For a while, Llanada Vila was the scene of lavish parties and cheerful laughter. Well-dressed visitors came and went, and rumours ran wild about the loud and raucous legion of ghosts said to be held behind its stately walls. One woman claimed she saw a “black ghost” and another said she was attacked by a “big black dog” in the hallway. The stories grew—and so did people’s fears of my home.  Perhaps a great horror—or a greater marvel is reaching out. The reality of what I have been through is highly uncertain in my mind, but I feel that something hideous lay in the background. I must get away from evil. Despite weakness, hunger, horror, and bewilderment, you can see by looking at me that there are no obvious clues to my unique nature. However, believe me, an examination of any depth by even a half-sleeping medical practitioner would reveal some alarming deviations from the norm. I take pains to stay health, and I seem to be gifted with an exceptionally hardy constitution, even though I was gradually being consumed by an unnamable abyss of darkness and alienage. And, at times, I found myself almost unable to shut my eyes. I hear strange things in my sleep, and awake with a kind of terror. Despite the enveloping terror, I found myself ensnared by a bizarre allure, an unexplainable attraction to my home that was a petrifying as it was captivating. The mansion’s very walls seemed to whisper tales of the ghosts that inhabited them. One evening, I was alone dressing for a very late dinner, and as I rose from my looking-glass to get some articles of dress, I saw standing near my bed—a little iron one, placed out in the room away from the wall—the figure of a child dressed in a very quaint frock, with an odd little ruff around its neck. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

From some moments, I stood and stared, wondering how this strange little creature could have entered my chamber. The full glare of the candle was upon its face and figure. As I stood looking at it, the child began to run round the bed in a wild distressed way, with a look of suffering on its little face. In a rough whisper, “I offer beauty as well as terror,” the child said. “Mrs. Winchester, let me in.”  I still more and more surprised, walked up to the bed and stretched out my hand, when the child suddenly vanished, how or where I could not see, but apparently into the floor. I went at once to the maid’s room, and enquired of her to whom the little girl could belong I had just seen in my chamber, expressing my belief that it was supernatural and that the child was in odd dress and troubled face. We went down to dinner, for many guests were staying in the house. The feeling of entrapment was all-consuming, it was as though I was locked in a ceaseless nightmare. Several savage windstorms had burst upon us from the west, but we had escaped damage, as they roared by. This was in addition to a raging storm of terror and uncertainty which whipped me mercilessly. The dining room was brimming with a disquieting energy that was impossible to ignore. It echoed with a spectral silence, haunting ambience and delectable cuisine. A huge raven swooped at the window, thudding into the glass. Stunned, it fell to the ground and lay still. William Kemmler and Renee Meckelburg hurried to the door, opened it and went out on the veranda, both kneeling to examine the bird. Screeching, it righted itself and flapped its enormous winds, and dived at them so quick they were barely able to duck. William and Renee came back inside. William pulled the cord to close the drapes. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

I felt a twinge between pain and irritation. I patted their heads good night. Each night, sleep came like a malevolent specter, pulling me into a realm of nightmares. I found myself lost in an intricate catacomb of shadows, chased by formless figures that bore a macabre intent. Each breath I drew was laced with the cold sting of dread, and the ominous throb of my heart was reminiscent of a death echo. This particular light, I was woken from sleep by a tremendous crash in the room below; it sounded as though all the chairs and tables had been collected together, and then thrown violently down upon the wooden floor. Suddenly, icy hand clamped around my throat. The spectral fingers were skeletal, remorseless, biting into my flesh like the talons of vulture. I stumbled through the darkness, as grotesque formed twisted and pulsed with an unholy luminescence. Fear wrapped its icy tentacles around my heart, my eyes bulged with horror as the twisting wind’s wail chilled my soul to the quick. Going down stairs to investigate, carrying a book in my hand, is when I discovered the shape of a woman sitting in a chair dressed a modern costume. She was adored in a black gown, a kerchief, and a white stomacher’ that covered the chest and bosom of this dead woman. I was so astonished at this apparition that I could not speak to it nor stir; it lingered for quarter of an hour, and then vanished. I remained trembling in a state of understandable fright and horror. Then I heard the sound of feet moving about the room as if several men were moving about without stockings. I was in such an agony of terror that I was reassured by the sudden cry of a housemaid who slept in a room on this floor—“Lord have mercy on us!” #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

I was in a nervous state. The troubling spirit had crept over me, and held me. While sitting by the kitchen fire, I was hit by a number of stones on my back and shoulders, presumably coming through the open window behind me. Unhurt but frightened, I retreated to the morning room on the first floor, where I was barraged with more stones, hurled with so much force they caused the curtain to move. As the curtains flew open, I felt a presence crawl slowly over my body, starting at my feet. I then fruitlessly searched the pitch-black room as the windows and the shutters opened and closed repeatedly, apparently of their own accord. Finally, I rested at midnight after my evening of terror and bafflement. Only for my pillow to be pulled from my head and my bed-covers and blankets mysteriously removed. Seeking a natural explanation, I lit a candle and searched the room. Once the candle was lit, quiet descended on the room, but when extinguished the disturbances started once more. As night was widely believed to belong to supernatural entities such as ghosts, I knew I was dealing with something not of the temporal World. The next morning while sitting at the kitchen fire, a boy appeared before me and my servant Renee Meckelburg. The boy was ten or twelve years of age, wearing a torn black vest, a black bonnet and a tattered blanket over his shoulders. Given his ragged appearance, I assumed the boy was a strolling beggar looking for something to eat. More unusual was the fact that the boy covered his face with his hand, despite my repeated requests for him to remove it and name himself. He then became agitated, danced frantically and menacingly around the kitchen, before leaping out of an open window and running to the end of the garden into the cow house. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

My servants gave chase, but soon lost sight of him, only to discover later, when they returned to the mansion, that he was waiting for them. This charade was repeated around a dozen times before Renen confronted the boy who then turned into a black mist, vanishing into thin air leaving behind blood everywhere. The servant’s eyes were wild, faces chalky with salt. They had never seen anything like this. We were trying to find out was causing the disturbance when all the men on the farm went missing in the blink of an eye. The butler, William Kemmler, let out a demonic yell his eyes agitated with a fiery rage. A shower of blood rained down his face, as he stared at the thick red blood coating his hands and the bodies that appeared around us. He had somehow torn the man asunder. He seethed for several minutes, taking quick breaths that did not calm him down. He took care of the bodies and the mess he just made. I ran to my room and shook and sobbed from under my bed, curled up into a ball. “Why?” I said over and over, trying to understand. There were demonic wounds on my spirit…on my soul caused by a curse to flog every aspect of my life.  Unfortunately, it was clear that a demon had entered my home. Demons were considered to be the spirits of natural forces such as fire, plagues, and other misfortunes. I employed amulets and other magical deterrents to stave off demonic attacks. Around my home were potent charms, and post placed upside down to catch demons and prevent them from entering. However, I have no idea how many demons were able to penetrate the forcefield. It could be as few as five or six. It could be a legion. When these demons are near, flames turn blue; dogs howl; a sound of rustling silk can be heard; the temperature is lowered. These are just some of the signs of a haunting. Often times when these supernatural forces appear, people cannot speak at the moment of seeing. “I dare not speak,” one of my guests told me. “I was afraid of the sound of my own voice.” #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

The fortune of my father-in-law, Oliver Winchester and his rapidly growing firearms company surged during the years of 1873 and 1876. The new rifles caught the public’s fancy immediately upon reaching the market. These new models, in carbine, rifle, and musket various, were part of the evolution of the firm as the dominant American maker of lever-action repeating arms. However, it was believed that these weapons were immensely successful because demons were hidden in the weapons. Demons made their abode in them, because men, in these times, worshipped weapons, and the weapons were regarded as supernatural protectors. My father-in-law’s ivory-gripped Volcanic Navy pistols were magical. One evening he and my husband William were gathered in the banqueting hall, and had left their guns on the table, when rushed in a pack of renegades. Before they had time to get to their feet, Oliver called out to his pistol to come to him. The gun knew its master’s voice, and leaped straightway from the table to meet him, killing thirteen men on its way; and in placed itself in the Oliver’s hands, who took in its magic. From the day on, every rifle made by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company had the distinguished mark of this demonic power. Because these weapons were forged with such marvelous power, there was a price to pay. They possessed a hunger that was only quenched by human blood, making them the most powerful and vicious weapons to ever exist. The Winchester fortune is cursed and whomsoever benefits from its estate inherits the curse. It will be passed from generation to generation until the Winchester Bloodline is no more. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6

Winchester Mystery House

A report states that in 2007, a tour was besieged by unusual phenomena. The records state that on one occasion a “ball of fluorescent mist” drifted past a group of spectators in the Grand Ballroom before vanishing through a doorway. In another recorded case, a couple of tour guides had been separately disturbed by an apparition and by the sound of scratching, the male tour guide reported seeing a ball of light changing size constantly and floating around the morning room. Tour guides have often meet with innumerable cases in which this phosphorescent light is one of the accompaniments of unusual activity. There was an instance in which this ball of flickering light caused excessive trembling in a guest who witnessed it; this was followed by the complete doubling up of his body into a round ball. It has been suggested that these hovering or floating lights, well attested in many accounts, are some wayward forms of energy. During the night tours, a corpse candle has intrigued many. On occasions, a translucent candle has appeared hovering in a few of the rooms. It has often been suggested that it represents nothing more than the gaseous emanation from some rotting matter. Bog vapours have also been witnessed. Two of them seeming to play one with other. The sight often robs people of their philosophical reasoning, and they leave the estate believing in spirits.

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