Original subtitles

After about six months of dating, we decided to move in

together and that was when everything changed.

I was so happy when we moved in.

But that didn't last.

McKenna is a non-believer, at least at first.

All houses have their secrets, but few are as disturbing as

finding a padded room down in the basement.

A home's supposed to be a safe haven.

The house just seemed so negative.

Now this is-- this is a scary part here for me.

What's going on with Karlo at this age is beyond traumatic,

and I'm sure it's gonna stay with him for the rest

of his life.

It felt like it was taunting me.

God can't help you.

This thing had it out for me.

In that moment, my world shattered.

I grew up in Findlay, Ohio,

and it was a very rural area,

so everybody knew everybody in the town,

and I went to a university there.

That's when I auditioned and got a part in a low-budget

horror short film.

The cameraman on the film was Chris.

We had a 22-year age difference, so it was pretty

shocking for a lot of people, but we were just--

we meshed really well.

His personality was just incredible.

Chris believed in the paranormal.

He was a paranormal investigator.

That was one of the very first things he told me.

I thought it was ridiculous.

After about six months of dating, we decided to move

in together. It was his apartment.

And something dark and terrifying wreaked

its revenge on me.

Richard Estep, McKenna Essman, take one.

For McKenna and Chris, their story begins

very happily.

It was only after they moved in together

that it began to take on much darker

and more sinister overtones.

Erin Goodpipe, McKenna Essman, take one.

What really fascinated me about this case is the fact

that McKenna is a non-believer, at least at first.

Chris lived an hour away in Fremont,

which was a much bigger city than Findlay.

He was renting an old house with a lot of character.

Moving in with Chris was a major move.

I was very scared, and not being with my parents anymore.

I didn't like the house at first.

I thought it looked run-down.

I was used to a relatively nice house.

The cars were different, the streets were different.

It was just more of a rundown area.

So, the house to me seemed creepy.

He kind of jokingly said,

"My house is haunted."

Christopher...

I spent a lot of time in the home alone

because he was working all day,

I was in college.

And that was when everything changed.

I started to notice little noises here and there.

And, you know, it scared me.

It made me feel on edge.

Are you trying to embarrass me?

I did start hearing the whisperings, almost like

conversations going on around me.

I always loved him.

One of the most logical things

that I thought of was either,

A, it was neighbors outside, because we actually had

a little sidewalk that ran in between the two houses.

And again, the houses were really close.

So I thought someone probably just walked on that sidewalk.

I was in another room, and I would hear the noises in

another room, and so I always thought,

you know, I just heard something wrong.

The voices that I heard were not audible, but you could

almost tell that it was like a light whisper.

You could tell it was human, but you just couldn't

tell the words.

These aren't voices in her head.

She's hearing what she thinks might be the sound of people

passing by outside in the street.

Definitely the voices of the living.

Or so it seems at first.

There is a common phenomena from the spirit realm to hear

sort of these inaudible, you know, whispering sounds

because sometimes we're tapping into the frequency of

the spirit realm.

--- Jesus! - What's going on?

The room was actually padded. It was just so creepy.

You know, your mind goes in so many different directions

because the basement is already creepy.

So was the room used for something scary?

I did some digging around the history of the area,

and what I found interesting was there is a courthouse that

was built over an old jail dungeon.

Now, what's particularly interesting about this is that

the inmates over the years had actually dug escape tunnels

that led throughout the area and particularly close

to Chris and McKenna's house.

Could the padded room be an exit to the prison tunnel?

All houses have their secrets, but few are as disturbing as

finding a padded room down in the basement.

I did try to tell myself that it was just maybe like

a playroom, that it was something that, you know,

had nothing in a negative connotation, but the energy

that came from that room told me otherwise.

We ended up locking the door because it was just so creepy.

I would walk throughout the house, and I would see

darting black figures. They did seem like shadows.

I couldn't distinguish what it was, but it would just jump in

and out of-- it looked like the floor.

And they would just be like, in the corner of your eye,

moving around very quickly.

My first thought, that it had to be our black cat,

Maggie, because we did have two cats.

I thought for sure maybe they were jumping off of

the table, maybe they were jumping into another room,

but the animals were never around me.

And it made you think that you were going crazy.

It can be a common phenomena for people who are dealing with

spirits to see these little dark figures

darting back and forth.

I think it leads to a spirit that's trying to get someone's

attention or trying to lead them to some specific place.

I noticed this pebble that just like, hit the back of my leg.

And I looked everywhere.

I thought maybe Chris came down here.

What is-- there's got to be something.

It felt more like someone was actually trying to hit me,

versus the pebble just randomly falling and hitting me.

Whatever this was was trying to get my attention

and to make me feel afraid.

The hair was standing up on my arms.

I saw this figure go by and then go around the corner.

I wasn't about to wait to find out, and I got the hell

out of there.

When I got upstairs, I told Chris about it.

We went back down there, but no one was there.

McKenna finds herself surrounded by these pebbles.

Now, paranormal investigators will tell you that marbles,

small stones, pebbles, often appear out of thin air

and will be thrown at people

with no apparent cause or no apparent source.

They're called apports, and sometimes they're warm to

the touch when they're picked up.

They're very common in poltergeist cases.

Chris believed in the paranormal, and I didn't.

And even though he warned me that his house was haunted,

I got the feeling that he was so used to having paranormal

experiences that it didn't really bother him.

I mean, he hadn't even seen anything.

It was just me.

It felt like it was taunting me.

It was just the feeling of dread, because I knew

that I didn't recently wind that up

and nothing could make it go off.

But I could see it spinning.

And it was just the creepiest feeling

of watching it spin all by itself.

Chris and McKenna have very different attitudes

towards the paranormal.

Chris is a believer and he accepts it without question.

McKenna very much doesn't, although she's starting to.

But I'm wondering if the fact that she's the target of

so much of this activity

indicates that she's being taught

a lesson by something from the other side.

Whatever was in this house was after me,

and it wanted to hurt me.

The energy was very much female, but whoever she was,

she was gone.

So at this point, because of what McKenna is feeling,

it's a female energy.

The question is, why is this woman, this female-presenting

energy here, and why is she targeting McKenna?

I felt targeted and threatened, but I didn't

know why. That was a really...

sad moment for me because I felt like

this was supposed to be a really happy move,

this was supposed to be,

you know, very exciting, and now I have this thing

tormenting me in a place that should be very safe.

I did think this is not for me, and I did mention it to Chris.

I said, "You know, the house just seems

so negative."

We were fighting constantly in the home, I thought maybe this

is just not gonna work.

One very common finding in paranormal cases is this idea

of strong emotion, especially anger, and anger is

linked to fear.

It's as if the situation heightens,

and we enter this kind of spiral

in which the anger and the fear and negativity feed off of

one another and start to boil and bubble,

reaching towards an explosion point.

And I think that's what's happening in McKenna's case.

She is in danger if this isn't somehow defused.

One day, I decided to go for a nap.

The bedroom was like my only oasis in the house that I felt

like it was really mine.

As I lay down to take a nap, I thought I felt something

crawling into bed with me.

Suddenly, I felt like there was something walking on my leg,

almost like little cat paws.

I was so freaked out, I didn't even want to look behind me.

I told Chris about it. I could barely speak.

I could barely breathe, it was--

it was like anxiety and panic and everything, all these

emotions, you know, just exploding.

And he goes, well, I've had that happen before.

The two previous girlfriends that I had had similar

experiences that you had, only they were at

different locations. And I was like, "What?"

One theory was that there was an entity named Lisa that

attached herself to Chris years before we met.

The reason everyone thought that Lisa was attached to Chris

was they had done an investigation in this house.

Lisa was murdered.

The paranormal group that Chris had, did believe that they had

caught a female spirit.

Chris claimed that he could feel Lisa's energy go

through him. - I love you, Chris.

Christopher.

It turns out that the problem hasn't been Chris's house

or any buildings in the vicinity of it.

The problem has been Chris all along.

Something has latched onto him.

Something that either is influencing him

or is drawn to him, but is now reaching out to McKenna.

There is a real danger when you're doing paranormal

investigations where you're opening a doorway, a pathway of

communication between us and the spirit realm,

because you can have spirits that attach themselves to you.

We decided to move, even though we knew there was

a good chance that Lisa's spirit would follow us there too.

Lisa did not follow us to the new house.

I think one of the main reasons that Lisa didn't follow is

I didn't give in.

McKenna is the first woman in Chris's life

that did not give up, that did not break up with him,

did not leave.

And for whatever reason, it seems that Lisa

respected that, because when McKenna and Chris

moved out, Lisa did not follow.

I find it very interesting that...

once McKenna finds out the identity of this spirit,

that this spirit leaves her alone.

Maybe this spirit just wanted to be heard

or known or validated.

When we moved, it was so perfect.

We had finally gotten to a place in our relationship

where it was just bliss.

I get this call at work, and he tells me,

gosh, you know, I can't really breathe.

So he goes to the emergency room.

They do the chest X-ray.

He had a blood clot in his lung, bridging both lungs.

And he died.

So, you know, in that moment, my world shattered.

And it's still absolutely shattered because of that.

He was the love of my life.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio,

close to downtown.

It was a Slavic village area. A lot of immigrants came there.

That's where my parents came from.

You know, it was a big deal for my dad to buy a home

because it's a dream that everybody has.

It's the American dream. That's why they came here.

I got my own room.

There was a backyard to play in.

I was so happy when we moved in.

But that didn't last.

I always hated the basement in the house.

It was like walking into a horror movie.

Parents asked me to go downstairs and clean up,

and there was a lot of stuff left behind by the family that

was there before.

I always heard weird noises down there.

I didn't know if it was a normal sound from the house

or something else.

Erin Goodpipe, Karlo Zuzic, take one.

Karlo's story really brings up an interesting question

I have as an investigator, and how we address

the spiritual aspect of moving into a new space,

because there is oftentimes spirits that are connected

or in relationship to these spaces.

Tawney Lewis, Karlo Zuzic, take one.

My first impression of Karlo's case, it actually reminded me

of common paranormal cases I have done.

A lot of them start with someone being young and having

memories of being terrified in their own house.

One night, a loud noise woke me up.

- What is it? - I don't know.

We thought for sure somebody was breaking into this house.

Careful, Darius.

Please.

Mom? Dad?

It's OK, honey.

There's nobody there.

It scared the hell out of me.

It's very understandable that Karlo's parents and Karlo

himself would feel really frightened.

What makes them so vulnerable is the fact that their house

has these storm doors where people can just really come in

really easily and intrude in their house.

During that time in Cleveland, there were a lot of

violent crimes happening.

There were also two halfway houses, not that far,

about four miles away from where he lived, so there was

a chance that someone could have been trying to break in.

For about six months, nothing happened.

I almost forgot about it.

It was a male's voice that I heard in, like, a really deep,

grunty sound.

You know, I was just, I was scared.

I was very scared.

Whatever is causing this sound actually wants to be heard,

because no intruder or stalker is going to go around with

heavy boots making loud sounds purposefully.

So I'm now thinking that this is paranormal.

My father would go to work every morning around 6 o'clock,

and my mom was sleeping.

I saw this person go right down into the basement.

In my research, down the road from where Karlo lives,

there was a family back in the 1880s

called the Tiedemanns-- they had four children,

but all of them died very young and tragically.

You know, this is a highly traumatic experience for him.

With so much trauma and tragedy happening in that home,

perhaps the grief-stricken parents are stuck in this

realm, either looking for their children or stuck here

because of their trauma.

Could this be responsible for what is haunting Karlo?

Something between the steps reached out

and grabbed my ankle.

I didn't see anybody there.

And I was just like, freaked out.

I didn't know what the hell that was.

You know, I tried telling my parents about this,

and, you know, I told them somebody grabbed my leg,

and they wouldn't believe me.

They told me it was my imagination.

They kind of brushed it off.

You know, so I was kind of left standing there alone trying to

figure out what just happened to me.

I had nobody to talk to.

You know, nobody would listen to me.

I would never tell my friends what I was experiencing.

They'd think I'm crazy.

What's going on with Karlo at this age is beyond traumatic,

and I'm sure it's going to stay with him for the rest

of his life.

And he's dealing with all this alone, by himself,

and no one believes him.

So it's unfortunate that this is happening to him and why

the spirit, why the entity, or entities feel that

they have to try to gain power over this child to show

themselves, to prove that they exist.

You know, it took an effect on my young life.

A home's supposed to be a safe haven,

and here I'm being attacked, you know,

by this thing that I don't even know what it is.

So even when I would go over to my friend's house, I would stay

at my friend's house over the weekend

just because I didn't want to be in this house because I was

scared something might happen to me.

I had a TV in my room.

It helped me get my mind off of things.

No!

Karlo? Are you OK?

What's wrong, honey?

There's nothing there. Come on.

- But I saw something. - There's nothing there.

And again, she brushed it off.

She told me it was my imagination.

Then I started believing that.

OK.

Things were getting worse and worse.

You know, you're starting to see this person in your room.

You know, it's a frightening experience.

You're always told about the boogeyman,

and that's probably what I was thinking, what it was.

You hear about these monsters and stuff.

It was very disturbing to see something like this.

It was very traumatizing in reality.

I felt something push me in the back.

I flew.

My feet actually left the ground as I flew forward.

I actually put a dent in the oven with my head.

I knew in this house, there was only three of us.

It was my dad, my mom, and myself.

There was nobody else in this house,

and I knew where they were.

They were in the living room watching TV.

Are you OK?

He's not there anymore.

I swear someone pushed me.

This thing had it out for me.

I felt like I was building up to something really terrible.

Karlo does go to his parents and lets them know about

what's going on, and essentially they don't

believe him-- and, you know, that can be

traumatic in and of itself when you have people invalidate

the experiences that you're having.

So now this can create an internal situation where

you have self-doubt, where your confidence is lacking,

and ultimately a spirit that is trying to target you in

a malicious way wants you to be in this weak state.

Our father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come...

When I did start to pray, always pray in the evenings.

You know, I asked the Lord to protect me, to watch over me.

So I did pray for him to just-- hopefully he would move on

and not bother me anymore.

Now, this is a scary part here for me.

God can't help you.

I heard this voice come up to my ear and started

saying something.

I couldn't understand what it was.

And it was, like, mumbling.

And I'm just freaked out. I didn't know what to do.

I felt paralyzed because-- you couldn't even move.

And I started to pray.

God can't help you.

And then I felt this burn on my leg.

I could see three scratch marks going down my leg,

and it burned. I was just terrified.

After it released, I was screaming on top of my lungs.

My parents came running in there, and I told them.

And I think that moment when they seen the scratch marks

and stuff, I think they started to believe me that something

was happening to me.

This spirit is trying anything to prevent Karlo from

protecting himself.

So that is why he told him, "God won't save you."

So a few days later, I had a friend over

and we were playing a video game.

You know the guy that used to live here?

He killed himself in the basement.

At first, I didn't believe him.

I'm like, "Are you just kidding with me and stuff?"

So later on that day, we went to his house,

and I seen his dad, and I was like, you know,

"Is this true that a gentleman did hang himself?"

He's like, "Yeah, he did.

He hung himself down in the basement."

He said the guy was abusive.

He was not a nice guy. He was a drunk.

He just didn't like people.

And I think he just fell into depression and decided to

take his life.

And went downstairs and hung himself,

and from what I understand, he was down there for a few

days until somebody actually found him.

We have a lot of issues, basically a negative existence,

and so that would explain, in the afterlife, he's still

having the same issues.

This spirit is so angry and vengeful.

This person's passing was traumatic.

This is something that he inflicted upon himself.

And now they are in his house, and he's seeking revenge.

When I started actually cleaning the basement is when

things started happening.

And, you know, you start moving things around, they get angry,

and then I'm an easy target, so they went after me.

This all makes a lot of sense now.

This person who used to live there, who killed themselves in

the basement, is upset that their stuff is being thrown out

and are trying to enact revenge on the person who did that,

who happens to be young Karlo.

As I got older, it started to realize I was getting stronger

as a kid.

I would still hear things, you know.

You could still hear footsteps once in a while, but it never

really came back to me to, you know,

to hurt me.

But I believe it had an eye out for me the whole time.

Karlo now knows who this spirit is and who

their identity is, what their life was like,

and so knowledge really equips people to fight against fear.

This spirit was so distraught, even in death, and he was

taking this all out on young Karlo, and hopefully the spirit

can find some peace.

Being a child and experiencing stuff, I had nobody to talk to.

Now, today, I'm that person.

I want people to reach out to me.

So I would never turn my back on somebody.

I'm there to help others now.

And I wish I had that when I was a child.