The Devil’s Coming to Get Me: The Haunting of Malvern Manor
The Devil’s Coming to Get Me: The Haunting of Malvern Manor (Investigating the Haunted)
By Richard Estep
A photo from Richards website. You should totally click the pic to visit!
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
Another great mix of history and investigation. Even the forward and introduction are good. The forward is written by Josh Heard, paranormal investigator and one of the current owners of the Manor. The investigation detailed in this book is Richards first visit to Malvern Manor. He’s the only one out of the team that had not already spent some time there so he is really stoked. The first few chapters are the teams arrival and initial contact with Josh. The team’s investigation starts the following day.
"The Malvern Manor in Malvern IA., was built in the 1880s. It was known back then as the Cottage Hotel, the town's first hotel, according to historical records."
Photo: "This haunted Iowa site will star in a TV show on Friday" by Aaron Young for the Des Moines Register (2017),
Click pic to read article
When they arrive they go on a tour of the house, directed by Josh. The tour spans chapters three through eight. Here you get some history of the place, learn about some of the stories and legends surrounding some of the otherworldly residents and some of the rooms (Inez, Gracie, Suzie, rooms 17 and 18, The Capitan, Rose the Doll and of course the attic).
Chapter 9 starts the investigation with a bleeding ear problem (shameless Bob’s Burgers reference). Once the ear was taken care of, they decided to start their night in the nursing wing hallway. This is where the shadow man and the room of the lady who ripped out her hair (room 7) are said to manifest. Her story is told here. It’s a most unfortunate one.
The room where The Woman Who Ripper Her Hair Out lived.
Photo: malvernmanor.weebly.com
Inez's Room
Photo: megiloth.com - click pic to check out their site. There are lots of great pictures and things to explore there.
Newspapers.com
What's left of the nurses station
Photo: malvernmanor.weebly.com
Nursing home wing and some of the things that were left behind
Photo: malvernmanor.weebly.com
The team then decides to move on to Suzie’s room. They are there for a while and then decide to break. Two of the team stay behind and end up getting chased down the stairs. After this incident they decide to do a session in the hallway near the Capitan’s corner to see if they can coax out whatever it was that chased Jill and Erik. They conduct an SLS camera session that leads them to Inez’s room that yields interesting results, then the team splits up. One goes up to the second floor and the other goes to Gracie’s room. After this the team calls it a night. You’ll have to read the book to know what results the team got.
Susie's Room
Photo: Megiloth.com
Chapter 13 sees us into night two at the manor. They start in room 24 near the Capitan’s corner using a Geoport ITC box. They go to Hank/Henrys room and start messing with his clothes. They end up calling Johnny Houser as his name seems to be a popular one among the entities at the Manor. Johnny is the current owner/operator of the Villisca Axe Murder House. They want to see if he can help churn up the waters and get the entities to be more responsive. After this they head back to the nursing wing and room 7 & 2 with the Ovilus. Then on to Gracie’s room for an EVP session. This session sparks a discussion on negative entities and with this, the team decides to go back to the second floor where Jill and Erik were pursued by something hostile to check out some noises. They find nothing of note. They then decide to conduct a glass work session in the kitchen. This session ends the evening with decent results.
Gracie's Room
Photo: Haunted Rooms America
Chapter 17 starts and ends the teams last night at the manor. It’s an interesting night because it feels less structured than the other nights. They do spend a tiny bit of time in the attic here but unfortunately the whole weekend there was too much noise pollution from outside (wind, rain, drunk St Patrick’s Day celebrants) to really get any good sessions in up there. Kind of a downer. They talk about the entities of the house being fond of playing cat and mouse with the visitors. This night proves that to be a correct statement. It has them running all over the place. Eventually they call it quits.
Attic
Photo: Megiloth.com
Chapters 18-20 are interviews that Richard did with other investigators who have spent some time at the Manor. They are Jonah Jones (we met him briefly at Farrar), Sarah Stream, Amanda Borrego, Johnny Houser, and Dustin Peri (I know him from The House in Between 2, I love it!). Then the last chapter are experiences from the guest book and some brief closing thoughts. Speaking of…
Rose the Doll
Photo: Lollman Paranormal Facebook page
Closing thoughts:
An interesting place that, during its “life”, wore many different hats. The history is not particularly horrific. There is no proof that there was any abuse involved in the care of either those in the old age home or the care facility while they were operating. In fact, they were able to speak with a person that worked and lived there for a good clip and she had nothing but pleasant things to say about her time there. So what is going on in this location?
One thing I will say is that because of its use as a care facility for the mentally ill and mentally challenged it was a place of high emotion. Its function as an old age home probably saw death on a regular basis as many of the residents were at the end of their journeys. Perhaps the combination of the two have created a beacon for these entities. It’s an interesting mystery is it not Ghoulies?
Return visit photo after the publication of the book. Richard is there in the middle.
