Pestered By Demons

There is a strange story of a haunted house in Gary, Indiana that challenges even the infamous haunting described in the book The Amityville Horror. But instead of a tale that may be all or partly exaggerated fiction, the story of the Ammons home and the “demonic” possession of the children was witnessed by several police officers, ministers and other investigator including Child Protective Services.

After Latoya Ammons and her three children moved into the modest single-story house on Carolina Street in November, 2011 the family was harassed by unexplained forces for five terrifying months until the family abandoned the home.

Strange noises, voices, dripping liquids, mechanical problems, footprints, possible demonic possession of the sons and other manifestations including odd facial images in photos taken in the house brought police, clergy, news reporters, medical staff and Child Protective Services into the case.

Before it was over the children were temporarily removed from the home while police and civil authorities scoured the building looking for anything that might explain the cause of the strange manifestations.

Among the most frightening events: the sons would go into strange trance–like states, speak in deep coarse voices that were not their own, One of the children was observed levitating over her bed while she was sleeping and one son walked backwards up a wall in a hospital room while family, a social worker and a hospital nurse were in the room with him. People and objects in the house were strangely picked up and thrown around against their will. Dark shadowy figures were seen moving around the house.

At one point Latoya and her children moved into the nearby home of her brother and later a hotel room, only to find that the spirits moved with them.

The children were unable to sleep and were missing so much school that Child Protective Services got involved. Latoya was accused of either child neglect or using them to help manufacture a wild story to get money from the home owner. The children were removed from Latoya’s care and placed in special homes for psychiatric evaluation.

Everyone that got involved in the case eventually concluded that outside forces were at work on this family. Gary Police Chief Charles Austin said he was a skeptic at first, but after a thorough investigation said “I am a believer.”

The Rev. Michael Miginot, a priest at St. Stephen, Martyr Parish in Merrillville, was asked to perform an exorcism on the nine-year-old boy after the child appeared possessed and walked on the hospital wall.

Miginot ended up exorcising the entire home, including Laoya Ammons. Before he had success he worked with Ammons to find the specific names of the demons that were tormenting her. Each demon, he explained, had certain powers and caused certain problems to occur. Among the names she picked was Beelzebub, lord of the flies. When they first moved into the house, they were met with large flies in one room that they had trouble removing.

It took three tries, each a long and painful ceremony, before the grip of demonic power was broken. Even then, some force appeared to be hanging on. When Miginot left town on a retreat, a woman, perhaps a nun from the church, sat with Ammons in case anything more happened. During this time the woman wrote the name of yet another demon on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and added blessed salt.

Sure enough, Ammons called the woman while Maginot was still away. She said she was having bad dreams. The woman burned the envelope and saved the ashes to burn later in a church bonfire. That was when the Ammons horror came to an end.

Ammons got her children back, the family moved into another home, and the horror house they vacated was rented to another occupant. To date, everybody has lived happily ever after.

Over the years this writer and his family have had similar cases of living in “haunted” homes. The room of flies was similar to a case we encountered in one country house near Sandusky, Michigan. An unfinished attic room on the second floor was constantly filled with flies that we could not get rid of. The house had a leak in the roof right over that fly filled room that we could not fix. We reroofed the entire house and smeared the roof with tar over the area where the water appeared to be coming in. Every time it rained the roof leaked and damaged a first floor ceiling. We solved this problem by placing a large pail at the point where the leak was coming in. We had to remember to dump the pail after every rain.