by Donna Parish-Bischoff
The IndyPara Ghost Investigation Team
On February 18th, 2012 Indy Para and Poughkeepsie Paranormal joined forced once again. This time it was for an over night investigation at Miss Fanny’s Victorian home located in Wappingers Falls. We arrived at 9pm that evening. Pulling into the driveway. This large white Victorian with black window shutters towered over us, as the cloudy, rainy sky was its backdrop. We all piled up onto the front porch and removed our muddied shoes before entering the home.
The owner, Julia Drahos opened her home to us and had a huge vat of coffee brewing to keep us going through the night. She greeted us with a smile and welcomed us inside. As we entered, I could see everyone’s mouths drop open and look in awe around them. This home was absolutely breath taking. You really felt as if you stepped back into time.
This home was built some where around the 1870’s. Julia being only the third owner moved in around nine years ago. You can tell this home is her passion as she restored everything to its original state. With every square inch of this marvelous estate, your eyes did not know where to look next to capture this turn of the century beauty.
The walls adorned with antique frames some with gold leaf. These pictures were left from yesteryear. Family portraits, newly wedded couples, mothers and their babies. Portraits of the mistresses that once walked the hallways of this great home. These photos have really captured the essence of the personality the home was emanating. You got a real sense of what it was like to actually be there, back in time. The dark woodwork that complemented through out the home. After we all chatted, getting coffee and discussing where to unload all of our equipment.
We settled and Julia started the tour of the home. We all followed her up the carpeted stair way as it’s windy turn and dark wood banister.
At the top of the second landing a long hallway with four bedrooms and a bathroom. As she refers to this bathroom as the “Haunted Bathroom”. As Julia explains the story to us that she was lying in bed which there are two connected entrances to the bathroom. One from the mail hallway and one entrance from Julia’s bedroom. She had been sleeping in her bed when the door that leads to that bathroom pushed open with great force slamming into the bathroom wall. And she had a guest in the bathroom at that very moment going about their business. The guest yelled “What the Hell? Julia jumped up. She said I didn’t do that. We checked this door our and you would really have to provide a strong heavy force to move this and because of the original door, the wood had not been shaved from the bottom so the natural progression is for the door to get stuck on the floor if you tried to swing it open. Hence The Haunted Bathroom. We could not debunk this *
We then went into each bedroom where Julia proceeded to tell us that one of her daughters would only stay in her room with every light on and TV going. But at night the daughter sneaks into Julia’s bed not to be alone. We did notice cold chills throughout the home when we would mention certain things or ask questions regarding the original owners. When entering Julia’s bedroom the bed is massive vintage cherry wood with a very tall-carved Gothic style headboard it was out of this world. As Terri was standing beside the foot board, something pinched her butt. No one else was standing next to her at this time. At the same time she said that something pinched her butt, Megan snapped a picture and captured a blue orb like object in the same area Terri was pinched.
In the same room a short while later we were all in there with The Ghost Box. It’s a piece of equipment Through various radio stations are turned in for a split second every so often along with regular static, the devices also allows the spirits to interact with the device and create their own vocals through the receiver and for lack of a better term, talk through the device. We heard a child say “MOMMY”. Right after John , our medium asked if there were anyone in the room that had a message for us. Terri captured an EVP with her regular digital recorder saying “MY HOME”.
As the evening went on and we interchanged who are investigative partners were. To see if we get different energy responses when with different investigators.
Jimmy went up into the attic where there was a room with a lamp, a bench and a Halloween prop of Linda Blair (Life sized mannequin). Joy for me because that is a BIG phobia for me alone. I can handle haunted locations, dark basements, attics… dis-embodied voices … BUT not the Excsorsist or Linda Blair.He mentioned as he was leaving he heard a female say, don’t leave. Ed mentioned he got a real cool breeze pass him and right after he stated that, our K-2 meter went off the charts.
As we were watching the DVR ‘d monitor to see if we can see anything with Jimmy’s IR cameras he set up in some of the rooms. We noticed a blip in Julia’s bedroom where the IR shut off for a minute and it appeared to be a mass moving next to Julia’s bed. Then it was gone in the blink of an eye. Jimmy went to review the recordings and he found that one of the channels was completely manually shut off. In a paranormal investigators world that is the most frustrating thing to go through. To set up equipment and you know it’s on and working correctly to only have this one particular channel shut off not recording any activity at all. So, was it human error, paranormal? Sabotage?
We will never know.
As the earlier morning hours were approaching it was about 3am by this time. Julia has two vintage Ouija boards down stairs on her dinning room table. I myself not a fan of using these boards because one never knows what you invite in.
As a collective decision amongst all eight of us, we decided to sit around the dinning room table and lay one of the boards out on the table. We placed a K-2 on Yes, a K-2 on No and EMF meter on the word goodbye. We began asking questions and it would light up sometimes all of the meters at once then stop, then light up no, then yes then goodbye. Then cycle and all would light up again. Upon doing this experiment we heard something drag across the floor in a room above us. No one was up there. Sounded like a wooden chair move. We went up stairs and did not discover anything on the second floor with the bedrooms or bathroom.
We then approached the 3rd floor where the attic is. We did discover two things’ that were disturbed. There is a closet in the hallway, the door was open, the movie projector screen was on the floor and the pictures on the wall were crooked. (Now mind you the pictures were not near the closet where the screen could of hit into the frames causing them to be crooked. We straightened out the frames, placed the screen back in the closet and headed back downstairs. We took a break and sat around speaking of the possibilities. But what a strange coincidence huh? The sun was rising at this point and we started to pack up to leave.
We are still reviewing all the audio of that night and so far everyone is telling me they captured many EVP’s. In which we will be happy to share everything we have with all of you. Only a quick but not final note, the morning after we left Julia was awakened by loud banging and knocking on her headboard at 5am. But what a night! Thank you Julia Drahos, the owner of Miss Fanny’s. We appreciate you allowing us in and doing this. It was a pleasure and maybe we can go back again in the future .
