Richard Estep - In Search of the Paranormal: The Hammer House Murder, Ghosts of the Clink, and Other Disturbing Investigations

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

In Search of the Paranormal: The Hammer House Murder, Ghosts of the Clink, and Other Disturbing Investigations 2015 by Richard Estep. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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First e-book edition 2015

E-book ISBN: 9780738747002

Book design by Bob Gaul
Cover images: iStockphoto.com/27978972/Antonis Liokouras
iStockphoto.com/27368621/Pr3t3nd3r
Cover design by Ellen Lawson
Editing by Patti Frazee

Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Estep, Richard, 1973

In search of the paranormal : the Hammer House murder, ghosts of the clink, and other disturbing investigations / Richard Estep. -- First Edition.

1 online resource.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-0-7387-4700-2 -- ISBN 978-0-7387-4488-9 1. Parapsychology--Research. I. Title.

BF1031

133.1--dc23

2015021109

Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

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Llewellyn Publications

Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

2143 Wooddale Drive

Woodbury, MN 55125

www.llewellyn.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Laura, with deepest love,

And in loving memory of

My mum, Lynda

My father, Rick

My grandparents

Gordon and Lucy White,

Irene and Fred Perkins,

Christopher Shakesby

The much-loved Fred and Vera Astley

And the big-hearted Steven Arden

Clear skies

Contents

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6:

Chapter 7:

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Chapter 10:

Chapter 11:

Chapter 12:

Chapter 13:

Chapter 14:

Introduction

Locked inside Londons oldest prison, where the apparition of a masked plague doctor is said to walk. Staking out an abandoned graveyard and its desecrated historic churchfrom which other ghost hunting teams have fled, a mysterious cloud pursuing them to their car. Spending the night in a lonely mountain inn, on the trail of a long-dead former occupant. These are just three of the nights I have spent in search of the paranormal.

For as long as I can remember, ghosts and hauntings have fascinated me.

I am a dedicated ghost hunter and paranormal investigator. Along with my wife Laura, I founded the Boulder County Paranormal Research Society (BCPRS) in 2006. BCPRS is a volunteer organization, staffed by some very talented and dedicated individuals who are all professionals in various other fields. I earn my living as a paramedic and as an educator, and I also happen to be a firefighter in my spare time; I am occasionally deployed on national emergencies with a Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team.

The BCPRS ghost hunting team is made up of an eclectic mix of individuals with a diverse set of skills and life experiences. All of this contributes to the melting pot that is BCPRS, and every member brings something unique to the table that can assist with investigating claims of the paranormal.

The team is comprised of Kathleen, aka Kate (retired telecommunications engineer), Charlie (emergency medical technician), Joey (IT engineer), Jenna (counselor and therapist), Catlyn (professor of philosophy, religion, and womens studies), Lucilla (healthcare office manager), and Sean (mechanic).

The group has also attracted its fair share of married couples for whom the term date night has taken on an entirely new, spookier connotation than for most husbands and wives. Apart from myself and my wife Laura (medical insurance professional), we also have Kira and Seth (web comic designer and massage therapist), Jason and Linda (both healthcare professionals), and finally, Jeff and Miranda (a computer networking engineer and an electrical engineer).

Were quite the motley bunch, but we all share a common goal: to investigate claims of paranormal phenomena, assess their validity, and, above all else, to help people. Were passionate about helping the living and hunting the dead. And, lets face it, there are worse ways to spend some free time.

I began to seriously investigate claims of the paranormal in the mid-nineties when I was living in my native England. The next four years were spent learning the paranormal investigators craft, and those years stand out in my memory as being truly fulfilling ones.

It is important to remember that the paranormal research scene looked very different in the late nineties than it does today. In Britain, the night-vision-shot, profanity-laced adventures of Most Haunted had yet to grace television screens. Two plumbers from Roto-Rooter had yet to get an American TV deal and launch the smash-hit show Ghost Hunters.

Paranormal investigation was still the exclusive domain of a relative few. We were often perceived by Joe Public as being rather odd, willing to give up a Friday or Saturday night to spend time crawling around darkened buildings rather than hitting the pubs, clubs, and restaurants. It was truly a fringe scene, and any bookstore would have no more than two or three shelves of paranormal reading choices, as opposed to the explosion of material that is out there today.

None of us knew about ghost hunting tools like K2 EMF meters, Mel meters, or infrared thermometers. We werent aware of a possible link between paranormal activity and electromagnetic field (EMF) levels. Electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) research was in full swing and had been for decades, but was conducted with factory-fresh audio tapes rather than digital voice recorders. Our cameras had to be loaded with film because they didnt contain a hard drive. Most teams used equipment that was affordable and sometimes held together with duct tape and bailing wire.

On the flip side, the absence of a bewildering array of gadgets meant that investigators were forced to rely on old-fashioned critical thinking and basic techniques. Fewer flashing lights and blinking gizmos made for more work, and that forced us to do our background reading. Hours and hours prior to and after an investigation would be spent in the public library.