'Ghost Adventures': The real-life story of the Franklin Castle, the most haunted house in Ohio
Franklin Castle in Cleveland, Ohio, has a sinister reputation. From disembodied voices to recurring dreams and people being pushed down the stairs by seemingly no one, the castle tends to antagonize its residents till they leave. The 'Ghost Adventures' crew investigates the castle in its latest episode and fails to debunk its sinister presence after a lot of things go terribly wrong.
The Franklin Castle is also known as the Tiedemann House. It was built in the 19th century on one of the poshest places to live around in Ohio at the Franklin Boulevard. The building is massive, as a castle from the age ought to be and has four stories and more than 20 rooms and 80 windows. From the outside, it looks as though it just fell into its location from another time period — it still has the Gothic charm.
It, in fact, has so much history that it appears that its original residents have still not left the home.
The house was built around 1881 for Hannes Tiedemann, a prosperous German immigrant. He lived in the home with his wife, Louise, children and his mother. In 1891, Tiedemann's 15-year-old daughter Emma apparently died due to diabetes. Then, Tiedemann's elderly mother, Wiebeka, died. In the next three years, three more of their children died. This is when the rumors began — things in the home were not what they looked like.
Tiedemann is rumored to be an abusive father and there are whispers that he had a hand in the deaths. Some also believe that the home is cursed.
Louise also died soon after in 1895, leaving Tiedemann to grieve for all of his family. He couldn't deal with it and sold the house the very next year. The Mullhauser family moved into the home and by 1908 the entire family was dead, leaving no one to inherit his considerable personal wealth. Many residents from the home have talked about hearing a young girl cry at night from inside the walls, while a man, who sounded like her father, scolded her very harshly. There have also been stories of residents being pushed down the stairs several times. One resident talked about having a recurring dream, a dream Aaron Goodwin from the crew, had right before they headed to the house.
The psychic who claimed Tiedemann of murder
An unnamed psychic woman who lived in the house after Tiedemann had been the first to claim that the spirit of the owner had spoken to her and told her about the murders he committed. She caused controversy and was slammed by many.
In the dreams described by both Aaron and a former resident, a woman wearing all black kept asking them if they knew about the murders in the home. In both cases, she knew about the history and the owners and both dreams were eerily similar. They had never met each other or had known about this woman.
If that wasn't creepy enough, human bones were found in a closet in 1975. In early 1984, Michael DeVinko, Judy Garland's husband brought the castle and started making renovations to the house. He spent about a million on the home, but still, put it up for sale in 1994. We wonder why.