Connect with us

News

Modern-Day Documented Possession Story

Published

on

This possession story may seem like your ordinary tale of a family teetering on the edge of heaven and hell, and to some unbelievable; the stuff of movies, right?

But what makes this story so unique is the third-party accounts of government officials, especially the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), and health care professionals who documented their experiences to the horror of millions.

With the recent re-introduction of “The Exorcist” on Fox, stories about demonic possession may become more popular in the coming months.

Often dismissed as hoaxes or people suffering from mental illness, possession stories are often left to Hollywood bastardizations and special effects which enhance, perhaps embellish the terrifying accounts of other-worldly beings that take control of innocent people causing them to act in uncontrollable and sometimes violent ways.

Accounts of this phenomena have been around for centuries, in fact the William Peter Blatty novel on which “The Exorcist” is based, was culled from first-hand accounts which made headlines in the late 40’s about a little boy named Roland Doe.

But modern times have been devoid of such scary tales depicting, in detail, the aggressive nature of those spiritual squatters of the human soul.

Or have they?

Not according to The Indianapolis Star newspaper which in 2014, ran a piece about the Latoya Ammons family who claim that evil forces were at play when they moved into their small home on Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana.

The story became so renown that Ghost Adventures host and documentarian Zak Bagans bought the house for $35,000 after nobody else would go near it, and strangely demolished the property in early 2016.

The Indianapolis publication was so in-depth with evidence and testimony that even skeptic’s hearts were swayed to believe the account of the 9-year-old who crawled up the walls and onto the ceiling.

As incredible as that may seem, what makes this tale so chilling is the accounts laid out in full detail by a Police Chief, Child Protective Services agent, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest.

It all started in 2011, when LaToya Ammons moved her family into a new rental: a one-story home in a quiet neighborhood.

Things weren’t right from the start.

Ammons recalls in the article, when they initially moved in, a swarm of flies attacked the closed-in porch area despite the chilly wintry conditions.

“This is not normal,” Ammons’ mother, Rosa Campbell, said in the story. “We killed them and killed them and killed them, but they kept coming back.”

After that, things only got creepier. Ammons says that sometimes after midnight she could hear disembodied footsteps making their way up the creaky basement stairs and opening the door into the kitchen.

Scared out of slumber by a large dark figure one night, Latoya leaped from her bed to see who, or what, was in her house, only to find nothing but wet bootprints on the floor.

On another night as the family was grieving the loss of a friend, Latoya heard the screams of her twelve-year-old coming from the bedroom, “Mama! Mama!”

They got to their feet and swung open the door to find the child unresponsive, levitating above the bed.

“I thought,’What’s going on?'” Campbell said.”‘Why is this happening?'”

Eventually LaToya contacted her church which made suggestions about how to protect the family using oil and crucifixes.

The distraught mother reached out to mediums and clairvoyants who warned that her home was resident to over 200 demons.

Not willing to move, LaToya followed the instructions of the clairvoyants who said she should make an altar, burn sage and sulfur in an effort to drive the spirits out.

This seemed to work for only three days, but things were going to get a whole lot worse.

The forces began to possess all three children, making their eyes bulge from their sockets, changing their voices from child-like to low growls with evil grins.

The presence even attacked LaToya, who said she would convulse and lose control of motor activity, “You can tell it’s different, something supernatural,” she said in the article.

Physical violence by invisible hands once threw the 7-year-old across the room.

And the 12-year-old, when questioned by mental health professionals said voices would tell her they were going to kill her and she would never see her family again.

A trip to the family physician proved that whatever force was attacking the family could travel with them.

Medical staff reported seeing LaToya’s younger son, “lifted and thrown into the wall with nobody touching him.”

Dr. Geoffrey Onyeukwu said, “Everybody was … they couldn’t figure out exactly what was happening,”

This behavior incited someone to call the DCS, accusing LaToya of battering her children.

Case worker Valerie Washington investigated the claims, but found no evidence of abuse; no bruises or marks.

However during the mental exam, the two brothers began speaking in growls and one attacked his grandmother.

What happened next would make this case unique.

gannett-cdn.com

The House of Demons: look closely at the second window to the right.

While in the room the 12-year-old, according to the grandmother and Washington, crawled up the wall backwards.

When asked to corroborate the story, the DCS case worker said it didn’t quite happen that way, it may have been more terrifying by her account.

She recalls the boy actually, “glided backward on the floor, wall and ceiling.”

The next day, while at a follow-up visit to the hospital, DCS removed the children from LaToya’s care saying, “All of the children were expericing (sic) spiritual and emotional distress.” Washington wrote.

It was then that the hospital Chaplain called Rev. Michael Maginot, who served as the priest at St. Stephen, Martyr Parish, in Merrillville.

Rev. Maginot was surprised when the Chaplain asked him to perform an exorcism on the family’s home.

After a brief visit to the house, Rev. Maginot was convinced it was infested with not just demons, but ghosts.

He left after blessing the house, telling LaToya and her mother to leave at once, which they did briefly only to return for a routine DCS inspection.

Officers caught strange voices on their malfunctioning voices recorders as they interviewed the women during the investigation.

They also took photographs of the house which when further investigated revealed a face.

Charles Austin, the Gary police captain reported that images taken of the house with his iPhone shows dark silhouettes throughout,

Once Austin left the house strange things began to happen to him, his radio malfunctioned, his garage door would not open even though there was power everywhere else and the seats in his car kept moving back and forth on their own.

Later, a mechanic would say that the motor on the driver-side had malfunctioned.

Sadly, perhaps not believing Washington’s previous report, DCS removed the children from LaToya’s home, saying that she was neglecting them, keeping them from school.

The mother tried to reason with the workers, “the spirits would make them sick, or they would be up all night without sleep.”

An evaluation by a DCS psychologist would determine that the 7-year-old did not suffer from a psychotic disorder, rather, “This appears to be an unfortunate and sad case of a child who has been induced into a delusional system perpetuated by his mother and potentially reinforced.”

LaToya was told by the DCS that she needed to find a job and move away from the “demonically possessed” house.

While she tried to meet all of their expectations, she and police would continue to investigate the house for clues as to what exactly was happening.

Chief Austin also returned, this time with two other officers and one K9 unit in tow.

Rev. Maginot also joined the small force and instructed the officers to dig up a small section under the stairs where he thought a pentagram might be drawn.

Although they didn’t find the symbol, the did find and document a “pink press-on fingernail, a white pair of panties, a political shirt pin, a lid for a small cooking pan, socks with the bottoms cut off below the ankles, candy wrappers and a heavy metal object that looked like a weight for a drapery cord,”

Taking over for Washington as DCS case manager, Samantha Ilac went to the Ammons’ home as well, she reported seeing a strange liquid dripping in the basement that felt slippery and sticky between her fingers.

She also began to feel her pinky grow cold and experienced a panic attack.

The band of people witnessed a strange oil dripping from one of the slated blinds which they wiped away, thinking it might have been something used by the family in one of their rituals, but upon returning they found more, despite the room having been sealed off.

As night approached Chief Austin said he was leaving because he did not want to remain in the house after dark.

After reaching out to other priests about doing a ritual for a minor exorcism — Rev. Maginot was denied to do a church-sanctioned rite — he was joined by two police officers and Ilic once again.

The ritual took two hours and consisted of prayers and appeals to cast out the malevolent forces.

Upon leaving Ilic says she felt something was going on, “”We felt like someone was in the room with you, someone breathing down your neck.”

Misfortunes fell upon the DCS worker after she left that day: she was burned, then suffered broken hand, foot and ribs all at different times in a 30-day period.

“I had friends who wouldn’t talk to me because they believed that something had attached itself to me,” Ilic said.

After that night, Rev. Maginot went on to perform three more exorcisms in the house, but since he was finally granted permission by the Bishop to perform them this time, they were a lot more powerful and could be directed toward the Ammons.

He performed two in English and one in Latin in June of 2012.

He had asked LaToya to look up the names of demons on the internet, ones she thought might be causing the problems.

He said knowing those names would give him power over them. The Reverend also did research of his own and came up with the name Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies.

Pressing his crucifix against LaToya’s head he commanded that the demon leave the woman, and could feel the spirits grip weaken.

LaToya says there was pain, but not in the typical sense, “I was hurting all over from the inside out,” she said. “I’m trying to do my best and be strong.”

Rev. Maginot went to a retreat before the third exorcism to consult with a fellow church official who wrote down the name of a demon and sealed it in an envelope around which she surrounded blessed salt.

LaToya called the Maginot one night complaining of bad dreams. He incinerated the envelope but kept the ashes to burn once again in the sanctity of the church.

After that, LaToya said the activity stopped.

The children were returned to LaToya Ammons who had since moved to Indiana, and her old landlord, Charles Reed, says there haven’t been any reports of activity from any other tenants at the single-story house on Carolina Street.

“I thought I heard it all,” said Reed. “This was a new one to me. My belief system has a hard time jumping over that bridge.”

ammons4

LaToya now lives happily and without fear of demonic intrusions, she says it was the power of God, not psychologists who saved her family, and that skeptics should not be judgmental.

“When you hear something like this,” she said, “don’t assume it’s not real because I’ve lived it. I know it’s real.”

But the story isn’t over.

In 2014 reality ghost hunting reality show host Zak Bagans, of Travel Channels “Ghost Adventures,” became intrigued with the Ammons’ story and bought the house to film a documentary called “Demon House.”

ammons5

It was reported that the film makers, Bagans included, got spooked and left the dwelling.

Then in January 2016, without warning the host razed the structure.

The finished documentary, according to IMDB has a TBD release date.

You can read the full The Indianapolis Star article HERE

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Editorial

Yay or Nay: What’s Good and Bad in Horror This Week

Published

on

Horror Movies

Welcome to Yay or Nay a weekly mini post about what I think is good and bad news in the horror community written in bite-sized chunks. 

Yay:

Mike Flanagan talking about directing the next chapter in the Exorcist trilogy. That might mean he saw the last one and realized there were two left and if he does anything well it’s draw out a story. 

Yay:

To the announcement of a new IP-based film Mickey Vs Winnie. It’s fun to read comical hot takes from people who haven’t even seen the movie yet.

Nay:

The new Faces of Death reboot gets an R rating. It’s not really fair — Gen-Z should get an unrated version like past generations so they can question their mortality the same as the rest of us did. 

Yay:

Russell Crowe is doing another possession movie. He’s quickly becoming another Nic Cage by saying yes to every script, bringing the magic back to B-movies, and more money into VOD. 

Nay:

Putting The Crow back in theaters for its 30th anniversary. Re-releasing classic movies at the cinema to celebrate a milestone is perfectly fine, but doing so when the lead actor in that film was killed on set due to neglect is a cash grab of the worst kind. 

The Crow
Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Continue Reading

Lists

The Top-Searched Free Horror/Action Movies on Tubi This Week

Published

on

The free streaming service Tubi is a great place to scroll when you’re unsure what to watch. They are not sponsored or affiliated with iHorror. Still, we really appreciate their library because it’s so robust and has many obscure horror movies so rare you can’t find them anywhere in the wild except, if you’re lucky, in a moist cardboard box at a yard sale. Other than Tubi, where else are you going to find Nightwish (1990), Spookies (1986), or The Power (1984)?

We take a look at the most searched horror titles on the platform this week, hopefully, to save you some time in your endeavor to find something free to watch on Tubi.

Interestingly at the top of the list is one of the most polarizing sequels ever made, the female-led Ghostbusters reboot from 2016. Perhaps viewers have seen the latest sequel Frozen Empire and are curious about this franchise anomaly. They will be happy to know it’s not as bad as some think and is genuinely funny in spots.

So take a look at the list below and tell us if you are interested in any of them this weekend.

1. Ghostbusters (2016)

Ghostbusters (2016)

An otherworldly invasion of New York City assembles a pair of proton-packed paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and a subway worker for battle.An otherworldly invasion of New York City assembles a pair of proton-packed paranormal enthusiasts, a nuclear engineer and a subway worker for battle.

2. Rampage

When a group of animals becomes vicious after a genetic experiment goes awry, a primatologist must find an antidote to avert a global catastrophe.

3. The Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren uncover an occult conspiracy as they help a defendant argue that a demon forced him to commit murder.

4. Terrifier 2

After being resurrected by a sinister entity, Art the Clown returns to Miles County, where his next victims, a teenage girl and her brother, await.

5. Don’t Breathe

A group of teens breaks into a blind man’s home, thinking they’ll get away with the perfect crime but get more than they bargained for once inside.

6. The Conjuring 2

In one of their most terrifying paranormal investigations, Lorraine and Ed Warren help a single mother of four in a house plagued by sinister spirits.

7. Child’s Play (1988)

A dying serial killer uses voodoo to transfer his soul into a Chucky doll which winds up in the hands of a boy who may be the doll’s next victim.

8. Jeepers Creepers 2

When their bus breaks down on a deserted road, a team of high school athletes discovers an opponent they cannot defeat and may not survive.

9. Jeepers Creepers

After making a horrific discovery in the basement of an old church, a pair of siblings find themselves the chosen prey of an indestructible force.

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Continue Reading

News

Morticia & Wednesday Addams Join Monster High Skullector Series

Published

on

Believe it or not, Mattel’s Monster High doll brand has an immense following with both young and not-so-young collectors. 

In that same vein, the fan base for The Addams Family is also very large. Now, the two are collaborating to create a line of collectible dolls that celebrate both worlds and what they have created is a combination of fashion dolls and goth fantasy. Forget Barbie, these ladies know who they are.

The dolls are based on Morticia and Wednesday Addams from the 2019 Addams Family animated movie. 

As with any niche collectibles these aren’t cheap they bring with them a $90 price tag, but it’s an investment as a lot of these toys become more valuable over time. 

“There goes the neighborhood. Meet the Addams Family’s ghoulishly glamorous mother-daughter duo with a Monster High twist. Inspired by the animated movie and clad in spiderweb lace and skull prints, the Morticia and Wednesday Addams Skullector doll two-pack makes for a gift that’s so macabre, it’s downright pathological.”

If you want to pre-purchase this set check out The Monster High website.

Wednesday Addams Skullector doll
Wednesday Addams Skullector doll
Footwear for Wednesday Addams Skullector doll
Morticia Addams Skullector doll
Morticia Addams doll shoes
Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Listen to the 'Eye On Horror Podcast'

Continue Reading