'Portals To Hell' Season 2: Demonic presence in Haunted Hill House has even got Weidman-Osbourne feeling uneasy
In the latest episode of 'Portals to Hell' Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman visit the diabolical Haunted Hill House in Mineral Wells, Texas. The house reportedly harbors demonic energy and our favorite paranormal investigators have vowed to get to the bottom of the hauntings that have troubled the residents and keen tourists for years. While the house has been visited by various paranormal investigators before, this is the first time that a Haunted Hill House investigation has been televised.
History
The small town of Mineral Wells gets its name from its once-famous mineral springs that were believed to have healing properties. People flocked to the tow, in the early 20th century, for the very same reason. However, over the century, the city is especially popular for stories of the paranormal and is home to various haunted hotels and haunted homes.
The Haunted Hill House was originally constructed in the 1840s as a residential home and belonged to one of the first founding families of Mineral Wells. From early 1880 to 1929, the house was used as a make-shift hospital, and afterward, became a haven of illegal activity. It became a brothel at the turn of the century, a speakeasy during prohibition that hosted gambling and bootlegging.
The house is also in close proximity to the notorious Baker Hotel, another well-known haunted Mineral Wells locale, which may also have boosted the illegal activities that were practiced indiscretion. In the 1970s, a devil-worshipping satanic death cult allegedly moved into the house.
Over the years, several deaths have occurred within the house and the property, and it is believed that the spirits of the dead still wander among the halls. The house has been a site of a slew of activity for years and now has organized ghost tours. Many tourists have testified hearing growls, or have been marred with scratches and have even captured evidence of the spirits on camera.
The house is currently owned by Kathy and Sonny Estes, who initially bought it to turn into a bed and breakfast until they realized it was really haunted. They didn't want to shut the place down and so they turned it into a tourist attraction.
The hauntings
Kathy and Sonny believe that there is an extremely strong demonic presence in the house. The former even divulged that at least 218 people have left the premises with scratches or bite marks sustained during an investigative tour of the house and this happens as often as once a week. The Haunted Hill House comprises of various rooms on the ground and top floor, and each one is said to be haunted by different ghosts. Kathy refuses to go up to the first floor because she feels very uneasy there.
First Floor
The first floor consists of the carousel room, the front bedroom, the scratcher room, and the shadowman room.
The 'carousel room' is called as such because of a small toy carousel that is part of the showcase. People who have toured the room before have complained of feeling nauseated or having a headache when they have attempted to operate the carousel. It is also where Kathy located pentagrams etched on the wooden floor, beneath a vintage carpet, which she has tried time and again to scratch off or erase, but in vain. Smudges of the pentagrams still remain.
The house is said to be possessed by a demon named Toby, who frequents himself to various rooms, especially the 'front bedroom'. Sonny showed Osbourne and Weidman video evidence of Toby looking at them through a crack in the door and he said Toby was one of the negative energies that were possibly conjured by the cult. Toby made his existence known to Sonny and Kathy because his name apparently rings out all over the house.
Sonny also confirmed that Toby has been caught on video several times, where he says "I'm a demon. I'm Toby."
The 'scratcher room' is what remains of a gambling parlor which confirms that the house was in fact a site of illegal activity. This room is also where most of the tourists who come by for the investigative tour, have complained of being scratch or bitten by intangible forces. Kathy said that they believe the person that ran the illegal activities in the house during the Prohibition era, William 'Willy' Lester is the one that scratches the people. They traced his origin back to the property ownership documents and his death certificate.
The shadowman room on the first floor is where a shadowed apparition of a man has appeared in front of people. Kathy said that a person has previously been bitten while seated on the bed in this room.
Second floor
The second floor is comprised of two rooms - Joshua's room and Toby's room.
Joshua was a little boy, the son of prostitutes that worked at the brothel, who was hidden away in a closed enclosure inside a bedroom on the second floor. He was kept away from society because he was different and locked up in this room which is now known as 'Joshua's room'. Sonny began to tremble, feeling goosebumps and his skin raising while he told Osbourne and Weidman of Joshua's tragic story and said he felt like the spirit of the little boy was holding onto him.
Joshua was born deformed - with an elongated skull, webbed hands, and webbed feet. He was conceived, when Willy allegedly slept with his niece Elizabeth, Joshua's mother. Willy was extremely abusive and allegedly beat both Joshua and Elizabeth to death.
The only other room on the top floor is called 'Toby's room', where the demon named Toby is supposedly present at all times. The previous owners told Sonny and Kathy that the room was where séances were held. Their investigation led them to the spirits that told them about the presence of seven negative energies in just that one room. Sonny also recalled feeling like someone had hit him with a bat on the back of his head when he had initially been in the room.
The investigation
Weidman and Osbourne approached a Mineral Wells resident, Martha Decker, who is a former police-turned paranormal investigator and has written a book about the Haunted Hill House based on extensive research. They need more information to the background of the house, and Kathy told them they didn't have enough evidence to prove that people had died on the property, or that Joshua had lived there.
Decker said attested to there being no evidence as such, besides the documentation that pointed to Willy having owned the house in the late 1920s. She also said she has been scratched and growled at on her visit to the house.
However, as part of the research for her book, Decker interviewed a former resident (she wanted to remain anonymous) of the house, who lived there until about ten years ago. She was the daughter of alleged devil worshippers, and grew up in the house while her parents were heavily involved in satanic rituals. She explained sneaking up to the first floor (now Toby's room) and seeing her parents in action and even claimed that she's once found human fingers which her parents dismissed as her seeing things that weren't there.
She alleged that her parents had conjured the demon, Toby, and had bound him to the house.
For the first time since Osbourne and Weidman began investigating the paranormal together, the former claimed to have never seen the latter as apprehensive as she was at that moment. Weidman had felt the negativity emanating from the property since she had first stepped out of their van, and even said the house wasn't exactly the most welcoming. They began their investigation while adapting to the house as if the residents just going about their routine and set up equipment in every room.
Weidman who took to the front bedroom tried to communicate with the spirits through the EDI and Osbourne set up a device in the shadowman room that instantly went off when he asked the spirit in the room to come and touch it.
The thing that both found strange was that house was eerily quiet with absolutely no natural sounds, which is extremely strange for a house as old as the Haunted Hill House. According to Weidman, the room has a negative and intelligent presence that knew exactly what it was doing, as the investigators had been unable to record any sort of evidence. It was as if the spirits were messing with them.
Osbourne, on the other hand, felt sudden inexplicable bouts of tiredness when he was sat in the scratcher room which faded as soon as he stepped out of the room.
Weidman's reaction to being in the house was new to Osbourne and the crew who have never seen her that way. She was extremely jittery throughout and believes that whatever demonic presence is in the house, it is malevolent and can easily read through people's thoughts. She is absolutely sure there's a demon in the house. She decided on regrouping and conducting a bigger experiment if they had to collect photographic evidence.
They returned to the house and climbed up to the second floor while trying to incite a reaction from the spirits by reciting the rosary, sprinkling holy water and taunting them. Both Weidman and Osbourne felt a fluctuation in the energy, which went from being totally uncomfortable to a little less uncomfortable. They heard a sudden loud thump amid the incessant chanting of the holy passages, and Osbourne captured photographs that had a weird little mist with glowing orbs for eyes.
Weidman and Osbourne concluded that the Haunted Hill House was in fact a portal, and definitely malevolent and dangerous. They even warned Kathy and Sonny to be careful with how they navigate around the house.