Paranormal Thanksgiving

My third episode with Ryan and the Paranormal State team airs this Sunday, November 28 at 9 PM!  The episode, entitled Paranormal Homecoming, was actually my second investigation, but through the magic of television and all is appearing now.  It’s kind of like The Beatles releasing Let It Be last, even though they recorded Abbey Road afterwards…

For this one I flew down to Ryan’s home town, Sumter, South Carolina to join the PRS team.  It was a homecoming for Ryan, and a lot of fun to see his old hang-outs, including the massive high school, but an extremely sad case.

The investigation centered on the tragic murder of Tony “TJ” Darrisaw, a 12 year old boy killed Halloween 2008 while trick-or-treating.  He rang the doorbell of a drug dealer who’d been attacked in his home the year before.  Convinced he was being invaded again, he opened fire with his modified AK-47, killing TJ and wounding his brother and father.  Now some witnesses claim to have seen a child’s spirit in the neighborhood.

Seeing the patched bullet holes to the right of the door was the most chilling moment I’ve experienced while shooting.  Not frightening perhaps so much as deeply sobering.  Sad.

While we were attempting to contact spirits in a graveyard across the street, two police officers pulled up. At first I thought the police had taken us for rampaging teens, but they knew the show and wanted to see if we needed anything.  It wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, and the officers were very impressive.  I’m always humbled by people who, by career choice, put themselves at risk for the sake of others.

The cemetery itself was very eerie.  Many of the graves had electronic lights that came on at night and looked almost like frozen fireflies stretching off into the distance.

As for my own far less self-sacrificing efforts, in a totally geek moment, I had my first experience with an EMF detector and managed to find a power line running alongside the street. 

I haven’t seen the edited show, but my PRS bud Coalin Smith tells me I’m in at least one sequence, researching at the local library with Eilfie Music.  Don’t know if it made it into the ep, but at one point Ryan has an experience and I bravely decide to check beneath the piece of furniture where it occurred.

Speaking of what makes it into an episode or not, I want to extend my kudos to the hard-working producers, crew and editing team.  Way back in my college days (during the reign of the pharaoh Imhotep) I’d shot a video that left me with about 24 hours of tape to edit.  It took me months to cobble two hours from it.  These guys put together less than half that out of 48 hours or more of raw footage – on a weekly basis.

Anywho, this is the last of the cases I’ve been on to date.  Paranormal State continues shooting through January, so I may be invited along for more.  Meanwhile, though, give your loved ones a hug and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Slightly Behind the Scenes at Paranormal State

Now that Paranormal Detour, my second investigation with the Paranormal State team, has aired, I’ve posted a few photos at Facebook taken at the site and around the lovely town of St. Helens, Oregon.  I’m not much of a traveller, so I was pleased to have remembered to bring a camera, but disappointed I didn’t snag a single shot with demonologist Lorraine Warren, who I spent a few hours with during the shoot.  As with any other series, there’s a lot of standing around, waiting while other interviews are being shot, lighting set up, etc. Hanging with the team has always been fun, but Lorraine was a delight.

The town itself has a rich and interesting history, only touched on in the 22 minutes of air time.  It was named after Mount St. Helens, the volcano, which is visible on clear days.  We saw it in the distance once morning, looking like an enormous piece of dried and cracked dough on the horizon.  There are several locations with a dark past and PRS actually investigated three.  The Klondike Restaurant & Bar had the biggest rep for the most activity, making it the best bet for the episode to focus on.  There was many stories about the Klondike, including one about a building inspector seeing a boy at the bar.  Upset they’d let a child in the bar, when he rose to say something, the boy vanished.  Ronnie and Dave, the current owners, pointed out an old photo hanging in one of the booths.  In it was a particularly angry-looking child who apparently matched the description of the apparition.  There were also rumors about the building formerly being a whorehouse with an abortion clinic in the basement, but in the short time available, I wasn’t able to confirm any of that.

The death I do refer to in the episode was from an article I dug up dated Feb 2, 1902.  A twenty-four year old named Gilbert Wiley Courtes was found dead, apparently from a chloroform overdose.  At the time people would knock themselves out with chloroform to get high (go figure)- but the death was described as suspicious, primarily because of how long it took to find the body.  It could’ve been accidental, a suicide, or murder.

A huge fire (one of at least two) hit the town in 1904, which some considered suspicious due to a rivalry with Portland for goods and passengers from San Francisco (though apparently that rivalry ended in the 1850s).  The 1904 fire wiped out the business district and was so bad, the town to rebuilt the courthouse out of stone.  The county’s only hanging took place in 1902, a short distance from the Klondike (then the Mount Helens Hotel).  Interestingly, a building down the block, once a hotel called the Orcadia, also had a dicey past and once had a bar inside named the Klondike.

Another interesting thing is that several buildings in the area had been moved from their original location – which strikes me as an odd thing to do with your buildings.  A local pointed one out and I could see how it hadn’t quite settled properly on its new foundation, looking generally  “off.”  The owners of the Klondike said that pieces of their building had likewise been moved there from other locations.

As for paranormal activity, while Ryan and Katrina saw most of the action (including stumbling upon a Halloween dummy stored in one of the upper rooms.  Hilarity ensued, but we won’t talk about that…) I was on the second floor.  The area was eerie, but it was tough to get too frightened with a cameraman following me around and a lots of light outside.  They say you forget about the cameras eventually, so if I appear on more shows, I’ll probably wind up walking into one.  At any rate, during dead time, at one point I heard some creaks that seemed to be responding to my questions.  We had a short chat, but ultimately I couldn’t tell if the creaking was being caused by my own shifting feet.

For me personally, the creepiest thing happened outside around four in the morning.  While two team members investigated one of the other locations, and may have disturbed some homeless people squatting there, myself, Ryan, Mike and Sam (if memory serves) were hanging out in an SUV.  In the midst of an intense quiet, far up the road, a huge group of about fifty animals (looked like cats) streamed silently across the road, moving from one alley to the other.  Not paranormal, but I wish I’d had a camera for that.

I’ve already shot one more investigation (and still have marks from the bug bites) and looking for to seeing it aired.  Meantime, pax!