True Poltergeist Horror Story | The Great Amherst Mystery | When a Ghost Tries to Kill (Ep 392)

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And they watch as letters form on the wall before them. Esther Cox, you are mine to kill. Yeah. Very spooky.

Hi.

Hello. This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

Two Girls, One Ghost. And we are your ghostesses. That is Karin.

Hello.

I'm Sabrina. And usually we save the really haunted episodes for the month of October. But this giddy [ __ ] couldn't contain herself.

This giddy [ __ ]

This girl who loves to give presents early is going to give you another present early. present to ourselves. Really?

It was a present to ourselves. I am

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truly so shocked that I had never heard of this case before.

I've never heard of it at all.

And when you hear the contents of it and what happened, you're going to be boggled. You're going to be gasted flabbers of how we have not heard it.

I'm already belching. Things are coming out of me

and [clears throat] things will be coming out of the house and haunting people and trying to kill people in

a good classic haunted house. Although, is it classic the house trying to kill you? I'm not sure.

Well, it wasn't the house. It was a something trying to kill someone. And this is the scariest part is this is a example of an entity, a poltergeist if you will, that physically had the ability to harm.

Oh, I hate these stories. I like hate them and love them.

I love them because they instill fear, but I hate them because then it proves the possibility of like actually being stabbed or murdered or

and that's about to happen.

Multiple times. I'm I'm speaking excitedly, but um it's terrifying.

Yeah.

Shout out to a book that I read for this. Uh it is called The Great Amherst

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Mystery by Walter Hubble. As context, it's 180 pages and this episode is only 20 pages. So, there's a lot that's not being included, but there's more reason to go check out the book.

you are mine to kill - the writing on the wall

So, we're going to go back in time. It's 1878. It's September. The last week has been something akin to peculiar. And it started with a sound, a rustling beneath the bed. After everyone in the little cottage had gone to bed for the night, Esther heard it and then she felt it, something crawling in her bed. She called to her sister sleeping beside her. Denny said, "It's probably just a mouse." The next night, it happened again. This time though, it was accompanied by objects being manipulated in their bedroom, as in manipulated and lifted and levitated in the air by an unseen force.

I'm sorry. her excuse of saying it's probably just a mouse. At this point in the story, I would have been more fearful of a mouse than a ghost.

It's 1878. It's a cottage. They're probably used to mice.

Yeah. Tonight, though, they've tried to

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ignore it. 19-year-old Esther Cox lies in bed, desperate for a peaceful night's sleep. She prays for it, but someone or something has another plan for her. And that is when Esther's body begins to swell. her fingers, her toes, her stomach, her legs, literally ballooning, filling. It feels unbearable. It as if her internal organs are about to burst. She screams in pain and everyone in the house comes running into the room. They stare in horror, watching their beloved family member physically, literally, swell before their eyes.

This is so creepy.

Her face turns blood red. Her hair starts standing up on its own, defying the laws of gravity. Suddenly, the room is filled with the sounds of knocking. It is so loud that everyone can feel the room vibrate under the pressure. It grows louder, more forceful to the point where no one can tell where it's coming

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from, and it feels like it's closing in on them, surrounding them. Then, the sheets on Esther's bed are ripped from a top her. They don't slip. They are not falling off the bed. They are forcefully ripped off of her, off of the bed, pulled cleanly, and thrown into the far corner of the room. And everyone's just watching this attack. Then there's a scratching, loud, metallic, like metal on metal. But this time, everyone can tell where it's coming from. They turn their heads to the wall, and they watch as letters form on the wall before them. One by one, they watch as some unseen force writes a message on the wall. Esther Cox, you are mine to kill. This feels like a combination of every haunted house trope and move from a poltergeist that could exist.

Yep.

The bed ripping, the swelling, the hair, the physical attacks, the writing on the walls. Over the next year, something or

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someone unseen and unknown to this world would return over and over again. It would attempt to keep true to their words. Whatever it is, would on multiple occasions attempt to burn the house that Esther Cox was in down to the ground. It would hurl carving knives through the air, plunging them into Esther's body. It would follow her wherever she went and continue to make death threats and death attempts. This is the great Amherst mystery, a true poltergeist haunting that took place in Nova Scotia in 1878. It is a case that is so heavily documented with hundreds of firsthand witnesses. And at the center of it is an innocent 19-year-old girl named Esther Cox.

This is absolutely insane that we haven't heard of it.

Right. Wild.

This feels like the most extreme. Is there an exorcism? Like what?

Nope. We'll go to the beginning and then

like how do you survive this place?

No. I feel really really bad for Esther. We'll talk a lot about it, but this this did happen. This occurred for years.

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Like she was plagued and tormented by this for a very very long time.

Poor girl.

And really there was no answer. And then similar to so many cases that we've talked about before, all of a sudden it just stops.

Just boom, like that.

I think I have a

Do you have a theory?

I have a theory.

Okay.

So this is a very underdised case. Actually, our brothers Ash, Elena, and Morbid did cover it. I didn't listen to their episode, but when I was looking up the case, there were a couple references to that being like the most prominent thing in current day that's talked about it.

Interesting.

Now, I want to listen to their episode, too, cuz I feel like we did a we did an episode of Crimes of where I listen I realized Morbid had done

before we had done the Crimes of episode, but after we had recorded it, I realized they also had an episode. So, out of curiosity, I listened. Yeah. Yeah. And we made the same exact comparison of saying this sounds like the town from Gilmore Girls.

No way.

I was like, that's We're a little too

We're in sync. We have the same references we all grew up with. [laughter]

Yeah. Yeah.

It's the same brain just over and over.

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Oh, it's a cute little town. Gilmore Girls.

Gilmore Girls. Although, have you seen Sorry to pivot again. People are saying that Widow's Bay is the Gilmore Girls for the horror lovers. That this is going to be the comfort show that people watch every single year. It's just like Gilmore Girls. There's not very much comfort in it.

It's pretty scary.

It's really scary. [laughter] The like mass murderer episode, they filmed it so well when she's like walking through the house

and

Yeah. I turned the volume down for that episode.

When is it going to

That was the scariest episode. But I busted out laughing at the last

Oh, yeah.

part two where she was following him all the way. We won't give things away.

How many times have we recommended it? If you haven't watched it now, just go.

The full first season is done by the time this episode comes out.

the haunting begins - September 1878

Um, okay. So, like I said, it's a very underdisussed case, but it has been called Canada's most famous ghost story and a classic horrifying true poltergeist case. It's even been considered one of the best documented cases of poltergeist activity in

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history. Yet, we had never heard of it. So, today we are going to give it the episode it deserves. We are going to Amherst, Nova Scotia, traveling back in time to the fall of 1878. We will talk about the haunting itself and then we're going to introduce the man who documented the entire case in that book that I mentioned, The Great Amherst Mystery, written by Walter Hubble. He is the reason we know so much about it today and he is the one who was a skeptic, heard about this haunting that was happening in Nova Scotia, planned to go out there to debunk the whole thing. It's always a skeptic who spends the time and money and travel to go

Oh, his story is hilarious. And we'll talk about him briefly because he does come back into the story to to help document it, but he's very much one of us in a way. He's a theater kid who likes ghosts. [laughter]

It's just funny to me like the amount of resources people will put into trying to disprove something that's like very difficult to prove or disprove. Anyway,

yeah. Well, our story begins in Amherst, Nova Scotia, which in 1878 was a very,

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very small town on the Bay of Fundy, which made me think of Widow's Bay. Yeah,

Bay of Fundy.

It's a kind of bay where tides are so dramatic that they reshape the mudflats twice a day. Like, they never look the same because the tides make them so different. Okay. So, it's a tiny dusty village in 1878. So, like dirt roads, lots of like horse and buggies digging like setting dirt into the air.

Mhm. It's also home to a few thousand people, a shoe factory, and four churches in 1878. It's the kind of small town where community really matters, where everyone knows one another, is in each other's business, and takes care of one another. Located on Princess Street in 1878, where various

princess [laughter]

I know what that one is. I recognize it. not the reference. [laughter]

Usually I laugh and move on not not knowing my

social media reference.

So at this time this street there are various quaint cottages sitting side by

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side. One of them is occupied by Daniel Ted and his family. And it is here in this quaint yellow cottage that our story really begins. It's small. It's yellow. It's tastily arranged. The first floor has a couple rooms. the kitchen, dining room, small sewing room, and upstairs there are four bedrooms, two on either side of the hallway, two that face the front yard, meaning Princess Street, and then the other two overlook the backyard. From the outside, this home looks no different than the others beside it. And up until September 1878, the same could be said of the inside.

Okay?

Nothing has ever been out of the ordinary of this house.

Not a single thing. This family has lived in this home. freak occurrence.

And we'll get to at the end I'll tell you why I think it started.

Okay.

It's part of my theory. [laughter]

She solved the case.

I mean,

200 years later,

I didn't really do much of the solving. It's in the pages. [laughter]

Oh,

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although the theory that they proposed back then in the book is very different. A little bit different of what my modern day take. It is interesting though like the haunted house that just like exists not haunted for a while and then has a moment

because it's not the house it's a person perhaps.

Okay. So Daniel Ted and his family have lived in this cottage on Princess Street for many peaceful years filling the home with family laughter and cherished memories. And I mean filling the home with family because altogether at this time there were eight occupants of the cottage. It's a small home, four bedrooms, eight occupants. So Daniel Ted who is a shoemaker and his wife Olive and their two sons Willie who was aged five and George who was 17 months. Then Olive's two sisters Jenny and Esther Cox and their brother William Cox lived there. And then also John Teed, Daniel's brother. So a lot of people,

multiple people in the family,

a full house,

different generations.

There's a photo in the video that shows some of the people in the family. It's

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not everyone who lived in the house, but when you search the story, this photo comes up and I always think it's funny because I was reading. I'm like, none of these people really live in the house. A couple of them do.

Oh, almost. That's kind of a shame because I feel like you'd find more comfort in more people being in a house when something bad is happening,

but not this time. Okay, so like I mentioned, two bedrooms overlooked the street. One was occupied by Daniel and Olive, who were like the main people of this home. And then the one next to their bedroom that also overlooked the street was occupied by Jenny and Esther Cox. They're the sisters. Like I mentioned, up until the evening of September 4th, 1878, nothing unusual could have been said about this small yellow cottage. But then on September 4th, 1878, 19-year-old Esther Cox retires to her bedroom and settles into her bed like she does every night. I also I'm going to read the description that Walter Hubble wrote for Esther in his book because it's um it it's interesting. So Esther is 19. This is what it says.

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Esther was low in stature and rather inclined to be stout. Her hair was curly of a dark brown color and worn short reaching only to her shoulders. Her eyes were large and gray with a bluish tinge and a very earnest expression which seemed to say, "Why do you look at me? I cannot help being unlike other people." Her eyebrows and lashes were dark, the lashes being long and eyebrows very distinct. Her face was what would be called round with well-shaped features, and her teeth were remarkably handsome.

It It's so confusing cuz it feels like it's going back and forth between

compliments and insults.

I do feel like half of this is a description of me. She's like a short stout brunette with a round ass face and

handsome teeth

with with man manly distinct teeth.

She had a pale complexion, small hands, and feet that were wellshaped.

Okay. All right. Well, m maybe she was eight months pregnant.

No, but she's also beautiful, but like it just like the description from the

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1800s. I don't know. Handsome teeth, well-shaped feet. I feel like that image actually looks like some of the um pictures of my ancestors on my dad's side.

Are you guys related?

Maybe.

Another Canadian.

Maybe. Were they haunted in Nova Scotia in 1878?

Well, they did have that like black book of about

death and hauntings and stuff that went missing.

So that's the description Walter Hubble wrote. So that's Esther. She's 19. So now it's September 4th, 1878. Esther goes to bed. Her sister Jenny, who's 22, comes upstairs shortly after Esther had gone to bed, and she turns the lamp off before she too climbs in bed. After a few moments of silence, Esther starts to like kind of panic in the bed next to Jenny because she feels something strange in her bed. Something crawling and moving under her sheets. So, she jumps a mouse.

She jumps out of bed with a scream, startling Jenny, who's like, "What's wrong?" Esther's like, "I think there's a mouse in my bed." So, she is panicked by it.

Okay, good. As you should be.

Turn the light on quickly. They're searching the bed for the supposed mouse

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and they see something move within the straw mattress. And so they genuinely believe it's just a mouse.

Yeah.

And after a minute, they're like

a snake or something. I don't know.

Sure.

A straw mattress. There's a bunch of animals.

And I'm also sure it's 1878. They probably had a lot of mice in the house. Like it's, you know, they're not going to like rip apart the straw mattress. It's like her bed. And so they decide there's not much they can do. They're just going to go to sleep. The next night, September 5th, 1878, when the girls go to bed, Esther hears and feels that familiar rustling in her bed again. But this time, when she kind of calls to Jenny, who's in the bed next to her, something else happens. They turn the light on. They're talking about it. Went out from under the bed, there was a sewing box. It literally slides out from under the bed by itself, and then is pulled to the middle of the room by an unseen force. And these two girls watch in horror as it literally lifts itself up into the air about a foot off the floor, then drops onto its side the

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contents of it falling out.

Oh my god.

They scream.

Yeah,

obviously terrified.

A mouse is not going to do that.

No mouse could do that. Jenny tries to push the box back under the bed kind of like as like a let's pretend that didn't happen. Within a second from removing her hand, it happens again. Same pattern out from under the bed, lifts up in the middle of the room, drops down. So they both scream again. It naturally wakes up other people in the house. So Daniel Teed, their brother-in-law, comes into the room to see what's going on. And I do think it's interesting in Walter Hubble's book, he makes a very, it's 1878. We're all prude, you know, decency is an important part of life, but he makes such a big point of hearing the scream, he dresses himself, so he's in a position where he can go into the room. Or she was indecent, so it was he didn't want to enter the room. Like things like that.

Yeah. which I get it's very much part of your life. You wouldn't just like burst into someone's room.

But at a certain point is panic and safety can that override nudity and modesty.

It does quite a lot. And also think

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about what they were wearing to bed. It's they're still very modest in today's terms.

Oh my gosh. I see your ankle.

Your Yeah. Very long white night.

Wow. Look at that neck.

Yeah. Even the neck's been up to here. See like your chin,

right? [laughter]

So he comes into the room. He's like, "What is going on?" They tell him what had happened and he just kind of grumbles. He like pushes the sewing box back under the bed. It doesn't repeat it again. So he's like, "You guys are probably just dreaming. Go back to bed."

In the morning, Jenny and Esther swear they were not lying. They saw what they saw, but no one really believes them. But that would change that night on September 6th, 1878, because things were about to escalate. So, now it's September 6th, 1878, around 8:00 p.m. Esther starts to feel a little sick at 8:00 p.m. So, she's like, "I'm going to go to bed early." At 10:00 p.m., Jenny also goes to bed. Some 15 minutes after getting into bed, Esther jumps out of bed in excruciating pain, screaming that she feels like she's dying. Concerned, Jenny gets out of bed to go check on her

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sister, and she thinks maybe she had a nightmare or something, but she turns the light on and is horrified by Esther's appearance. Esther is so she's now standing up in the room clutching onto the back end of a chair digging her nails into the wood. Her hair is literally up in the air like electric shock has happened. Her face is bright red. Her eyes are bulging red as if about to pop out of her head. And Jenny is horrified. Calls for help. So their sister Olive runs inside followed then by Daniel, William and John. to all the other adults in the home and they watch Esther writhing, screaming in pain and no one knows what to do. See, if it was just like red and swelling, I'd be like, "Oh my god, she's having some allergic reaction. She got stung by a bee or like there's something weird going on." But the fact that her hair looks like she was electrocuted.

Yes. Like, how do you explain what's going on? Well, no one can. She then starts to become so pale, like as if she's going to like faint. So, they help her back into bed. And no matter what

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they do, her pain is not subsiding. She's screaming. She claimed that she felt like she was going to burst from the inside out. And they all witness her body physically swell. And then Olive went to go touch Esther concerned. And her skin was so t like so hot to touch. She had like pull away physically.

Dang. So Esther's screaming in pain, grinding her teeth when all of a sudden a massive horrible rumbling echoes through the room. It's so loud that it shook the entire room. And Daniel Ted is certain that like lightning just struck their house and he's worried about his kids who are sleeping across the hallway. So he runs out.

I feel like it's a world ending. Like

they truly feel like that they So Daniel Ted goes checks on the two kids. They're sleeping peacefully and in their room, nothing. No chaos, no rumbling, nothing. Goes back into Esther and Jenny's room. The rumbling is still happening. They look out the window. There's no rainstorm. There's no clouds even in the sky. It's something is happening and they don't understand it. This is all happening while Esther is still screaming in pain. Then, as they're

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questioning what's happening and what to do, there are three loud knocks that echo in the room. And these knocks seem to be coming from under the bed that Esther was lying and writhing in pain upon. The knocks again are so loud that the room shook. Everything was tense. No one knew what to do. There's now what, how many adults? Like five adults standing around Esther who's writhing in pain in bed just in shock. And just as quickly as all of it had started, the room goes silent. Esther seems to also fall quiet and silent to the point where Olive thinks her sister just died. She goes runs over to Esther thinking she just died because she was in such severe pain saying she felt like she was going to die and she's asleep.

Like she's asleep or she is passed out from

or passed out from Yes. But either way, she has a pulse. She's not dead.

Okay.

So once they're sure

I think her body is shutting down

probably. So once they're sure it's a deep sleep, not death or pass out from fear, they all decide to go to bed because they're like, "We don't know

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what happened, but she's not in pain anymore. These rumblings all stopped. What else are we supposed to look?"

No, she looked fine. No longer swollen, no longer red, no longer hot to the touch.

That's so weird.

Yes. So the next morning, the family does what my family loves to do, pretending that nothing happened. [laughter]

And they go, "What? We didn't have a screaming fight last night. What? I didn't try to hit on your mother that we've been divorced and I have another wife on last night. [laughter]

Interesting.

Anyway, so they go about their days pretending like nothing happened, but truly none of them can get it out of their head.

Mhm.

That the second that they get to dinner at the dinner table, they're like, "We have to talk about it. What the hell happened last night?" They have no explanation. So, they agree until we know what's going on. Maybe it was just like a one night thing. Let's not tell anyone about it. And then that night, strange things happen again. It's 10 p.m. Esther tells Jenny she's feeling that swelling sensation again. So Jenny's like, "Let's not react this time. Like, let's just like stay silent and maybe it will pass." Esther breathes

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through the excruciating pain. But within 5 minutes, all of the sheets on the bed are like ripped off her body into like a ball and thrown across the room into a corner. Both girls scream. Jenny literally faints from fear. Again, all the other family members run into the room to find Esther swollen and Jenny unconscious lying like a corpse like like this.

So, so far two really extreme outbursts of energy, but both in the same room all towards Esther.

Is she allergic to the paranormal? Like, it sounds like she's [laughter] having an allergic reaction.

Olive, seeing that her sister is exposed, quickly gathers the sheets and puts them over her sister's body because now all the men are also in the room and she's like, "Oh, my poor indecent sister."

Yes. She covers Esther up with the sheets, but instantly unseen force gathers them together, rips them off the bed, throws them back to the same corner that they were in. Then the pillow, which was under Esther's head, came flying through the air, like ripped out from under Esther's head, flew through the air, and hit John Teed in the face.

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John Teed leaves the room and is like, I have had enough. I don't want to deal with this anymore. And he like goes back to his room. He's going to bed.

Oh my god. William Cox goes down to the kitchen to fetch water to help bathe Esther's head, which is now swollen. He comes back with the water and knocks start coming from underneath the bed. They were so loud that again the entire room was trembling. And then Esther, who moments ago was swollen, appeared normal again, no longer swollen, and now was in deep sleep again.

It's almost like it drains the energy out of her to fight so hard in those moments or like in the fear that it she just passes out.

Passes out from exhaustion.

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doctor diagnosis - nervous excitement

So the next morning, the family agrees this is something serious, but maybe it's medical. Maybe it's a medical thing. Maybe we can explain it away. Let's call the family doctor. So they call Dr. caright, who over the phone laughs at them and he says, "That's nonsense. No such tom foolery will occur

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while I am in the house." So that night he arrives. It's 10 p.m. because he's trying to come at the same time that this these incidents have been happening the last couple of nights to catch it in the act. He takes a seat next to Esther. He checks her pulse. He checks her tongue. And he declares that she must be suffering from nervous excitement that maybe she received some tremendous shock of some kind. And that is all. We'll get to that in at towards the end of this episode. But he's not wrong in the sense that something shocking did happen in her life, but no one knows about it and we won't know about it until the end. Even still though, that doesn't explain anything that's happening.

Mhm. But he says that he's saying this diagnosis out loud cuz everyone's in the room watching this happen. And all of a sudden, the pillow that's under Esther's head comes out from under her head as if pulled by an invisible power and like fluffs up hovering in the air and then goes back under Esther's head.

Wait, what?

So, pillow under her head, some unseen force pulls it like this

and it's just like doing a little chop

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and then puts it back underneath Esther's head.

It's just so bizarre because like that's a kinder gesture and it's also Oh god, [sighs] it's just so weird. But it also has like spirit being like this is not a mental or this isn't an illness. Like I'm here. I'm real. Yeah.

Almost.

It just keeps making me think of the movie in American Haunting.

You're not wrong to think about that.

Oh, really?

It's different. But you're not wrong. Doctor is confused, taken it back. And it happens again, but this time John Teed, who's the one the night before who was like, I'm not having this anymore. I'm done. He is like, I'm going to I'm going to pull this away from the ghost. Basically being like,

I'm stronger than the ghost. If it's trying to move this pillow, I'm going to grab it. So, it happens again. Jod Ted runs over, grabs the pillow before it can go back under Esther's head. He's holding it with all his strength. And yet, whatever this force, unseen force was, it's stronger. It rips it out from John Teed's hands easily, but to the point where John Teed, who had been putting so much force into it, like stumbles backward. The pillow returns under Esther's head. Then, with the

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doctor present, with everyone present, more knock sound coming from beneath the bed. The doctor looks under the bed. There's nothing there. Then the knocking begins to move around the room, like almost taunting them, surrounding them. One minute later, the bed sheets are pulled off the bed again before they can even put them back on the bed. This is when the distinct sound of someone writing on the wall with a metallic instrument is heard. They can tell it's coming from this wall. They all whip their heads and look at the wall. And while they can't see anything physically writing, they hear the sound of like what is an iron spike digging into the plaster of the wall. And they see letters starting to form on the wall written one by one. And it read, "Plain as day, Esther Cox, you are mine to kill." And just so you know, the photo that's in the video is a recreation. Obviously, we unfortunately do not have the actual photo of this. It just feels like there was no ramp up period. It's just straight to the most extreme

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version of a haunting or like poltergeist activity that could exist.

Yes. Every person in the room could see the writing. They heard it. They saw it. It was written before their eyes by something unseen. It was deeply pressed into the wall as if written with a large iron spike. So, it's not like paint. It's a carving.

Mhm.

They stood there in horror. And as they're standing there in horror, a large piece of plaster breaks off of the wall, flies across the room, and literally changes trajectory as it's flying. So it's not like, oh, flew. It's as if something is carrying it, and then turns, and then it dropped at the doctor's feet. Jeez. In shock, the doctor picks up the piece of plaster, places it on a chair, and immediately the loud pounding commenced. It was so loud, so forceful that the entire room shook. Esther laid there in bed frightened. And this chaos lasted for nearly two hours before becoming quiet. And I'm pretty sure the doctor tried to like this is like unfortunately because this book is so long I had to cut some

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things out. But that night he's experiencing this for so long at finally at like midnight he's like I have to go home.

He starts leaving and there's like stomping on the roof as he's leaving. So he goes outside to look, believing that someone must be standing on the roof. No one's standing on the roof. It's completely empty, but he can still hear the sounds. He said he could hear the sounds for a couple blocks. The next morning,

this is just the most confusing case ever.

Yeah.

I hate that you're going to tell us at the end and that I can't know now.

Well, because no one in the story knew either. [laughter]

So, it's at this point that the horrors that were occurring could no longer remain private. I mean, he's two blocks down the road and he's hearing it. So, at this point, neighbors are now hearing it and are curious. And by the next week, the horrors of the Daniel Ted's cottage were known all throughout town. And the story started to be printed in I think it was first printed in the Amherst Gazette and then copied in other papers. And like once that was printed

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and once the doctor was witnessed to this, once it reached that point where Esther Cox, you were mine to kill, was written on the wall, which is also a horrifying message to see your name written by an unseen entity

and only your name

saying that you are mine to kill.

You're the target. And also, it's so scary because it's not like you're being singled out alone. Like there are witnesses. There's another person sleeping in the same room as you. And yet no one else can do anything to protect you.

But in a way like it is good that other people are witnessing it cuz we have heard so many stories where people are isolated and alone and no one believes them.

But it's like where's the where's the hope?

It's not but it's not great.

Once we reach this point sounds are being heard all day long morning through night. Poor Esther is the target. And she is finding some relief that now everyone is believing her. She's not seen as crazy. The doctor has like tried and tested many different medicines or theories. He like at one point gave her

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the like most insane concoction of sedatives

and it did nothing. Like she didn't feel an ounce of the sedatives. And then he wrote that the whatever paranormal forces were at play counteracted medicine.

Okay. So now he's a believer.

Yeah. Yeah.

He's charting about the paranormal

basically. Yeah. And and this is a common theme is that anyone who came in in some professional regard would come up with a theory and then the next day the entity would almost prove it wrong

intentionally to be like, "No, you're dumb. I'm a ghost, [ __ ] [laughter]

Put that on a sticker."

Yeah. So many people would come to see the hauntings. Like once it was printed in the news, people were like, "Oh, what's this about?" Like hundreds of people tried to disprove it.

Hundreds of people came to see it. and every single person left being like, I can't reason this away. And then things escalated. So, as the weeks passed, the

pins, needles, boiling water and death threats escalate

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phenomena became more violent and varied. So, it was very clear that whoever or whatever this entity was seemed very intent to wanting to execute and make true on its threat to kill Esther Cox. And that's like the sad thing is that the huntings really did seem to focus on Esther herself. Pins and needles would literally appear and materialize out of nowhere and end up lodged in Esther's body. What in the world? People watched as Esther was like physically attacked violently in front of people. She was once slapped. Like her whole body like reacted as if she was slapped and then a handprint showed on her face. No one was present. No one actually hit her but people watched this happen.

Was it ever a consideration that she should not stay in that house?

Yes, we'll get there. Okay, so one afternoon a visiting clergyman is in the kitchen with the family and he looks down and watches this bucket of cold water that was straight from the pump literally start to boil in front of him.

No source behind it, no fire, nothing.

33:00

It was just cold water in a bucket on a kitchen table that started to boil as if it was on a stove with full heat at one point. And I'm kind of gonna give a basic rundown of a lot of things that happened over a span of a year, but just to give you like context of what had happened because there's a lot. This is maybe the most terrifying of all of the encounters that I read. At one point, one of Esther's nephews was playing with a small switch knife when all of a sudden it was ripped from his hands by an unseen force and lodged into Esther's back. People around her ran to help her. Someone removes the small knife from her back and places it in their pocket to like basically put the knife away,

right?

Within seconds of putting it in his pocket, something reaches in his pocket again. No one's there. Pulls the knife out, opens it up again, lodges it back in the exact same spot of the previous.

Oh my god, this poor girl. I can't even imagine going through what she went through. This is torture.

There's no like, okay, this thing loves knives. Hide all the knives. No one can have a knife. It doesn't m like there's

34:00

were materializing out of nowhere,

right? Like not even from her. That's interesting that that happened and that the very first thing to occur that was clear paranormal activity to them was the summit.

Okay. Yeah. We'll get to more later, but there were things that appeared that weren't from the TE's house at all, and they would try to like find out where it came from in town. And sometimes they would be like, "Oh yeah, that came from so- and so's house." like how did it get to the te's house? Other times it was things that no one even knew what they were.

I can't believe that this is not like the number one case that comes up on every single search with

I think it's cuz it's kind of old. It's from the 1800s. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe old by like 50 years compared to some of the other ones that come up.

But so then there were a couple times where they would go to church and this entity would follow them there. Anytime Esther would start to pray, the knocking would become so loud that she had to she was asked to leave multiple times because she was it was so disruptive.

35:00

So, it doesn't really matter if she's home or not. This thing will follow.

One night, while Jenny and Esther are in bed, Esther starts to hear a voice speaking to her. And this is the first time. So, this is an escalation. Up to this point, there was the writing on the wall. There have been physical attacks, but she had never heard, never seen this unseen being. But it starts to speak to her. She whispers to her sister who's sleeping in the bed beside her like, "Can you hear that?" Jenny cannot. Only Esther can. And the voice starts telling Esther that it is going to set the house on fire. It also tells her that it once lived on Earth, but has been dead for some years now and was now a ghost. So, obviously concerned, they call the family in. Esther tells them what they heard. And they're all like, "There's no way that the spirit can light the house on fire."

Mhm. As they say that, they watch as a dress of ers which was hanging on the wall is torn from the wall, crumbled into a ball, and right before their eyes catches fire.

See, this is I knew that that was about to happen as soon as they said there's no way that this could be. It feels like you can't pitch any idea because then immediately it's looking for an extreme

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yes display to show you that you're wrong.

So, there was and this kind of happened later in the story, but there was one instance where someone commented like, "Wow, at least it's leaving the cat alone." And the second it said that it literally picked the cat up and threw it. Cat was fine, but it is a intelligent entity listening to you and it's like challenge accepted.

Yes. Why?

So yeah, Daniel T quickly acts and is able to extinguish the fire before any damage was really done. But it becomes very very clear that this spirit is in fact something evil and will follow through with the threats. So, kind of

word gets out and Walter Hubbell has a mission

going back when things first started in September of 1878, the Teed family did want to keep things quiet. But by November, so just within two months, the word had certainly gotten out, it was picked up by the press and the stories that the press were printing was that there was a haunted house inhabited by a demon.

But naturally, with all this press came a variety of people. Crowds were gathering outside the house to the point where the police had to be called several times. And poor Esther, who is

37:00

being truly tormented, stabbed, and attacked, is now kind of a spectacle for all these looks.

And of course, come the skeptics claiming that Esther and the Teeds are scam artists, and that's all, that this is a hoax, which is when we meet our man, Walter Hubble. He's a 30-year-old American actor who is performing a show touring around Canada and he sees the newspaper stories and he's always considered himself intrigued by the paranormal, but specifically to debunk it to prove things are not paranormal and then to turn a profit. So like basically if it if a story was in the news, he would go to that story, debunk it, prove it wrong, and then sell the story and make money off of that.

Oh, okay.

So he was turning it into a money-making scheme. Yeah. So he reads this story and he decides that when he has a break from his tour of his performances, he is going to travel to Amherst, Nova Scotia, and debunk the whole ordeal debunk this whole demon living in a house. But he

it like kind of seems like it would be easy to debunk if you're just reading this cuz you're like this is so extreme.

38:00

Like how could anyone Yes.

once do I get in the house? Nothing's going to happen. Yeah.

And he's a theater kid, so he's used to like the illusions magic of theater. Yeah. So he's going to be he's like I'm going to see the bells and whistles. I'll see how it's all be done. But because he's on tour, he's not able to travel to Amherst until the summer of 1879. So nearly a whole year has passed. Nearly a whole year of hauntings has been occurring. But when he gets there, he's very quickly proven that this is in fact paranormal. And he becomes convinced.

And it's because of Walter Hubble that we have a very detailed documentation of the horrors that Esther and the family endured. but specifically Esther. Have

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the spirits introduce themselves

in a minute, but just to summarize it briefly, hauntings began in September 1878. They escalated to a point where a

40:00

spirit who told Esther that it was an evil human at one point, but now is a ghost, has threatened to kill her, has threatened to burn down the home that the TESS are living in on Princess Street. Fires are being lit, knives are being thrown, danger is lurking around every corner. And the fire thing happens a lot to the point where they're very concerned. There are children living in this home

and their beds are made of hay.

Yeah.

Like everything could ignite in a second.

It's very flammable. Esther appears to be the only one who can see and hear the spirit or spirits because over time more and more spirits start to show up. But with Esther's help and with the family and all these people who are coming in to try to prove it or disprove it, they are able to come up with a way to converse with the spirit through knocking, which is very common of poltergeist case. One knock is no. two is unsure and then three knocks is yes. They also figure out a knocking system for an alphabet and by the winter winter of 1878 and spring of 1879 they and many

41:00

witnesses are able to communicate with the spirits. The spirit is able to even tell the exact amount of change a complete stranger has within their pockets or the year on a coin. So things that it shouldn't know. So even if there is trickery going

my mind immediately went to that like one horse that can do math and people are like oh it's because it's reading its owner's cues. I know that this is like supposed to be scary, but immediately I was like, "Yeah, the horse can also do math."

The horse can do math, so can the ghost.

The poltergeist of course will know how much changes in your book.

And there were some articles that kind of related this portion of the story to Jeff the Mongoose, aside from the wanting to kill them, but like the way it's interacting with them and talking to them and knowing things about like what's in their pockets and like stealing things from them,

right? And yet it's unseen.

Yes. But it's the point being that it's communicating. so intelligently and it's knowing things that the people in the home and Esther couldn't possibly know. Like I I don't know. I know you don't have change in your pockets cuz who has change in their pockets? But in 1878, if you walked into my house, I wouldn't

42:00

know how much change you had in your pockets, but the ghost does.

But like how?

So then at some point they ask for the name of the spirit. And the spirit communicates that its name is Bob Nickel. He claims that he was a shoemaker in life, which remember this whole town is like a town where there's like a shoemaking factory. Other spirits come forward. A woman named Maggie Fischer, another woman named Mary Fischer, a man named Peter Cox, who was a deceased relative of Esther's family. But Bob Nickel is the leader, and he is the spirit who wants to hurt Esther and is making true on his promises. So, it almost feels like what started as perhaps just Bob Nickel, this like evil entity, has opened Esther up and this house up to so much more paranormal activity that more spirits are coming through. And it's also weird that like Bob Nickel like that's that's just a guy.

Just a guy is it?

But it's like a man's name. And I would I would have thought of some like old Latin name or like something identifying itself as like the devil or whatever.

43:00

But Bob, just Bob, keep the name in in mind because it will be important later. But it becomes clear that Bob is evil. And he even is saying like he used to be a human man, but now he's like dead. He's been dead for a long time and he's not good. But it gets to this point where truly matches just drop out of the freaking sky within the house and are lighting on fire and it

What's the obsession with getting rid of this house?

I think it's trying to get rid of Esther. Like it's trying to kill Esther.

You are mine to kill.

It becomes so dangerous that for the safety of everyone else, Daniel Ted and Olive Teed are like, I think you should try to live somewhere else. And maybe if there's a chance that you moving will put this to an end.

We have to try it to protect our family.

So, it's a bit of a test to see if the spirit or spirits will remain in the house or follow Esther. Can you guess what happened? It follows Esther everywhere she goes. I'm not going to go into detail like where she lived, but I think there were like two main places that she moved to. And for maybe a week,

44:00

quiet, but once they found her, it picked up again. And then the fires would [snorts] start to happen in those houses. I'm actually surprised it took as long as it did to find her given that like following her to church and I know

it seems like it's always with her.

Or is it to give her a false sense of hope and safety and then her guard is down?

Yeah. The only time they do not bother Esther, and I mean in over a year span, the only time Esther is unhaunted, unaffected, and unbothered by the horrors of this entity, is a 2 week period in December of 1878 when she is literally sick in December.

So, it takes pity on her when she's in poor health.

Or did it make her sick and thought she was going to die? I don't know. But in December of 1878, Esther Cox got sick with dtheria. How do you say that? Dtheria. Yeah, dtheria. It's a bacterial throat infection which was very common around the time and was killing thousands. Like so many people died of it in the 19th century. She's so sick and bedridden. And while she's sick, not

45:00

a single haunting. Not it's not like, oh, they got quiet or they were just like lesser. Not a single thing happens in that twoe period. The second she recovers,

is she again?

19 when this started.

19. Okay.

Some reports said 18, but I think she was 19.

So she's like 20 now.

Yeah. The second she recovers, the hauntings resume and the spirit again tries to burn the house down. So again, she moves out of this house. And then

cannot debunk the hauntings

now it's by the summer of 1879, I mean, there's lots of hauntings that happen in this time span, but by the summer of 1879, Walter Hubble is on um a break. He's uh on hiatus from his performances and he finds himself with some free time and decides to travel to Amherst. And he had been corresponding like writing letters with one of the men. I think his name was like John White, of course it was, who Esther had been living with temporarily for some period of time. And like Walter and this guy basically I kind this part really pisses me off. They had been coming up with a plan to basically take Esther on tour to make money off of all the spectacles and

46:00

hauntings. And Walter Hubble,

it's like a little circus show.

Yes. And Walter Hubble still doesn't believe it's real paranormal stuff at this point cuz he's never met her. Yeah.

So, he believes that he's going to be able to like one monetize the spectacle because even if it's not real.

She's clearly good at the trickery. Like she's great a great illusionist.

Yeah. So, he plans to like while making money off of it, also prove that it's a hoax and then make money off it later to tell the story of how it's a hoax.

It's kind of shitty, too. Like, unless he was upfront about what was going on to think that he's trying to make this girl famous and make money to be like, "Wow, look at her." her and then out her at some point. Just

Well, see, this is what's hard is because the story is written from Walter's POV, we don't have Esther's personal experience or what she knew. But given that it's 1878, I have a feeling that the men were not speaking to her and they were like, "Let's make decisions on behalf of the woman."

I'm just so curious too about like what eventually happens at the end and who

47:00

this is because the fact that it's this guy that used to be a guy long time ago and now he's like turned into this poltergeist. It's not like this is some man she rejected for marriage two years ago and then he died.

Yeah.

And is out to get her cuz he was so insulted.

Think along the lines of a manifestation of something rather than so literal of a real human if that makes sense.

Okay.

But we'll get there. I'm teasing you. I'm breadcrumbming you.

Well, now I'm thinking Bel witch.

The bell witch is related to this a lot like in comparison articles. So now Walter shows up. summer of 1879 and his skeptical attitude is very quickly like smacked across the face like, "Yeah, you're dumb. I'm a ghost bitch." That's the energy here.

I'm a ghost [ __ ]

So, in June of 1879, Walter, Esther, and John White do travel to do this like speaking tour, but their first show goes so horribly, an enraged mob truly starts throwing stones at them as they're leaving.

Why are they so mad?

I mean, there's a whole chapter about this. I left a lot of the details out, but I think they got there and nothing

48:00

happened at the show and so they were calling her.

Oh, but then there was also there's also drama behind it because another man I think wanted to take Esther on tour and she turned him down and they believe that he started putting like really toxic articles in the news and so there were people in town who were like, "Oh, this woman is working with the devil." And it chaos.

Jeez, poor Esther. She cannot catch a break.

And that's the point of the story. Poor Esther. Let's not forget that. But yeah, so people are truly throwing stones at them as they're leaving the show to the point where they have to flee the town in the middle of the night for their safety. So they go back to Amherst and it is here that Walter witnesses the unimaginable horrors. He maintained a daily journal and wrote of all of his encounters. He watched objects fly through the air in broad daylight with no visible cause. While everyone in the room was accounted for, he saw umbrellas fly through the air, knives, a lit lamp, and then also a trumpet. And this is crazy. So for a while they would hear the like the sound of a trumpet playing and they're like where is this trumpet? What is it? This feels very Jeff the Mongoose.

49:00

Yeah.

They're like who has a trumpet? No one in the house had a trumpet.

All of a sudden they're like where is this trumpet? And from the ceiling materializing out of nowhere a trumpet falls

his go-to wind instrument instrument.

This trumpet did not belong to anyone in the home. And it also b like studying it. It's not a trumpet that exists or was made commonly.

Oh. Like it was almost like a vintage antique trumpet.

That's so weird. So, can they like trace it back forensically?

I mean, not in 1878, but they did do their due diligence and they asked everyone in town like, "Does this belong to you?" And didn't belong to anyone.

That's so weird.

Furniture literally moved on its own. At one point after dinner was cleared. Thank goodness the spirit waited until dinner was cleared. The dining room table literally flipped upside down in front of everyone. I have this fun poltergeist photo. It's not not real, but added it into the

It is a drawing. Sketch, an ink sketch,

not the actual experience they had. Esther was slapped, scratched, pricricked by unseen forces. Like I said, pins and needles literally

50:00

materialized in her skin. And then Walter still wanting to like prove it's a hoax in some way, cannot find anything. He has applied everything he knew about theatrical illusion, could not find a single mechanism. He would communicate directly with spirits through the knocking. He asked the spirit that called himself Bob Nickel questions. He got answers like he would ask how many people were in the room, get the exact same number of knocks. And the answers were consistently accurate. He even watched Esther in one of those fits where her body visibly swelled and her body turned hot. All of it real. He even like checked the house to see if there were any underground tunnels or like secret trap doors. Nothing.

Nothing. So, by the time Walter Hubble wrote this book, The Great Amherst Mystery, he also wrote 13 affidavits and got them notorized saying that everything happened was real and he like had someone notoriize it and seal it to be like legal. And then he published the book. Damn.

Which also is in the public domain. So,

51:00

if you want to read it, you can find it. Um, which I learned after I paid $13 for it on Kindle. [laughter]

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That's primalqueen.com/tg to get a free month and four free gifts today. After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. But anyway, here's the thing,

no end in sight for Esther

and I think this is the important part, is that while Walter Hubble got to write a fun book and leave the haunting behind, Esther did not. No matter what she did or where she went, Esther Cox was plagued and haunted by this evil entity. It truly continued to torment her. It continued to light fires. They continued to force her out of places that she lived, isolating her from people that she loved because they had to choose to protect their own families.

Even though they wanted to help her, they couldn't and they had to protect themselves. Every time Esther moved, the hauntings followed. She tried anything and everything, medicines. There was also one whole like tidbit about, and it was like a couple sentences, and I didn't do more research, but they put pieces like shards of glass in her shoes believing that the power of glass would prevent the ha hauntings. Shards of

53:00

glass. So, she's just getting tortured by the living and the dead.

Yes. Clearly, that didn't work. It caused headaches and nose bleeds, which I'm also and probably foot bleeds. Her well-shaped feet. Oh [laughter] gosh. Then in this is so tragic. I promise there is somewhat uplifting news at the end of this, but it's going to get dark for a minute. In 1879, she's working at a barn of another man in Amherst. And she was also like she was working on the barn and then living in the house

when the barn caught fire and burned to the ground. This man accused her of arson. And Esther Cox was convicted and sentenced to four months in jail. She served one month before the public and the whole community of Amherst like truly fought for her. And they were like, "Come on. We've watched this woman be tormented. We've seen fires get lit by unseen forces. She did not do this."

So at least there are people who were like coming.

Is she okay? Is she okay in the end? I need to know.

Yes, she is.

Okay.

There's some peace. And I'm about to get to that

because what a Yeah. What a tortured

54:00

person.

So, reports vary. Some say that the hauntings like subsided after her time in prison, like after a building was successfully burned down. But I did see that like for the most part it didn't really stop until suddenly everything stopped on March 3rd, 1882 when she married a man named Adam Porter. So, it

what caused the hauntings?

all started 1878 and it just suddenly stopped when she married Adam Porter in 1882. But this is where we get into the why. And I do need to give a content warning that we are going to discuss violent acts and attempted assault, potential attempted murder for a couple minutes.

Okay.

So, if you remember, all of the hauntings began in September 1878, specifically September 4th. Turns out just two weeks before the hauntings began, something truly traumatic did happen to young Esther Cox. It was August 28th, 1878. And apparently there was a man in town named Bob McNeel and Nicl McNeel. Not

55:00

too different. And Bob had a bit of a reputation. Not a great reputation. Like he was a member of the community, so people knew him. And he had never really, as far as I know, there was no, he didn't kill anyone or harm anyone, but he just wasn't the most motivated guy. And apparently when he was a kid, he skinned a cat and Jesus.

But Esther knew him and had empathy for him. And one night, he showed interest in her and showed up at the door and asked to take her on a ride, like a drive.

Mhm.

And Esther agreed. It's August 28th, and it was one of those days where like the clouds were starting to roll in. It looked like a storm was about to brew and Esther climbed into Bob McNeel's buggy. It's a horse and carriage. It's 1878. And they drive through Amherst to these dusty roads. Bob turns down the road towards the marsh into the country, a more secluded part of town. It starts to rain. It's a buggy, so like they're getting hit with the rain. It's there's no coverage for them. And darkness

56:00

descends upon them. That is when Bob McNeel drops the res, leaps from the buggy, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a revolver and points it at Esther and tells her to get out of the buggy or he will kill her.

My heart is

it like

Yeah.

sinking and beating really quickly right now.

Terrified and also not wanting to know what Bob's about to do to her and also not wanting to give in to him.

It's also like the sound of the rain and the storms. It's like you're already included place. You scream and the elements are are keeping your voice from projecting anywhere.

Esther tells Bob no. She tells Bob that she will not get out of the buggy and that he needs to drive her home. Bob does not like this answer. He starts cursing like a slew of curse at Esther and he steps towards her with the gun aimed at her heart, his finger truly about to pull down on the trigger when all of a sudden there are the sound of wheels in the distance coming towards them. another buggy had just turned onto

57:00

the road. Like the timing of it,

like thank god there's someone else coming.

And because of that, Bog McNeel, not wanting to get caught in whatever he was going to do, pockets the gun, gets back in the buggy and turns the buggy around, drives her back home. She's drenched in rain. She is heart pounding out of her chest, terrified out of her mind.

The whole ride you're like with a potential murderer.

Murderer. Yes. The second she gets home, she jumps out of the wagon, runs inside, runs to her room, and never speaks to anyone about this incident. So that's August 28th. Two weeks later, the hauntings began.

Esther still did not tell anyone about this incident with Bog McNeel, and not for a very long time. And not

it's not like he died in between those two weeks. So I'm still kind of confused by it all.

And I'm not even sure when she did speak about it, but at some point she must have shared it with multiple people, including Walter Hubble because he wrote about it in his book. But in the book, Walter suggested that an evil spirit had been afflicting Bob McNeel. And in that exchange, the spirit jumped to Esther,

58:00

which maybe, but I also think Bob McNeel was just a bad guy. And we don't have to blame it on evil spirits. Like, he was just a bad person. So, my theory is that the trauma itself caused so much turmoil and stirred up so much energy in Esther, who then for two weeks was sitting with this horror and this pain and not talking to anyone. And like every night she was going to bed early cuz she felt sick and like the trauma itself manifested into or invited

her own fears and nightmares about what could have happened.

Yeah.

It's still so extreme.

It's very extreme. But I think there are a lot of people that go through traumatic experiences and don't immediately have something like this happen,

right? But I also do think there are a lot of connections between trauma and paranormal things. And maybe she already was like paranormally inclined and then like opened a door to something

and we only know what she shared.

Yes. Either way, I feel like something manifested after that traumatic

59:00

experience and it kind of makes sense that the spirit's name would then be Bob. Like is that her manifest? Like is that her did the energy like literally create an evil spirit and it was a version of Bob McNeel?

Right. Cuz only she could see or hear it.

Yeah. The point being though, it was most definitely paranormal because then there were other spirits who did start to come through. So I think that all of this ended up opening Esther up even more and there spirits that Esther had never heard these names before. But once Esther started telling people who was coming through, they threw death records in neighboring towns and the town were able to confirm that those were real people who had in fact died the way that they communicated to Esther.

That's so wild.

Yeah.

So she like fully became a medium.

skeptics and the conclusion

Mhm. Either way, whatever this was, whatever caused it, it is truly heartbreaking what young Esther Cox had to endure. From the attempted murder/ assault to the very real paranormal attack that she faced for years, she moved around during this time. She was isolated, was made to be a spectacle,

1:00:00

had no reprieve unless she was literally on the brink of death and sick. And the only positive to have here is that upon marrying Adam Porter in 1882, the hauntings completely stopped. And in a way, I felt like that was almost like a healing of the trauma. Like she met someone who could protect her and almost like

take care of her.

Take care of her and show her like how a man should be. Girl, I'm still looking for that. Glad you found it. Together they had a son. They moved to Massachusetts. Hey.

Um I think after Adam died, Esther Cox did remarry. And then on November 8th, 1912 in Brockton, Massachusetts, Esther Cox passed away at 52 years old. The House on Princess Street No Longer Stands. Walter Hubble's book sold 55,000 copies by 1908.

Feel like that's a lot.

I know it was a lot. Yeah. Which is also crazy that we haven't heard of this.

Yeah.

And the town of Amherst holds what they call Esther Fest every year in Esther's honor. And there's

in Nova Scotia.

Yeah. Beautiful mural that's like on the

1:01:00

side of a building.

Wow.

There was also a play written and performed based on Esther's story. It's called Guilty, the story of the great Amherst mystery. I think it was only performed in like a couple places.

Uh

I I wish everyone did it in middle school, you know, the middle school plays.

There was also a 1986 fictionalized novel inspired by the case called Mind to Kill. And then like I said that Ash and Elena on Morbid covered it and a couple of other podcasts, but otherwise very few people have talked about or heard about this story.

And that is the great Amherst mystery and the horrible hauntings and like attacks upon Esther Cox. Dang, that is I just so feel for her. And like it makes me I guess now knowing in the end what exactly happened. While a lot of my brain is like, well, this still doesn't make sense how it got so extreme and conjured like this. I'm like, is she super powerful? I feel like she has to be

Yeah.

to manifest like to pull her own nightmares and trauma forward like this.

1:02:00

Well, so a lot of people in the beginning were like, "Oh, it's her own burst of energy," which in a way maybe, but like I think it then manifested into its own form and became something so much more evil.

Well, because she was also so drained after so much of that.

So drained.

And then there was one sentence where Walter Hubble wrote about how like every 28 days the hauntings got worse and then he was like,

"So her period."

Yeah. obviously like it's a female issue and it made me think about the conjuring and how they were like oh it's just a bunch of teenagers having their periods.

It's the menstrual cycle haunting

and I still to this day wish that's what happened when I had PMS [laughter]

but it outwardly haunted everyone else except for my body.

Everyone [laughter] else.

Yeah.

Dang. This is such a wild case,

isn't it?

I've literally never heard of it either. Not even like seen the title of it somewhere. It's again one of those books that I was so excited to read because every single page was it like it's a page turner because it reads like fiction, but it was real. Oh,

1:03:00

this poor girl.

I know. The happy ending is that the hauntings did stop and she was able to like build her own life.

Yes.

listener story

Yeah. Okay. So, I really had no idea what yours was about, but you referenced in our Excel sheet that we keep track of things. There was some sort of like haunted house in Nova Scotia.

And then I like added poltergeist cuz I was I I added those things specifically to help you with finding a story.

Okay. Okay. Well, I didn't necessarily go for Poltergeist, but I did go for Haunted Nova Scotian House.

Oh, okay. Perfect.

It's called the Uninvited Woman in Black. Hi, ghouly girlies. My name is Aaron and I live on a small island called Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Canada. A very haunted little island.

It's like Widow's Bay all over Cape Breton.

Cape Breton.

Say, how far is it from? Oh my god, this is stunning.

Oh yeah, that's nice.

Wow,

we got to go.

Yeah. I've been an avid listener of yours since 2019. And I absolutely love the banter between you both. You feel like two ghost girlfriends that I've been missing in my life. Hey.

And I have two stories for you. One from when I was younger and one from when I was a teenager. I'll tell you the teenager one another time. So this is

1:04:00

going to be the story from my younger years. Lovely. My grandparents lived in an old colonial style house on one of the oldest streets in our town. So an old colonial house and the oldest streets. Great combo

of an old ass island in Nova Scotia. Very Stephen King.

Very.

A big beautiful house like that in the daytime is full of charm and feels like the grandparent house. But in the night when the lights are out, the house is full of creeks and bangs, groaning and knocking. My younger sister and I often had sleepovers at my grandparents house, which were full of movies and hot chocolate and popcorn and snuggles. Cute. But when it was time for bed, we would make our way up the winding staircase with two landings into the second room on the right side of the hall, which was our mother's old childhood bedroom, which when you lay down in the bed, has a perfect view of the stairs once you round the corner of the second landing.

I have a feeling I know where this is going or what will be up the stairs.

At one of these sleepovers, we were maybe like 9 and 10. It was nearing

1:05:00

bedtime. We made our way up the creaky stairs and into the bedroom. We get tucked in. We have our prayers said. We were raised Catholic. and my sister is on the right side of the bed, closest to the open door. Myself, the opposite side. We both drift off to sleep. Sometime later, I awoke to the sound of slow creeks coming up the stairs. Thinking it was my grandfather finally getting to bed because he's a night owl. I look over to the staircase to give him a little smile and a good night crampy. The creeks, however, were slower than his normal gate. And so, I rub my eyes. I'm waiting for him to turn the corner. But I was surprised to instead see the outline of a woman when she reached the second landing. This was not my grandpy. I knew it was not my nanny either. She religiously went to bed before my grandfather. But I wasn't scared yet. My grandparents also had a maid who lived in the house because they were very wealthy. And I watched her ascend the last staircase, getting closer with each step. Each step, however, was painfully slow. And this woman was not moving at a

1:06:00

normal speed like a normal person would go up the stairs. So my curiosity peaked. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I could tell that she had on a long black dress tight to her figure, long black gloves, a black pillbox hat with a black veil attached. It's like morning attire. Yeah. It almost looked like she was attending a funeral. But who gets home from a funeral at 1:00 in the morning? Thinking that this was the maid, Nell, my curiosity started to die off. That was until she stopped at my bedroom door.

And turned to face the room.

It was only then that I realized this was not now. And I could see the hallway behind her. Like see through translucent.

My body is covered in goosebumps. My sister is laying fast asleep directly next to me. But I could not lift a single finger to wake her. My throat had frozen over. I could make no sound. I just watched in horror as she floated across the floor an inch above it to the foot of the bed. I was horrified. What did this woman want? Who is she? Why is

1:07:00

she in my grandparents house? All these thoughts were running through my mind as I desperately tried to move any part of my body, anything to wake up my sister beside me. The woman glided across the floor until she was directly in front of me at the footboard of the bed and then she turned to face me. She knew I could see her. She slowly slipped off the glove of her right hand.

And as it came off, she reached down to touch my foot. It was only then when her ice cold hand grabbed a hold of my ankle that I was finally able to reach my sister and wake her up. And as my sister's eyes opened, I watched as the woman at the footboard flew over top of our bed and then disappeared into the wall behind us. I frantically tried to describe the experience to my groggy sister, but she insisted there's nothing there. I shouldn't have eaten so much popcorn before bed and this must have gave me hallucinations. In the morning, I didn't mention anything to my grandparents because I didn't want them to think I was scared of the house or to have or that I was scared of having sleepovers with them.

So sad. To this day, my sister swears

1:08:00

she didn't see anything, especially the woman soaring over us and disappearing into the wall. But I know what I saw. I believe you. It was years later in my late 20s when I was helping my grandmother clean out their attic. At this point, I had put the incident far back in my memory. But as I was going through the boxes, there was one labeled from the old home.

No.

I found a small sewing box. I opened the box and I found a black pillbox hat and a black veil attached and a pair of black velvet gloves. I instantly felt another pair of eyes in the attic, and every hair on my body stood up straight. I closed the box. I put it back where I found it, hoping that I didn't disturb the spirit into waking up again. Thank you for listening to my spooky sleepover story. I'll send in other ghostly encounters sometime soon. See you on the other side. Your ghouly girlfriend, Aaron. Dang.

Okay. Can I give a somewhat positive but sad spin?

Sure.

This woman perhaps lived in the home many years ago and perhaps she was

1:09:00

returning from a funeral. She was mourning maybe the loss of a child. And in this moment, she was going to the room where the child had once lived. So, she's coming home from the funeral. She's looking into the empty room when she thinks is the empty room of her child that just she put to rest. But instead, she sees you looking at her and she wants to touch your foot.

Yeah. Just a little comfort.

Like a I can't believe I can see a child. Like am I hallucinating? Like I need to touch you to make sure I'm seeing this for real.

Right. I feel bad that she's moving so slow cuz it almost feels like she's like stuck and trapped in this terrible memory.

Grief.

Yeah.

But how wild that they found the box. I'm curious

to be

Aaron, if you asked your grandmother about the box

or about the spirit.

Yeah. Like some 20 years later.

Yeah.

Are you who does this belong to?

Yeah. I mean, if your grandma lived in this house, maybe she saw the spirit.

Dang, that is a wild story. And Nova Scotia's super haunted clearly.

And the great Amherst mystery. I mean, it's still a mystery, but yeah. Poor

1:10:00

Esther. I feel for her, but I'm also glad that we have the story and she can share it. Uh, if you have any ghost stories of your own, please email us at two girlsodcast@gmail.com. And as promised, next week starts our October episodes, which means costumes and even scarier stories. I'm excited and I hope you are too. You can join us on Patreon for episodes one week early and ad free, plus bonus content like witch class book club. We have campfire stories where you can come tell your ghost stories live every Tuesday and so much more.

Thank you to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces this podcast. And thank you to all of you. We love you and we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.