[Cindy] There's a murderer.
I keep hearing, "The Butcher was here."
I see blood everywhere.
It's like I'm getting strangled, and I wake up, and I'm gasping for air.
[Dennis] I fell off a ladder.
Oh, you're lucky you didn't get killed.
Yes.
[Cindy] He's saying, "There's nobody that can save this family
from the wrath that I'm going to bring on them
if they don't leave this house."
I literally heard him say, "She's mine, she's mine."
[Donalyn] I'm pissed.
It's gotta stop.
[Cindy] His ultimate goal is to finish the killing spree
that he started when he was alive.
I keep hearing, "Murder. Murder. Murder."
My name is Cindy Kaza. I'm a psychic medium.
Somebody is conjuring up the spirits in this house, I swear to God.
I ask questions of the dead...
These people are grave robbers.
...to find answers for the living.
I'm 100% sure that we're dealing with something demonic.
I'm Steve DiSchiavi.
I'm a retired New York City homicide detective.
So, when he jumps at you like that, what happens?
It's my job to dig up history on every house we investigate...
I wanna talk about the bloodbath.
...and dig up secrets that wanna stay hidden.
We've done everything but burn the house down.
Together, we help terrified families...
A man's voice said, "I'm going to kill you."
...decide whether it's safe to stay...
[choking up] I let him sit there and fight this thing.
...or pack a bag and get out.
His goal would be to have you all die.
[ominous music playing]
I... I wanna go inside and upstairs.
Like, that is immediately where I'm pulled.
[door creaking]
[Cindy] Okay.
I'm gonna do some automatic writing now.
The family is in turmoil.
So, this family is at their wit's end.
It is literally tearing the family apart.
They're all fighting.
This family has, like...
has had a really, really, really, really difficult time.
It's been really difficult. I... I really feel bad for them.
[Steve] I'm in Cibolo, Texas, just outside of San Antonio.
I got a call from a professional romance writer named Donalyn.
She sounded desperate.
Says whatever is in her house is violent, angry and is going after her.
Donalyn told me she's tried everything.
And if we can't help,
she really thinks her days are numbered.
So, Donalyn, I gotta tell you. Just driving through this neighborhood
and then coming into this beautiful home,
I'm like, "How can anybody have issues?"
It looks nice, and, you know, it's pretty, but it's... it's miserable to live here.
Something... something, uh, won't leave me alone.
I think it wants me dead.
You really, really, sincerely believe that thought?
I really, really, sincerely believe that.
How much longer can you deal with this?
Not much longer.
I... I'm getting an hour, two hours of sleep a day.
-[Steve] Hmm. -[Donalyn] I don't enjoy the house.
I stay on the couch down here.
That's where you sleep?
Yup.
Now, I understand you're an... Uh, you write novels, right?
Yes.
Now, you gotta have a pretty good imagination for that, I would think.
-Yes. -Is your imagination running wild
with what's going on here, maybe?
I write romance, not horror.
-[chuckling] Okay. -If... if Brad Pitt shows up, then, maybe. [chuckles]
[Steve] Okay.
All right, so let's start with the basics.
Who lives in the house?
It would be me and my husband, Dennis...
-[Steve] Okay. -[Donalyn] ...our daughter, Regan, she has the blue hair.
-[Steve] And how old is Regan? -[Donalyn] She's 31.
Okay.
[Donalyn] And our daughter, Julia. She's 27.
She doesn't live here anymore, but she grew up here.
All right, Donalyn, do me a favor
and, uh, just give me a list of what you guys are experiencing.
Uh, we hear strange sounds,
things move on their own,
smell cigar smoke,
I see, uh, apparitions,
and, uh, I've been physically attacked.
I just wanna back up one thing, the cigar smoke.
I don't get that too often. What's that all about, you think?
I think it's my grandfather, Ben.
-This is him? -Yes.
-[Steve] He's a handsome man. -[Donalyn] Yes.
[Steve] Were you close with him?
Oh, yeah. He raised me.
My grandparents adopted us and raised us.
-[Steve] Okay, so he was like a father to you? -He was my father, yeah.
-Is he still with us or... -No, he passed away in '82.
-How did he pass? -Cancer.
So, you took it hard. I mean, you were young when he passed.
I took it really hard. My life fell apart after he passed.
Okay, do you think he's still here?
I would love to think that, um, that he checks on me,
you know, and stuff like that.
I also hope he's passed on to the other side.
[Cindy] I see a... a man, like, sitting...
on that bench over there.
And he's lighting, like, a cigar.
But he's harmless.
I feel like he died from cancer.
I feel like he's connected to the... the woman who lives here.
I'm wondering if it's her father or the grandfather.
But he's really worried about the kids in the house.
There's so much anger and aggression happening in this house.
He's worried that the family is going to split apart.
It's not safe.
He... he's saying, like, they need to get out of this house.
Things are... are really going downhill fast.
[Steve] So, why did you bring me in this kitchen? What's the story?
Down here in this area, we argue a lot.
-You and your husband? -Yeah.
-Couples fight all the time, right? -[Donalyn] Mmm-hmm.
Why is this paranormal?
Something comes over me and I snap.
I'm convinced it's this house.
So, you mentioned that your daughter, Regan, just moved back in, right?
Any changes in her moods?
She's withdrawn. She just hangs out in her room a lot.
[Steve] Is that her, or is this something new?
No, Regan's a very outgoing, you know, sparkly person
-and, you know-- -So, it's not her.
No, it's not her.
So, anything else?
Sometimes, when I try to open the cabinet door,
it feels like something's trying to push it shut.
You can open it, and it actually feels
like there's a hand that's pushing it closed.
[Steve] Do me a favor. Show me how hard we're talking about.
-Here, go ahead. -Really?
Yes.
-That hard? -Yes.
So, it's like, either somebody's pushing on it,
-or somebody's trying to pull it back. -[Donalyn] Mmm-hmm.
Interesting. I can't even debunk that.
I mean, how do you live like this?
You... you don't.
So, I'm just stuck. I'm, like... This is my prison.
[Cindy] There's a lot of poltergeist activity in this room.
It's loud, really loud.
The drawers, things are opening,
I see papers flying,
and I... I do think stuff happens in the kitchen.
I... I was hearing, like, plates shattering and glasses shattering.
I keep seeing an image of somebody
having, like, a huge, like, gash on their hand.
Actually, I think these cabinets, like,
sometimes, you'll come down here, and they're just open.
[Steve] So, I gotta tell you, this is one of the nicest bedrooms I've been in.
But you told me that you're sleeping downstairs on the couch.
-Yeah. -[Steve] What the hell's keeping you out of here?
If I'm up here, a lot of times, I...
It's like I'm getting strangled, and I wake up, and I'm gasping for air.
Did you actually feel like you had hands around you?
I was asleep. I didn't feel anything
other than waking up startled and coughing and gasping for air.
And my hands were pulling something away.
Okay, do you suffer from asthma or any COPD or anything like that?
No.
Look, I'm not sure if that's paranormal,
-but we'll just have to see what Cindy says. -Okay.
All right, anything else?
I've been scratched, um,
this actually happened downstairs on the couch.
Let me see your nails real quick.
All right, you can... you can scratch somebody with these.
Could it have been a bad dream
and you just kinda scratched yourself,
or, like, when you were getting choked?
I don't think so.
Because of the way the scratches are...
-[Steve] Right. -...and the burning.
And they went away after a few hours.
All right, anything else?
Well, when I was up here,
um, something that started happening was,
I was being touched inappropriately.
Okay, so what was going on?
I was laying on my stomach getting ready to go to bed,
and I just started feeling this touching.
Now that you're telling me that,
it's no wonder you're staying downstairs.
Yeah, it really bothers me
because we've been married 36 years,
and this is the first time, other than his deployments,
that we don't sleep together.
-It's gotta be fixed. -It's gotta be fixed.
[Cindy] There's a man here.
He's very bad, very dangerous.
I keep hearing, "The Butcher. The Butcher was here."
Oh, that's crazy. So, in this bed,
I'm seeing the Butcher taking a pillow
and trying to smother the girl that sleeps here.
I'm worried for her health, for her safety.
I see her having marks on her body like she's been abused.
She's had bruises, um, more than one time.
Like, three fingerprints or a handprint.
Different parts of the body. The lower back, I feel, the legs...
You know, he's definitely...
He's definitely putting his hands on her and creating bruises.
[ominous music playing]
[Steve] So, Dennis, I was talking to your wife earlier.
Your wife feels that whatever's in this house
wants to kill her.
Has she told you that?
-She's... scared, definitely. -Yeah.
So, she mentioned something about moods.
Like, her getting really angry for no reason
-and you guys fighting. -[Dennis] Yes.
You know, everything will be upbeat and fine, nice.
And then, for no reason, she'll just go off,
and the next thing you know, we're yelling at each other.
Are you getting the rage that she's getting as well?
-I do get angry easier. -[Steve] Okay.
All right, so what can you tell me
about any experiences you've had?
Let's see. One time, we were sitting in the living room here.
And we heard a crash in the kitchen. And...
you see that plaque over there that says, "Home is where the heart is"?
I walked in there to find it on the other side of the island.
That's about seven or eight feet,
-maybe even nine feet. -[Steve] Yeah.
I know you got a cat running around here.
[chuckling] Does the cat go up there?
No, this was before we had the cat.
[Steve] So, Dennis, you're a military man.
We're taught to be logical in the military.
You tell me. What could have caused it?
I... I can't explain it.
I mean, I've tried to think of every logical...
-reason or whatever you... what could have caused it... -Right.
...to fly off the microwave.
Okay, so what else can you tell me?
Just a few weeks ago, I fell off a ladder.
[Steve] What happened?
[Dennis] I've been on the ladder a thousand times.
I don't know that I can attribute it to something supernatural,
but I do know that the ladder shifted.
Landed flat on my back on the sidewalk,
was knocked off for a couple of minutes,
went to the hospital, broke a couple ribs,
L1 through L5, broken,
uh, I had some bleeding in the brain.
Oh, you're lucky you didn't get killed.
Yes.
What are your thoughts on it? Was it an accident,
or do you think it had something to do with what's going on here?
Well, the logical me wants to think it was just an accident.
Deep down inside, I kinda wonder,
"Is this part of what's going on in the house," you know?
Okay.
[Cindy] The Butcher wants the young woman in this room.
This is really messed up.
So, I think he wants the parents to leave, and he wants to keep her.
What is he specifically doing to try and drive them out?
So, he's trying to make the parents fight.
He's trying to break up the marriage.
He's saying, "There's not enough money in the world that can save this family
from the wrath that I'm going to bring on them
if they don't leave this house."
[ominous music playing]
So, Regan, I understand you moved back here, right?
Yes, that's correct.
So, how long have you been back?
-I've been back for a little over a year. -[Steve] Okay.
Your mom said that since you've been back,
you seem kind of somber and to yourself.
Whenever you come home, you just come up into your room.
I mean, is that true?
I mean, it is true.
I do tend to just stick to my room a lot more.
What experiences have you had since you moved back?
Whenever I am alone in the house,
um, I feel like someone's watching me,
or I feel like there's a presence in the house,
to the point where...
I have to get up and go look around.
Do you find anything?
-Any evidence of somebody being in the house? -No.
It's just, uh, this urge.
I feel like I need to go check every room and every closet.
Um, but no, I never find anything.
Okay, so what else can you tell me about that?
I heard my mom on the phone, and she's coming out of her room,
and as she's walking down the stairs,
I felt, like, this energy, masculine presence.
I felt it, like, detach and come into my room.
And it was so intense that I immediately turned over
and put the covers over my head and closed my eyes.
And I just felt like it was the...
the same masculine presence just, like, standing over me, staring at me.
All right, so is there anything else?
About a month after I moved in,
I had a really bad nightmare.
And it was interesting because I was dreaming.
All of a sudden, I felt like I was ripped out of the dream.
And next thing I know, I'm in this pitch-black room,
and I'm frozen on the ground, I can't move.
And I feel this presence.
And it's the exact same presence
that I felt that night following my mom.
So, do you think you have abilities?
For me, personally, I guess I would say
I have more of a sensitivity to, like, energies.
It's also something that I don't really wanna delve deeper into
on the off chance that it does open up something
-I don't wanna be opened up to. -Okay.
[Cindy] The girl that lives here,
I feel like she's been sensing spirits for a really long time.
She's very, very, very psychic.
Very open.
Her energy created a portal in this house.
The Butcher came in through the portal.
I feel like he's trying to control her thoughts.
He's trying to control her mood.
It's like he's trying to keep her trapped.
Like, trapped in the house. He doesn't want her to be free.
Has her behavior changed at all because of this?
Definitely. She's really withdrawn.
She wants to get out of here. She wants to leave.
She's really depressed.
He feels like if he scares her enough,
that she's going to be under his control.
"She's mine."
So, he's trying to control her
and run her life like an abusive parent.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Steve] So, I just got a call from a local historian.
She did some digging, and it turns out,
the first owner of Donalyn's land was a real piece of work.
The expert tells me this guy was such a jerk,
even his kids couldn't stand him.
All right, Lauren, so let's get right to it.
Who was this guy?
So, the very first owner of the property
was a man named Simon Cockrell.
Uh, what did this guy do for a living?
Cockrell was actually a soldier
and fought in the Texas Revolution.
Okay, so when does he wind up acquiring my client's land?
So, in 1838, he receives a land grant
for participating in the Texas Revolution.
Okay, so how much property did he get?
320 acres.
Must have been a hell of a soldier
for that much property. That's a lot.
Most likely so.
This guy ever have time to get married or have kids
-or anything like that? -Yes.
He actually meets a local, young, beautiful woman.
Her name was Edna.
But with Simon, brutality was just a way of life for him.
So, he proposes to her, and he tells her,
"Hey, if you don't marry me, then I'll kill your father and your brothers."
So, Edna feels cornered.
And she ends up marrying Simon in 1838.
And here's a record of that marriage.
[Steve] Okay, so who says romance is dead?
Did they have any kids?
They did. They ended up having five children.
But unfortunately, with the birth of the fifth child,
there was a great tragedy
because during childbirth, Edna dies,
and so does her baby, Polly.
And this leaves him
with four children to take care of.
[Steve] So, does he raise the kids?
All of them except for five-year-old Ophelia.
[Steve] Why?
So, young Ophelia was described as being
the spitting image of her mother.
Okay.
And she was detested by her father.
So, he leaves her on the side of the road
and tells her, "If you come back, I'm gonna kill you."
-He tells this to a five-year-old? -[Lauren] Yes.
[Steve] This guy's a piece of [bleep].
So, now he leaves his kid on the side of the road. What the hell happens to her?
Fortunately for Ophelia, a doctor saw her, adopted her
and took her as his own, raised her as his own.
You know what? She probably did better off, right?
She did. She actually had a happy life.
So, how does it end up with this guy?
So, in the end,
Simon's left with nothing but a government pension.
-Okay. -And he's forced to move to North Texas,
he rents a room from a distant relative,
and that's where he dies at the age of 93.
And here's his obituary.
So, when you said on the phone this was a bad guy, you weren't kidding.
[Cindy] The Butcher is fixated on the woman in this room.
Any particular reason?
She reminds him
of a daughter that he had when he was alive.
There's some issue between this father-daughter relationship
where just the whole family feels super dysfunctional.
I just keep hearing him say,
"She reminds me of a daughter that I... that I lost."
It's bad.
[Steve] So, the first thing I do whenever I start a case
is call local law enforcement.
A retired Texas Ranger just got back to me.
He says a serial killer used to work the area,
and that this guy was so sick and twisted,
he earned himself the nickname, The Butcher.
Well, Tony, thanks for reaching out to me. I appreciate it.
All right, so this guy, The Butcher. That's quite a nickname.
What do we know about him?
[Tony] Well, the man we're talking about, his name is, uh, Joseph Ball.
He was born in the San Antonio area in January of 1896
and was raised in a small town called Elmendorf.
[Steve] So, now, Tony, most of the serial killers I've researched,
their background is pretty bad, you know?
Abused kids, you know, stuff like that. What about him?
No, Joe came from a prominent family,
and Joe himself served in World War I.
So, none of this is making sense to me.
The guy comes from a prominent family, serves his country in the war.
When did things go bad with him?
So, he gets back from the war, and he gets involved in illegal bootlegging.
Um, after Prohibition, he opens up a... a tavern in the town of Elmendorf.
-Okay. -[Tony] Pretty seedy place,
known for having showgirl barmaids.
It's also known for having a... a pond in the back
where Joe kept live alligators.
And it was also rumored that he would entertain his guests
by feeding these alligators live dogs and cats.
Really?
Yes.
So, when does this maniac go from killing dogs and cats to humans?
So, in 1937, some of his barmaids started vanishing.
All right, so, Tony, I can assume the cops' next step
is to go to the tavern to talk to him.
-Absolutely. And Ball's nervous. -[Steve] Okay.
He asked for permission to go behind the counter
and get himself a beer to calm his nerves.
Goes behind the counter,
reaches underneath it, grabs a .45 pistol,
points it to his chest, pulls the trigger
and drops dead right there at the bar.
42 years old.
This actually became a huge story at the time.
-All right, so, Tony, let me ask you a question. -[Tony] Mmm-hmm.
Why are they considering this guy a serial killer?
So, through their investigation, they found a scrapbook of Joe's
that had pictures in it of... of dozens of missing women in it.
-Really? -[Tony] Correct.
So, they believe that he was responsible
for the death of as many as 20 women in the area.
So, this guy's a real psychopath.
-[Steve] He's probably been killing women for years. -[Tony] Right.
So, that's why they went and labeled him "the Butcher of Elmendorf."
[scoffs] I'm not surprised.
[Cindy] I keep hearing "The Butcher, the Butcher was here."
So, I feel like there's a murder.
I see blood everywhere.
I see a knife.
And is this something that this person did in life,
-like, stabbing people? -[Cindy] Yeah.
Did I say the name Joe before?
'Cause that named "Joe" just came in.
This man is saying to me,
"I left a trail of terror behind me.
I was in the newspaper. People wrote about me.
They saw my face.
I got fame from my killing spree.
It made me famous."
He doesn't feel regret at all.
He's like, "I don't feel bad about anything that I did."
He just feels insane. He feels mentally ill.
He feels like a total psychopath.
Just really out of his mind.
Why is he here?
He wants to finish the job he never got to finish
when he was alive.
He wants to finish the killing spree that he started.
He wants...
He wants to finish killing.
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[Steve] So far, I have a professional romance writer
terrified something's out to get her,
on a property where one of the original owners terrorized his own family
before losing everything.
But I want to see if there's anything else.
Searching through old records, I find Donalyn's land
used to be part of an airfield where some pretty strange accidents took place.
I'm heading over to meet an aviation expert
who knows all about these tragedies.
He says two of the crashes happened very close to Donalyn's house.
So, Mike, I appreciate you meeting me and helping out with this case.
Before we get to the crashes,
what can you tell me about this airfield that was on my client's property?
Well, it was called Kardys Airfield.
And it's basically just an uncontrolled air strip.
Very, you know, simple aircraft
that don't take a lot of space to come and go and land.
Obviously, it's not there anymore. When did it close?
It closed in 1999,
and in about 2003, it got converted over to a, uh, housing development.
All right, Mike, so let's get to the crashes.
Tell me about the first one. Who was involved in it?
Well, the first one was Lieutenant Voris James,
a Tuskegee Airman from the Second World War.
-Okay. -Uh, he was a B-25 pilot.
I fact, I have a picture of him here for you.
[Steve] So, this guy's a distinguished pilot.
I mean, World War II, right? A veteran,
he knew what he was doing. What the hell happened?
Well, it was December 8th, 1946.
-Okay. -He departed Brooks Field on a routine training flight.
He flew into the clouds,
and next thing we know we have eyewitness testimony saying, "He came out of the clouds
on a spiraling dive, crashing to the ground,
and, uh, being killed immediately on impact."
-[Steve] Okay. -In fact, I have an article that,
uh, recounts the story.
[Steve] How far is this from my client's property?
[Michael] It's only about a mile from your client's property.
All right, so you're a aviation investigator, right?
-I am. -So, what do you think happened?
Likely, he suffered something we call "spatial disorientation,"
where he can't reconcile his flight path from reality,
because the clues he's receiving from his eyes have been cut off from him
and the clues he's receiving from his ears are lying to him.
And the result of that is
you can lose control of the aircraft.
[Steve] So, all that combat experience did nothing to help him out of this situation?
Not this time.
-That's a shame 'cause this guy was a hero. -[Michael] Yes.
All right, so, Michael, there's the second accident.
Who's involved in that one?
Well, in this accident, there were two aircraft involved.
-Okay. -There was a World War II Stearman training aircraft
being followed by a Cessna 172.
What they did is they hired a very famous photographer named, uh, Perry Shankle.
In fact, I have a picture of him.
-Okay. -And he was gonna be in the Cessna 172
taking a picture of the Stearman.
Interestingly, he brought along his 12-year-old daughter Michelle,
and she was in the Stearman, the aircraft he was taking pictures of.
All right, so what went wrong?
So, it was June 16th, 1980.
They took off from Kardys Airfield.
-Okay. -They were flying in close formation
in order to get the pictures and they collided.
And the three adults on the aircraft were all killed instantly.
In fact, here are their death certificates.
All right, so the three adults die.
[Michael] Died pretty much instantly, yes.
[Steve] Okay, so what happened with Michelle?
Miraculously, she survived.
She had some head injuries and she had some broken bones,
but she survived the incident.
What are the chances of her surviving that?
It's in the miracle category.
[Cindy] Where is this portal?
It's there.
It's right here.
So, there's a bunch of random spirits that can come in and out of a portal.
I'm gonna do some automatic writing,
because I wanna see if I can get more information about this portal.
Okay.
So, it's caused by the digging
underneath when they were making the foundation.
It created a crack, like an opening.
It's like something right underneath
this here.
I saw a lot of disturbing things in my walk,
but one really stood out.
The Butcher smothering a living woman.
So, she was laying in bed, sleeping,
and I saw him taking a pillow
and trying to put it over her face.
I didn't see his face,
but I felt like he had dark hair.
-[artist] Mmm-hmm. -And I feel like he was in his, maybe,
-uh, late 30s, early 40s, around that age. -[artist] Mmm-hmm.
I think he was just a little bit taller.
Cindy, this is what you saw?
That's definitely what I saw.
[Steve] Now that Cindy and I have completed our investigations,
we're ready to reveal our findings to each other
and our clients for the first time.
So, Cindy, I want you to meet Donalyn.
-That's her husband Dennis. -[Cindy] Mmm-hmm.
-[Steve] They own this beautiful home. -[Cindy] Mmm-hmm.
[Steve] It's their daughter Regan,
-who recently moved back in. -Oh, okay.
Now, everyone agrees
the activity in here is bad.
-[Cindy] Mmm-hmm. -[Steve] And that Donalyn is getting the worst of it.
So...
now that Cindy knows a little bit about you guys,
uh, she'll tell us about her walk.
[Cindy] When I first arrived at your house,
I immediately saw a dead guy sitting on the porch.
And he was sitting in a chair smoking a cigar.
And I felt like he died of cancer
and he was connected to somebody in the house.
So, I thought he might have been a father
or a grandfather of somebody in the house.
But this dead guy,
he's a protector of the family.
And he's extremely worried,
specifically, because there's a lot of anger and aggression
in this house right now.
-Well, you can see the emotion... -[Donalyn exhales]
...just on Donalyn.
-This is a picture of Donalyn's grandfather Ben... -[Cindy] Ooh.
[Steve] ...who basically raised her.
He died in 1982 of cancer.
-[Cindy] Mmm. -[Donalyn] Yes.
[Steve] And Donalyn will sometimes smells cigar smoke coming from the office.
-He was my everything. -[Cindy] Mmm-hmm.
[voice shaking] So, to know that he's here, it means a lot.
'Cause I always wanted him to meet Dennis and my kids
and my grandkids,
and things like that that I missed out on.
And he wants your family to stay together.
Now, you mentioned he's worried about people fighting in the house.
Now, that's been a big issue for these guys.
For some reason, we just... everything will be fine and then,
we're screaming at each other.
Flip a switch, you know? It's like I'm fine
and then, it's not even that I rage. It's that...
A lot of times, I don't even remember.
[Cindy] So, the next thing that I want to discuss
is the poltergeist activity
that's happening in this house.
I was hearing, like, plates shattering and glasses shattering.
Actually, I think these cabinets, like,
sometimes, they'll come down here and they're just open.
Let's talk about the pantry doors opening.
I go in there to get something out, as I open the door,
something's pushing it back closed forcefully.
So, I asked her to show me how hard it was
-and I got to be honest, it was really hard. - [Donalyn] Mmm-hmm.
So, Dennis, do me a favor and explain to Cindy
what happened with the plaque on top of the microwave.
Yeah. So, we were in the living room
when we heard a crash in the kitchen.
And, um, when we went to go look at
and see what it was,
we saw that the plaque
that normally sits on top of the microwave,
-was about eight feet on the other side of the island. -Wow.
So, I don't know
how that happened.
I gotta bring up your accident.
I was out front on an extension ladder.
The ladder shifted pretty hard.
And normally, I would have caught myself,
but I went straight down.
-Scary. -So, I got a video of it.
I even hesitate to show you, but just watching it,
-the way you hit. -It was hard.
[Cindy] Oh, my God.
[Steve] It looked like somebody either kicked out
one of the corners of the leg,
-or it shifted like this. -[Cindy] Yeah.
I mean, 'cause you weren't even moving.
-No. -[Steve] No.
[Cindy] Wow. That is a hard fall.
Next, I wanna talk about a living person
who has really heightened abilities.
It's a living female.
And I think she started experiencing
these things when she was a small child.
And I got that she was really tapped in,
but doesn't really understand what's happening to her.
Donalyn, you told me you've been having experiences your whole life, right?
Mmm-hmm.
You know, seeing things,
hearing things.
But what about you?
-[Steve] Well, that's what I was-- -Yeah, I was gonna say.
'Cause I think I'm talking about you.
I've seen some, I guess, you consider shadow people.
Uh, I've been seeing that since I was a kid,
and then, yeah, I definitely have a sense
of, uh, energies moving about the house.
But I kind of chalk it all up to my imagination.
So, I'm definitely talking about you.
I don't really know what to think about that.
These types of abilities, they run in families.
So, Donalyn, you have this ability,
and you probably passed it on to your daughter.
Did you notice activity pick up when she moved back in?
Yes, definitely.
-Okay. -[Donalyn] Yeah.
-I didn't put the two two... -I didn't think about it,
-but yeah. -[Donalyn] ...together at the time.
But yeah, definitely.
It seemed to run in conjunction with her.
The two of you with your abilities, you have really strong energy.
And the energy created a portal.
I had a really hard time figuring out where it was located initially,
but finally, I found it in the kitchen.
All right, so you got all these dead people coming through this portal.
Is that affecting these guys?
Yes, because one of the dead who came through this portal,
he hasn't left.
I kept hearing, "The Butcher. The Butcher was here."
This guy was definitely a murderer when he was alive.
100%.
I heard him say, "I left a trail of terror behind me."
And a name kept popping into my head.
I kept hearing the name "Joe, Joe."
And to me, he felt completely insane.
Definitely a psychopath.
Definitely out of his mind.
And his ultimate goal is to finish the killings spree
that he started when he was alive.
Okay.
[Steve] Okay, Cindy, once again, you're blowing me away.
Um, there was a serial killer
who worked in this area known as "the Butcher of Elmendorf."
-Really? -[Donalyn] What?
Yes, and his name was Joe Ball.
-Oh, my God. -[Steve] Yeah.
Here's a picture of this whack job right here.
-[Dennis] That guy's in our house? -Yes.
[Steve] Ball didn't have the typical serial killer resume.
He was born in 1896,
uh, to a wealthy family in San Antonio area.
Now, this guy served in World War I,
but something wasn't right with this guy when he got back.
He opened up a seedy bar.
He built an alligator pond out back of the bar,
and he would throw live cats and dogs
-inside to entertain the crowd. -[Donalyn exhales]
-What? -[Steve] Yeah.
So now, in 1937,
several of Joe's barmaids started mysteriously disappearing.
So now, when the cops came to his bar to question him,
he walked behind at the bar, pulled out a .45,
put it to his chest,
shot himself and he laid there dead.
After his suicide,
a detective found a scrapbook of Joe's.
It contained photos of dozens of missing women.
Ultimately,
police came to believe he killed as many as 20 local women.
Oh, my God.
I knew there was something bad. I just didn't know how bad.
[Steve] All right. So what does this maniac do to these guys?
He definitely makes people feel like they're being watched.
Especially the women, for sure.
And I saw the Butcher putting his hands on women.
And I saw bruises appearing on people's arms and legs.
Let's talk about your scratches, Donalyn.
I woke up one morning and I had two long scratches
going down my neck and it burned really bad.
I didn't want to bring it up,
but knowing this animal's in the house,
you probably should tell her about
-some of the inappropriate touching that's going on. -[Donalyn] Yeah.
I'll be laying in bed
and feel inappropriate touching.
The last time, it was actually...
It went beyond touching.
It was actually painful.
And so, that's probably one of the last nights
that I think I even probably attempted to sleep upstairs.
They don't sleep in the same bed.
She goes up there for a little bit
-and then she comes down... -[Cindy] Yeah.
-[Steve] ...stays on the couch here. -Yeah.
Yeah.
-You feel watched, right? -[Regan] I do.
To the point where I feel like I need to go check all the rooms
and closets and look around and make sure no one is actually here.
When I went upstairs to the smaller room,
I saw that he was very focused on the girl who sleeps there.
Okay, so that's Regan's room?
-[Cindy] Yes. -[Regan] Okay.
[Cindy] So, I saw him with a pillow.
And I saw him
trying to smother you with a pillow as you're sleeping.
[Regan] Hmm.
So, I had a sketch done of what I saw.
I gotta show you this, but...
-Oh, God. -What the actual [bleep].
[shudders]
Regan, have you felt that?
I've definitely felt, you know,
something coming up to my bed and standing over me.
Uh, that's a little intense.
So, I know you saw the suffocation
in Regan's room, but... Do me a favor, Donalyn,
tell her about when you were choking.
Sometimes, I would wake up gasping for air,
coughing and pulling at my neck.
[Steve] Regan, you also told me you felt a masculine energy in your room, right?
Tell Cindy about that.
I was getting ready to go to sleep. I was laying in bed.
My mom came out of her room
and as she was walking down the stairs,
I felt this, like, energy.
Like, this masculine energy, kind of, like, detach from her,
and, kind of, come straight into my room.
I mean, this guy is really sick.
And he's really fixated on you.
It's like being in an abusive relationship.
And I think he's changing your moods.
He's making you feel, maybe, withdrawn
and a little bit depressed.
[Steve] Donalyn, we talked about this.
Now, Dennis,
do you notice a change in your daughter?
[Dennis] Yes. Everything that's being said,
it makes me just realize
I don't talk to my daughter enough.
I feel terrible.
And he's really delusional,
like, somehow, he thinks that he can have you
-for himself. -Oh. No.
And I literally heard him say, "She's mine, she's mine."
-Like, that's what he kept saying. -No, she's not.
But you guys are in the way.
So, he's trying to scare you,
so you'll move out, so he can have her all to himself.
So he's trying to separate your family, divide you.
All right, so Dennis' accident with the ladder,
was that the Butcher?
Yes.
I feel bad,
'cause I, kind of, now feel like I'm the reason it's here.
It seems to have been affecting my parents
more than anyone,
-and I feel like I'm, kind of... -Don't feel like that.
-...putting them in danger. -[Dennis] Mmm-mmm.
[Donalyn] I'm pissed.
I mean, this is my house.
It's got to stop.
[Steve] Now, Donalyn, you make a living writing romance novels,
but you're in the middle of a real life horror story here.
And unfortunately,
it looks like the entire family's in danger.
So now, it's time to answer the big question.
Can you stay in this beautiful home of yours?
Or is it time to cut your losses and get the hell out of here?
For that, I'm gonna turn it over to my partner Cindy.
[Cindy] First and foremost,
let's talk about your grandfather who's here.
He's good.
He's helpful. He wants to be here
as your protector and for your family during this time.
So, I don't feel like you have to do anything
to remove him.
And honestly, I think he's been with you for quite some time.
-Okay. -[Cindy] He's always with you.
Next, let's talk about the portal and the poltergeist activity,
which feed off of one another.
I recommend bringing in a medium
who knows how to close portals.
Somebody who specializes in working with lands,
working with elements,
it's possible to close it.
Next, we have the Butcher
who is a big problem.
He's fixated on this house
and your family.
So, you need to bring in a medium
that can be firm,
that knows how to
put this guy in his place,
and that is not going to be easy.
And then back to your abilities.
The two of you.
I really, really can't recommend enough
taking some classes to understand energy,
to understand mediumship,
even if it's just to learn how to close it down.
Ignoring it is not going to work.
Pretending it's not there is not going to work.
Because it's there, it's part of your lineage.
You have that look like you're like, "Eh. I don't know about all this."
It's something that I've been suppressing for a long time.
I mean, I don't deny that it's happening. I just...
I guess I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
Sure, trust me. Look,
I talk to dead people for a living.
It takes a lot for me to wrap my head around what I do still,
and I've been doing it a long time. [chuckles]
[softly] But now...
[in normal voice] Now, I'm definitely taking it very seriously.
But, I mean, now that I do know,
I definitely want to do something about it, for sure.
Yeah.
So, what do you think, Dennis?
I like that we have some solutions.
I mean, this is a huge weight lifted.
Yeah, we're just very grateful.
-Yes. -Thank you.
-You're welcome. -You're welcome.
[Cindy] I really hope Donalyn and Regan follow my advice,
and learn how to manage their abilities.
If they do that,
and call in a medium to close the portal
and remove the Butcher,
this family should be able to go back to living a peaceful and happy life.