Tag: ghosts

When the truth leads you astray

On April 24, 2018

I’ve heard it said that, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own set of facts.” I fall back on the saying occasionally when engaged in a debate where the facts will only show one answer. No gray area. Just black or white, right or wrong.

One such story is the tale of Paddy McGuinness, the so-called female witch. As the rumor goes, she poisoned children in the early 1900s and a successful witch hunt led her to the gallows where she was publicly hanged for her crimes. People say her tombstone is in The Roman Catholic People’s Cemetery in Charlottetown. The weathered statue depicts a grief-stricken woman holding a hand to her face. An old cross leans up against her, tilted at an odd angle, probably the result of Mother Nature’s powerful forces. My research shows that she isn’t buried below the witch’s tombstone in Charlottetown at all. In fact it’s a man by the name of Patrick Paul McGuinness. Paddy is a common nickname for Patrick.

As well, sources say that that area of the cemetery is no older than 1960, so the Paddy McGuinness timeline doesn’t square with the facts. In efforts to further debunk the myth, I reached out to PEI history guru Ed MacDonald.

He writes: “Jim Hornby published a history of capital punishment on PEI through Island Studies Press about 20 years ago now. No mention of a Paddy McGuinness there. I suspect the story is a complete fabrication possibly concocted by combining two incidents: one old legend about The Witch of Port Lajoie, which was made into a novel by Joyce Barkhouse and concerns a supposed witch from the French Regime on PEI in the 18th century; and the well-known case of Minnie McGee of St. Mary’s Road, who poisoned five of her children in 1912 but was not hanged. She spent the remainder of her life either in prison or a mental hospital… Minnie was no witch, just a tragically troubled mother.”

According to a news story in The Graphic, in “April 1912, Minnie McGee poisoned her six kids by soaking phosphorus matches in weak tea, and giving it to them to drink. They became deathly ill within days: they vomited, their pulses weakened, their hearts failed. The first five children died on the same day: Louis (age 13), Penzie (age 12), Georgie (age 8), Bridget (age 6) and Thomas (age 5). Johnnie (age 10) died two days later.”

In her confession, Minnie, whose real name was Mary Cassidy-McGee, reportedly said, “They will be better off. They will be in heaven.”

The Minnie McGee story is a tragic account of a woman who endured much hardship and suffering and found herself in a position of utter despair and hopelessness. Prior the poisoning, two of her children had died from pneumonia. Evidently her husband Patrick was frequently away from home seeking work and often beat her. “Pat, my husband, used to beat me quite often. He would beat me when I was sick in bed.”

Some may find it hard to have sympathy for a woman who poisons her children. But when you consider her situation—a poor, abused, troubled woman raising six children by herself in the winter of 1912, it is hard not to feel a pang of sadness for her plight. After all, she lived during a time when spousal abuse was hardly frowned on; there were few counselors, no shelters, no government hand-outs or food banks. With no one to turn to for help, the weight of her burden became too much.

Although Minnie was originally sentenced to hang, the community rallied around her and in the end her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She spent part of her days in jail and part of her days in an insane asylum, before passing away in 1953.

So, where am I going with all this? Well, what started out as a story of the so-called witch called Paddy McGuinness has morphed into a tale that will combine the tragedy of Minnie McGee with The Witch of Port Lajoie. A cursory search of major book retailers showed no such book currently available for purchase. I guess I’ve come full circle. I find myself once again searching for an elusive witch. Research takes you down strange and unexpected paths.

Tune in next week for a follow-up.

Thanks for stopping by, please leave comments below, and have an awesome day.

Do you believe in ghosts?

By william

On April 3, 2018

In Posts

Ghost stories come in all shapes and sizes. Terrifying, funny, morally upright, morally bankrupt and some just downright unbelievable. As a young boy, I used to be a skeptic and would openly mock the veracity of ghost tales. As a sort of rebellion, I would endeavor to select the scariest Halloween costumes, would relish in scaring the crap out of my siblings and would even construct elaborate haunted tours, both outside and even in various upper bedrooms of the two-story home I grew up in. Often, I would charge admission for these haunted tours.

One night I invited a bunch of neighbor kids over for a tour of a haunted house I’d constructed in three upper bedrooms of the house. It was sufficiently ghastly, containing skeletons, candles, blood-dripping corpses and scary noises. I even hired friends to dress up ghoulishly, approach participants by surprise, and scare the hell out of them. We terrified one boy so badly he fled the house screaming in terror, only for his angry and distraught mother to return fifteen minutes later and admonish my mother for psychologically damaging and traumatizing her young and impressionable son. Needless to say, that spelled the end of my lucrative haunted tours empire.

I relished scaring others because I didn’t believe in ghosts. It was my way of poking fun at the supernatural and spectral entities. Even when I began writing novels, I remained somewhat of a skeptic, enjoying scaring readers who loved to be scared. They say karma is a bitch, especially when it rears its monstrous fangs and tears a chunk out of your ass. But it wasn’t until well in my adult years that I had to get fitted for a new derriere.

As part of my research on paranormal novel Phantom Rage, I joined a team of paranormal investigators on some investigations. On one such investigation, we got set up in an old house in Strathmore, Alberta, where a frightened woman had told us a story of seeing an apparition of a sad little girl playing a violin in one of the basement bedrooms. She said she’d also heard strange noises in the house and even relayed a story of an apparition attacking her in her sleep. She was convinced the only thing that had saved her was the guardian ghost of her recently deceased and beloved husband.

As we began to set up our equipment, we noticed that two of the bedroom doors had locks on the outside, suggesting someone had been locked inside against their will. I wondered if perhaps it had been the little girl. Although we did experience highly suggestive levels of electro-magnetic activity in those bedrooms, we never saw the little girl apparition. However, late that night, as we sat huddled around a coffee table in the dimly lit basement, we heard and recorded barely audible strange voices coming from the basement laundry room. We couldn’t decipher exactly what they said but one thing was clear. We weren’t welcome.

A short time later, from the laundry room, we heard a loud crash. I jumped so fast my heart just about sprang from my chest. Flashlights leading the charge, the lead paranormal investigator and I rushed into the laundry room. We couldn’t find anything amiss that might explain the crash and a few seconds later both of our flashlights died. Not five seconds later the batteries in the video recorder went dead, even though they were freshly charged prior to the investigation. Although I didn’t flee from the house screaming bloody murder, it was a wake-up call of sorts. Don’t play games with the supernatural. Don’t mock the paranormal. Don’t parody something you don’t understand.

From that moment on I became a believer. And I began writing about the supernatural with more passion, respect and conviction, borne of personal experience. I also became fascinated with information on the subject and I gobbled up everything I could read and everything I could watch. Some of the documentaries cast much light on the subject, while others infused me with a darkness that left me afraid to go to bed at night.

The single most compelling and terrifying documentary on the existence of the paranormal that I’ve ever watched is Demon House, directed by and starring Zak Bagans. In this recently released documentary, Bagans, a leading researcher on ghosts and demonology, purchases a house in Gary, Indiana, widely reported in the media as “the house of 200 demons,” and a source of demon possession.

In December, 2014, Latoya Ammons claimed that she and her three children were possessed by demons in the home. These are credible people who reported strange growling, barking, odd footprints, demonic chanting by children, even stories of levitation in which children were being hurled into walls by supernatural evil forces. Child Services, medical officials, even police verified many of the details. Staff at an Indiana hospital said one of Ammons’ sons “walked up the wall backwards… flipped over and landed on his feet.”

What Bagans doesn’t realize when he brings his film crew to his recently purchased home to conduct a series of paranormal experiments, is it might be the worst decision of his life. Strange things start happening the moment they arrive. Bagans inexplicably becomes violent and angry, pinning one of his crew against a wall and ordering him out. A camera man flips out and begins behaving erratically, believing he is possessed by a demon. A medium (and a good friend to Bagan) who claims to have contacted one on the demons winds up being murdered in a double murder-suicide. A home inspector develops cancer shortly after inspecting the property. A cop suffers a violent gash to his head after inexplicably falling. After visiting the house, a former resident, believing she is demon-possessed, must undergo an exorcism. One paranormal expert who conducts experiments winds up in the hospital with multiple organ failure. Even Bagan, after spending a night in the house, develops a strange, debilitating and potentially inoperable eye disorder that may haunt him for the rest of his life.

Dread Central reviewer Steve Barton says, “Demon House will leave you with a lot of questions about the existence of both the normal and the paranormal. It’s a masterfully created and seriously frightening account of what can happen when things just end up getting far out of control… when events occur that supersede rational human comprehension and reason. It’s one of the single most compelling documentaries on the existence of the supernatural that I’ve ever witnessed. Whether or not The Ammons House was haunted or is the portal to hell is still very much debatable. As always, there will be people who believe and those who do not. However, the effect that it has had on everyone who has ever walked through its doors is undeniable.”

Of Demon House, Bagans says, “This film is cursed.”

If you’re on the fence about your belief in the paranormal, or are looking for more evidence to back up your already strong convictions, Demon House comes highly recommended. Warning. Not for the faint of heart.

Good or bad, I would love to hear about your paranormal experiences. Please leave comments below. Thanks for stopping by.