'Hotel Paranormal' Episode 2 highlights terrifying paranormal experiences from three hotels with dark pasts
"Every haunted hotel is born of a dark history, a wicked stain leftover from bygone times," said Dan Aykroyd guiding us into the latest episode of Travel Channel's 'Hotel Paranormal', where four people recall their experiences at hotels haunted by a dark past, and evil, malicious entities. Combining dramatized sequences of the true events and expert opinions from paranormal investigators, the shocking encounters of Kelley Freese, Cara Lewis, Jerry Tyms and Greg Stait with the paranormal come to light.
Kelley Freese and Cara Lewis - Minnesota
Freese purchased the century-old Palmer House Hotel, comprising 19 sleeping rooms, a cafe, and a pub in 2002. The hotel, which is listed on the State and Historic National Register had been a gathering place for politicians, authors, and traveling salesmen, that had stood the tests of time but hadn't fared well. It was in a state of disrepair when Freese bought it, and by then the hotel had passed through several owners. As a long-time town resident, Freese didn't understand why a place like this had been abandoned for years. People wanted it closed and demolished but she couldn't accept it being torn down. She and her dad took on renovating the building themselves.
One morning, they found that their renovation supplies were not where they had left them. Fear was further instilled in her when she walked into a certain room and found it covered in dead flies, which paranormal investigator Michael J Worden said pointed towards an increase in paranormal activity because dead flies are a sign of death and decay. The windows were tightly fastened, so there was no way the flies could have come in, especially when they weren't there 24 hours ago. When she had ventured down into the basement to look for something important, amid her rummaging, she felt like she was suddenly not the only one in the room. She heard someone call out for her, and instantly responded to it, but heard nothing in return. Later, she even heard something coming up behind her and suffocating her.
Cara Lewis was an unsuspecting employee at the hotel who manned the bar. While stacking beer, behind the counter, she heard the sound of the glass stacking across the countertop. When she looked up, she and the patrons she had been serving noticed a cocktail glass levitating in the air and subsequently shattering on the floor with such force as if someone had purposely slammed it down. On one occasion, Lewis was helping out with house-keeping and recalled hearing the door to the room slam shut behind her on its own. She could hear laughing, but couldn't physically move. Her heart started feeling heavy while it was getting harder for her to breathe.
The identity of the entity that was tormenting Freese and Lewis was made clear by a stranger who told the former that a deceased person had appeared to her in a dream and told her about the hotel and that he had been buried in the basement. Freese went back down to the basement to investigate and noticed a mound of dirt in one corner of the basement, that she swore she had never seen before and started digging it, only to find bones. She started gathering them into a card box, only to find that they had vanished only moments later. When Freese and Lewis researched the history of the hotel, they learned that it had previously been a brothel and a man named Raymond was the pimp.
Jerry Tyms - Alabama
Tyms was an executive chef at a fine-dining hotel in Alabama, that was built in the early 20th century next to a train station. As a result, the hotel had a constant flow of visitors. Long after his kitchen crew had left for the night, Tyms had stayed back to get a head start on the next day's supplies, when he heard somebody talking just outside the kitchen. When he called out it, the voices stopped, but only seconds later, he heard it again. He decided to look around and make sure no one was trespassing and followed the sound of footsteps leading to the oldest part of the building, that is, the basement.
All of a sudden, Tyms started to hear tapping noises, as if somebody was knocking on a brick wall. There was something there that he was not seeing, but he could feel its presence. The next time he was down in the basement he made sure he wasn't alone. Two other colleagues were helping him move a table when they realized one side of it was being lifted by an intangible force. They then heard glass shatter in a room above them that had been locked and witnessed two other beer mugs levitating in the air. One early morning, Tyms was alone in the kitchen prepping for the day and felt a hand tap him on his side as if he were doing a good job, followed by arms wrapping themselves around him. It was only later that Tyms learned about a woman in a red dress who hung herself on the stairs because she had been left at the altar. This experience was enough to send him running away and leaving his dream job behind, but it did pique his interest in the paranormal. Tyms is now a paranormal investigator himself.
Greg Stait - Liverpool, England
Eight-year-old Greg Stait and his family found lodging in an old Liverpool hotel while on a family visit in 2004. The hotel was kind of run-down, Greg explained, and since he was due to meet his extended family for a reunion the next day, he was tucked into bed by his parents that night. Sometime later in the night, he was stirred awake by a strange sound, and he saw what appeared to be a big shadowy apparition approaching his bed. It terrorized him for some time, as he lay in his bed cowering under his blanket and remained frozen in fear until it suddenly ran into a wall and disappeared. The encounter with this entity made Stait violently sick. Telling his parents didn't help because they pinned it on his overactive imagination. Only 15 years later did he learn of the Hotel's reputation as one of the most haunted in Britain. The entity was that of a man who had killed himself in the hotel.
'Hotel Paranormal' will air on Saturdays at 10/9c on Travel Channel.