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You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hello everyone and welcome back to Into the Dark and...
Wow, you guys, I cannot even believe the positive response that we got to this change. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for believing in me. If you don't know, this is Into the Dark, formerly known as Binged. It is still true crime. It is still me, Peyton Moreland. But we are also throwing in some spooky conspiracy theory, hauntings, everything dark. Thank you. Again, the response was just crazy.
so positive and supportive and it literally means so much to know that all of you guys are backing this and backing me and supporting me in a change that I felt like was really necessary for this podcast. So thank you and I'm so so excited to continue into the dark with all of you.
Now again, over on my main show, Murder With My Husband, which is a true crime show with my husband Garrett, he has a thing at the beginning called Garrett's 10 Seconds where he can talk about anything and everything before we jump into the true crime. And when I started Binged, everyone wanted me to have my 10 seconds. And so now with this change of Into the Dark, I've decided to implement it and it's
Actually so fun and it's something I'm very excited about. So let's get into my third 10 seconds. I first wanted to start off by saying thank you for all of the messages and the support and just the loving and kind words that I received from my previous 10 seconds. It's hard to be vulnerable on the internet, but there's so much that I've learned and benefited from that I feel like that it's necessary to share with all of you things that I have gone through, especially when it comes to mental health.
but the messages I received were so, so, so kind. And so just know we are all in this together. Like there is a huge group of people who are going through very similar things to what you're growing through. We are feeling very similar things and we are all in this together. But for this 10 seconds, I'm going to kind of stray away from the heavier stuff and
Just give you two things that I started last year and I'm taking with me into 2024, things that I am keeping with me that are super beneficial and that I think you should all consider. So the first one is yoga. Whether you do that at home, whether you go to a class, you can literally look it up on YouTube, just find a space on your floor. Yoga is a great way to push through physical hardship and
in that moment and then show yourself that you can do that at any time. I go to hot yoga and if I can sit there in 115 degree room holding a wall sit for three minutes and I can turn my mind off and get through that, then I can get through anything. And it's just such a great way to work the muscle that is your mind and just prove to yourself that you can really live in the moment.
And then the second thing is journaling. I've talked a little bit about this on my Instagram, but I have a written journal and I have a bullet journal. My bullet journal is kind of a little bit more structured. I keep track of all my dailies, which are just like my habits and things that I like to do, whether that's like drink water, take medication or exercise.
move my body, practice mindfulness, like all of the things that I like to do. I also do gratitude. So something that I'm grateful for, I write down every single day and then also a highlight of the day. So just my favorite part of the day. I also just keep a calendar, just a whole bunch of different things. Literally, you can just Google bullet journal or look it up on Pinterest and you'll see what I'm talking about.
And then my written journal I do after I've meditated for the night and I just kind of get into this deep,
deep state of calmness and then I just write about whatever is going on. I ask my body what it's feeling. I listen to emotions that come up and it looks different every day. Sometimes I write my prayers. Sometimes I write what I did that day. Sometimes I just write things that have been coming up emotionally, but it's just a great way to spend that time on yourself and I
I just do it at a time that I would typically be scrolling or watching Netflix. So I just kind of block out that time. And instead of doing that, I do my journaling and my meditating. And it's just a great habit that I started last year and I'm definitely keeping with me into 2024. And if you have any questions about that, let me know and we can talk about it more. But enough of that 10 minutes.
Let's get into today's episode. Okay, so if you know me at all, then you know I've always been fascinated with the mysteries life has to offer. Like what happens to us after we die? Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? Is it possible to transcend space and time?
It's these sort of questions that keep me lying awake at night, thinking there's gotta be more to this world than meets the eye. Because there's no denying, there's still a lot that science can't explain. And throughout the history of mankind, we've been faced with wild tales of inexplicable beasts, unidentifiable objects in the sky, demons, curses, and some of my favorites, ghosts.
The best part is, many of those accounts don't come from elaborate novelists or grand storytellers. They come from average people like you and me. People who were living seemingly ordinary lives until they had an experience that changed everything. Which is why I thought I would start with today's story about a wealthy New England woman who, for all intents and purposes, was living a fairly ordinary life.
until she lost nearly everyone she loved from what she was told was an unbreakable curse, leading to rumors that ghosts and demons were trapped inside her home, making it one of the most haunted houses in America today. Maybe even the entire world. This is the story of Sarah Winchester.
So it's 1839. We're in New Haven, Connecticut. Author Charles Dickens fawned over the small New England town, saying it was one of the nation's most beautiful cities.
A kind of compromise between town and country, he called it, as if each had met the other halfway and shaken hands upon it. Now with a 17-acre green at its center and three beautiful churches for the townspeople to congregate, New Haven was the place to be in 1839 if you wanted out of the growing metropolis of New York City but still had future plans for success.
Which was exactly why Leonard Party and his wife Sarah chose New Haven to raise their growing family. And in 1839, they welcomed their fifth child, a daughter who they also named Sarah. Her full name was Sarah Lockwood Party. As Sarah reached her adolescence, she proved herself to be a bit of a loner and therefore an independent thinker.
While her parents encouraged her to focus on her studies, Sarah took more of an interest in what her father was doing. As the daughter of a successful carpenter and craftsman, Sarah spent hours watching her father from the corner of his workshop as he sawed and sanded pieces used in contemporary architecture. Doors, blinds, molding, piano pedals, even grave markers.
The intricacies of the designs always fascinated Sarah, who as a woman during that time, likely wasn't encouraged to try out the craft for herself. But that didn't stop her from appreciating or even obsessing over new architectural styles and techniques. Particularly when she visited the World's Fair and discovered the Queen was trend setting a new type of architectural home design.
Victorian style.
Once the people of New England caught onto the trend, Victorian homes began sprouting up all over the landscape. Suddenly, Leonard Party was receiving an influx of orders for spindles, wainscoting, and other features of the design, which greatly increased the family's wealth and their prominence in New Haven society. So much so that the parties were actually able to purchase a home in a more affluent New Haven neighborhood,
and they moved across the street from another businessman and his young family, a shirt factory owner named Oliver Winchester.
The Winchesters and the Parties became fast friends with their children around the same ages. Even after the Parties moved to a larger house in 1852, the two families actually stayed close and they saw each other at church almost weekly. Now over the years, Sarah would feel the gaze of their son, William Winchester, from the pews behind her. But it would be a few more years until anything came of this little crush. For
For now, William was climbing the ranks of his father's shirt company, and with the recent advent of the sewing machine, business was booming. So much so that the profits allowed the family to invest in other businesses, like the arms industry. The Winchesters bought out a failing gun company and their patents, and from there, they created a new kind of weapon, a repeating rifle.
For the first time, a gun could shoot 30 shots in under a minute, rather than being loaded for each fire.
which was good timing because the nation was on the brink of an unprecedented conflict. Tensions between the North and South were brewing, and war seemed inevitable. Firmly on the side of the North, the Winchesters began peddling their repeating rifle to Union officials, but many were hesitant to rely on the new design. Despite the Civil War breaking out in 1861 and lasting until 1865,
The Winchester repeating rifle was never used on the battlefields, regardless of how hard the family tried. And it was definitely a setback, but only temporary. And while news of bloodshed came pouring into the town of New Haven, William Winchester and Sarah Party managed to find some happiness in one another. So these two children of these two families who are good friends, two prominent wealthy families, begin dating.
Despite Sarah's reclusiveness as a child, William brought her out of her shell. Plus, she was smarter and more educated than other potential wives.
Sarah played several instruments, spoke French, and had come from a dignified family. That was more than enough reason for the Winchesters to approve of their son William and Sarah's marriage. So the two tied the knot on September 30, 1862. Sarah was 23 and William was 25.
Shortly after, William sold his interest in the shirt company and sank all his stock into the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. So he leaves the shirt company and basically goes full force into the rifle gun company. Without much luck getting his guns sold in the U.S., William and Sarah actually traveled overseas, particularly to France, where they were able to find a gun.
which made up a large corner of their market. While the trips were business for William, Sarah loved absorbing European culture and gained a lot of architectural inspiration for the days when she'd be owning and building her own home.
But come 1865, William and Sarah had a new priority on the horizon. Sarah was actually pregnant with their first child. Seeing as this would be the first grandchild to carry on the Winchester name, the family was ecstatic at the news, but that joy was short-lived. On June 15th, 1866, Sarah went into a long and painful labor.
eventually giving birth to a baby girl, the couple named Annie, after William's sister who had recently passed. But the name might have carried a curse of its own because infant Annie was having trouble eating and digesting. Over the next month, her weight declined rapidly until July 25th when infant Annie finally succumbed to her condition. Sarah and William couldn't put their grief into words.
The child was placed in a tiny wooden casket at a grave site next to her namesake, her aunt Annie. Meanwhile, the couple became reclusive, particularly Sarah, who for nearly a year found it hard to leave the home. As time went on, Sarah's siblings, as well as her in-laws, continued to give birth to healthy children, but Sarah and William either never tried or were not successful in having another, leaving a permanent scar on Sarah Winchester's heart.
But by 1869, death was something Sarah had become accustomed to. That year, she lost her idol and own personal hero, her father Leonard Pardee from rheumatoid arthritis, a condition that in due time would plague Sarah herself.
Through so many dark times, Sarah was forced to learn how to pick up the pieces, to move on and support her husband and his now very prospering business. In the 1870s, with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, Sarah accompanied William to the West for the very first time, and more specifically to San Francisco, California, where William had opened a new office in a waterfront property on Battery Street.
Now that the war was over, the tune had changed on the repeating rifle, particularly due to the Winchester's genius marketing tactics. The rifle was making appearances at the World's Fair and was being used by celebrities like Buffalo Bill and, soon, sharpshooter Annie Oakley. Years later, the company would adopt the slogan, "'The gun that won the West.'"
mainly because the rifle had become an icon in the geographical expansion of the nation. With that wealth, Sarah and William moved into a larger house in New Haven along with her father-in-law and mother-in-law.
There, Sarah spent her time studying interior design, real estate investment, and construction management. She was preparing to one day build a home from the ground up. But that curse that Sarah appeared to have, the one where death follows her, returned in the spring of 1880. In May of that year, Sarah lost her mother. In December, her beloved father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, passed away as well.
Then in March of 1881, Sarah lost the person she loved most in this world. Her husband, William Winchester, died of tuberculosis at the age of 43.
With this series of deaths came a massive inheritance. Sometimes after a particularly long day, I love to play games on my phone to get my mind off things, and one game I have been loving is June's Journey. June's Journey is a hidden object mystery mobile game that puts your detective skills to the test. You play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's mother.
murder. With hundreds of mind-teasing puzzles, the next clue is always within reach. Every new scene and chapter leads to more juicy secrets and clues being revealed about this mysterious murder that brings out the detective in everyone. Plus, you get to chat and play with or against other players by joining a detective club. You'll even get the chance to play in a detective league to put your skills to the test.
I have always loved good scavenger hunts and puzzles, and of course, we all know I love a good murder mystery, and this is just the perfect marriage of the two. Right now, I'm on chapter two. I've been trying so hard not to use the light bulb feature to help me search for clues. I seriously look forward to playing it every night. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.
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Let's get back into the episode. Sarah had acquired half of the Winchester Repeating Rifle Company along with $20 million. That would be about $603 million today. So to say that she was unbelievably wealthy, but no amount of money could reassemble the pieces of Sarah Winchester's broken heart or bring back her daughter or her husband from the dead.
That is, until she discovered an unexpected method to try and reach her husband from beyond the grave. So rumor has it that after William's passing, Sarah was so distraught, so depressed by the series of hardships life had given her,
that she went to a medium to seek advice or at the very least break the supposed curse that had been placed upon her. Attempting to contact the dead was certainly not as taboo or as peculiar as it might seem today. Like everyone was kind of into this. Plus Sarah herself was an independent, if not forward thinker. So it's likely that no one questioned Sarah when she reportedly sat down with a Boston sidekick
named Adam Coons. The story says that Adam performed a seance and was able to reach William Winchester on the next plane. And William did in fact have some information for his widowed wife. He claimed that Sarah and their family were being haunted by ghosts of those killed by the Winchester rifle. So anyone killed at the hands of her husband's
Gun company was now haunting her. It was karma at work. And the only way for her to break the curse and keep the spirits at bay was by moving west, starting a new life, and building a new home. The catch was, again, this is all happening during the seance,
Sarah could never stop building. The house would have to be so maze-like, so confusing.
that the ghosts would be lost forever wandering their halls, kept away from Sarah Winchester herself, so that they may never harm her or her family again. So essentially this medium is telling Sarah that her husband has contacted him and she needs to move west and build a home and never stop building or these ghosts would actually get to her.
While the details of the seance have been debated for over a century, one thing was for certain. Sarah Winchester packed up her things and began a move out west in 1886 with $20 million. Now, Sarah had enough money to relocate anywhere in the world. She could have gone to Europe to continue her studies in architecture. She could have stayed in New England and remained close to her living family members.
But like the psychic advised, Sarah sought a new place to live in California, in an area just outside of San Francisco, which made sense for other reasons. Sarah, who'd been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, preferred the consistent 70 degree dry weather, as the warmer temperatures helped alleviate a lot of the pain winter seasons brought back on the East Coast.
Plus, Sarah had fond memories of visiting the West with William, her now dead husband. It was far enough away from the heartbreak and loss that she'd suffered back home in New Haven. Far enough away from the constant reminders.
So that spring, 1886, Sarah toured the valleys outside of San Francisco by carriage, looking for the perfect property to make her own. And that's when she came across a property that reminded her of Switzerland and a vacation she and William had taken many years before.
It was a 45-acre plot of land surrounded by sprawling foothills and bright green grass in what today is the city of San Jose, California.
Upon it sat a small ranch with an eight-room farmhouse. And while that was a bit small by Sarah Winchester's standards, she saw it as a blank canvas, a place where she could apply all of the skills she'd learned over the years about architecture, carpentry, and interior design. Finally, Sarah would get to execute the project she'd always dreamed of,
while at the same time heeding her late husband's advice and keeping any dangerous spirits at. Sarah purchased the property for about $12,000. That would be about $388,000 today. She even convinced two of her sisters, Belle and Estelle, as well as their husbands and children to come out west and settle down with her. Then Sarah got to work on the property she'd come to call the Yanada Villa.
According to many sources, Sarah never made any official blueprints for her design. Instead, she followed her gut, crafting the home room by room, along with the help of two local carpenters. But Sarah made sure to oversee every detail herself. And if what was executed didn't fit into her vision, she would just tear it down and start over again.
Builders busied themselves around the clock, and within the first six months, the eight-room farmhouse had expanded to 26 rooms. But Sarah didn't stop there. She continued expanding the home, resulting in a maze of hallways leading to bedrooms, parlors, recreational rooms, porches.
As she built outward and upward, Sarah dedicated the second floor to a collection of apartments made for house guests and staff. Each room's ceiling was customly designed with faux finishes, crown moldings, or decorative stencils. She imported fixtures like chandeliers, stained glass, furniture, and paintings from all over Europe.
She even used one of the most expensive resources at the time, California redwood, to strengthen the mansion's bones. She incorporated some of the latest technologies into her design as well, like three elevators, a high-tech heating system, and gas lighting that went on with the push of a button, as well as an early version of an intercom system that allowed her to communicate with staff in other parts of the home.
As the construction continued on, Sarah came to have over 161 rooms, 40 of which were bedrooms, 10,000 windows, not one but two basements, 2,000 doors, some of which just opened to walls, others that didn't even open at all.
while one opened to a 15-foot drop to the garden below, and another an 8-foot drop below to the kitchen. There were staircases that just led right up into the ceiling.
Cabinet doors that led to secret rooms. And there were some smaller details that struck people as odd too, like the seemingly deliberate repetition of the number 13. 13 candles in the ballroom chandelier, 13 windows in the 13th bathroom, and 13 words in each of the two Shakespeare quotes she had printed onto stained glass windows.
The windows I'm referring to mirror each other in the grand ballroom. All of this was compounded with rumors that Sarah even built her own secret seance room in the home. Allegedly, Sarah held her own seances in a turret of the mansion she called the Witch's Cap. She had 13 different robes she would switch out and wear depending on the day.
And while it's unclear who Sarah seemed to be contacting every night, legend has it she would come to her builder the next morning to deliver new plans. Plans she had seemingly conjured from the other side that really didn't make much sense.
Now, if Sarah Winchester were in fact finding ways to communicate or even appease the dead, she certainly wasn't the only one in her time period to be doing so. Like I said, this movement known as spiritualism began when Sarah was a child around the mid-1840s and was widely circulated in the New York area not far from where Sarah was raised.
The idea that spirits could speak to people through certain human conduits or tools like Ouija boards offered people hope and comfort, particularly in a time when medicine wasn't as reliable and the average lifespan was about 40 years old. It became so popular that by the late 19th century, people all across the nation thought spiritualism could be the next scientific frontier.
And Sarah's new hometown of San Jose was no exception. In fact, San Jose was home to a pretty active spiritualist community. Not far from Sarah's home, a group called the Orders of the Angels of the Light would meet under the guidance of a medium named Nancy Roberts.
And much like Lady Winchester, Nancy allegedly received instruction from the other side, informing her to build a temple where others could meet. In fact, the center still stands today, although has since been turned into a Christian church.
There was also Mrs. Fanning, a local medium who allegedly proved her powers to the world when she had her portrait taken by a local photographer. After the images were developed, Fanning was seen surrounded by five other women who were not in the shot when the photographer said he took the image. He admitted he wasn't a believer before snapping the image of Mrs. Fanning, but after was a different story.
Finally, there was the True Life Church in San Jose, founded by Mary Hayes Chinoweth. Mary allegedly held the unique power to conjure the dead and heal the living with a simple touch. According to some sources, elderly and sick children would flock to her church, leaving with things like rashes or even chronic illnesses cured.
All this goes to say, Sarah certainly wouldn't have been ostracized for believing in the dead or for even saying she could communicate with them. But there was something about Sarah's wealth and reclusiveness that added to the mystery about her. And in 1895, the local papers began making Lady Winchester their front page story.
By this point, the Winchester mansion was a bit hard for locals to ignore. It had grown to a towering seven stories at its highest point. And with Sarah Winchester so rarely seen in public, people couldn't help but wonder more about the woman who'd constructed such a befuddling piece of architecture in their hometown. Many called Sarah Winchester a snob for not participating in society as was expected of her.
Others picked up on rumors of a deadly curse and perpetual hauntings that seemingly kept Sarah at work and out of the limelight. One newspaper pointed to her fearful nature, claiming, quote, "The belief exists when work of construction ends, disaster will result." The other reason they gave?
Sarah Winchester's superstitions came from the immense guilt she felt over the Winchester repeating rifle. That perhaps all of the deaths suffered at the hands of her husband's weapon had eaten away at her over the years. That maybe there were no ghosts of bloodied cowboys or dismembered English settlers wandering her home at night.
Maybe Sarah Winchester was just experiencing a bit of paranoia and some mental health issues.
Either way, Sarah certainly wasn't making it any easier on herself. She never responded or dispelled the propaganda printed about her, which only made the public speculate more. Plus, when she was rarely spotted outside of the home, Sarah was seen in black dresses, gloves, and hats, which at the time was unusual. It was almost as if she was in constant mourning.
What none of them either knew or took into consideration about Sarah was she was probably a lot more educated and sane than the lot of them. By this point in her life, she spoke four languages and played three instruments. Architectural and interior design was a hobby of hers she enjoyed and kept her close to her father's memory.
Plus, Sarah's rheumatoid arthritis was getting increasingly worse. Her hands were becoming misshapen and she was losing her teeth, which likely caused Sarah to feel a bit insecure about her appearance, preferring to stay inside where she felt safe.
if you asked most of sarah winchester's staff they could tell you the snobbish old crow stories were for the birds the sarah was an incredibly generous employer who paid well over the average salary who'd given them ample amounts of time off that she was clear-headed and had quote a better grasp of business and financial affairs than most men
In fact, many claimed the reason Sarah did keep building was to contribute to the economy and keep so many more people employed. But Sarah's staff was so loyal that they too never spoke to the press to dispel any rumors. And that was likely upon Sarah's request.
Instead, Sarah built high hedges to keep nosy reporters at bay. And as her condition worsened, Sarah retreated further into herself and into the home. Okay, you guys, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that doesn't work. You still aren't sleeping. You still hurt and you're still stressed out. That's
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Visit cbdistillery.com and use code dark for 20% off, you guys. If you wanted to give CBD a try, go to cbdistillery.com, code dark. cbdistillery.com, use code dark. All right, let's get back to the episode. However, 1906 brought one of the largest, most unexpected challenges for Sarah Winchester yet.
On April 18th, at around 5 a.m., the ground beneath the San Francisco Bay Area began to shake violently. It was the biggest earthquake in recent history at a staggering 7.8 magnitude. All it took was 37 seconds to claim the lives of more than 3,000 people, with the property damage into what would be the billions today.
The Winchester mansion was not immune. It also suffered a critical blow. The top three stories of the home experienced severe damage and the seven-story tower came tumbling down. Glass, shingles, and other features were destroyed on the lower levels. Porches and turrets were now nothing but dust. Sarah's work of art that had taken her the last 20 years of her life to construct was never the same.
But some say that when the earthquake hit, Sarah was worried about more important things like getting out alive. If you were to tour the Winchester home today, which I've done,
Guides will tell you that the 67-year-old Sarah was actually trapped in one of the rooms from fallen debris and that she needed to be rescued, dug out by her staff after the shaking was over. Some even say that since Sarah was nearing completion on the home, this was a sign from the great beyond the spirits were closing in on her. And if she wanted to survive, construction needed to continue.
So after that day, the elderly Sarah had a decision to make. Did she just give in, finally throw in the towel and wait for fate to take hold? Or did she pick up the pieces and put them back together again?
Well, spirits or not, Sarah decided she wasn't going to let her years of hard work go to waste. She began clearing away damaged parts of the home, leading to more doors that opened to nowhere. Rubble from the fireplaces were taken away as other fixtures were sealed off or boarded over for renovations.
Staircases that led to the once existing upper levels were capped off, making the house seem even more confounding than before. But by 1922, Sarah's persistence had taken a toll on her body. In the first week of September, her system started to shut down as rheumatoid arthritis got the best of her. And on September 5th, with a doctor by her side, the 83-year-old Sarah took her final breaths in the comfort of her own bed.
Now she could finally be with her family once again. While Sarah was transported back to New Haven for a burial near her husband and daughter, lawyers began to comb over Lady Winchester's will.
While plenty of her fortune went to surviving nieces and nephews, Sarah also left behind a significant amount to the staff that had taken care of her over the years. In addition, she made generous donations to hospitals in both San Jose and New Haven. When all was said and done, Sarah had reportedly spent over $5 million, about $167 million today, on building that home.
But when it came time to sell the now historical landmark, Sarah's attorneys had a hard time getting any bites, particularly because it had appraised at little to no value as an ordinary family home. I mean, it was such a maze. It didn't really make sense.
Finally, in the spring of 1923, a man named John Brown and his wife stepped forward to lease the property. While the house seemed virtually unlivable for the average family, the Browns were anything but. John Brown was a theme park enthusiast and had invented one of the world's first roller coasters.
The Browns saw Lady Winchester's home as an amusement park in its own right, a place where they could lure local tourists with the promise of haunts and horrors. Now, under the Browns' supervision, many of the secrets Lady Winchester was harboring in that home were revealed to the public.
And on May 20th, 1923, the Winchester mansion was finally open for tours. Now, the house attracted all walks of life. Curious to see if the rumors about Sarah Winchester had been true all along. Had this Lady Winchester actually been building a house to keep evil spirits at bay? Even the famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini stopped by for a visit in 1924.
Houdini at the time had an interest in debunking the tricks and hoaxes of others. In fact, he'd been touring the country lecturing at universities on the quackery of the spiritualism movement. And frankly, he felt the ghostly story behind the Winchester mansion fell into that realm. So when he was invited to tour the house on October 29th, he couldn't turn the offer down. He just had to experience the possibility for himself.
Sometime around midnight, he and his escort arrived. Greeted by Mr. Brown himself, they were given a tour and then taken to some of what Brown called the most active rooms in the home. However, to this day, no one knows for sure what Houdini experienced in the mansion, if anything at all.
What we do know is when he left there, Houdini claimed there was a dark disturbance in that home. He said there was definitely something wrong with the house itself. From there, he also gave the home a nickname, one that's stuck up until this day, the Winchester Mystery House.
Even now, it's unclear what Sarah's true motivations were for building such a labyrinth home. Many insist that the Winchester mansion was merely an experimental endeavor by Sarah Winchester, a way for her to put her skills to the test and utilize all of the knowledge she'd acquired about architectural and interior design over the years.
However, others insist there was more to it than that. That Sarah was in fact being tormented by things in this world that we still don't quite understand. Because many say that a few of those otherworldly spirits have never actually left Sarah's mansion.
From tourists to tour guides to groundskeepers and Winchester experts, there have been several eerie sightings in the home since Sarah's passing. Allegedly, the Hall of Fires, a room with several different fireplaces, is said to be one of the haunting hot spots in the home. According to one repairman, he was standing on a ladder in the Hall of Fires when he felt a hand tap him on the shoulder and then press up against his back.
Only there was no one else in the room with him. Several have also seen the spectral projection of a grounds worker with black hair and white overalls pushing a wheelbarrow along the property. When compared to old photographs of Sarah's employees, he does seem to match the description of a former worker named Clyde.
Then there's the Daisy Room, where Sarah was allegedly trapped during the 1906 earthquake. Both tourists and staff have reported hearing strange sounds, like heavy sighs coming from the room.
There's also been claims of cameras not working there. One tour guide said that while she was lecturing guests in the daisy room, she spotted a dark figure gliding down the hallway. When she rushed out into the hall, she noticed the figure disappear around a corner, never to be seen again.
Plus, there have been other reports over the years. The feeling of something tugging on visitors' clothes. Music that comes and goes without any obvious source. Even mists and shadows lurking around corners. Some have even claimed to see Lady Winchester in her black garments wandering the grounds herself.
In the end, I think there's two big possibilities here. That Sarah Winchester's life was just made a lot more interesting by rumors of ghosts and curses, or she, as well as those who haunted her, truly are stuck in a plane between this life and the next. That Sarah Winchester, a seemingly ordinary woman, succumbed to a series of very unordinary events, a fate that could essentially befall any one of us if we believe it to be so.
And that is the story of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House. Thank you guys so much for listening or watching. And let me know, did you like this haunting? Like I said, I have actually been to the Winchester House with Garrett. And although it was weird, like it was weird to see staircases that led into the ceiling and just a design that didn't make any sense.
I didn't necessarily feel like any spirits or anything, so I'm not sure how much of this is lore and how much of this is truth, but I still think this begs the question, why do people do what they do? And I'll see you next week with a true crime case as we go further into the dark. Goodbye.