Borden ghosts attract attention of TV program
DEBORAH ALLARD-BERNARDI, Herald News Staff Reporter
FALL RIVER — Things that go bump in the night, and even in the day, at the infamous Li zie Borden House on Second Street are the ocus of an upcoming episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.”
For the past three days, actors, camera crews, producers and directors have taken up residence at the sight of the 1892 double murder at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum.
They’re not in search of a new lead, or speculating on a murder suspect. They’re investigating ghostly happenings.
The television network Lifetime is making a series of 57 new “Unsolved Mysteries” segments and got wind of some spooky happenings at the Borden house that peaked their interest.
Emily Berry, a Cape Cod resident, is producing the program. The first two days were consumed with various interviews of those involved with the Borden house, or Borden family. On Tuesday, the actual taping began with the actors and taping will conclude today.
Katherine Ramslan of New Jersey, author of non-fiction paranormal activity books and biographer of Anne Rice and Dean Koontz, was among those interviewed. Berry chose Ramslan and flew her to Fall River because of her extensive research on ghosts and expertise in criminal psychology.
Berry said Ramslan visited the Borden house and went into the basement not long ago doing research on paranormal activity.
Equipped with an EVP recorder — a small device that can pick up sounds the human ear cannot and then play them back — she ventured to see what she might find.
When Ramslan and another woman said, “Hello. Is anyone there?” several times, the little red light on the device lit up, signaling something had been taped. Something they did not hear. When played back, a voice sounding strained and eerie responded to them.
Martha McGinn, co-owner of the house with Simone Evans, inherited the property from her grandmother, and was there to witness the paranormal event. McGinn said the voice was male, very loud, and was clearly trying to answer Ramslan, although they couldn’t make out the words.
“That sent some goose pimples up my spine,” McGinn said.
“The voices sound so odd when they come back,” Berry said. She explained that Ramslan told her it is because it takes great strength to break through to this world for an entity.
Berry also used the device and recorded some strange sounds as well.
In other bizarre findings, Berry said one of her cameramen shot an “orb” — a glowing bit of energy — and sent the tape back to the network to have it analyzed.
“There’s an energy here,” Berry said.
McGinn was also interviewed. She said there has been ghostly activity in the house as far back as she can remember.
McGinn visited her grandparents there when she was a child, and moved into the house when she was 14.
“Activity” is what McGinn calls the occurrences, because she said she doesn’t believe the events are of malicious intent. She doesn’t call the house haunted because that means “Amityville Horror” to people, she said — and that is not the case in the Borden house. There has never been any violence involved, McGinn concluded.
McGinn said she’s seen a lot: lights going on and off, doors opening and closing, a knock on the door, an occasional sighting of glowing energy, or an older woman in Victorian period dress.
It’s your usual paranormal activity, what some would say is a presence that wants to make itself known.
“I could be reading a book in my bedroom and go to the bathroom. When I’d get back the book would be gone. I’d find it downstairs on the kitchen table or something,” McGinn said. “It’s mostly prankster stuff.”
A maid who used to work for the Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum told Berry she was making the bed in the room Lizzie’s stepmother was found dead. She turned away for a few seconds to reach for clean sheets and saw a very distinct indentation of a person on the mattress and pillow.
Berry said she described it as a short, heavy person. Even the head and feet were outlined in the old, very high-styled mattress. She also said she felt strangely chilled. The maid quit that very day.
“Strange things happen to everyone who works here,” Berry said.
But who are these alleged ghosts?
McGinn believes they are probably the ghosts of Lizzie’s father, Andrew Borden, and her stepmother, Abby Durfee Borden.
But McGinn said that all of the activity cannot be blamed on only them. Other sounds have been heard through the years, as well.
“It sounds like kids playing in the house,” McGinn said. She and a couple of guests have heard children laughing, and the sound of them playing marbles.
McGinn said she is researching that now. She has found that a murder occurred next door to the Borden house sometime in the Victorian era, and she is trying to find out when exactly it was.
She said there is a story that dates back about a mother killing her two children by drowning them.
Two guests saw apparitions of children in the Borden House.
One woman saw two little Victorian boys. They told her their names are Timmy and Jimmy. Another guest said a little girl in period-dress asked her to read a story to her.
McGinn also said that there was another Borden child who died in infancy — Alice Borden, Lizzie and Emma’s sister.
“Maybe the kids are happy now,” she said.
Lifetime is expected to air the Lizzie Borden “Unsolved Mysteries” segment sometime in the fall.
