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America’s Most Haunted House Isn’t in Amityville

Published

3 years ago

March 22, 2023

There is a haunted house in Bridgeport, Connecticut that doesn’t get the attention the one in Amityville does, but in 1974 it caused a media stir that captivated the country, and nobody ever talks about it, not even genre movie folks.

By the end of this story, you–like the many witnesses in 1974–will wonder what’s real and what isn’t.

What did happened inside this tiny house in the middle of the block on Lindley Street?

www.iamnotastalker.com

The Conjuring

Before we get to that, let’s talk about the recent upswing in ghost story cinema and celebrity paranormal investigations, starting with James Wan’s Conjuring universe (a fourth film is currently in the works).

The Conjuring franchise has given us some great scares over the last decade. These “based-on-a-true-story” earmarks on haunted America, and across the pond, have re-invigorated the poltergeist pop culture phenomena that was so popular in the 70s.

Based on the real-life case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring cinematic universe started with the Perron family in Rhode Island.

Lorraine Warren & Vera Farmiga. Photo by Michael Tackett

Although Mr. Warren died in 2006, Lorraine served as a consultant to The Conjuring. She maintained before her death in 2019 that she didn’t allow the filmmakers to take too much creative license. She asserted everything you see on screen is actually how it happened.

The sequel, Conjuring 2 moved to Britain and documented the famous Enfield haunting. That case involved two young sisters who were tormented by a ghost that threw things, spoke by way of possession and was just an overall supernatural baddie. Cops, priests and social workers went on record to confirm the reports. Lorraine also helped with that case.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., the Lutz family was battling their own demons on a now-famous lot in Amityville. Again, the Warrens were on hand to assist.

966 Lindley Street

But there is another chilling tale that the Warrens were involved in that nobody talks about. It took place in Bridgeport at 966 Lindley Street in 1974 and it caused such a media circus the neighborhood would go on lock-down.

Reporters, witnesses, and other professionals would go on record saying they saw furniture move without provocation, hovering refrigerators, and physical attacks.

In the book “The World’s Most Haunted House,” writer Bill Hall takes a deep-dive into this case. What’s staggering is not only the bizarre happenings that took place, but they were so well documented by so many trusted sources.

Respected Witnesses Document Their Experiences

Firefighters and law enforcement agents have gone on record to say they witnessed everything from chairs moving on their own, crucifixes being ejected from their wall anchors, and knives being thrown by an invisible force. The activity seemed to center around a little girl.

Gerard and Laura Goodin lived in the small bungalow when they adopted their young daughter Marcia in 1968. It wasn’t long before strange things began to happen in the house–little things that people usually ignore. Still, the activity was strong enough to captivate the family.

People said when Marcia was around the events would intensify but even when she was gone things could get crazy.

The Goodin’s were subject to a loud rhythmic pounding in their walls, the source could never be located. Items would disappear from where they were left, only to be found in another spot in the house. Doors would slam. Police investigated the incidents but even they were perplexed after finding nothing.

The Media Frenzy

In 1974 the property was a hotbed of activity not only from the poltergeist but media attention. The Warrens were called in as was the American Society for Psychical Research and the Psychical Research Foundation.

Police were on hand 24 hours a day and interviewed the family. At that time there were reports of TVs being pushed from their stands, window blinds snapping up and down and shelves falling off the walls.

The public frenzy had started too. Onlookers would crowd the street in front of the haunted house to see if they could witness something for themselves. One citizen even tried to burn the house down. The entire street had to eventually be cordoned off.

At this time the entity reportedly showed itself. According to Hall’s book, it “resembled a large, cohesive assemblage of smoky yellowish-white ‘gauzy’ mist.”

The Cat Talks

Not only were there physical manipulations there were also audio phenomena. People reported hearing Sam the family cat say weird things like “Jingle Bells,” and “Bye Bye.” Outside plastic garden swans reportedly made frightening noises too.

The website Damned Connecticut also wrote about this story. In their comments section one person, Nelson P., claims to have worked in City Hall in 1974 in the records room of the Bridgepoint Police Department. They had this to say:

“…we gained a copy of a written report by an officer who was present when the paranormal s*it hit the fan on Lindley St. The most chilling account was when in his writing ‘and the cat said to the officer “How’s your brother Bill doing?, and the officer looked down and replied “My brother’s dead.” The cat then scowled “I know” swearing repeatedly at the officer then ran off. Other visual events in the report include a levitating refrigerator and an armchair that flipped over and could not be lifted back into place by the officers. One officer who witnessed it all took an immediate leave of absence having been that shaken by the experience. I today firmly believe these events took place in the home.”

Newspaper clipping of haunted house in Connecticut

A Hoax?

Levitating Frigidaires and creepy cats aside, the whole thing came to an abrupt halt when a police officer allegedly saw Marcia try to tip over a television set with her foot when she thought no one was looking.

After questioning, Marcia eventually admitted to doing everything in the house on her own and the case was closed; deemed a hoax. Or was it?

Although her parents disputed the claim, Marcia was quick to admit her part in the “haunting.” But questions remained about how she could be in two places at once.

How respected witnesses saw things happen when Marcia wasn’t even in the house and why things continued to happen even after her confession.

The case was eventually forgotten and regarded as fraud.

Bill Hall’s book “The World’s Most Haunted House,” is the quintessential story about the Lindley haunting. His book includes unprecedented interviews from firefighters and other reputable witnesses who were there. They speak about their experiences and what they saw.

It’s been reported that Marcia, the girl behind the haunting, died in 2015 at the age of 51.

Still Standing

The house still stands in the same spot it did over 40 years ago and looks the same as it did back then. You can visit it personally. You can also type it into Google Maps.

But instead of bothering the current residents keep a safe distance away if you decide to go.

Haunted house in Connecticut?

Whatever you believe, this haunted house case was definitely one for the history books if only for the attention it got from the public and the details professional eyewitnesses documented as it happened.

This story has been updated. It was originally posted in March 2020.

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Shudder’s May Is the Best Month They’ve Had in a While.

Published

11 hours ago

April 27, 2026

Luna Gray

Shudder dropped their May 2026 programming slate and it is heavier than most months. The lead is The Terror: Devil in Silver, the long-awaited third installment of AMC’s horror anthology, premiering May 7 with new episodes weekly through June 11. Next up, Tales from the Crypt, all seven seasons, begins streaming May 1 after years off the market. Four new exclusive films fill out the rest of the month.

The Terror: Devil in Silver

The first two seasons of The Terror stand as some of the best horror television of the past decade. Season one sent the crew of HMS Terror on a doomed Arctic voyage in 1845. Season two, Infamy, placed its story inside a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. Neither shared a cast nor a plot with the other. Both were exceptional. Season three takes Victor LaValle’s novel and builds it into a six-episode limited series. Dan Stevens plays Pepper, a working-class moving man who lands in a psychiatric hospital through bad luck and a worse temper. What he finds inside is not treatment.

Karyn Kusama, who directed the Yellowjackets pilot and earned an Emmy nomination for it, directs the opening two episodes and serves as co-executive producer. LaValle and Chris Cantwell co-wrote the scripts. Ridley Scott executive produces. The ensemble behind Stevens includes Judith Light, CCH Pounder, Aasif Mandvi, Stephen Root, and Marin Ireland. This is the kind of combination that earns attention before a single frame has aired.

New episodes premiere weekly after May 7.

Tales from the Crypt

Tales from the Crypt ran on HBO from 1989 to 1996. Seven seasons. Ninety-three episodes. Each one a self-contained story hosted by the Crypt Keeper, a wisecracking animated corpse voiced by John Kassir, who closes every episode with a pun only he finds funny.

The show pulled from EC Comics and assembled talent at a level that looks almost unreasonable in retrospect: Brad Pitt, Demi Moore, Christopher Reeve, Catherine O’Hara, and Steve Buscemi in front of the camera. Robert Zemeckis, Tobe Hooper, and William Friedkin behind it. Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Michael J. Fox also directed episodes.

The series has been effectively unavailable to stream for years, tied up in rights complications. It is now on Shudder. Season one drops May 1. Subsequent seasons premiere weekly on Fridays, with the final season 7 arriving June 12. Watch parties run every Friday at 9pm ET. There is no good reason to wait on this one.

The Exclusives

Whistle arrives May 8 and is the exclusive to prioritize. Directed by Corin Hardy, who made The Nun, and starring Dafne Keen, Sophie Nélisse, Percy Hynes White, and Nick Frost, it follows high school students who find an ancient Aztec Death Whistle and discover that blowing it summons their future deaths to hunt them down. Totally normal thing to happen.

Heresy lands May 1 and is worth knowing about before it arrives. Director Didier Konings is making his feature debut after years as a concept artist on Stranger Things, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Smothered arrives May 29 as a Shudder Original. It is Indonesian, and it is produced by Joko Anwar, the director behind Satan’s Slaves and Impetigore. That name means something to anyone who has been paying attention to international horror over the past decade. The film follows a micro-painting artist who loses part of his memory in an accident and returns home to find a woman claiming to be his mother.

This Is Not a Test streams May 22. Directed by Adam MacDonald and adapted from Courtney Summers’ 2012 novel, it stars Olivia Holt as a student sheltering in a high school during a zombie outbreak.

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[Exclusive Clip] ‘From the Beyond: High Strangeness in the Bennington Triangle’

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2026

Ryan T. Cusick

Audiences are invited to explore one of Vermont’s most mysterious regions in From the Beyond: High Strangeness in the Bennington Triangle, arriving later this month on streaming platforms and DVD.

The documentary will debut on April 28, 2026, on platforms including Apple TV, Prime Video, and Google Play. DVD editions will be available exclusively through the Small Town Monsters online shop.

Directed by Seth Breedlove, the film continues the company’s exploration of folklore, cryptids, and unexplained phenomena. Breedlove’s previous work includes The Mothman of Point Pleasant, On the Trail of Bigfoot, American Werewolves, and more than two dozen feature-length productions. In total, Small Town Monsters has released more than thirty films, along with investigative programs, web series, books, podcasts, and exclusive membership content.

From the Beyond: High Strangeness in the Bennington Triangle was made possible through the support of backers from the company’s 2025 Kickstarter campaign.

Set in rural Vermont, the documentary examines the legend of the Bennington Triangle, an area associated with reports of UFOs, ghosts, phantom lights, mysterious creatures, and a series of unexplained disappearances. At the center of the mystery is Glastenbury Mountain, where decades of unanswered questions continue to inspire speculation.

Going beyond folklore and campfire tales, the film asks a chilling question: Why is Glastenbury Mountain so inexplicable, and what happened to those who went missing?

Check out our exclusive clip below.

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This Week in Horror: DC Goes Full Body Horror, A24 Has Its Chainsaw Man, and The Bone Temple Is Finally Yours

Published

3 days ago

April 24, 2026

Luna Gray

Good week. The Clayface trailer dropped and made DC relevant to this website for the first time in a while, A24 put a director on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reimagining, and we got some interviews worth reading. Here is all of it.

Clayface Has a Trailer, and It Is Exactly What You Want

The Clayface trailer landed Wednesday, and it is DC’s first real horror film. Not horror adjacent. Not dark. Horror. Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, an actor whose face gets disfigured by a gangster. He turns to a scientist, played by Naomi Ackie, who transforms his body into clay. Then the body horror starts.

James Watkins directed, which is the right choice. He made Speak No Evil and before that The Woman in Black, and he understands how to make dread feel physical. The screenplay is by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini. That combination should tell you everything about the tone they are going for.

A24 Has a Director for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and His Last Film Cost Under a Million Dollars

Deadline confirmed that Curry Barker is writing and directing A24’s reimagining of the 1974 original. Barker made Obsession for under a million dollars. Focus Features paid north of fifteen million to distribute it. It sits at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. A24 hired him before it even opens, which opens May 15.

Kim Henkel, who co-created the original with Tobe Hooper, is executive producing his own creation’s reimagining. That is either a blessing or a haunting. Probably both.

Astrolatry Is Going to Cannes and We Talked to the Actor Who Faced the Creature

Astrolatry is heading to the Frontières Buyers Showcase on May 16-17. The film has a sentient severed penis that grows into a ten-foot practical creature with spiky teeth. We interviewed star Ethan Daniel Corbett about what it was actually like to act against it. Short answer: genuinely terrifying. Long answer is on the site.

The Bone Temple Is Home

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hit 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Tuesday. If you held out from the digital release in February, now is the time. The 4K presentation is supposed to be great. Extras include audio commentary and a deleted scene. If your gonna watch The Bone Temple, why not watch it where the snacks are better.