Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown

by Stefan Petrucha

  “This happened here?” I asked. Instead of fascinated, I was angry. I didn’t say anything else. I just walked away. If this was true, it was big. I had to understand what was going on. So I headed over to production.

  “I’m trying to do a real investigation. If you coached my client, that’s against everything we stand for. If they’re not going to be truthful, we can’t help them.”

  Worse, I didn’t know if Jodi had been coached about anything else. I actually threatened to leave.

  I remember the director being apologetic because a producer did know about the information and hadn’t told me, but there was nothing else any of them was aware of.

  The producers and our crew work tirelessly, following us at all hours of the day into some deeply bizarre places, then crafting a great show. I appreciate that enormously, but the integrity of the investigation is more personal to me and my life. Over the years, my reaction to this sort of issue has given me a reputation for being difficult.

  I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but the surprise distracted me from pursuing my hunch that there were things Jodi had yet to be open about. For now, I had to figure out how to deal with this article. The mass murder, after all, was something PRS hadn’t uncovered about the case ourselves, so I was blindsided.

  Regarding that article about the murders, there’s another misconception about the details of this case, partly caused by my initial question, “This happened here?”

  The victims, members of the Kreider family, were originally from the area but had moved to and were murdered in North Dakota. Their bodies were transported back to Elizabethtown, and buried in a cemetery literally across the street from Jodi’s house.

  Once I’d calmed down about the sudden appearance of the article, I began to wonder why Jodi never called the previous owner to ask about them. “You don’t think he was trying to tell you something?” I asked her.

  When I contacted Brian, the former owner, he was very forthcoming. “I’ve been waiting for someone to call about that,” he said. He definitely believed the house was haunted. He said that he and his ex-wife heard children laughing in the basement. According to Brian, she even claimed to have seen them, corroborating what Jodi’s grandmother saw. Brian’s wife had also gone to the state library, found out about the murders, and learned the family was buried across the street.

  Brian explained that he hadn’t told Jodi outright, fearing she’d think he was crazy. “I felt so guilty about not telling her that when I realized I hadn’t given her the ownership title, I gave her that article, too. I was hoping she’d ask questions, but she didn’t.”

  Jodi’s reticence about certain things was becoming more curious.

  Meanwhile, I asked Eilfie to find out if there were any surviving family members of the victims still in the area. She managed to track down a grandson, Robert Greiner.

  Our first psychic walk-through with Chip Coffey came next. When he walked in, that was literally the first moment I physically met him, a moment captured on the show. Our first phone call aside, my initial impressions weren’t positive, but as viewers know, my impression changed radically and he became a staple of the show for the first three seasons.

  After talking about how “hard” the cemetery struck him as he drove in, he almost immediately started talking demons, which sent up warning bells for me about his accuracy. There’d been no indication of that kind of activity at all, but Chip felt that not only might one be present, but that Jodi was drawing it in. He didn’t offer any details, making it sound even more unconnected to what I’d seen. I became more and more skeptical about him by the second.

  We walked through the house, then into a bedroom with a painted mural. Jodi had painted the mural as a sort of bonding experience.

  There, Chip became even more dramatic. “There’s definitely residual energy with a little girl in the house but there’s also that male energy. There’s something that tells me it’s demonic. Interestingly enough, I have to tell you something about you. You amuse it. It feels like it knows what you know inside your head. Can I be real honest with you about what I just got in my head? I just got ‘I’ll get them all.’ So be careful.”

  Under other conditions, this would have been frightening news, but based on what I believed about the case at the time, I was thinking, “This guy is full of shit. This is the last time I work with him.”

  That night, along with Jodi and Nate, we visited the graveyard and located the tombstones of the murdered Kreider family. Jodi and Nate seemed very moved. Nate even teared up. There were a lot of emotions floating around.

  Since Chip was already here, I felt obliged to give him another chance and invited him to sit in on Dead Time. Usually we don’t have minors at Dead Time, but Nate wanted to watch, and Jodi wanted him present, so we had him sit in with Serg in tech. The house wasn’t that big, tech HQ was downstairs, and we couldn’t really move around a lot.

  Despite my hunches about Jodi, I still wasn’t expecting anything. But I swear, as we tried to contact the child spirits, I heard very clear footsteps down the hallway. Everyone heard them, even the cameramen. I looked down the hall, wondering what was making the noise, and saw nothing.

  Since we’d been trying to contact the child when the footsteps started, I said, “Okay, let’s have the child move away and let this male figure come through.”

  Jodi seemed to react. She said she was feeling a presence, then reported that she was being touched.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What is your name?”

  B—, the name of the Syracuse demon, popped into my head.

  Ryan, I told myself, you’re going overboard. That’s next week’s case. Stay focused.

  But then Chip announced, “I’ve got a name. It’s a strange one.”

  For some reason I couldn’t explain, I asked him not to say it, but to write it. As he wrote, my intuition was telling me, It’s going to be the name. It’s going to be the name. But, my mind said, Nah, couldn’t be.

  I opened the paper. There it was: B—.

  My own emotions had been running a gamut that day. Now, I was floored. I felt like my breath had been stolen from me. The room started to spin. My heart started to race. I became hyperaware of every single noise in the house. I make no exaggeration about this incident. It was the biggest physical reaction I ever had on Paranormal State. I stared at it for about thirty seconds. Finally I looked up at Chip. “Why did you write this name down?”

  “That’s what I got. Do you know that?”

  “Yes, I do. It’s the same name that I’ve been . . .”

  “Picking up? You knew that was what was going to be on the paper, didn’t you?”

  “You’ve never come across this name before?” I asked, ignoring the question.

  “No. Does that have great significance to you or something?”

  “Yes.”

  At first, the name startled me, but suddenly the rational part of the brain kicked in. This has to be a trick, I thought, still believing Jodi had been coached, that someone had told Chip the name.

  “I think we should take a break,” I announced.

  The producers were in the garage, so I stormed out and yanked open the door so suddenly that everyone inside looked like deer caught in the headlights. I told the director I had to speak to him immediately.

  “Did you give Chip that name?”

  I don’t remember the exact phrasing of the conversations that followed, but he said something like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know what was on the paper. It wasn’t on-camera.”

  “You didn’t tell him about next week’s case?”

  “How could I? I’m a director. I don’t know anything about a case until a day or two before we get there. I’m not involved in those conversations.”

  I found one of the producers. “What did you tell Chip about next week’s case?”

  “Nothing. I’m not even involved in it. Segment producers alternate. Autumn’s handlin
g the next one.”

  They were adamant, but I simply did not believe them. I remember saying loudly, to anyone who was listening, “If I find out anyone is lying to me, so help me God!” They all looked at me as if they thought I lost my mind.

  I went back to Chip. He looked very confused as I dragged him into the bathroom to talk. “Did the producers tell you anything about next week’s case? Did Autumn talk to you?”

  He was pretty shaken, looking at me like I was about to snap. “No, Ryan. I know nothing about any other case. I don’t know who Autumn is. All I got was this name in my head. Are you angry with me? What did I do wrong?”

  I was sure it had to be a setup. I realized Autumn did know about the Syracuse case, so I called her. It was one in the morning, but I kept calling and calling until she answered.

  “Did you tell anyone about next week’s case?”

  “What?”

  “The name. Did you tell anyone about the name?”

  “What name?”

  “You didn’t talk to Chip?”

  “Who’s Chip?”

  I started to pace the bathroom, not even realizing one of the camera guys was filming me through a crack in the doorway. It had to be a trick, I thought. But then I started to analyze it in detail. It came down to two possible scenarios—1) the film crew had set this up and people were lying to me or 2) Chip was either very crazily lucky or was truly psychic. I remember being terrified of both possibilities. If production was lying, then it meant I couldn’t trust anyone. After all, this would be one intricate and elaborate setup. The question appeared in my mind: How far would they go? Have I been manipulated this entire time? Is Jodi even really having any experiences, or was she hired? Looking back, my feelings at that moment were probably similar to what Jim Carrey’s character went through in The Truman Show felt when he realized everything around him was a stage.

  Paranoia set in. The fear became overwhelming. I leaned up against the sink and tried to take another crack at analyzing this logically. As I took emotion out of it, the possibility of production setting this up just didn’t make any sense.

  Then I finally realized something—they couldn’t have given Chip the name. Teena had only discussed the name with me over the phone. It wasn’t in her e-mails and I’d kept our conversations private. I hadn’t even told the team. Then I thought about the way production was reacting to things. They were hoping that my team and I would feel that the Kreider murders had something to do with Jodi’s haunting and were pretty bummed when we felt it wasn’t a strong enough connection. If they were hoping it was the Kreiders, why suddenly throw out a demonic name?

  It was like a dream, and not a good one. I was rattled. I’d been shouting at people. Now I knew that things had gone way beyond coincidence. Why had that name been bugging me? Was the promise from that old case that the demonic would find me again coming true? It felt as if this thing was announcing itself to me. I had the sick feeling I’d walked into a trap.

  I had to talk to someone. I called a priest I’d been working with, and left a message. I started pacing, not knowing what to do. I thought of Eilfie and asked where she was. Everyone could see I was freaking out, so they scattered to find her.

  At first she figured it wasn’t a big deal. “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “No, he needs to see you right away.”

  She came rushing back and we took a walk outside. I told her everything I knew about Syracuse.

  “It sounds demonic,” I said. “And there’s a name associated with it that’s been popping up.” I handed her the paper Chip gave me. “Do you recognize the name?”

  “Possibly. So you think we’ve got something tagging along?”

  It was freezing out, so we headed back in. Everyone sat around confused. On every case before this, I’d been pretty calm. Now I was raising my voice, short with everyone, glaring.

  Eilfie and I went to Jodi’s bedroom to talk some more.

  “I knew this was going to happen,” I told her.

  She’d been part of those earlier cases, so she knew what I was talking about. I’d hoped that if there were going to be another demonic case that at least I’d have time to prepare for it. I was half-expecting a confrontation in Syracuse, but not here.

  Whether or not you believe in demons, those cases in 2005 really hurt my team, to the point where some still have trouble coping. Serg and Eilfie were both affected, but theirs isn’t my story to tell. I also knew they could make their own decisions about staying with this case. I did become concerned about our trainees, Heather and Katrina.

  “You know, Ryan,” Eilfie said, “we don’t know what’s going on. We need to think about what we’re getting into. Send them home.”

  PRS has a term, “friendly evacuation,” where unnecessary people are removed if the activity gets out of hand. That’s what I did here. I asked Heather and Katrina to head back to the hotel. They asked how soon I wanted them to go. “Right now. Right this second.”

  They hopped into the car and left.

  If I hadn’t confused production earlier, it seemed I had now. “What’s going on? Are you going to investigate more?”

  “No. I need time to think about this,” I told everyone. “We’re shutting down for now.”

  I tried to calm myself down, then, of course, attempted to do the same for Jodi. “Were going to stay and keep watch,” I told her. “Please, try to go to sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.” She’d seen how upset I was when I saw the name, but I tried to downplay it. “I’m thinking about another case that the paper reminded me of, that’s all.”

  I doubt she believed me.

  Serg, Eilfie, and I stayed awhile, chilling. Nothing happened. There was no crazy paranormal stuff. At 3:00 A.M. we tried communication. Nothing. So we called it a night.

  The next day was kind of a “we don’t know what to do” day. I woke up and got a call from one of our producers, who wasn’t at the shoot due to a family emergency. He’d heard shooting had ground to a halt and was concerned.

  We’d talked about demonic cases before, so I tried to explain. Understanding the difficulty, he suggested I go back and focus on the murders instead, but I refused.

  ”I can’t shift gears. This is real. I have to do what I have to, to help the family.”

  Had we all known about the demonic aspect from the beginning, I’m sure production would’ve been open to it, but having it show up in the middle was as much a curveball to them as it was to me.

  It was during these conversations, though, that I became truly convinced they hadn’t given Chip the name. If they had, they’d expect me to see the significance and follow it. Instead, they were advising I shift the focus away from it. They were saying it was too complicated a subject.

  After the phone calls, I sat down with Heather and Katrina at the hotel and tried to explain what was going on and discussed the 2005 cases. When Heather asked about that name, I cautioned her not to mention it. “Never mention the name unless you want to go into full confrontation with it.”

  For the sake of the show, the team, and our client, I pushed aside my personal issues and tried to focus on doing what I could for now. That day, I went on to interview Robert Greiner, whose grandmother was Eva Kreider, who’d survived the murders, and he recounted the story of the killings.

  Production understood we’d be coming back, but still wanted some sort of closure before we left, just in case. I felt a house blessing would be a good idea, so I contacted some parishes and a local priest invited me in. Since I was talking with him about some sensitive issues, the film crew waited outside.

  I gave the priest my background, the details of the case, and explained my reasons for believing the problems at Jodi’s house were demonic. He heard me out, then said, “If you hadn’t told me about the demonic aspect, I could’ve done a house blessing. But for an exorcism, you have to petition to the bishop. This family needs help, but if what you’re saying is real, they need the right kind of help. Un
fortunately, you’ll have to be patient.”

  Frustrated, I called Lorraine Warren for advice. She agreed with the priest. I remember her saying, “I know you want to give them help, honey, but you have to take the proper steps.”

  While the father wouldn’t do a blessing himself, he’d given me some signs to hang in the house as part of a more informal blessing. It wasn’t a solution, but I agreed to do it.

  I went back to Jodi and told her what I thought was happening. Again I pointedly asked her if there was anything she hadn’t told me, anything at all. She opened up a little, and admitted to me that she felt not just touched, but physically attacked by the presence. But I still sensed she was holding back. I decided that it could wait. I remember telling her, “I know there’s probably more to the story, and that you’re reluctant to tell me some things, maybe because it’s humiliating, and that’s okay. I understand. I hope you know that it’s crucial for us to know these things so we can help you. You don’t need to tell us on camera if you’re not comfortable. It can be a private matter. Let’s just talk about it when we return. I promise we will.”

  Before she shared the information about the physical attack, I didn’t know if the demon had just appeared when we arrived with the team. Now I was certain we’d been on a demonic case the whole time. Jodi just hadn’t told us everything.

  Then I conducted the house blessing. With that, we left for a few weeks, during which time I had my first encounter with the situation in Syracuse. Meanwhile, I’d been in contact with the diocese. Arranging an authentic exorcism isn’t the easiest thing. I also spoke to Lorraine again, and she agreed to consult on the case.

  When we returned to Elizabethtown, the Syracuse case was far from resolved. Heather and Katrina stayed behind this time, but Serg and Eilfie came back. Lorraine brought her son-in-law, Tony Spera, who was personally trained by Ed Warren and was his favorite student. He’s been described as a demonologist, but he does not go by that title.

  I shared what I knew and showed Lorraine the name. Though I didn’t know the name, she recognized it as that of a powerful demon. “But you have to understand. They’re all liars. This may not be its name, but it’s using it against you.”