Paranormal Witness EP 205 Recap: “Lady On The Stairs”

The ghost of a Victorian-era mother may be haunting the home of newlyweds.

Mark, a recently widowed man after 25 years of marriage, met Mari-Lynn and they moved pretty quickly as he married her a year later. The happy newlywed couple moved into the home Mark shared with Robin, his deceased wife. “It was a whole new life for me” Mark said. “I never had kids and have always wanted a little boy. Now I have this beautiful woman who also has a little boy.” Mari herself was in wedded bliss; “I felt privileged…I had nothing and all the sudden, had a husband who can provide for me and my son,” she said. She further explains her love for her new home: “When I went into the house, I was amazed. I have never seen so much beautiful furniture in one place. I was worried Jessie was going to damage something that was irreplaceable”. On the other hand, she still felt something off about the house with the blinds being shut and there being no light. “It felt dead,” she said. “I always felt uncomfortable, maybe I shouldn’t be there…like eyes were just on me”. Mark also noted that he knew she felt uneasy about the home from the first day.

Beautiful but haunted house

The house was originally decorated by Robin. Robin had a rather large collection of angels, which “freaked out” Mari. “Let’s just say me and Robin have different taste,” she said. Mark didn’t change anything in the house and still maintained Robin’s room upstairs as it was when she passed. Mark warned Mari and Jessi to not enter the room at all. Mari convinced Mark to hold a garage sale to sale Robin’s belongings. “I couldn’t wait to get rid of the angels!” Mari said. “It was a very successful garage sale. We sold about 75 angels”. While Mari was cleaning up after the garage sale, she noticed her son Jesse was playing in the yard nearby when something caught his interest. He was staring at a tree. Mari walked to Jesse and asked him what he was looking at. “Mama, there’s a lady in the tree!” Jesse said. Mari didn’t see anything and assured Jesse there was nothing. However, he saw Jesse seemed scared so she yelled “You go away mean lady, leave my son Jesse alone!” A few minutes later, Mari asked Jessie if the “mean lady” went way. He then said she was in a grove across the street. Mari still couldn’t see anything. One day, Mari was downstairs in the kitchen and heard a cry. She thought maybe she was hearing things and tried to brush it off. She then heard what sounded like Jesse scream and cry. Then Mari realizes Jesse wasn’t home. Mari went into every room and no one was in there. Mari began hearing a lot of noise. They were coming from Robin’s room. She had a horrible feeling but insisted on going into Robin’s room. She saw in her room that the bedroom window was open, the curtains were blowing and things were scattered on the floor. Mark came home and was outraged when he realized Mari went into Robin’s room. Mari concluded that it must’ve been her.

Guardian Angels?

One night, Mark and Mari were in bed. Mari woke up to the sounds of children laughing and playing. She tried to wake up Mark but Mark was sleeping. Mari got up to investigate. They had a swing set outside the window so Mari thought maybe kids were outside playing there. When Mari went out, she couldn’t find anything about these things she was hearing. There was nothing at the swing set. Mari didn’t know what she was going to find exactly and was still confused as to what was happening to her. On another night, Mark and Mari were sitting in the living room watching TV. Jesse began screaming, like he had been hurt. Mark wondered what he was screaming about and assumed it was for attention. Jesse kept screaming that there was a lady in the closet. Mari looked in the closet and nothing was there. Mari went onto comfort Mari. Jesse wouldn’t stop crying. Mari didn’t know what to do. Mari couldn’t see what he was seeing but decided to lie down with Jesse to comfort him, seething at the fact that Mark didn’t seem to care. “It’s really hard as a mom to watch your child be terrified and be terrified about something you don’t know what it is,” Mari said.

One Sunday morning, Mark was working at his antique store and Mari was doing housework. Mari heard something “big” crash and she went in the kitchen to see what happened. She saw both water faucets on full blast. “Jesse couldn’t do that, he wasn’t tall enough!”. Then Mari heard banging in the garage door in the laundry room. Mari mustered up courage to open the door really fast. No one was there and nothing was happening in the garage. But a few seconds later, the garage door was being beaten on and the lights were all flashing on and off. Mari went to a frightened Jesse and made a desperate call to Mark. Mari cried and begged Mark to come home. However, Mark still wasn’t convinced and thought she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Mari began questioning her sanity. She then contacted her sister Lora. Lora came over and with her background and education in phsychology, both women looked up disorders like schizophrenia. Lora concluded Mari didn’t have the classic symptoms of schizophrenia. Mari and Lori then looked around the house. “It was a very lovely house…my eyes were just wandering everywhere, room by room” Lora said. As Lora was approaching the door, she noticed she felt different; her heart raced and she felt anxious. Lora went into Robin’s room. Lora rushed downstairs and explained to Mari she felt so anxious. 

From the outside, wondering what's inside...

Mari concluded it must be Robin. 

Mari tried to tell Mark and again, Mark just brushed her claims off. “Robin would never do anything that,” he said. Later on, Mari worked with Mark in the antique store. “Anytime I wasn’t in the house, I felt great,” Mari said. “Jesse was safe at school and I was safe”. The antique store was a 2-story old building that was constructed in the 1800s. One of the antique store’s devoted customers was a young man named Peter who began befriending Mari. Mari wanted to hire him but the business couldn’t afford to hire him; however, that didn’t stop Peter for wanting to work there as a store assistant. One day at the shop, Peter noticed a picture frame leaning against the counter. All the sudden, it “lifted up” and fell over. Mari also saw what Peter saw and said that “the pic flew up across the room and landed face down”. Mari and Peter looked at each other and were dumbfounded at what they saw. But more strange phenomena happened at the shop. Peter and Mari were closing the store and just as they were leaving, they heard footsteps on the second level. They thought maybe it was a customer upstairs that they forgot to check up on. Peter swore there wasn’t anyone upstairs. They checked the surveillance cameras and no one was up there. But there were still footsteps being heard. Peter decided to go upstairs but the more steps he took, the more anxious he got. He then heard a “pounding noise” and jumped, rushed downstairs and ran out. Mari was frightened. “It wasn’t going away, it was getting worse!” she exclaimed. Mark went in the shop, but saw no one there. He got scared…but not because of the strange thought but because he questioned where Mari was slowly going insane. Mari begged him to move out. However, Mark didn’t have the resources to just pack up and move. “I should’ve left…I should’ve gone out of there….” Mari recalls. 

Visitors of the past stopping by

One night, Mark woke up and looked down; he saw he had 3 scratches on his hand. Then when Mari woke up, she saw 3 marks on her side. They were frightened and what scared them even more was they didn’t feel themselves getting scratched.  On another night in the living room, Mari and Mark are watching TV in the room. Mari kept telling herself to watch TV and to just focus on the TV show. All the sudden, Mari felt someone was watching her. She turned around and saw “people” looking at her. She immediately panicked. Mark turned around and saw nothing, but Mari saw them with her two eyes. She called for Jesse. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She saw a woman in a black “mourning dress” from the Victorian-era and with her was a small boy in a black suit. Mari ran to Jesse to protect him. 

Paranormal Scars

On a separate occasion at dinnertime, Jesse, Mark and Mari were all out in the kitchen, fixing their plates. Jess reached up and just as he touched plate of food, he started screaming and shaking like he was being electrocuted. He kept crying “my side, my side!”. They lifted up his shirt and saw he had a red mark. It kept growing as they were looking at it. There was nothing hot around him. “I wish I had taken him to the doctor but how can you explain that?” Mari said. “I couldn’t lie about it.” Startled at what happened to Jesse and also with Mari and Jesse locking themselves in the bedroom, Mark was slowly “waking up” and seeing how the strange phenomena was affecting his family. “I knew there was something evil in this house,” Mari explained. ”They were watching me.” Mark didn’t know what to do at this point and soon enough, he began experiencing phenomenon. On one occasion, Mark was in the kitchen when he looked over and saw a woman go down in the basement. He walked over there. The door was shut. Mark was trying to really sink in what he just witnessed. I saw a woman in a dress walk through the door. Meanwhile, Mari would witness the familiar “ghost woman” carrying an infant.  Mark began seeing the things now and began believing Mari and that she wasn’t crazy. Mari made a few phone calls and came in contact with Kat and Bev, two local historians. When Bev and Kat met up with Mari to hear her story, the two ladies noticed that she looked “haunted” and assumed that she could possibly be a troubled woman.  The women then began actively investigating the history of the house; they spent hours upon hours looking at land records, birth certificates, death certificates and more. Their research revealed that the antique store Mark worked at used to be called “Porter & Wright” hardware store and it was right in the center of town. The hardware store was also (literally) the center for gossip. “They didn’t have Facebook back then!” Bev joked. “So all the gossip was at the store.”

Secret letters

Meanwhile, the property where Mark and Mari lived used to be a farm in the early 1870s. A young woman named Theresa Stisen lived with her Uncle Phillip and her aunt. The uncle and aunt also took in an orphaned boy named Nate. Months later, Theresa became pregnant. The historians noted that during the  Victorian era, it was unthinkable that a single woman was pregnant so her uncle sent her far away to a local sanitarium. Theresa’s pregnancy was tough but her birth was much more difficult, as her newborn son had died. Because Theresa was so far away from home, no one in town knew…except Porter & Wright. During her stay at the sanitarium, Porter &Wright was a liason between communication with Theresa and Phillip, where both would send each other anonymous letters. Theresa became very ill after childbirth and on her death-bed, she confessed that her Uncle Phillip was the father of the boy. Theresa then died at the young age of 19. Phillip was sent to trial and Nate, the orphaned boy, testified about the relationship between Phillip and Theresa. While Phillip was charged guilty, the findings were thrown out because the judge of the case stated that the case was based on hearsay. Upon this discovery, Mari believed that Teresa died with people thinking she was having an affair with her uncle, when in fact, Theresa was molested.  “I was seeing her and her baby,” she recalls, speaking softly about Theresa; “I am most honored she chose me to told her story too. She’s a huge part of my life now.” Mark also confessed that he could’ve been more supportive during the paranormal nightmare Mari had endured. “All these connections were unebelievable!” Mark said.

An exorcism took place at the house in March of 2009. There has been no reported paranormal phenomena at the house since then….

Vampire Slaying kit from the Main St. Antique Store

Janes Notes: This story has me boggled because of Mari-Lynn's position in all of this. I will admit, the fact she was so hellbent on getting Robin's angels out of the house and selling her things left a sour taste in my mouth and I can admit when I said, I was a slight judgemental jackass towards her. But then my opinion on her softened up when she showed compassion for Theresa once she realized the dark, disturbing hitsory behind the two locations that Mari associated with at home AND work. It's one thing to experience paranormal phenomena in one location (work, home, etc) but BOTH? I tried to do some google searches and eventually found some results googling the Main Street Antique Store in Holly, MI. It also seems that Mari-Lynn hasn't been a stranger the paranormal activity aside from the spirit of Theresa and child. This article here talks more about her experiences that have gone on in the antique store. I also saw the Facebook page for the store it seems Mari has had the courage to speak out more about her experiences and even embrace the world of the Paranormal. Their most recent post shows they are holding a Fall Antique show and will also be featuring people doing Tarot, Dragon, and Angel card readings, which are interesting, whether you believe in Tarot or not. If you look on their Facebook page here, it's a pretty active page and it's interesting to see all the stuff they have collected! With the amount of things that must come to them (let's hope no Dybbuk boxes!), it can be that certain energies have attached to the items and manifest themselves into ghosts. Pretty cool photo albums they have on there! But one more question. What is UP with the men on these shows?? Has anyone noticed that in most of these shows (save the cops on the Capitol Theatre recap), the men are in total denial and just brush it off? Note to self: marry a gentleman that believes in the paranormal so in case  I get scared and need a lap to jump on, he won't consider sending me to an asylum.

Picture Credit; SyFy, Main Street Antique Store's Facebook Page 

Follow me on Twitter @janedoemessage or visit my personal blog at Message In A Bottle.