THERÉSA: Hello, ghouls and girls, Welcome back to another episode of Haunting.
THERÉSA: For all you newbies out there, I'm Therésa, your ghost
THERÉSA: host with the most, and this is our producer, Len
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: and my familiar Merlin. We're coming to you from the
THERÉSA: Great Beyond with listeners submitted stories about mortal paranormal encounters.
THERÉSA: And you know what that means. Someone listening right now
THERÉSA: could be our next victim, or guest. Kind of exciting
THERÉSA: when you think about it. Here's a fun fact. I'd
THERÉSA: never seen a ghost until I died. Well, I thought
THERÉSA: I did once when I was twelve, but the shadow
THERÉSA: figure in the corner turned out to be my brother's
THERÉSA: sleep peeing. It happens six more times before he grew
THERÉSA: out of it, so that doesn't count. Len, did you
THERÉSA: ever have a supernatural encounter when you were alive?
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: You're saying in school you were possessed by a Satan
THERÉSA: worshiping rock band and turned into a demonic entity who
THERÉSA: ate half your grade. That's the plot of Jennifer's Body.
THERÉSA: The movie wasn't based on your life. Let's move on.
THERÉSA: Unlike Len's little performance, today's stories are one hundred percent real,
THERÉSA: and we have the traumatizing first hand accounts to prove it.
THERÉSA: Both come to us from America's heart land, the Windy City,
THERÉSA: Chi Town [CHICAGO SOUDTRACK] Len, I don't, I don't. No no, no,
THERÉSA: that is not your cue to play the Chicago soundtrack
THERÉSA: and you've upset Merlin. He hates a brassy overture, Oh Merlin, Merlin,
THERÉSA: It's okay, It's okay, baby.
LEN: [MUMBLES]
THERÉSA: What? There is no way you were in the original
THERÉSA: cast of Chicago. You got the stage presence of an acorn. Seriously,
THERÉSA: what has gotten into you today? Now where was I? Okay. Yes.
THERÉSA: Our first story is from Stephani, a leasing agent from Chicago. Don't!
THERÉSA: whose building tour was interrupted by an unexpected guest. Damn it, Len!
THERÉSA: Listen to me.
STORY A: We meet with the leasing agent to see the apartment building.
STORY A: We get into the elevator, and then this woman walks in.
STORY A: Everything got cold. It was instantaneous. Meanwhile, the leasing agent
STORY A: is so freaked out staring at the numbers going down
STORY A: the entire time, she looked like she was having the crisis,
STORY A: and it all like everything was moving so slow, and
STORY A: then the elevator just suddenly stopped. My name is Stephani,
STORY A: and I had an unsettling encounter with a ghost on
STORY A: an elevator. In 2022, I was working as a luxury
STORY A: leasing agent in Chicago. When you think of luxury leasing
STORY A: agent in Chicago, most people think of the high rises
STORY A: and the skyscrapers, which is mostly what I worked with,
STORY A: but once in a while we would get clients that
STORY A: would be like, we want a historic building lumped in
STORY A: with all of these modern glass skyscrapers. So I got
STORY A: this client. She specifically wanted to know if I had
STORY A: any connections with this one building. She really wanted to
STORY A: see this building because she was from Europe and it
STORY A: was built after the First World War for the German
STORY A: American Cultural Society members to gather to promote German American heritage.
STORY A: She's like, I just want to go to see this
STORY A: older building, and that was like amazing. The tower apartment
STORY A: building is in The Loop. If you're not familiar with the
STORY A: Loop area of Chicago, there's breweries and bars and restaurants
STORY A: and a lot of really old buildings that were built
STORY A: around the time of the World's Fair, and there's also
STORY A: a lot of sad stuff that happened. Chicago's famous for
STORY A: our river that runs right down the middle separating the loops.
STORY A: A couple of years after the Titanic sank, there was
STORY A: a huge, huge, huge boat disaster, hundreds of people died.
STORY A: That's probably six blocks away from this building. And then
STORY A: there was the Iroquois Theater fire, which was devastating, hundreds
STORY A: of deaths there too, that also is not far from
STORY A: this apartment building. The Loop area just has a ton
STORY A: of haunting stories. It's a very interesting area.
STORY A: So we go to this building. My client and I
STORY A: were chatting. She's like, oh wow, this is just what
STORY A: I wanted. This is tall and it has character, but
STORY A: it's not like a soulless glass tower. We walk in.
STORY A: The lobby is just stunning. It looks like if 1920s
STORY A: met a modern interior designer. It was just gorgeous. It's
STORY A: decorated very funky inside. It's very very cool, very modern,
STORY A: very hip. The way that it works, there's a leasing
STORY A: agent assigned to the building that shows you the unit.
STORY A: They show you everything, amenities, units, the gym. The leasing
STORY A: agent went into the history of the building and was like,
STORY A: we're in the National Register of Historic Places. I was sold.
STORY A: My client really was just obsessed with it. We started
STORY A: with the tour and we come to the elevator bank
STORY A: and there was a portrait on the left of a
STORY A: man and a portrait on the right of a woman,
STORY A: and I was like, okay, this is really cool. We
STORY A: started with the unit. We get in the elevator, We
STORY A: walk in and there's lots of light. They preserved most
STORY A: of it, like the rounded windows, really cool, like old doorknobs.
STORY A: My client thought it was really really interesting. So we
STORY A: leave the unit and we take the elevator up to
STORY A: the pool, which was on the top floor. And this
STORY A: pool is just insane. It looks like a Turkish bath house.
STORY A: It's just like stepping into a time capsule, perfectly preserved
STORY A: historic 1920s pool. It's not like any pool you see
STORY A: anywhere in Chicago. And then we get in the elevator.
STORY A: We go down to the ballroom. It looks the same
STORY A: as it would have looked a hundred years ago. They've
STORY A: just moved gym equipment into the ballroom. My client is
STORY A: just like going insane. She's like, it's like a high
STORY A: rise with character. So as we're finishing the tour, we
STORY A: get into the elevator. It was me, my client, and
STORY A: the leasing agent. We press a button to go back
STORY A: down to the lobby, but the doors are still open,
STORY A: and at the very last second, this lady just comes
STORY A: into the elevator. I was shocked. There was nobody on
STORY A: the floor with us. She just sort of appeared.
STORY A: When this woman walked into the elevator, the temperature dropped
STORY A: twenty degrees. I mean, it was a freezing wall and
STORY A: it was instantaneous. My client even said it's getting cold
STORY A: in here. It was as soon as she was in
STORY A: the elevator car, everything got cold. It was a big change.
STORY A: There was just something about this woman. She was very short,
STORY A: probably five feet tall. She was wearing this vintage maroon
STORY A: buttoned down jacket with like the button cuff, very reminiscent
STORY A: of like the thirties. And then she had a pleated
STORY A: skirt that went down to like mid calf length. It
STORY A: was like a dark brown. She was wearing shoes with
STORY A: a really small thick heel with a rounded toe. But
STORY A: the kicker was the hair. She had very short hair.
STORY A: It had finger waves. It's like the very shellacked down
STORY A: bang that looks like a wave. That's not anything you
STORY A: see now. It was a hairstyle that I would best
STORY A: describe as you would see on your grandmother's portrait from
STORY A: the thirties. And then her lipstick. It was like heart
STORY A: shaped with a really defined cupid's bow and hella a
STORY A: dark lipstick, almost flapper style. She was just an interesting,
STORY A: kind of harsh looking woman. And she doesn't hit a floor.
STORY A: We asked her what floor she was going to, and
STORY A: she did not answer, so we did not hit a
STORY A: button for her. We hit the button for the lobby.
STORY A: So the elevator doors closed, and my client starts talking
STORY A: to her, asking like, how do you like the building?
STORY A: And then I'm like, yes, how do you like the building?
STORY A: Because I'm like, you know, all weirdness of this put aside,
STORY A: what does she think about the building? And she's just
STORY A: staring straight ahead. She's not talking, she's not responding to
STORY A: any of our questions. I'm just thinking this is really odd,
STORY A: but I'm asking our questions. I'm just like, do you
STORY A: like the neighborhood? No answer, She's just staring straight ahead.
STORY A: Like okay, cool, how long have you lived in the building?
STORY A: No answer, literally, not really registering that I'm in the
STORY A: elevator with her. I ask her what she does on
STORY A: the weekends. Just nothing. She's not looking at me, just
STORY A: looking straight ahead. And then she did turn her head
STORY A: slightly towards me, but it wasn't like a full turn,
STORY A: and then it went right back.
STORY A: That was when I noticed her skin. It was almost
STORY A: like an oil painting, like gray, kind of waxy. It
STORY A: did not look like living skin. It didn't have the
STORY A: coloring that like a person would have. I couldn't see
STORY A: through her, but she also wasn't solid. It was just unsettling.
STORY A: I look over to the leasing agent and I can
STORY A: see that she is visibly freaked out. She was not
STORY A: making eye contact with me, but she looked like she
STORY A: was having a crisis. She's looking straight ahead, watching the
STORY A: numbers go down, and it just felt like everything was
STORY A: moving so slow. It felt like every floor was a mile.
STORY A: Time just slowed down. And then the elevator just stopped
STORY A: on this random floor and the doors open, which was
STORY A: weird because we hadn't pressed a floor aside from the lobby.
STORY A: It stops on the ninth floor, and then the woman
STORY A: gets out of the elevator. She just like walks out,
STORY A: but it was like a glide. I take a beat
STORY A: and I decide that I want to follow her. I
STORY A: was like, I have to get to the bottom of this.
STORY A: So I walk out of the elevator right behind her.
STORY A: She turned right. I turned right, but she's gone. There
STORY A: was no one there. There's not a single person in
STORY A: the hallway. This woman has vanished. There wasn't like an
STORY A: exit staircase, and there was not enough time for her
STORY A: to have unlocked an apartment door and gone in. We
STORY A: would have heard a door slam. This woman was just gone.
STORY A: I walked back to the elevator. My client is like
STORY A: chattering away. She's like, ah, like that lady was really quiet,
STORY A: and I was like, yeah, she was. I get in the elevator.
STORY A: The leasing agent is still like traumatized in the corner,
STORY A: and the temperature is back to normal.
STORY A: Before we hit the first floor, the leasing agent was like,
STORY A: I am so sorry about that woman. You know, people
STORY A: sometimes see her. She's harmless, she doesn't do anything, but
STORY A: sometimes people see her outside of their doors, like she
STORY A: just kind of wanders around. When we walked out of
STORY A: the elevator, I see those portraits again, the pictures, and
STORY A: I'm like, oh my god, I think that's the woman
STORY A: I saw in the elevator and I'm looking at these
STORY A: portraits of this man and this woman. The leasing agent
STORY A: is like, that's John Dillinger and his wife. Have you
STORY A: seen the movie Public Enemies? And I was like, oh yeah,
STORY A: because I'm all about history, that's my thing. And she's like, okay, well,
STORY A: the scene where Johnny Depp's character, John Dillinger, met his
STORY A: wife in the movie, that scene happened in real life
STORY A: at our building because he was a German American citizen
STORY A: and he was part of the Steuben Club and they
STORY A: met in the ballroom at this building. So we have
STORY A: the pictures here because he liked to hang out here
STORY A: a lot. And I was like, really, that was just
STORY A: like my aha moment, that's exactly who it was. The
STORY A: lady in the elevator was John Dillinger's wife. There was
STORY A: like not a question in my mind. It was the
STORY A: same lady. It was the same lipstick, same eyes, same hair,
STORY A: same aura, same person. My client is like, oh my god,
STORY A: Oh my god, I didn't Oh my god. She's like,
STORY A: that's why she wasn't talking. I'm like, okay, this makes
STORY A: sense that she would hang around here because this was
STORY A: kind of their home and they did have an apartment there.
STORY A: I do personally believe that John Dillinger's wife does still
STORY A: roam the halls of the building. My client called me
STORY A: later that night, obviously to tell me her decision, and
STORY A: she did not go with that building. I think she
STORY A: was a little freaked out, but I don't think it
STORY A: was ultimately would cause her to not rent there. But
STORY A: I would move there. I still would. It was a
STORY A: great building. It has a ghost. If it was the
STORY A: freaking conjuring ghost, it would be another story.
THERÉSA: You know, I never went to Chicago when I was alive.
THERÉSA: The Midwest just didn't seem relevant, but now I'm starting
THERÉSA: to think I was wrong. I mean, mob wife was
THERÉSA: a micro-aesthetic only like two trend cycles ago. Of course,
THERÉSA: now we're in more of a sleepy Marionette girlfriend coastal
THERÉSA: proletariat winter era, but still fairly relevant. If you ask me,
THERÉSA: John Dillinger's wife sounds like an influencer of her time,
THERÉSA: which I can totally relate to. You keep aimlessly drifting
THERÉSA: through time and space, you beautiful, tortured soul. Now, like
THERÉSA: any good influencer, here comes the part where I try
THERÉSA: to sell you things.
THERÉSA: Ah, what I wouldn't give to participate in capitalism again.
THERÉSA: But there's no time to dwell on it. Well, I
THERÉSA: mean there's infinite time to dwell, but we're not doing
THERÉSA: that today. Now. I find this next story to be
THERÉSA: just as, if not more relatable, than the last. See
THERÉSA: if you can guess why.
STORY B: She's like, it's time to go. I don't like what
STORY B: I'm seeing. I can't take this. I said, well, why
STORY B: what's going on? And I'm looking in her direction thinking
STORY B: I would see something. I see nothing, but I can
STORY B: tell that she was terrified. It's turned into something out
STORY B: of a horror movie. I'm Pierce. I had a jealous
STORY B: ghost in my basement. I live in the Metro area
STORY B: of Chicago, but in the oldest house on the block
STORY B: and probably the oldest house in the neighborhood. It has
STORY B: three different floors, one being a basement apartment as well
STORY B: as a coach house that used to be stables. This
STORY B: house is very, very old, and with that there's probably
STORY B: many stories, many things that happened. My whole family down
STORY B: the line are all musicians, so naturally, with the basement
STORY B: apartment being vacant, I turned that into my own studio
STORY B: when I was in college, so I would go down
STORY B: there to practice and compose, but a lot of times
STORY B: I would just go down there at to chill, watch
STORY B: some movies. But I noticed that during the day, especially
STORY B: when I was alone down there, I never felt truly alone.
STORY B: At first, I kind of brushed it off, but I
STORY B: noticed this trend as time went on, and then I
STORY B: realized that after kind of sitting with this odd feeling,
STORY B: I felt as though something was watching me. I come
STORY B: from the Romani culture, more widely known as the Gypsy culture,
STORY B: which is very much in tune with supernatural. We are
STORY B: descendants of an ancient culture from India that, through diaspora
STORY B: and just through many centuries, we were nomadic people that
STORY B: eventually landed in Eastern Europe and at least with my
STORY B: family in particular and the majority of Roma today, they're
STORY B: all very creative and musically inclined. We're also very much
STORY B: in touch with our spiritual side. We believed in the
STORY B: ability for people to sense positive, neutral and negative energies
STORY B: from an unnamable amount of entities that may cross our paths.
STORY B: Although we're Catholic, we do believe that there is the
STORY B: ability for spirits to sort of linger family members to
STORY B: visit things like that, and when I was in the basement,
STORY B: I felt the presence of a young girl that essentially
STORY B: was just sitting there watching me. I just kind of
STORY B: figured this is just a passing individual on a very
STORY B: old plot of land, and if it just happens that
STORY B: I have somebody who's just listening to my music as
STORY B: I play, hey great. It didn't necessarily register as like
STORY B: something to be worried about. For the next few months,
STORY B: whenever I would go down there, I would feel that presence.
STORY B: And then one night I happened to be at a
STORY B: jazz jam session with a friend of mine, a wonderful singer.
STORY B: She and I got to a point where we agreed that,
STORY B: you know, we should become like a singer songwriter duo
STORY B: of sorts. I'd play guitars, she would sing, and I
STORY B: decided that we should get cracking and start recording something.
STORY B: So I brought her over to the house. As soon
STORY B: as we got everything set up, guitars tuned, mics set,
STORY B: I was grabbing us some water. She looks at me,
STORY B: and she looked very off, and she says, I have
STORY B: like this really weird headache. I don't feel comfortable right now,
STORY B: and she told me, I feel like we aren't alone.
STORY B: I didn't want to tell her that I thought maybe
STORY B: there's a ghost down here in the basement, and I
STORY B: didn't want to spook her, so I just kind of
STORY B: played it off. I said, let's give it a few minutes.
STORY B: Let's maybe see we could get a song in, and
STORY B: if it comes to the point that you still feel
STORY B: this way, we'll go upstairs and figure something out. So
STORY B: we try to get through one song, but I noticed
STORY B: that what started as just a look of uncomfort turned
STORY B: into a look of fear. At that moment, I realized
STORY B: that what I thought was a neutral presence suddenly became negative,
STORY B: but it was just directed towards her. I decided to
STORY B: grab everything. We ended up going upstairs, set the whole
STORY B: thing up.
STORY B: Somehow we get through a song, and I remember she
STORY B: basically says, yeah, I'm not feeling this whatsoever. Something doesn't
STORY B: want me here. It's a very like negative presence. So
STORY B: I took her home, but she made it very clear
STORY B: that although she had fun, she would not ever come
STORY B: back to that house. She never came back, and I
STORY B: started to question whether me being comfortable with this presence
STORY B: was a smart idea or not. But being sensitive to
STORY B: these energies, I wasn't afraid. It just felt very neutral,
STORY B: felt like if I was sitting down on stage performing
STORY B: to like, you know, a couple, or maybe one particular
STORY B: person in an audience. You know. I didn't mind her,
STORY B: she didn't mind me. So I never really thought anything
STORY B: about it. But that is until a couple of years
STORY B: later on Halloween. My girlfriend and I decided to go
STORY B: bar crawling. It happened to be a very cold and
STORY B: rainy night, so we weren't out long. We decided we'd
STORY B: rather grab a couple of burgers and just sort of
STORY B: spend the rest of the night watching some scary movies
STORY B: at my place. We walk in the house head to
STORY B: the basement and I'm starting to get the TV set up.
STORY B: She was sitting on the couch and as I'm messing
STORY B: with the TV, she tells me, Pierce, I don't want
STORY B: to be down here. I don't feel comfortable. And then
STORY B: she says, there's a little girl with us. That just
STORY B: gave me goosebumps because she's also a Romani. She just
STORY B: happens to have a little bit more of a heightened
STORY B: sense than I do. And I said, well, tell me,
STORY B: what are you feeling? What are you seeing? She says, Pierce,
STORY B: I see this little girl with dirty blonde hair, and
STORY B: she's wearing a white linen dress with like a black
STORY B: bow in the front, but it's dirty, little disheveled. She
STORY B: has bruises up and down her arms and legs. She said,
STORY B: she had like these very sunken in eyes, and the
STORY B: pupils were a glowing yellow. She said, she doesn't want
STORY B: me here. She doesn't like when you bring other girls here.
STORY B: Then she describes to me what she's seeing. She tells me, Pierce,
STORY B: this girl is on the ground now and she's contorting.
STORY B: Her limbs are up like spider legs, but they're twisting.
STORY B: Her head is facing directly towards me, and she's smiling
STORY B: with these glowing eyes. The way she describes is that
STORY B: this girl does not want her there anymore. And I
STORY B: can see that my girlfriend is completely petrified at this point.
STORY B: She says, Pierce, we have to leave, and seeing the
STORY B: sheer terror on her face, I start to feel that
STORY B: same amount of terror that she does. So I grabbed
STORY B: the food, packed everything back up, took her home, and
STORY B: even on the car ride home, I can tell that
STORY B: my girlfriend was physically and just mentally terrified for what
STORY B: she saw. So I get pissed.
STORY B: I'm mad now. I head back, and my first thing
STORY B: that I did is I went back to the basement.
STORY B: But I still did not see this girl. All I
STORY B: know is that the presence was there, and I lashed out,
STORY B: screaming my head off, like in anger. I talked to
STORY B: her like a little girl, and I basically told her like,
STORY B: shame on you. Why are you doing this? These girls
STORY B: aren't here to harm you. I do not want you
STORY B: here no more. You are not welcomed ever again. I
STORY B: don't want you on this property. Be gone. This past August,
STORY B: it was my twenty eighth birthday. I'm sitting down with
STORY B: the family and my brother happened to be going through
STORY B: my TikTok and stumbled upon this video that I made
STORY B: telling the same exact story. He looked at me, he said,
STORY B: what is this video about a ghost girl in the basement?
STORY B: So I looked at him and I told him, you
STORY B: don't want to watch that. Just ignore that because he
STORY B: spooks easily. He's not like me. Warned him, it's pretty intense.
STORY B: He doesn't listen. He finishes the video, his mouth agape,
STORY B: and he says, why didn't you tell any of us
STORY B: about this little girl? The way you described her, with
STORY B: the dirty blonde hair, the white dress with the bow.
STORY B: I've seen this girl pass my bedroom in this house,
STORY B: and I looked at him stunned. As we're sitting there
STORY B: and talking about this, my father chimes in and says, yeah,
STORY B: I've seen so many different things in this house. That's
STORY B: why I keep the picture of Jesus near the archway
STORY B: that leads from our living room into our kitchen, because
STORY B: I think that that archway, for some reason, is a
STORY B: portal between our world and theirs. And he says, I
STORY B: can't tell you how many times I've seen different people,
STORY B: different shadow figures, and a little girl walking in the house.
STORY B: We all just kind of stood there, just realizing that
STORY B: we're not the only ones who live here. A lot
STORY B: of people say this ghost had a crush on you
STORY B: and took a liking to you, because anytime there would
STORY B: be a girl around, she would make her presence known
STORY B: and it would be malicious.
THERÉSA: So I said, I find this story to be relatable,
THERÉSA: and for all of you who guessed it's because of
THERÉSA: the jealous ghost girlfriend trope. You're wrong. I don't get jealous.
THERÉSA: It's relatable because musicians are also my weakness, so I
THERÉSA: feel for this spirit, but unlike her, I get what
THERÉSA: I want. In my opinion, Pierce got off lucky. There's
THERÉSA: a fine line between possessive and possession, but not to fear.
THERÉSA: Let's bring those heart rates down with some ads.
THERÉSA: Well, haunto's that's all we've got. I don't know about you,
THERÉSA: but this episode got me inspired to venture Midwest. Maybe
THERÉSA: pop by a little ghost town or abandoned speakeasy and
THERÉSA: see who or what is lurking about. You guys know
THERÉSA: the drill. If you've ever found yourself in a haunted
THERÉSA: love triangle or a spooky scenario of any sort, write
THERÉSA: to us at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com and you might be featured on
THERÉSA: an upcoming episode. And if you haven't been lucky enough
THERÉSA: to be graced by a ghost, then send me your
THERÉSA: best looks for Coastal Proletariat Winter to add to my
THERÉSA: Q-1 mood board. See you next week.
CREDITS: If you have a haunting story to share, email us
CREDITS: at HauntingThePodcast@gmail.com, and if you like what you hear, please
CREDITS: like and subscribe. You can also follow us on social
CREDITS: media by searching for Glass Podcasts or by visiting glasspodcasts.com.
CREDITS: Haunting is a production of Glass Podcasts in partnership with
CREDITS: iHeart Podcast. Haunting is created and executive produced by Nancy Glass,
CREDITS: Andrea Gunning, Ben Fetterman, and Lauren Lapkus, and it is
CREDITS: hosted by Lauren Lapkus as her character Therésa. Producer Len
CREDITS: Walker is played by Trey Morgan. Haunting is written by
CREDITS: Aleah Welsh, with additional writing by Nancy Glass, Trey Morgan,
CREDITS: and Ben Fetterman. Editing and sound design by Matt Delvecchio
CREDITS: and mixed by Dave Saia. Operations and production support by
CREDITS: Kristen Melchiorre. Additional production support by Curry Richman and Todd Ganz.
CREDITS: Haunting's theme and original compositions were composed by Oliver Baines
CREDITS: and Dprry Macaulay of Noiser. Music library provided by Mybw Music.
CREDITS: Special thanks to Speakeasy Sound Studios in Burbank, California. For
CREDITS: more shows from iHeart Podcasts and Glass Podcasts, visit the
CREDITS: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.