Sunday, June 9, 2013

"Paranormal Witness: The Long-Island Terror" Season 3 Premiere Recap

Jeanette with a picture of her husband, Lt. Meyran
Jeanette Meyran is the proud wife of Lt. Curtis W. Meyran and together, they had two beautiful daughters, Angela and Danine. But on January 23, 2005, everything turned upside down when Lt. Meyran and two other firefighters were responding to a call. The firefighters were trying to rescue occupants in a four-story apartment building but the fire was two intense that the firefighters on scene had to jump from the four-story building. Lt. Meyran jumped to his death. The death rocked the Meyran family to the core. “How do I tell these children that they will never see their father again?” Jeanette recalls. The daughters remember the tremendous grief they experienced from that day.The media had a field day with the incident and “the paparazzi from hell” would hound the family for interviews and pictures. The family just wanted to be left alone to grieve in peace. Jeanette decided to move the girls out of the city to give them a new beginning. Jeanette was attracted to a big, old house with lots of land. Jeanette wanted to rebuild it and had the help of Curtis’ fellow firefighters. Tom, Curtis’ friend, was an anchor for the family. There was a sense of hope for the family. But while the house was being rebuilt, Jeanette was concerned about vandalism so she installed seven security cameras throughout the property.

On the first night of viewing the cameras from her laptop, Jeanette noticed that there was a mystery man standing in the middle of the lot. But then the man disappeared. Jeanette had no clue what she was looking at. Meanwhile, Angela was feeling restless one night in her new room. She began to hear knocking on the walls. “I remember hearing these sounds….they were coming from inside the walls, like thumps of knocking,” Angela recalls. Danine also heard it too and woke up. “Second time I heard it (the knock) was ‘notice me, notice me!’”. The girls continued to hear the knocking inside the walls. Little Danine hid under her covers. “I’d make a little fortress. It didn’t feel safe but it felt good enough to sleep, wake up and it wouldn’t be there,” she said. Angela asked her mom if she was walking around the house and made noise. Jeanette didn’t hear anything but convinced the girls it was just the new house. Jeanette walked around the house to check the heating, the plumbing and to learn “the sounds of the house”. She concluded she just needed to reassure them and not be afraid.

Just a glitch? 
Tony remembered working down on the basement and mentioned that it was a “unique basement with a lot of debris”. During this time, Angela and Danine were outside playing in their new big backyard. “To me, it was like a playground, my heaven!” Danine remembers. “I thought it was really cool we had a backyard back there with all these trees and symbols…we found bones in the backyard!” Angela remembers. The kids spent time playing in the backyard and making maps for their toys, using the marks on the trees as a guide. Meanwhile, in the basement, something caught Tony’s attention and he called Jeanette down. It was an upside-down star in a circle, a symbol for devil worship. Jeanette didn’t want the girls to see it and told Tony and the men to cover it up. The girls didn’t tell their mother about the symbolism in the woods because they didn’t think she would care.

Foul play? 
Angela was left alone in the house and her mom gave her a list of chores. Angela then felt that she wasn’t really alone. When she went to clean the fridge, Angela would look back behind her a few times. All the sudden, all the drawers and shelves burst open and silverware was strewed everywhere on the counter. Angela screamed and ran to her room. When Jeanette came home and saw the mess in the kitchen, she assumed Angela threw a huge tantrum. But when Jeanette saw how terrified she looked, Jeanette then knew that they weren’t alone in the house. Tony and the crew were still working on the basement but were uneasy. One of the men discovered a hole in the wall and found pieces of paper bound together and showed Jeanette. There was writing and drawings. “I saw 1927. The pages seemed to be written by a young girl who was the daughter of someone in this house. Her name was Christina,” she explained. “It was an incredibly dark story….how her father did sacrifices and how she would ‘bleed like they would bleed’”. Jeanette concluded that these were some sick individuals but they were now gone and it was her house. The firefighters finished up their work and left.

Ransacked kitchen 
One day, Jeanette was vacuuming when she heard what she thought was the oil burner backfiring. Jeanette heard the pressure and the thumps coming from the basement. She went in the basement to investigate but as she went down the basement with a flashlight, she felt an incredible sense of evil. She became so frightened that she ran out of the basement. She knew that it was then paranormal.

During a more frightening occurrence when Danine was taking a shower, Angela was in her room when she began to hear voices, like chanting. “I was trying really, really hard to listen…two people talking, almost secretive.” Angela walked down the hallway but didn’t see anything. Meanwhile, Danine heard the bathroom door open and thought it was her mom. But even Danine feels like she is being watched. Angela goes back in her room but still hears the voices and even heard Danine’s name. She listened more closely. With tears in her eyes, Angela remembers hearing what the voices wanted: “They started using my sister’s name. I heard them telling me that…..” but Angela is too shaken up to continue talking about it. Danine then sees a demonic shadow through the door. Danine screams and Angela rushes to the door, terrified that she wouldn’t be able to protect her sister. “He wanted to hurt me,” Danine remembers. As Danine curled up in a corner and screamed for her mom, Jeanette and Angela frantically tried opening the door but it was locked. Jeanette finally opened the door and the women rushed to Danine’s aid. Danine was very shaken up by the “man” that wanted to go after her. Once the three women left the bathroom, all the doors in the room slammed shut. “You can hear this chanting,” Jeanette said. “Sounded like a group of people performing a ritual.” The girls frantically rushed to Jeanette’s room and locked the door, the chanting still going on. Jeanette told the girls to just call their daddy. The girls called for their dad. “I needed him to be there and if he was just there, everything would be fine,” Danine said. “How do you protect your children and fight what you can’t see?” Jeanette said.

Not your average joe....
Jeanette called on Tony to confide in him and to show him the star, the journal and all that went on. Tony went down to the basement but Jeanette refused to go down. “I go down to see what’s down there, she was frightened by the basement. There were few things I fear, besides my father and the dentist!” Tony recalls. “But I remember this pressure, like I had to get out of there. As Tony investigated the basement, he noticed a door and that it was continuing to rattle. But when Tony opened the door, he saw nothing. However…the door slammed shut behind him. That was enough to scare a hardened Tony. The girls then begin to stand guard at the bathroom when one of them took a shower. Jeanette was so conflicted on what to do. She poured so much time, money and energy to build a new safe haven for her and the girls. So Jeanette called a priest. The priest came in, said a prayer and gave holy water to Jeanette.

A resentful cult ready to attack Angela 
Nightfall came and Jeanette filled up a bottle with the gallons of holy water she was given. But Angela wanted out of the house so she went outside the backyard and went on the swing. “It took me away from the house.” Jeanette noticed Angela became more reclusive. Jeanette watched her from the backyard cameras. All the sudden, as Jeanette was watching Angela swinging at a steady pace, a group of cloaked figures appeared behind Angela….Angela felt a really heavy push and flew out of the swing, landing hard with a crunch on the ground. Angela screamed for her mom. Jeanette rushed out and Angela kept crying “we have to leave, they keep hurting us!” A furious Angela sprayed holy water all over, cursing the figures that attacked her daughter. “The war was about to begin!” The attack left Angela with a severely broken ankle.

Jeanette ran errands during the day and left Angela by herself, assuming she would be safe during the day. Angela was okay during the day but she felt more uneasy at night. Angela was reading a book in her room and something knocked on her closet door. The door began to shake softly at first but then it almost was like “someone was in my closet, trying to get out. It was a trainwreck…I couldn’t look away…I saw a black figure that stepped out of my closet…I couldn’t run…..make it to the door….” Angela immediately hid under her bed and saw the figure slowly move. Angela said it smelled like “death”. Angela got the house phone and desperately cried to her mom to come home. Jeanette took off in a flash and rushed home to get home to her daughter, even though she was fourty minutes away. Jeanette told Angela to pray. “I felt like he was going to hurt me,” Angela remembers..

There was a monster-like growl before the phone went dead.

Jeanette rushed home and saw nothing. She kept calling for Angela. Jeanette was desperate to hear her. “I just pictured her ripped apart by this creature,” she remembers. But then Jeanette heard a weeping from under the bed. Jeanette pulled out Angela from the bed because Angela was so weak and begged her mom to make it go away. The priest and holy water were not cutting it. The family had enough tragedy in their lives. So Jeanette took the girls to their grandma’s and Jeanette went through the phonebook and called up Liz Milano, a paranormal investigator. It was around 3-4am in the morning. Liz spoke to Jeanette for about an hour and was more than willing to help the shaken family. Liz called up a psychic medium, Dawn Joly, to help assist her and the ladies were going to do a cleansing and blessing on the home. To two women drove up to the house and Dawn immediately sensed an ill-presence. “It was like a dark cloud over the house,” she remembers entering the house. Dawn sensed the satanic cult coming  from the basement and explained how the demolition in the basement disturbed the energy in that room and that the cult released a demon in retaliation.

A cleanse and blessing to rid the demon 
Liz and Dawn then gathered big boxes of salt and poured it all around the house outside to serve as a “psychic force field”. Dawn then began burning the sage. The three of them went down in the basement, Dawn leading them with the sage and a crucifix. The basement was the epicenter of the activity. The three women recall that it was very intense and frightening with each step they took. Dawn heard chanting and screaming and it was a constant battle. The door then began rattling violently. Dawn opened the door and a fiery demon appeared and burst into flames. But then it stopped and that was the part of the house where the demon was housed.

The blessing worked and the house was rid of the demon.

Jeanette and the girls still live in the house and they enjoy living there now. “it was a battle won,” Jeanette concluded. “WE’ve learned and we’ve grown. It changes you forever.”

No one has seen the demon ever since... 

Picture Credit: NY Times, SyFy

Janes Notes: First off, we all send our condolences to Jeanette, Angela and Danine for their tragic loss. I went to a cop's funeral not too long ago and let me tell you, there is nothing more chilling and heart-wrenching than the community saying "farewell" to one of their heroes. I recently came upon this recent picture of the family at an exhibit full of Lt. Meyran's belongings and honoring his life and legacy. I wish nothing but the best for this beautiful, strong family.


Danine, Angela and Jeanette honoring Lt. MeyranPhoto by Marc Fader
Now onto the haunting....well....Hearing the ghost of Joe Schmoe who used to live in the home knock on the door is eerie and creepy but not terrifying...but an actual demon summoned unleashed in a home? That's a WHOLE new level of paranormal! I actually did some reading on demonology, witchcraft and the occult. While there is some skepticism and logical/scientific explanations on witchcraft from the past, I do believe that there are those who practice satanic rituals for some reason or another and do conjure up evil, negative spirits. The "other side" is just like here on Earth. You got "good" ghosts (angels) and then you have "bad" ghosts (demons). I do sincerely believe that this story is legit. This is a crazy, scary story and was a great choice for the new season. If this episode is a representation of what season 3 has to offer, I might start considering watching these episodes with a light on. I'm SO glad that the show is back on so stay tuned for some more summer scares! 

Follow me on Twitter @janespringfield
Personal Blog: Haunted Happenings 

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