Speaker 1: Mister Kenyon was waiting by the barn as the family
Speaker 1: drove up in their large Bonneville, with Caroline and Roger
Speaker 1: in the front and their five young girls, Andrea, Nancy, Christine,
Speaker 1: Cynthia and April squeezed into the back. As they drew closer,
Speaker 1: the girl's eyes widened with excitement at the sheer size
Speaker 1: of the place and its illustrious grounds. Parking up a
Speaker 1: moment later, the elderly mister Kenyon helped the young ones
Speaker 1: from the back before inviting them to head off and play.
Speaker 1: Laughing as one after the other, they bolted gleefully out
Speaker 1: of the car. Caroline then got out and greeted the
Speaker 1: owner warmly before introducing him to her husband, Roger. Ah,
Speaker 1: so this is the one we have to press, is it? Well,
Speaker 1: let's get to it, said Kenyon. The Grand Farmhouse, one
Speaker 1: of the original Providence plantations, had been built in the
Speaker 1: seventeen thirties, with nine rooms, a barn, and over two
Speaker 1: hundred acres of land, including a creek running through it.
Speaker 1: It was some advance on the Peron's current home in
Speaker 1: the suburbs of Cumberland, Rhode Island. The family had been
Speaker 1: happy there until a series of troubling events had left
Speaker 1: the thirty one year old Caroline concerned for her children's welfare.
Speaker 1: Not long before, the family returned from a short break
Speaker 1: to find their house had been ransacked and one of
Speaker 1: their cats brutally killed. Though it was never proven, there
Speaker 1: was good reason to believe the twelve year old son
Speaker 1: of a next door neighbor had been responsible. When a
Speaker 1: few months later, a driver suffering from a heart attack
Speaker 1: totalled his truck on the Emily's lawn, Caroline couldn't shake
Speaker 1: the distinct feeling that someone was trying to tell them something,
Speaker 1: though she knew in truth there was virtually no chance
Speaker 1: they could ever afford this place. From the moment she
Speaker 1: had first seen it, having decided to view it on
Speaker 1: a whim a few weeks previously, she hadn't been able
Speaker 1: to forget about it. For thirty five year old Roger,
Speaker 1: there'd been no question of whether they could buy it,
Speaker 1: But happy to indulge his wife's fantasy, he agreed to
Speaker 1: at least take a look at it for himself. Now
Speaker 1: finally standing before it, he took a moment to admire
Speaker 1: the garden, the way the tall pines and maple trees
Speaker 1: shrouded the house and the expansive lawn stretching out in
Speaker 1: front of it, running all the way down to the creek.
Speaker 1: He had to give his wife one thing at least,
Speaker 1: he thought it certainly was impressive. By the end of
Speaker 1: the day, after viewing the inside of the house and
Speaker 1: imagining their lives spent together there inside its four walls,
Speaker 1: the kids were in no doubt about what they wanted,
Speaker 1: and even Roger had come round the idea. Looking back
Speaker 1: on it many years later, you could say it felt
Speaker 1: that day to the family as if the very house
Speaker 1: itself had called them. There you're listening to unexplained, and
Speaker 1: I'm Richard mc lean smith. It would take some serious
Speaker 1: scrimping on the family's part, but encouraged by mister Kenyon,
Speaker 1: who agreed to hold out for them, Slowly but surely,
Speaker 1: they found the money. Finally, in mid December nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Caroline and Roger closed on the house. Shortly after the
Speaker 1: new year, the family of seven made the two hour
Speaker 1: drive west to Harrisville, accompanied by a removals truck, to
Speaker 1: take possession of the farm. It was a little colder
Speaker 1: arriving that January morning compared to the last time they
Speaker 1: had visited. A recent storm had carpeted the ground with snow,
Speaker 1: whilst all around many of the trees had been reduced
Speaker 1: to sparse, skeletal branches. The main house itself, however, was
Speaker 1: as grand as it had ever been. Mister Kenyon was
Speaker 1: waiting for them again when they pulled up to it,
Speaker 1: glad to have caught the family before he left. Having
Speaker 1: greeted them, Kenyon nodded toward Roger and suggested the two
Speaker 1: of them take a quick walk. Sensing he wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to Roger alone. Caroline told the girls to run
Speaker 1: ahead and pick their rooms as she set about unloading
Speaker 1: the truck. Roger sensed a little hesitancy in Kenyon as
Speaker 1: they headed out into the snow. In the end, the
Speaker 1: conversation was brief, little more than a quick offering of
Speaker 1: luck for the future, telling Roger again how glad he
Speaker 1: was that it was his family that got the house.
Speaker 1: Then the man went quiet for a moment and looked
Speaker 1: back toward it. There's just one thing, he said, for
Speaker 1: the sake of your family, you must leave the lights
Speaker 1: on at night, And with that Kenyon wished him luck again,
Speaker 1: then headed off toward his car. The first six weeks
Speaker 1: were a steep learning curve, getting used to being so
Speaker 1: far out in the country, but also learning just how
Speaker 1: hard it can be to keep such a large building warm.
Speaker 1: Things had not been made easier by the severe snowstorm
Speaker 1: that had blown in shortly after they arrived, nor that,
Speaker 1: for some unknown reason, all the fireplaces had been carefully
Speaker 1: blocked up. It was especially taxing for Carolyn, since, with
Speaker 1: Roger spending most of the week away for work, it
Speaker 1: had fallen mostly on her to get the family settled
Speaker 1: in before long. However, with the young girls reveling in
Speaker 1: their new bedrooms and endless garden, the families soon began
Speaker 1: to make the house their home, as the oldest, twelve
Speaker 1: year old Andrea, had been granted a room of her own,
Speaker 1: with the other four ten year old Nancy, nine year
Speaker 1: old Christine, seven year old Cynthia, and five year old
Speaker 1: April sharing two bedrooms between them. Carolyn had been amazed
Speaker 1: at how quickly they adjusted to their new surroundings, grateful
Speaker 1: for the ease in which she had been able to
Speaker 1: enroll them in the local school, as she watched them
Speaker 1: playing about the house on weekends, laughing as they sledged
Speaker 1: down the front lawn and fantasizing about the animals they
Speaker 1: might bring to live with. It was clear they'd made
Speaker 1: the right decision, but all that was about to change.
Speaker 1: During the week, with four of the girls at school,
Speaker 1: April and Caroline were often the only people in the house,
Speaker 1: so when Caroline was chopping vegetables one afternoon, it was
Speaker 1: natural to assume the noise of something moving around upstairs
Speaker 1: was just her five year old daughter. Smiling at the
Speaker 1: thought of her daughter playing with her toys, Caroline had
Speaker 1: just heard another loud creak from the floorboards above when
Speaker 1: she turned in shock to see April standing in the
Speaker 1: kitchen doorway that very same moment, Mummy, she said, are
Speaker 1: you okay? Caroline looked at her daughter in disbelief, then
Speaker 1: back at the spot above her where those creaks had
Speaker 1: come from. Stay close to me, o kay. April was confused,
Speaker 1: but did as her mother asked, staying right behind her
Speaker 1: as she headed upstairs and proceeded to check inside every
Speaker 1: room to make sure there wasn't an intruder in the house.
Speaker 1: Finding no one there, Caroline laughed to herself at how
Speaker 1: silly she was being. What is it, asked April, don't worry,
Speaker 1: said her mother. I'm just hearing things. That's okay, I
Speaker 1: hear things all the time, said April casually. Caroline looked
Speaker 1: at her daughter for a moment. What kind of things,
Speaker 1: she asked, Nothing, really, just people walking about. Later that afternoon,
Speaker 1: in the parlor, as April slept beside her on the sofa,
Speaker 1: Caroline certain she felt a sudden chill in the room,
Speaker 1: followed by the sensation of something moving past her. When
Speaker 1: she took a sip of her coffee a second later,
Speaker 1: she was surprised to find it completely cold. When Roger
Speaker 1: returned from a work trip that evening, he found Caroline
Speaker 1: oddly despondent. After tucking the children into bed, the couple
Speaker 1: retired to the parlor as a heavy storm batted the
Speaker 1: house from outside. Sensing Roger's growing frustration with her, Caroline
Speaker 1: finally plucked up the courage to say what was on
Speaker 1: her mind, telling him that something didn't feel quite right
Speaker 1: in the house. As she went on to detail a
Speaker 1: number of peculiar events from the last few days, Roger
Speaker 1: sat in stunned silence. Surely she couldn't think the house
Speaker 1: was genuinely haunted, he thought, trying his best to comfort Caroline,
Speaker 1: Roger suggested that perhaps it was nothing more than the
Speaker 1: effects of being in such an old and large building.
Speaker 1: Caroline nodded in agreement, hoping he was right. But there
Speaker 1: was one other story that she hadn't told him. It
Speaker 1: happened a few weeks after moving in, when Caroline had
Speaker 1: gone out to inspect the barn, Finding it emptied of
Speaker 1: all mister Kenyon's things, it had seemed a much more
Speaker 1: expansive and eerie place than she'd remembered. Just as she
Speaker 1: was about to head back to the house, she heard
Speaker 1: a rustling above her head, which was followed by the
Speaker 1: appearance of an old scythe flying down from out of
Speaker 1: the rafters. Ducking away at the last minute, the blade
Speaker 1: struck her on the shoulder before clattering to the ground.
Speaker 1: Looking at her jacket in utter disbelief, she found it
Speaker 1: had been partially sliced open by bray. The cold snap
Speaker 1: had passed and the snow and ice was finally beginning
Speaker 1: to recede. However, for Caroline, the incessant cold was beginning
Speaker 1: to wear her down. One bright morning that month, mister
Speaker 1: Kenyon returned to check in on the family as he
Speaker 1: and Caroline caught up over coffee. Caroline steered the conversation
Speaker 1: toward the issue of the fireplaces, wondering whether it would
Speaker 1: be okay to unblock some of them to help warm
Speaker 1: up the house. Mister Kenyon paused for a moment, seeming
Speaker 1: unsure about what to say exactly, before quickly changing the subject,
Speaker 1: going on to tell a story about two unfortunate men
Speaker 1: from the early eighteen hundreds. The men had set out
Speaker 1: from nearby Webster, a town located fifteen miles away, hoping
Speaker 1: to walk to Harrisville, when a violent blizzard had whipped
Speaker 1: up unexpectedly around them. Realizing they were in trouble, the
Speaker 1: men were said to have sought shelter underneath a blacksmith's
Speaker 1: shop that had once stood on the grounds of the
Speaker 1: Peron's house. They had both frozen to death that night.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be until long after mister Kenyon had passed
Speaker 1: away himself that Caroline considered the fact that perhaps, in
Speaker 1: some way he hadn't changed the subject at all. One morning,
Speaker 1: soon after Kenyon's visit, Caroline took a crow bar to
Speaker 1: the paneling over the fireplace in the parlor and wrenched
Speaker 1: it free. From the wall. As she pulled, a sudden
Speaker 1: gust of wind was unleased from beyond, as if something
Speaker 1: vast had just exhaled from the depths of its lungs.
Speaker 1: Moments later, she was stood in front of a crumbling
Speaker 1: but beautiful ornate fireplace. Finding the chimney stuffed with bricks, plaster,
Speaker 1: and newspaper, Caroline and April sent the best part of
Speaker 1: the afternoon clearing it out until finally they had a
Speaker 1: working fire. Later that day, with the rest of the
Speaker 1: children having returned from school, Caroline was taking a shower
Speaker 1: when the doorbell rang. It was their neighbor, Missus Pettigrew,
Speaker 1: with a freshly baked cake, to welcome the family into
Speaker 1: their new home. After inviting her in, oldest daughter Andrea,
Speaker 1: headed upstairs to let her mum know that Missus Pettigrew
Speaker 1: was waiting for her. When she opened the bathroom door,
Speaker 1: Caroline let out a scream as a coat hanger appeared
Speaker 1: to leap unaided from the wall and hit her in
Speaker 1: the head. When the rest of the girls arrived to
Speaker 1: check everything was okay, Caroline insisted that all was well
Speaker 1: and ushered them back downstairs. Later, having thanked Missus pettigrew
Speaker 1: for the cake. Caroline was just seeing her at the
Speaker 1: door when the neighbor mentioned something a little peculiar. It
Speaker 1: was strange, she said, to see so few lights on
Speaker 1: in the house when she drove up to it. Earlier,
Speaker 1: back when mister Kenyon owned it, she would often see
Speaker 1: the whole place lit up at night, even from the
Speaker 1: distance of the main road. Not knowing quite what to
Speaker 1: make of that, Caroline thanked her neighbor again for the
Speaker 1: cake and quietly closed the door behind her. Are you
Speaker 1: always taking care of your family? Do you often take
Speaker 1: care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, to make time for you. You
Speaker 1: deserve it. Tele a doc gives you access to a
Speaker 1: licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best,
Speaker 1: to feeling like yourself again. With tele adoc, you can
Speaker 1: speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video. Therapy
Speaker 1: appointments are available seven days a week from seven am
Speaker 1: to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes
Speaker 1: maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or
Speaker 1: you might be struggling with a personal or family issue,
Speaker 1: teledoc can help. TELEDOC is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches,
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Speaker 1: For free teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unexplained podcast. Returning from another work trip a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, Roger was overjoyed by the sight of the
Speaker 1: old fireplace that Carolyn had worked hard to recover, so
Speaker 1: much so that he took the following week off to
Speaker 1: help her restore it. It was on the last day,
Speaker 1: as they were just applying the final touches, that they
Speaker 1: heard a clicking sound behind them. Turning around, they both
Speaker 1: watched with confusion as the door for the pantry, which
Speaker 1: lay just off the parlor, swung open on its own accord.
Speaker 1: Assuming it to be little more than a change in
Speaker 1: the air pressure, Roger moved toward the door, only to
Speaker 1: be struck by the stench of something rotting coming from
Speaker 1: behind it. Finding nothing untoward, however, he quietly pushed the
Speaker 1: door back and lashed it shut. Over the next few days,
Speaker 1: Caroline delighted in finally having a working fire, keeping it
Speaker 1: lit most of the day. Oddly, however, the pantry door
Speaker 1: continued to open up on its own volition. Roger became
Speaker 1: so irritated he eventually wasted it shut with a dressing
Speaker 1: table and tied the latch with twine. When he came
Speaker 1: down the following morning, however, the door was open again.
Speaker 1: The dresser had somehow been moved back an inch, while
Speaker 1: the twine was nothing but a pile of ripped shreds
Speaker 1: on the floor. The odious smell had also returned. Determined
Speaker 1: to find the cause of it, Roger emptied out the
Speaker 1: entire pantry, but found nothing to account for it. Though
Speaker 1: Roger decided not to tell Carolin about it, she too
Speaker 1: had noticed the unusual way in which the pantry door
Speaker 1: refused to stay shut, and the cellar door too, which
Speaker 1: took to opening whenever she was alone in the parlor.
Speaker 1: One night, having just got to sleep, Carolin was awoken
Speaker 1: in the dark by the sound of a match being struck.
Speaker 1: Unable to move or make a sound, Caroline had watched
Speaker 1: with horror as sparks and flames began to rise high
Speaker 1: into the air above her dresser, crackling with menace shooting
Speaker 1: up in her bed. Seconds later, Caroline rushed to switch
Speaker 1: on the light, staring in disbelief at the untouched dresser.
Speaker 1: It was only then that she realized it had been
Speaker 1: nothing but a dream. Unable to ignore the signs any longer,
Speaker 1: Caroline had had enough. Samuel oliveson, the Peron's lawyer, had
Speaker 1: barely arrived at his desk when Caroline's call came in
Speaker 1: first thing that morning. Having not felt able to speak
Speaker 1: to Roger about it since he would never believe her,
Speaker 1: Caroline was soon pouring it all out to Sam, detailing
Speaker 1: everything from the near miss with the scythe the strange
Speaker 1: incident with the coat hanger, and about all the cold
Speaker 1: spots and doors opening and closed us on their own past.
Speaker 1: Caring how she might sound, it was with some surprise
Speaker 1: when Sam replied simply that it sounded as though her
Speaker 1: house was haunted. As it turned out, Sam also believed
Speaker 1: his own house to be haunted, and he promised to
Speaker 1: do whatever he could to help. When Roger returned from
Speaker 1: work the next day, Caroline had no choice but to
Speaker 1: tell him she had instructed Sam to see if there
Speaker 1: was a way to back out of the house. Purchase.
Speaker 1: Roger was understandably taken aback, but Caroline insisted, not caring
Speaker 1: if he believed her or not, that something bad was
Speaker 1: happening in their home. What's more, their neighbor knew it too,
Speaker 1: said Caroline, going on to explain the peculiar thing that
Speaker 1: missus Pettigrew had said about the way mister Kenyon used
Speaker 1: to keep all the lights on. Roger's eyes widened. What
Speaker 1: is it, asked Caroline. It was just as mister Kenyon
Speaker 1: had said to him, Roger explained, shortly before they moved in,
Speaker 1: that they should keep the lights on for the family's sake.
Speaker 1: Then Roger thought back to the incident with the pantry door,
Speaker 1: the unusual smells and cold spots he'd noticed. Despite all
Speaker 1: his better judgment, he realized then that Caroline might not
Speaker 1: be completely mistaken. Perhaps the house was haunted after all.
Speaker 1: A few nights later, Roger and Caroline returned home after
Speaker 1: a rare night out together, and, after first checking on
Speaker 1: the children, made their way to bed. A few hours later.
Speaker 1: The couple were fast asleep. At some point, Caroline awoke
Speaker 1: in the dark with the sense that some one was
Speaker 1: walking through the bedroom, assuming it to be one of
Speaker 1: her daughters. Caroline, half awake, asked if they were okay,
Speaker 1: but strangely got no reply. It was then that she
Speaker 1: realized it wasn't a child standing in the middle of
Speaker 1: the room, but the figure of a woman. Just like before,
Speaker 1: Caroline found herself suddenly paralyzed, unable to move or scream
Speaker 1: for help. As the figure moved closer and closer to
Speaker 1: the bed, Despite being unable to look directly at it,
Speaker 1: Caroline had the distinct impression that its clothes were old
Speaker 1: fashioned and fastened at the waist with a large belt.
Speaker 1: Having no feet, it seemed to float over the ground.
Speaker 1: Its face was completely featureless, But what was most terrifying
Speaker 1: for Caroline was the odd position of the head, bent
Speaker 1: sideways at a ninety degree angle, as if it had
Speaker 1: once been badly broken. As it continued getting closer and closer,
Speaker 1: Caroline was sure she could smell something akin to rotting flesh.
Speaker 1: When suddenly it was gone, snapping out from whatever had
Speaker 1: had her in its grip, Caroline tore downstairs to the parlor,
Speaker 1: not even taking the time to wake her husband. Hurriedly
Speaker 1: lighting a fire, she grabbed a notebook and quickly made
Speaker 1: a record of exactly what she'd seen, even including a
Speaker 1: sketch of the apparent figure she had encountered, more convinced
Speaker 1: than ever that she was right to contact Sam. Caroline
Speaker 1: sat in the kitchen the next day, running everything over
Speaker 1: in her mind. With any luck, they could be gone
Speaker 1: before her children had any sense of what had been
Speaker 1: going on. Having to keep it all from them had,
Speaker 1: no doubt, only added to her stress. Just then, Andrea appeared,
Speaker 1: catching Caroline by surprise. She was holding her mother's notebook.
Speaker 1: Caroline snatched it from her, but knew immediately it was
Speaker 1: too late. Mom asked her daughter, is our house haunted?
Speaker 1: Caroline drew a sharp breath, taking a moment to decide
Speaker 1: how best to answer, But before she could, Andrea continued,
Speaker 1: because this woman you describe, I've seen her too. It
Speaker 1: was only then that Andrea proceeded to tell her everything
Speaker 1: about what had apparently been going on since the very
Speaker 1: first day they had moved in. It had started slowly,
Speaker 1: with a few strange sightings the tall figure that Nancy
Speaker 1: and Cynthia had seen standing in the shadows. Each would
Speaker 1: see him out of the corner of their eye, looking
Speaker 1: up just in time to catch him receding back into
Speaker 1: the dark before disappearing altogether. They had even given him
Speaker 1: a name, calling him Mannie. Not long after they'd moved in,
Speaker 1: the girls began playing a game in which they pretended
Speaker 1: to be at school, with Andrea as the teacher, using
Speaker 1: her small chalkboard to give the lessons. By then, the
Speaker 1: girls had grown unsettled by the peculiar things that they'd
Speaker 1: been experiencing, so would only go to the toilet together.
Speaker 1: Each time they would go, in the middle of the game,
Speaker 1: they would return to find the writing on the board
Speaker 1: had been mysteriously smudged out. Soon the girls were noticing
Speaker 1: toys going missing or just being moved about when they
Speaker 1: weren't looking. It wasn't long after that that their beds
Speaker 1: had started shaking in the middle of the night, followed
Speaker 1: by the moving about of shadows in their room and
Speaker 1: the hearing of disembodied voices whispering in the dark. Nancy
Speaker 1: had also heard footsteps moving about at night and stopping
Speaker 1: at her door, whilst Cynthia was convinced that something seemed
Speaker 1: to kiss them good night shortly before they went to bed.
Speaker 1: Most of them claimed to have seen a ghostly child
Speaker 1: moving about whenever the twilight hour was upon them, and
Speaker 1: all of them had seen the terrifying figure with the
Speaker 1: bent neck. These encounters would prove to be only the
Speaker 1: beginning of what some members of the Prone family claimed
Speaker 1: to be an extensive haunting of their newly purchased home
Speaker 1: that continued for many years. As some listeners may be aware,
Speaker 1: the porn story would later form the basis for The Conjuring,
Speaker 1: the two thirteen film directed by James One. We will
Speaker 1: explore this and other elements of the story in next
Speaker 1: week's Unexplained Extra. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and
Speaker 1: would like to help support us, you can now go
Speaker 1: to Unexplained podcast dot com, Forward slash support. All donations,
Speaker 1: no matter how large or small, are massively appreciating. All
Speaker 1: elements of Unexplained are produced by me Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com,
Speaker 1: or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained. Now, it's time to take care of yourself,
Speaker 1: to make time for you. Teledoc gives you access to
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or
Speaker 1: video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time,
Speaker 1: seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most
Speaker 1: insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit teledoc dot
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Speaker 1: podcast