis. And the work pressure was inhumane. Especially nightshift chief James “Slag” Wormwood, was an awful person. He made his men take terrible risks. Under his command, 47 men lost their lives and many got injured so bad they couldn’t work anymore. During an explosion in 1888, 6 of his men lost their eyesight. When he fell into a bath full of melted iron from the top of the highest furnace named Big Alice in October 1906, people claimed he had been pushed. Kames Wormwood’s death was documented as a tragic accident.



Wormwood wasn’t the only one who lost his life in the hot liquid iron. At least three more men died the same way. Two of them tried to cut loose a piece of ore because it jammed the machine. Boiling hot steam was sprayed from the countless pipes. One of the most horrible accidents happened when one of the workers tried to eat his lunch next to a rotating gear. He came a bit too close and his clothes got stuck in the gear. He was crushed to death in front of his co-workers.



People claim Wormwood’s ghost still roams the furnaces. Many workers claim they have been pushed near the iron baths while nobody was around. At night, the words “go back to work” are heard. The creepiest thing happened in 1971, on the verge of the closing of the furnaces. Nightshift chief Samuel Blumenthal made one last sentimental round in the furnaces when suddenly he was face-to-face with a monster. On his deathbed he declared the monster was half human, half demon. The monster tried pushing him towards Big Alice’s stairs, but Blumenthal refused to be pushed. He started fighting the monster with his bare fists. When he was found, he was covered in third degree burns, even though the ovens were out. He died a couple of days after his encounter with this monster.



Others have heard disembodied voices. Voices demanding that people pick up the pace or “push some steel” have been heard frequently. Most of the most terrifying occurrences have happened during what would have been Slag’s shift. It's stories like the ones above that make Sloss Furnace the second scariest mill in the US.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Yeah, Zelda Rubinstein was good. she was a very unique actress. I never knew about the Ghosts of Sloss Furnaces

[packerbacker180]

Yes, she definitely had the voice to do creepy. Been a rough night so I'm not going to get to a Haunted House or Monster of the Day today. Look for new ones tomorrow.