Ken Layne Gawker
A police captain in Gary, Indiana, says he believes a family’s claims of supernatural terror in a rental house they’ve since fled. Levitating children, swarms of flies in wintertime, mysterious footprints, invisible friends, another child “walking backward up a wall in the presence of a family case manager and hospital nurse” – this movie-ready tale even features screaming Catholic priests performing exorcisms.
The photograph shown here was distributed by the police department, according to the Indianapolis Star, which notes that “officials say the home was unoccupied at the time the photo was taken.”
Why is that noted? Because there’s a “figure” visible inside the enclosed porch. And there are 800 pages of official, local government reports on the strange happenings here. The alleged hauntings came to an end once the family of four moved to another home.
Local psychics showed up with their own very specific diagnosis: The small house on Carolina Street was crowded with more than 200 demons. And with that, the newly counted demons went to work possessing the three children, according to mom Latoya Ammons and their live-in grandmother, Rosa Campbell.
“The family said demons possessed Ammons and her children, then ages 7, 9 and 12,” the paper reports. “The kids’ eyes bulged, evil smiles crossed their faces, and their voices deepened every time it happened.”
While most children behave this way most of the time, Ammons was convinced the Devil was involved.
Family services caseworkers, priests and a police captain are among those who say they believe the little house was filled with supernatural evil. And the Indianapolis Star dedicated more than 6,000 words to the ghost story. Even the local patrol officers can’t seem to get enough of it, leading the house’s owner to ask the cops to please stop driving by the house at all hours and spooking his new tenants.
But when the family’s doctor visited the house during the alleged haunting, he noted their behavior was “delusional.” An unnamed witness told caseworkers the kids were “performing” for Ammons, and that she likewise encouraged the weird behavior. The house was kept clean and there was plenty of food for the kids, but investigators noted Ammons had constructed religious shrines everywhere.
The children were taken away by child services, but things have since settled down and the family is together again, apparently free of demons and ghosts.
