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Speaker 2: Richard Estepp again, I was impressed by the history of
Speaker 2: Ashmore Estates that you put together a that it was
Speaker 2: so progressive it seems for its time of where you know,
Speaker 2: the residents of that part of Illinois pitched in, put
Speaker 2: up money, took care of people who couldn't take care
Speaker 2: of themselves. Pretty impressive that they did that back then,
Speaker 2: because I'm not sure the taxpayers in that area would
Speaker 2: be willing to spend that kind of money to do
Speaker 2: the same thing now. And secondly, impressed by the historical
Speaker 2: research that you did about just the impressive history of
Speaker 2: what went on there. It strikes me that a lot
Speaker 2: of people who have exploited the supposed history of the
Speaker 2: area didn't do the same kind of research that you did.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, Georgin. I'd like to say that,
Speaker 3: like any rights, from standing on the shoulders of a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of other people when I do this stuff,
Speaker 3: so research is like Julie Vasquez and others that have
Speaker 3: been to Ashmore and just and have fallen in love
Speaker 3: with the place did a lot of the legwork and
Speaker 3: they left that research available for any anybody that was
Speaker 3: trying to tell the story openly. You know, it's not
Speaker 3: like this stuff is a secret, and I really appreciate
Speaker 3: the fact that they work to bring that stuff to light.
Speaker 3: Now I'm not gonna I'm not going to sugarcoat the
Speaker 3: whole location. Bad things happened there. There was trauma and
Speaker 3: we can talk about some of that. There were accidents,
Speaker 3: you know, illness. I mean, the place survived the Great
Speaker 3: Influenza pandemics as well, so there were plenty of depths.
Speaker 3: And one of the tragedies I think is there is
Speaker 3: a unique cemetery for the Coles County portfil which is
Speaker 3: now Ashmore Estates, and it's not accessible because it's on
Speaker 3: private land that is about a mile away from Ashmore Estates.
Speaker 3: The graves there are kind of overgrown, some of them
Speaker 3: are difficult to make out. It's inaccessible to anybody but
Speaker 3: the landowner. And so there's a real danger of these
Speaker 3: names and these people being forgotten. And that hugged at
Speaker 3: my heart strings. Is I think you would at anybody.
Speaker 2: Are there unmarked graves. You anticipate that there are places
Speaker 2: that aren't.
Speaker 3: Mark at all. There are we can almost guarantee this
Speaker 3: because there are accounts from one of the superintendent's daughters
Speaker 3: who when she was a little girl, had very distinct
Speaker 3: and vivid memories of seeing men digging in what is
Speaker 3: now a cornfield fairly close to the main building itself,
Speaker 3: doing what appeared to be burials, and there are no
Speaker 3: markers left, so it's known that there is more than
Speaker 3: one cemetery, and only one of them really has Marcus.
Speaker 3: You can guarantee that there are bodies out there in
Speaker 3: what is now farming fields.
Speaker 2: So for something to qualify as sort of a paranormal hotspot,
Speaker 2: do you generally need an underpinning of evil, like, you know,
Speaker 2: people murdered there or tortured, or is it enough just
Speaker 2: to have a lot of people who died in a
Speaker 2: building or location to turn it into sort of a
Speaker 2: spiritual gathering spot.
Speaker 3: You know, when you get these sources of great tragedy,
Speaker 3: of course you have the possibility of a haunting, but
Speaker 3: also there's the fact that there's all that positive, strong,
Speaker 3: good family energy as well. When I started investigating the
Speaker 3: paranormal in the mid nineties in the UK where I
Speaker 3: come from, a lot of the cases I investigated were
Speaker 3: these old stately homes where people just loved them a
Speaker 3: lot during their lifetime, and that love seemed to keep
Speaker 3: a piece of them behind. George, you know, there was
Speaker 3: nothing scary, there was nothing dark or negative. You just
Speaker 3: had remnants. I think of a human personality that seems
Speaker 3: to have survived death or splintered off at the moment
Speaker 3: of death. Paranormal enthusiasts love debating exactly how this stuff works,
Speaker 3: whether it's a disembodied consciousness or whatever. But I think
Speaker 3: at a place like Ashmore State, you have both. You know,
Speaker 3: you have a number of terribly deaths, such as the
Speaker 3: young girl Elder Skinner, who suffered ultimately life ending burns
Speaker 3: when a candle accidentally set fire to her night dress,
Speaker 3: you know. And you have Joe Bloxam, who was the handyman,
Speaker 3: and he was an older gentleman, especially in each gentleman,
Speaker 3: and he was hit by a train with life threatening injuries.
Speaker 3: A get Samarad and brought him back to Ashmore Estates
Speaker 3: in his truck, and despite the best efforts of doctors
Speaker 3: of the time, he died. And those are two of
Speaker 3: the better known spirits that are said to haunt Ashmore
Speaker 3: Estates to this day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this guy, Joe, his name pops up several times
Speaker 2: in your book by different people who think they've encountered
Speaker 2: his spirit, right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you know, and he's known for he's a big,
Speaker 3: tall guy, was very much a handyman. He would cut
Speaker 3: the grass, he would do the odd jobs that needed doing.
Speaker 3: And we don't know the specifics other than from records
Speaker 3: of the fact that he was hit by a train,
Speaker 3: given serious injuries and brought back to Bashmore Estates. But
Speaker 3: you know, whether he was distracted or what how that happened,
Speaker 3: We're not sure, but we do know that his injuries
Speaker 3: were suppose to bee that he died. And you know,
Speaker 3: for many years, Joe Bloxham has been seen and experienced
Speaker 3: walking around inside Ashmore Estates, often as a very tall
Speaker 3: shadow figure. You know. Elba, on the other hand, is
Speaker 3: a little bit more mobile. There was a little girl
Speaker 3: that lived just down the street from Ashmore and her
Speaker 3: mom came one day to talk to Robin and Norma
Speaker 3: and said, you know the little girl you have flaunting here,
Speaker 3: I think she has latched onto my daughter. She had
Speaker 3: a young daughter herself, about seven years old, I believe,
Speaker 3: And when Robin asked for the story. It turned out
Speaker 3: that this little girl was visiting the lady's daughter and
Speaker 3: she had bandages on her legs and bandages on body,
Speaker 3: and warned her that her mother's candle needed to be
Speaker 3: put out because that's how she'd got her at ashmal Estates.
Speaker 3: And it was one of those cases, George, I think
Speaker 3: because imaginary friends are not always imaginary as some parents
Speaker 3: think they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll have to tell you my story sometime. So
Speaker 2: you and your team, you have a team that you
Speaker 2: can tell us a little bit about. You get permission
Speaker 2: to go ahead and go there. You're going to spend
Speaker 2: some time, and you know, you go in with sort
Speaker 2: of a jaundiced I about some of the other stories
Speaker 2: that have been told somewhat exaggerated. I guess about demonic activity,
Speaker 2: people seeing demons all over the place, and evil spirits
Speaker 2: and things of that sort. You're going into it with
Speaker 2: an open mind, but you recognize the history of the
Speaker 2: place doesn't suggest that that would be what you're going
Speaker 2: to encounter.
Speaker 1: So you go there.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your team and how you set up
Speaker 2: shop and how you go about this investigation.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I work with a team of individuals that all
Speaker 3: bring something unique to the table in terms of their
Speaker 3: skill sets. So, for example, Erin is a works in
Speaker 3: the field of psychiatry and counseling. She has master's degrees
Speaker 3: that I couldn't possibly name in the mental health field.
Speaker 3: Catlin is a professor of religious studies and comparative religions.
Speaker 3: She's a PhD and teaches that, so she has kind
Speaker 3: of the metaphysical side of things covered, you know. Susan
Speaker 3: is an attorney. She's a lawyer and brings that kind
Speaker 3: of analytical mindset that the team really benefits from. So
Speaker 3: when I work with somebody, what I'm really looking for
Speaker 3: is kind of a skill set that helps us delve
Speaker 3: into the mysteries of the location, into the historical research,
Speaker 3: and into the paranormal experiments we conduct. So we have
Speaker 3: a fairly small footprint. Usually when I an investigation, I
Speaker 3: have no more than six or seven people ashmore estates.
Speaker 3: We were actually down to I think just five, four
Speaker 3: or five and we were living on site, you know,
Speaker 3: so we didn't leave. We were staying on site throughout
Speaker 3: the day, throughout the night and really getting to know
Speaker 3: the rhythms of the building. When I was a volunteer firefighter,
Speaker 3: I was always taught you know, it's not the fire
Speaker 3: that kills you most of the time, it's the building
Speaker 3: and the way it reacts. So studying its architecture, the
Speaker 3: way the air moved, the way it's constructed, the way
Speaker 3: sound travels through the building. And I think too that
Speaker 3: to get into the more metaphysical side of things, George,
Speaker 3: do you know how when a hunter goes out into
Speaker 3: the woods. At first, you know, all of the wildlife
Speaker 3: just kind of stops because there's this disturbance. And then
Speaker 3: if the hunter just kind of finds a hide, lays
Speaker 3: down weight, everything goes back to normal slowly. If the
Speaker 3: animals get used to this new presence, it stops being
Speaker 3: a disturbance. Well, I think it's the same way when
Speaker 3: investigators go to a haunted location. You can't just breathe
Speaker 3: in for an hour or two, start demanding that the
Speaker 3: spirits show themselves like performing monkeys. And you know, I've
Speaker 3: seen too many people that do that, when in reality,
Speaker 3: you have to get in, let them get used to you.
Speaker 3: You know, I like to behave like a house guest,
Speaker 3: because I really am. If we truly do believe we're
Speaker 3: dealing with the spirits of dead people, here, they were
Speaker 3: at Ashmore Estates or any haunted place long before I was.
Speaker 3: You know, how rude would it be if I came
Speaker 3: to your home started throwing my weight around and making
Speaker 3: demands of you. You show me the door pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Seems like your approaches is to have conversations, is to
Speaker 2: converse in a polite terms, not demanding anything, but just
Speaker 2: saying there's anybody around that wants to have a chat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think as a golden rule, you know,
Speaker 3: treat the dead like you would treat the living, and
Speaker 3: hopefully that's with respect and courtesy. And I also like
Speaker 3: to tell them when I'm working on a book project, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to tell your story. If there are elements
Speaker 3: that are untrue, please let me figure this out. Do
Speaker 3: what you can please to help me, you know, correct
Speaker 3: the record. And I'm not claiming that, you know, people
Speaker 3: have been lying about Ashmore Estates all this time or
Speaker 3: anything like that. I do think some narratives gain traction
Speaker 3: more easily than others, especially when those narratives are on
Speaker 3: the dark side of things, you know. I think that's
Speaker 3: one of the big issues the field of paranormal entertainment has.
Speaker 3: In fact, as.
Speaker 2: As it's possible that different people bring out different reactions
Speaker 2: in places like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair as well. I think there's a degree
Speaker 3: of you get what you take in with you, you know,
Speaker 3: and certainly there are individuals there that have very bad
Speaker 3: experiences that have left screaming in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3: I talk about some of them in the book. Under
Speaker 3: the previous owner, I think he seemed very open minded
Speaker 3: about the haunting there, just as Robin is, and I
Speaker 3: found newspaper accounts of a lady that had the fright
Speaker 3: of her life inside. Ashmore estates when a figure came
Speaker 3: out of a wall at her and she felt threatened. Now,
Speaker 3: what's interesting is how do you perceive that? Is it
Speaker 3: the objective reality of what's going on? You know, you're
Speaker 3: in a haunted building, you're told it's haunted, it's dark,
Speaker 3: you're already terrified, your heart rates already one hundred and twenty,
Speaker 3: and then you see the shadowy figure step out of
Speaker 3: a wall. It's really easy to, I think, misconstrue that
Speaker 3: as an attack or as a threat, when often I
Speaker 3: think it's just them doing what they do.
Speaker 2: So, which parts of this building did you think might
Speaker 2: have been the heart of the activity, and did you
Speaker 2: check those out first?
Speaker 3: You know, I always ask about hotspots, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of ground to cover. Ashmore, though, is so consistently
Speaker 3: weird and active. I almost think I've asked so many
Speaker 3: visitors this question, and I've some have told me, oh,
Speaker 3: it's the basement. Others have said no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's the second floor. No it's the stairwell. And there
Speaker 3: are no consistent answers because people have had strange things
Speaker 3: go on pretty much in all parts of the building.
Speaker 3: The minute I walked inside for the first time, I
Speaker 3: was with Brad cling and investigated from Texas, who he
Speaker 3: and his brother Barry start in the show Ghost Lab.
Speaker 3: No sooner have we walked into the building than we
Speaker 3: had very clearly the sound of a person whistling. So
Speaker 3: we're like, there's somebody in here, There is an intruder
Speaker 3: in here already, we need to go sweep the place.
Speaker 3: And Robin did not appear to be bothered, not least
Speaker 3: because I learned later he has a camera system with
Speaker 3: all of the motion sensors and stuff like that. It
Speaker 3: had not been tripped, no one could have been in
Speaker 3: that building gained access without tripping the camera system. But
Speaker 3: we went from room to room, floor to floor, didn't
Speaker 3: find anybody there at all, no evidence of an intruder.
Speaker 3: I have the recording plain as day. Somebody was whistling
Speaker 3: a tune, and numerous investigators have gotten that same jaunty whistling,
Speaker 3: the kind of thing that you do when you're going
Speaker 3: about your chores or tasks, you know, so.
Speaker 2: You heard a lot of other things. I you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to take a break out about three minutes,
Speaker 2: but let's start with the equipment that you use and
Speaker 2: the kind of recording. If you were able to make
Speaker 2: a general description absolutely well.
Speaker 3: Like many paranormal investigators, I'm a believer of these radio
Speaker 3: frequency helping devices, which they're nicknamed spirit boxes. They're kind
Speaker 3: of controversial. Some people believe in them, some don't. But
Speaker 3: you add a set of industrial quality noise canceling headphones
Speaker 3: to the mix, and you are often able to hear
Speaker 3: voices coming out between the frequencies, stating names, dates, answering
Speaker 3: your questions directly. So I'm a big fan of using
Speaker 3: that particular techniques known as the Esther's methods, because it
Speaker 3: was popularized in this part of Colorado up at the
Speaker 3: Family Hotel, which of course is the basis for Stephen
Speaker 3: Kings to shining. So we liked recording those sessions. I'm
Speaker 3: a believer in using both audio tape, analog tape and
Speaker 3: digital recorders. I thank an investigator called John Tenny for
Speaker 3: pointing that out. We live in the digital age, right, George.
Speaker 3: You know you can do EVPs now on your cell phone,
Speaker 3: but digital recorders use a series of ones and zeros
Speaker 3: on a hard drive to record sound. Magnetic tape work differently,
Speaker 3: and I've seen the magnetic tape recorder capture EVPs that
Speaker 3: the digital recorders didn't pick up, and vice versa. So
Speaker 3: it's important to go old school, you know, nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: era tape recorder, cassette recorder alongside the newer high tech
Speaker 3: electronic digital solutions.
Speaker 2: And you've got quite a few recordings, I guess quite
Speaker 2: a few throughout much of your visit, right, different kinds
Speaker 2: of you're encountering, different individuals, what sound like different individuals?
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean one thing that I took joy in
Speaker 3: myself is a little strange, and the video is out
Speaker 3: there on YouTube if anyone wants to suffer this themselves.
Speaker 3: But there is a room with children's toys and books,
Speaker 3: and I put on a child tiara and sat and
Speaker 3: read a bedtime story because we know there are child
Speaker 3: spirits there. You know, what could be more natural than
Speaker 3: reading a bedtime story to the children and kind of
Speaker 3: putting them at ease. That was a good way to
Speaker 3: get into activity that didn't involve, you know, yelling and
Speaker 3: shouting and that kind of thing, and didn't work. So
Speaker 3: you know, we got a lot of shadowy figure activity
Speaker 3: after we did that, if you was to be careful,
Speaker 3: because there was at least one bat in Ashmore at
Speaker 3: that time that we adopted and we called him Lablow.
Speaker 3: So when the shadows of movie, sometimes it is as
Speaker 3: simple as a flying rodent. But we also got human
Speaker 3: shaped figures, at least one of which triggered the motion
Speaker 3: centers on the security system in a completely empty stairwell.
Speaker 3: We had stones that were thrown as well, not in
Speaker 3: a threatening away but more of a hey, I'm here
Speaker 3: and I'm going to prove it.
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