Paranormal Investigations

COULD ONE OF THESE TRAGIC DEATHS BE THE BOY FROM THE EVP SESSION?

Children will Play....Dead or Alive -----DRAFT------

The mid 70's were a time of chaos, turmoil and uncertainty. Nixon had been forced out of office, The Vietnam war was just ending, Gas Prices, rationing and mile long lines to get into a gas station were taking it's toll on everyone. Double digit interest rates, Inflation and low property values had the economy at a stand still and foreclosures at an all time high. Rental property was at a premium with rent prices going through the roof....and suicide was at an all time high.

I was a pimply faced thirteen year old Momma's Boy then and part of a family of real estate entrepreneurs that were hell bent on taking advantage of the slowing economy. I was one of six children, a Brady bunch family of equal girls to boys with a step father that can only be described as a man stuck in his military ways with his kids, we were his soldiers and were expected to work in the family business as if we were adults..No questions asked..

The get rich quick plan was simple, Buy properties at auction, use a swing loan at high interest and a 1 year pay off to fund the purchase and while these properties cured to a nice return, they would provide rental income. This rental income paid the interest on the loans and gave my parents money to live on as well. The only glitch in the plan was FHA not allowing auction homes to be viewed on the inside by a potential bidder. This reason became obvious quickly, These homes were a wreck. The past owners in many cases took the appliances, sinks, toilets and any fixture not welded to the foundation, additionally any trash or items they discarded was left in the home. The answer to this problem was the family as a unit coming together to Demo, Clean and refurbish these houses within seven days of the date they closed escrow so they could be rented immediately. The next year they bought over 20 rental homes but only one stood out and changed my life, it was the Idyllwild house.

The vast majority of the homes that we purchased were located in the San Gabriel valley area of Los Angeles county, we too lived in this area edict made the process of work and school plausible then. The Idyllwild house however was a different story. This property however was over 100 miles away, a two hour drive each way using the freeway systems of the time. My step dad had gotten as he said "a deal of a lifetime" on the house as the price was half what other similar properties were going for. This terrified me as I assumed then the house would be a disaster and my plans for teen fun were going by the wayside the coming weekend as I was told I would be going there and we would sleep at the house instead of driving back and forth. This was a first, we always got to come home after a days work, I complained to no avail and was told to pack a bag we would be leaving at 5AM the next day.

We, my 17 year old brother john, myself and step dad, left our house as scheduled Saturday morning in my step fathers truck and towing a trailer with all the tools we would need to ready the house and clean up any mess that must surely be there. The surprise look on my step fathers face when we pulled into the driveway of the Idyllwild house said it all, The place looked great, outside of the general lawn work of a foreclosed home, the outside needed no other work or a new paint job. The biggest surprise however was the inside, it looked like a typical 70's motif house with no clutter, it had the orange shag carpeting which was popular at the time and floor length curtains that blocked out the sun light so effectively that you nearly needed a flash light to see where you were going. I do recall that the house had a foul odor about it and it nearly made me sick up and until we aired out the house. The walk through reveled little trash inside other than a few toys in the middle room of this three bedroom ranch style house. The relieved feeling was short lived though once my stepfather tried to turn on the kitchen lights and after a quick check of the electrical box he realized the power company had not restored the electric to the house so we would be working without power tools, lights and no air conditioning.

The decision was made by my step father that without power we could only prep, remove wallpaper and paint what we could during daylight hours. I was given the Chore of painting the middle room. This room was painted a dark blue, had a double pain window and a closet the size of a refrigerator. I recall wondering why the carpet in the closet was removed and the back wall looked like it had been painted recently, I would find out soon enough.  I began the prepping process, Tape over the sockets, drop clothes on the floor to protect that god awful orange shag carpeting and gathering up the few toys that were left on the floor. I recall as I picked up a G.I. Joe doll, a chill hit me so hard that I momentarily thought the power was restored and the A/C had kicked on, that was not the case but I dismissed it and took the toys out to the trailer to throw away. I returned to the room a few minutes latter to find the closet door was closed, I knew I had left it open as I had prepped it for painting by taping up the door knobs and latch. I marched over to the closet to open the door and got that same chill running up my spine as I had gotten before and as I grabbed the door knob to turn it, it would not turn. My mind immediately looked for a door lock but there was none..I again tried with all my strength and pulling at the door at the same time to no avail, I decided the door must have gotten stuck because of the tape I had put on the latch so I tried again and as I pulled back the door let loose and I fell on my butt from the force I had used. I recall as I fell it sounded like someone had giggled at my bad fortune. I looked around the room and saw nobody but thought it was my brother who pulled a prank on me but when I checked on him he was knee deep in wallpaper he had been removing.

The remainder of the day crawled by at a snails pace. The room I was painting was taking extra time to get the Off white paint to cover the blue walls as the bleed through required me to put three coats of paint on them. The ceiling went easy as it was a white already. The day was also hampered with little oddities such as my paint rag constantly falling out of my back pocket, this was not normal as it had not been an issue before and the disconcerting part was it would be on the other side of the room and once in the hall, places at the time I had not visited or worked in. I finally decided to just place it in whole in my front pocket, that solved the problem. The chills continued though to a point I went to my step father and said I thought I was getting sick, he hap-hazardly placed his hand on my forehead and then declared I had no fever and to not worry about it as it was almost quitting time anyways. I explained to him that it was to dark in the room now and that I would not be able to do the baseboards or door to the closet until the morning. He said that would be fine and that I should go out to the trailer and get the mower and mow the front yard. There was no grass to speak of, just 1 foot weeds which I was used to seeing at these foreclosed homes. I recall a sense of relief at being outside and being given a break from the painting of that room. I felt better too and more importantly there was some teen girls across the street that caught my eye and my mind immediately forgot everything and went directly into teen fantasy mode. The only hiccup in mowing this tiny yard was me in a day dream state while I mowed over a glass candle holder...The sound was deafening and caused my stepfather to come out and ask what I was doing to the mower, this little error in mowing edict knocked me out of my teen day dreaming and caused me to look over the rest of the yard in case there were more objects I would encounter. There was, I found three more of these religious looking candles that reminded me of my catholic up bringing but had no significance to me other than they were going in the trash so I could finish the yard and end the day.

Day turned to dusk and as our reward for a good days work my stepfather said we could pick where to go to dinner. This was the way we were bribed or rewarded so we of course picked Mc Donalds and though we were not at that time paid for our work, a trip to Mc Donalds made everything worth while for a bit. We could not shower before as there was no lights in the house so we got our order to go and came back to the house. It was from the moment we returned to the house that things started to go haywire, Reality began to resemble fiction and one plus one did not equal two, fear, disbelief and skeptisism ruled the next 12 hours. The belief systems of all three of us would be changed from just one night in the Idyllwild house!

When we returned we opened the locked door to find that foul odor had returned again. It smelled as though we were opening the door to an outhouse that had never been emptied. The smell became the least of my step dads worries when he noticed a light was shinning in the hallway area. He said to me and my brother in a hushed voice to stay back and that there was someone in the house. My step father, whom I called Bob, was a stocky well built man that could do damage to anyone he had to confront so when I saw him grab a paint roller handle as a weapon a bit of a chuckle passed my lips but never made it to his ears as he walked into the dark living room. I watched from the open door his slow, steady methodical walk, it was clear he did not want to scare them away, rather he wanted to catch them. The moment he turned the corner I expected to hear a fight break out, it did not, rather he let out a an accusarary yell wanting to know which of us Kids had been playing with his flashlight. I immediately said not me then walked into the hall and asked him why. He said one of us had turned on the flashlight and left it in the hallway, we were able to show him that it was impossible for either of us to have done it as he was the last person in the house as he closed windows and locked up for us to go to dinner. Bob said he had not used it and simply said, Flashlights dont jump out of Tool boxes and turn themselves on. I remember that statement scared me as he was right, so who did turn it on and put it in the hallway I thought. 

We sat down after all the commotion was over and ate our cold burgers, no one said a word during dinner. My brother John asked after if it was okay for him to go to the 7-11, which was a few blocks from the house, to get some snacks and a slurpy, I immediately chimed in and asked to go with him, anything was better than staying there with no electricity or lights. Bob said we could go and in an unusual act of Kindness actually gave us each $5.00 to spend. We took off for the store and before we were 100 feet from the house my brother said "Dude that place is Haunted"  He went on to say that he had been working when he felt a tugging on the back of his shirt but when he turned around nobody was there but he heard a giggling sound behind him when he turned back around. He then began to tell me how a piece of wallpaper had mysteriously peeled itself off the wall. I said to him it was probably just real wet from the sprayer and let loose...He said Um it peeled up towards the ceiling...not down!

We hurried back to the house as it was dark and we felt uncertain how safe we were in this unfamiliar city. We had made a plan while at the store whereas we would inform Bob that we wanted to sleep in the truck, not in the house. We got back to the house safely and as we entered, we noticed Bb had our sleeping bags opened up and layed out in the third room of the house. He also had his little portable TV playing and with that we felt a bit more at ease and decided to stay where we were besides we were sleeping in the same room as him and what ghost would ever take him on.

To be continued