Life After Paranormals: Season 3, Episode 18

Debra Pickman recounts her experiences with the spirit of a young girl who wanted her attention and her husband dead in "The Harpy."

In the beginning, it seemed like there were a lot of small unexplainable incidents that occurred – photos were flipped around the house, electricity turned off and on, teddy bears were arranged oddly on the floor. What was the defining point where you decided that these added up to something paranormal?
When teddy bears up in the nursery were rearranged in the center of the floor. There was just no logical explanation for it, and after exhausting our efforts in trying to find an explanation, that was all we were left with.

Could you tell whether Taylor, your son, could sense there was something paranormal going on in the house?
We wondered that quite often. I remember one instance where he had a clown and he became very upset at one point at just the sight of it. It was from his grandmother and he loved the clown, and at one point he became so fearful of just the sight of it. We ended up putting it in a paper bag and putting it out like the trash.

There were times where Tony would put the baby down or went up the stairs to put him down for the night and he just clung to him, and we questioned whether that was a developmental phase that he was in because they go through a separation anxiety, or if there was something he really feared when he was in his room.

You wanted to look out for the spirit of "Sallie" in the beginning. What were some of the actions you took to do so?
I felt bad that she had nobody on her end. I tried to be inclusive, and include her in the family. I invited her to sit on my lap when I read to the baby or when I knew when the baby was tied down on the changing table, I would ask her to watch Taylor while I ran to the other room to get something. Knowing that he was safe, but trying to include, as you would a seven-year-old girl.

Could you tell if "Sallie" was responding to you trying to include her?
When I read books to Taylor, I would have Taylor sitting on one knee, and I invited her to sit on the other, and I could feel a distinctive coldness on that knee. Or, if Taylor was taking a nap, I would say "Oh, sounds like he's up! In the beginning, it seemed like there were a lot of small unexplainable incidents that occurred – photos were flipped around the house, electricity turned off and on, teddy bears were arranged oddly on the floor. What was the defining point where you decided that these added up to something paranormal?

When teddy bears up in the nursery were rearranged in the center of the floor. There was just no logical explanation for it, and after exhausting our efforts in trying to find an explanation, that was all we were left with.

Could you tell whether Taylor, your son, could sense there was something paranormal going on in the house?
We wondered that quite often. I remember one instance where he had a clown and he became very upset at one point at just the sight of it. It was from his grandmother and he loved the clown, and at one point he became so fearful of just the sight of it. We ended up putting it in a paper bag and putting it out like the trash.

There were times where Tony would put the baby down or went up the stairs to put him down for the night and he just clung to him, and we questioned whether that was a developmental phase that he was in because they go through a separation anxiety, or if there was something he really feared when he was in his room.

You wanted to look out for the spirit of "Sallie" in the beginning. What were some of the actions you took to do so?
I felt bad that she had nobody on her end. I tried to be inclusive, and include her in the family. I invited her to sit on my lap when I read to the baby or when I knew when the baby was tied down on the changing table, I would ask her to watch Taylor while I ran to the other room to get something. Knowing that he was safe, but trying to include, as you would a seven-year-old girl.

Could you tell if "Sallie" was responding to you trying to include her?
When I read books to Taylor, I would have Taylor sitting on one knee, and I invited her to sit on the other, and I could feel a distinctive coldness on that knee. Or, if Taylor was taking a nap, I would say "Oh, sounds like he's up! Let's go up and get him!" and I would head up the stairs and I would feel a whoosh of cold air up next to me, as if she was running past me or something to get there first.

You bought a baby doll for "Sallie" and wrote her as note asking her how old she was. How long did it take for her to respond?
I want to say it was a good six weeks. At that point, I think that I had simply just left it. I'd given up on the questions that I was asking her daily or weekly and thought maybe she just needed more time. I know that it was several weeks before we got that information.

Tony was convinced early on that the presence in the home was something malevolent. Why do you think you experienced the presence so differently than Tony in the beginning?
I think part of it was my motherly instinct. I think another big part of it was that I had always had an interest in having a spirit. I had friends that had encountered with spirits so this was very enticing to me. I think that it had me wrapped around its finger very quickly. I wasn't on guard at all about it.

During the Sightings taping, Tony was seriously attacked. Was he able to bring these injuries to the attention of a doctor?
Most of them were just like superficial. There were just a couple of them that had been deep enough where he had needed stitches, but he didn't want to go.

Having to try and explain how he got some of the injuries was more stress than he wanted to deal with. He thought he could deal with the injury better than he could trying to tell the doctor how something happened or how he felt the way he felt.

Tony saw the spirit take shape in your bedroom. Was he able to describe to you what it looked like?
He actually called me one time while it was happening. I was at work and we talked for probably close to 10 minutes, and he said, "It's happening again. It looks like a mist. It's getting more solid. It's taking shape. It looks like a woman." We were trying to discuss this, and then it just kind of disappeared.

On two occasions it had solidified enough for him to think he could even describe the details of the broach she had on her neck.

You did some research on the history of the house, and learned that there never was a Sallie. Did you ever come to any conclusion on what is haunting the house?
No, but over the years since living in the house, and all of our research and all of our experiences there… draws us to the conclusion that it never was a little girl spirit. In the beginning, it showed itself or animated itself as a little girl, and when Tony didn't accept that, it changed to presenting itself as someone who looked like me, and then to someone who looked like an older woman. And when those scenarios didn't work and he couldn't accept those willingly, it started going at him from a different avenue. Through dreams and his state of mind. We came to the conclusion after we left the house that there was much more to it than an innocent little spirit.

Do you think it's just one spirit, or do you think it's a collection of spirits?
We think it's one main spirit that may have a collection of human spirits and may be able to project itself as whatever it wants, to gain acceptance from those that it's presenting to. We know there's other human spirits that are there as well that are fearful of what's there.

We have investigated the house multiple times since we left with other groups, and other groups have gotten EVP's that depict the voices of children that are constant, and females that are constant, and a few males that are constant. They talk about a looming stronger presence, and "You know we can't do that" and "I'm scared" and "Stop crying."

When you return to the house, does activity pick up right away?
No, when we left the house, Tony stayed away for about ten years and didn't even want to drive past the house. I had many questions and was looking for a lot answers so I would go back at the invite of any group that was going in. Eventually the circumstances came about that Tony decided to go back with one group, and the attacks that he had were nothing compared to what he had in the past. He might have one scratch over the course of the four hour period he was there, and it became less to the point that there were none at all, and he could stay the entire night into the wee hours of the morning.  We felt that maybe we had misinterpreted the negative part of what was there. And that changed quickly in 2007 – he was majorly attacked and we haven't been back since.

We had gone in with two other people. We had gone in for an hour and laid our equipment out to record. We blessed the house with sage, and we left for dinner, and came back to see how things were. Within ten minutes of being there, Tony was in the master bedroom and was getting sick to his stomach. He was taking pictures and I was using sage again. I saw him lifted about a foot/eight inches and quickly hit the wall behind him. And then he dropped to the floor and couldn't get up.

He ended up with, I want to say, fifty-eight scratches on the front of him and thirty-some on his back. He had been knocked out of his laced up leather work boots. The phone on his hip was literally melted. The batteries in the camera were melted. We realized at that point that we were misguided… to feel that he was safe in that house or that it was okay for him to be in that house, only to be basically ambushed by what was there.

It seems like Tony is the focus of most of these attacks. Do you know why? Could it be that he recognized it was something malevolent early on or do you think it's something else?
I think that's one of the questions I don't think we're ever going to get answers to. I don't know if it's an energy about him. We used to think that maybe he reminded the female spirit of somebody in her past, but we think its way beyond that. I think it has something to do with a very strong negative energy there. We think that whatever is there is very demonic and there's absolutely no reason for us bother ourselves with that house anymore.

Would you ever consider living in a house you knew to be haunted again?
I don't think we'd go out and search for something like that. We know that the extreme haunting that we went through are not necessarily common, and if we ended up in that situation again, we definitely know better what to look for.

Our eyes are always open. We still have some paranormal activity now and then, and we do think that the entities in that house reach out to us. We're always aware of our surroundings and things that seem odd or emotions that seem off or behaviors that seem off, and so we're able to kind of nip it in the bud and take a step back so that things don't escalate.