Paranormal Witness: The Apartment EP 206

A single mom has troubling nightmares after moving into an apartment complex in California.

WARNING: The episode made a disclaimer regarding adult, disturbing content in this episode and should be viewed by discretion. I decided to do the same for this post. The content contains information in regards to a real crime involving kidnapping, torture, and murder so if this is something you cannot read, I completely understand!

Jodi Foster was a single mother who relocated to Chico, CA with her daughter, Hannah to start a brand new life. With the help of Jodi's friend Idie, Jodi was able to have a roof over her head until Jodi searched for the perfect home to shelter herself and Hannah. Jodi found an apartment complex in Chico that in her words, seemed "inviting and a good place to raise a family". However, the only apartment that was available was not on ground level and this concerned Jodi since Hannah was so little. Jodi worried about Hannah's safety but after much thinking , she decided to take the apartment, which was Apt. #14. “The day I signed the apartment agreement, I had no idea my life would turn into a living hell," Jodi said. The first night at the apartment, Jodi had a strange nightmare; the one nightmare would turn into a sequence of dreams that would haunt and disturb Jodi.

Sleepless nights ahead

DREAM #1
Jodi was witnessing a couple with clothing people would wear in the 70s. Jodi felt that there was a  "predatory nature" to the dream. The couple were searching for somebody. Jodi's role in the dream was simply an observer. “I felt like I was ghost to them,” she described. She kept seeing a large “H” in her dream too. She felt that the couple were hunting for a girl, possibly for Hannah. It was unlike any other dreams Jodi had and Jodi felt the dream was sincerely happening for real. Jodi woke up from the dream at 3:37am; horrified that the couple existed and were outside her apartment, she had a panic attack and called Idie for comfort. Idie at first thought it was a legit emergency but once she realized that Jodi was terrified over a nightmare, she assured Jodi that nightmares happen to people who are under a lot of stress. Jodi did what she could to put it out of her mind. But then it happened the next night:

DREAM #2
The couple were once again shown in the dream. They walked down the hallway towards Jodi’s apartment. “I felt utterly vulnerable and helpless," Jodi recalls. “That couple emulated pure evil.” Then all the sudden, in the dream, Jodi sees a poor innocent girl. Jodi wakes up at 3:37am again. Horrified once again thinking that the couple was going to harm Hannah, Jodi frantically grabs Hannah, gets out of the apartment and tries knocking on a neighbor's door but there's no response. Jodi didn't know what to make of it all at this point. 

"I always feel like somebody's watching me..."

On a brighter note, the apartment manager told Jodi that a new apartment opened up downstairs on ground level, Apt. #23. While the apartment was filthy, Jodi didn't care at this point because she didn't want anything to do with Apt. #14. One day when Jodi was moving in, Idie came over to help her. Idie would feel "coldness" in the apartment, a presence there. She then would feel nauseated. Idie didn't know what to think of it but chalked it up to morning sickness from her pregnancy. Idie didn't tell Jodi because she didn't want to scare Jodi. Meanwhile, Jodi cleaned up the apartment and made sure everything was clean and organized, especially in Hannah's bedroom. In Hannahs’ bedroom, her room was cozy, pink and white. Even though Hannah would sleep with Jodi, the room turned into her toyroom with her favorite toy, a Sesame Street Elmo doll, topped on top of the toy shelf in it's special place. Despite making the new apartment as comfortable as possible, strange things happened again. For example, Jodi would constantly misplace her keys and would find them randomly on the bed. Jodi immediately thought it was Hannah just being a kid and messing with Jodi's things. Hannah remembers that her mom would get so mad at her for misplacing things but Hannah stands firm that to this day, she never moved around her mother's things. Then, the dreams started creeping in again.......

Where the original nightmare began....

DREAM #3
The same couple appears once again. The couple was driving around in a car and the couple drove by a girl who was walking down the street. The couple asked the girl if she needed a ride. Jodi wanted to tell her “no” as she was observing the scene unfolding but she couldn't. Then Jodi heard them chatter. The couple speeds off onto the freeway and then they then drive down a neighborhood street in Chico. Jodi recognizes it as her street that she lives in. They pulled up to Jodi’s apartment complex. The girl asks if she can use the restroom so the couple make the pit stop. “I could see the evil in their face," Jodi explains. Jodi wanted to get out of the dream and help the girl. The dream ends and Jodi wakes up at 3:37am.

DREAM #4
The couple is now walking into the apartment. The man is pouring drops of liquid onto a handkerchief. He walks into the room where his wife and the girl are. The woman wraps her arm around the girl and the man suffocates the girl with the handkerchief. Thee couple drag the girl out to the car. The dream ends once again at 3:37am.

DREAM #5
The couple was in the blue car and the girl wakes up. She’s tied by bounds. He pulls out a contraption. He rams it over her head. This wasn’t some random act of violence. They had it all planned out. Jodi at this point is feeling very suffocated. The couple were now in their home and in the basement. They hooked the poor girl up to chains. They started to touch her sexually. The woman just put her mouth on her and bit her......I was just a ghost in the dream....

Needless to say, the nightmares terrified Jodi. "It’s the most horrifying, disgusting thing to see another human being torture someone like that," Jodi explains, tearing up. "That’s someone’s baby, that’s someone’s child! What if that happened to Hannah?” One morning, Jodi was helping Hannah get ready. Hannah excitingly looks in the mirror and goes "Mommy, its your friend!". Jodi was puzzled as to what Hannah was talking about and asked her what she was talking about. Jodi looks around and sees nothing. She's concerned as to why things in the house are getting misplaced and why Hannah is now having "imaginary friends".

DREAM #6
The tortured girl is in the bathroom, begging the woman for her life and to be let go. The woman warns her to shut up. The man hears the girl, gets a knife, and cuts her throat. The girls' eyes meet Jodi's...it was then that Jodi knows that somehow, this girl is communicating directly to Jodi and knows that Jodi is there watching. 3:37am strikes and Jodi wakes up to the lights flashing on and off, items are moving and breaking, and Hannah's Elmo doll is in the center of the living room and not on Hannahs' toy shelf.

Jodi's friend, Misty (whose deaf), comes to visit Jodi. Jodi feels at ease knowing that she has someone there with her. One day, Jodi and Misty come home and Misty senses a presence there in the house. The women go inside and household items and clothing are all piled up on Jodi's bed...with Elmo at the top with a noose around its neck. Terrified someone broke in, Jodi calls the police but the officer she spoke to dismissed her and thought she was crazy. Later on, Misty, Jodi and Hannah prepare for bed; Misty had a school event the next morning and set her alarm to 5:30am. The women go to sleep in Jodi's bed. Jodi has another dream and all the sudden, they hear a BOOM! The women wake up and the apartment begins to shake. Lights were flashing once again. TV was turned on. The women rush out of the apartment and realized it's 6am and that Misty is late so they run out of the hosue.....however...whether it's just another one of Jodi's dreams or some other supernatural phenomena, they look at the clock outside the apartment and it's 3:37am. Jodi had reached her boiling point and begins screaming in the name of Jesus Christ for the entity to get out.

Hannah and Jodi with the picture Hannah drew of her friend, Mylus

The landlords at the apartment offered her a new apartment in a new complex in downtown chico. Part of the agreement would be to not talk about the haunted apartment. Jodi did not hesitate to leave. The day Jodi left Walnut Garden,  Jodi’s life changed; Hannah and Jodi were excited to start over again, Jodi met a man named Joel and Jodi got a job. Joel brought an amount of stability and happiness in her life and because of this, Jodi thought the haunting were behind her. But Hannah would then have a dream about her. Unlike Jodi, Hannah wasn’t scared because she thought it was one of mom’s friend. The friend’s name was Marlus but Hannah called her Mylus because Hannah couldn’t pronounce her name properly. “She was comforting. I could just talk to her,” Hannah recalls. One day, Hannah and Idie’s son were drawing. Judi took a sneak peak at the picture Hannah drew. It was a drawing of a girl and Hannah said it was her guardian angel and her friend, Mylus. She then saw a picture of two people, who Hannah explained were the people that were hurting her. Hannah drew Mylus being hung with tears on her face. Jodi was shocked and the shock of it set off triggers of more reoccurring dreams. Jodi told Joel about her past hauntings of this mystery girl but he consoled her and encouraged her to se if there was more to this then they knew. They both went to the library one day and looked up articles in the local newspaper called "The Chico Enterprise".

After hours and hours of research, they came across an article date February 3, 1976. The headline read “Local Girl Gone Missing” then it says “gone missing from Parmack Road, Walnut Gardens, apt 14”, which was where Jodi had lived. There was also photo of her. Jodi recognized her right away.

The girl was now known as Marie Elizabeth Spannhake

Now Jodi began dreaming about the couple putting Marie's dead body into the trunk of the car. However this time, Jodi decided to observe some more and see how the events would unfold it in front of her.

Jodi made an appointment with a local crime reporter named Roger from a local newspaper to further investigate. Roger felt it wasn’t unusual that a woman would want more information on a case since it was quite commeon. After Jodi asked Roger about Marie's case, he showed the paper clippings from a nation-wide case called "The Girl In The Box"  case. A couple by the name of Cameron and Janice Hooker had kidnapped a girl in Red Bluff, CA named Colleen Stan. The sadistic couple kept her in a box under their bed for 7 years and subjected her to horrific abuse. It wasn't until 7 years later when she freed herself and went straight to the police. The couple were arrested and went to trial. Janice testified against the husband and mentioned to the police about how something happened a year before Colleen when they kidnapped a woman off the street and how they also subjected her to torture; due to very weak and insufficient evidence, no charges for the crime were filed. Upon hearing all this, Jodi is convinced the girl in her dreams is Mary: "It’s her wanting justice and communicating that to me in my dreams".

Around the location Jodi believes Marie's remains are

More clues unfolded through Jodi’s dreams. She hears the number “35.76” repeatedly in a dream. Jodi concludes that these must be the coordinates of the location where Marie is buried. Meanwhile, Joel felt it was important she’d take this information to the police. The officer that spoke with Jodi heard her case asked her why she called at that time; Jodi explained she just felt she had to. The officer explains that Jodi’s call gave him chills because the police were in the middle of putting the pieces together in regards to the case. Within days, lead detectives were on the case and interviewed Jodi on the details of Jodi’s dreams in regards to Marie. Because the case was still an open-murder case, they couldn’t confirm anything to Jodi. They asked her of the number in her dreams and Jodie felt it was a clue to the location of Marie’s remains.

Meanwhile, Jodi got in contact with another investigative reporter, Meredith Cooper. Meredith was hesitant at first to take Jodi seriously but remained open-minded to hear her story. Jodi went to her to confirm her dreams that have been haunting her sleepless nights. Meredith went to the Red Bluff Police for information but they wouldn’t say anything about Marie’s case. But Meredith then looked at the missing person’s files through the Chico Police Department. Included in the files were interviews from people who know Marie: her family, her friends, coworker and her boyfriend at the time. Then…Meredith found a hidden piece of the puzzle: a video tape of Janice Hooker’s  testimony. It was dated January 1976. Janice explains in one incident regarding Mari that Cameron had difficult restraining her because she made a lot of noise. After she was tortured, she was brought upstairs to the bathroom. Cameron decided to cut her vocal chords and used a knife to stop her from screaming. They had killed her and hid her body. This information was not made public and because of this, this made Meredith believe Jodi because there was no way that Jodi would know this information ahead of time to make it up.

Janice's testimony

This new information made Jodi feel validated in all that had happened to her.

Police have visited the burial location that Jodi has seen in her dreams. Unfortunately, Marie’s remains have yet to be found. Cameron hooker was never charged with Marie’s murder but he was convicted of the abduction for Colleen Stan. After her confession, Janice was released without charges. Jodi is convinced she’s seen her once.

Jane's Notes: This has to be one of the most heart-wrenching recaps I've had to do, especially since I used to live in the area not far from this location. This also echoes another case not too far from Chico, which is the Jaycee Dugard case. It is people like Cameron and Janice Hooker than intrigue people to study criminology. How can a man like this be so vile, so sadistic, so brutal? To echo Jodi's words, how can anyone inflict such vile abuse on another human being? We may never know. You may wonder what good may have come out of this case. I did a little searching and came upon this piece in an index that was in regards to the Colleen Stan case. If you go to the first page through 14, it goes into great detail about Colleen's ordeal. Colleen has also written a book about her life and her horrors called "Colleen Stan: The Simple Gifts In Life". But what about Marie?

Her case is still open and she is under The Doe Network; her case file can be found here. Other cases involving unexplained disappearances can be seen here.

However...there is something about this case that greatly disturbs me. Janice Hooker is now a registered social worker/therapist. That's right. The same woman that aided Cameron Hooker has a license to help victims and those in need of mental health services. Upon this discovery, I just have no words. I'm sure that there are those that feel the same outrage I do, which can be seen in the reviews here. I really would like to know what Colleen, Jodi and all the others involved in this case think about what I personally think is a HUGE slap to the face to victims such as Colleen and Marie. Honestly, my mind is freaking boggled at this point. What do you think? 

Regardless, I'm sure I can safely say that all of us here at "MOB Wives"  express our sympathy and condolences to the  Spannhake family and I hope one day, Marie's remains will be found. Our hearts also go out to Colleen Stan and we wish her nothing but happiness in her life.

Follow me on Twitter @janedoemessage
Personal Blog: Message In A Bottle

Picture Credit: Syfy, CBSNews, News Review