Researching A Deadly Haunting - Part 1

My Paranormal Cold Case By Todd Hendrickson

I became acquainted with the unique case of the Moffitt family several months ago. For those unfamiliar with the story told in the book A Deadly Haunting, it centers around a family beset with some of the strangest and most frequent paranormal phenomena ever documented. Beginning in the mid 80's, the strangeness that plagued this family included such varied manifestations as written communication, physical contact, and apportation (the spontaneous appearance of physical objects.)

I undertook researching this case with a healthy dose of skepticism, which is my usual approach. Despite the numerous experiences I've had, I find it best to look at each aspect critically. I began the evaluation process by performing an interview in which I first filled out intake sheets consisting of questions used to determine mental states, consistency, and truthfulness. I determined that Daborah Moffitt (the experiencer) is sane, honest, and her answers were consistent with previous and similar questions without sounding rehearsed. This left me with two remaining conclusions: either the paranormal phenomena occurred as reported or the experiencer believed they did. My final conclusion and my subsequent research led me down a rabbit hole that has forced me to redefine the scope of my belief in the paranormal.

A brief synopsis of the events are as follows and shall be limited to reports that can be corroborated by first person accounts, physical evidence, or both. Between the years of 1987 and 1992 the experiencer and her family witnessed a series of phenomena that were both extreme and frequent. A transcribed account of her experiences has been provided thusly:

“When Bill and I married at the beginning of 1987, we made the choice to live with his parents due to his health issues. We stayed at Lee(Bill's Mother)'s home. On one side of Lee's house was the grandmother(Lee's Mother)'s old home and on the other was another house Bill had inherited from his aunt. We decided to rent out this house, but kept one room in the house for Bill's sports memorabilia. This room was kept locked. Unusual things started to occur after a young man moved in. Items in Bill's locked room disappeared and reappeared in seemingly random locations. Sometimes the tenant's belongings appeared in Lee's house, leading to several very uncomfortable situations. We naturally suspected the tenant but we couldn't figure out how or why he was doing it. A few weeks later the tenant announced that he was moving out. When we asked why he simply said he couldn't live there. He mentioned something about “strange things going on,” though he never went into any detail as to what.

Afterward we would visit the house to check on Bill's memorabilia. That was when we began to see items being moved around firsthand. It would happen in the blink of an eye. A household nicknack would suddenly be turned around or moved from its proper place. These occurrences began as confusing and nonthreatening. I began to lose some of my skepticism and noted that there seemed to be an intelligence behind the happenings. Out of curiosity I began to ask whatever it was doing this to move specific objects and within minutes or hours those objects moved.

Soon after we began to make plans to move to a new home. We ultimately decided it would be best to sell the rental properties. We figured that this would provide us with an opportunity to put all of the strangeness of the last few years behind us. We found a large house in the city of Alta Loma and slowly made the transition into our new home. We spent less and less time at Lee's original house. During our last week there activity spiked. One night while Bill and I were in Bed talking about the move all Hell broke loose. Suddenly we heard a tremendous explosion from the kitchen. Panicked and terrified we ran into the room and saw that the kitchen cabinets had been ripped apart, wood splinters everywhere. While we stood there trying to digest what had just happened another explosion sounded from the bedroom we were just in. A large picture window had been blown out covering the bushes outside with glass shards. Lee ran from the house. I grabbed her boxes and followed.”

Early on the entity established its presence among the family with little subtlety. Before written contact manifested, the predominant symbol associated with the entity was seen in various object formations in the rented home next to the Moffitt's. This “triangle with a tail” appeared more and more frequently as the phenomena progressed. While the final display intimated a staggeringly powerful level of physical manipulation, the truly disconcerting events were about to manifest in their new home.

“Once we settled into new home, no one talked about what had happened over the past several months. It seemed that those strange and frightening occurrences would fade away like bad memories. Unfortunately, the peace was short-lived. The same phenomena that had plagued our tenants now started affecting us. In the upstairs sitting room, pictures were being turned backwards. Objects were taken from shelves and tables only to be rearranged on the floor in shapes and patterns. These occurrences were harmless, but what they meant was terrifying: we had not escaped. Things began to escalate quickly. What happened next chilled us all to the bone. Written in soap, messages began appearing on mirror in the upstairs bathroom, warning us of danger in the attic. The writer referred to Lee by a childhood nickname. Lee immediately believed that this unseen presence was her late sister. When these warnings soon turned into threats, Lee realized that it never was her sister talking to her, and feared that something truly evil had invaded our home.”

At this point a dialogue was opened directly between the entity and the Moffitt family. A variety of messages were shared from casual banter to information that was highly improbable for anyone in the home to know. At first the family suspected that another of them were leaving the messages, which I found to be a natural assumption. This they ruled out by asking for a message and leaving the bathroom together. They would then stand together outside the door for a few seconds, open the door, and each time there was a fresh message left for them. The bathroom was on a second story with one door and a window far too small for anyone to get through, much less in a matter of seconds. The intelligence displayed by the entity was unique from any paranormal investigation I've previously researched, as was its conversant nature (except for a few poorly documented cases in particularly rural locations.)

Several experts in various paranormal fields were called in to investigate. Kerry Gaynor (previously a colleague of Thelma Moss' from the UCLA Parapsychology Lab) investigated for an extended period, as well as Loyd Auerbach, who is the current Director of the Office of Paranormal Investigations. A veritable parade of researchers, ghost hunters, and psychics conducted investigations for the next few years, including the demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. This has been confirmed through contacting several of the researchers and through photographic evidence of their presence in the Moffitt residence. One of particular noteworthiness was Dr. Evelyn Paglini, who became a close personal friend of the Moffitt family. Sadly, just a little over a month previous to writing this article Dr. Paglini passed away. Her contributions to the paranormal field were quite large and the assistance she gave to the Moffitt family was invaluable.

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