Jennie Runevitch/Eyewitness News
Mitchell - Eerie voices, ghostly apparitions and mysterious happenings are all uncommon experiences which are quite common for guests at a Bed & Breakfast in Mitchell. The haunted hotel, Whispers Estate, is so active, that it will be featured in a Sci-Fi Channel documentary.
Homeowner, Jarret Marshall, says the house, changes people. "The house really is two houses. In the daytime it's just a beautiful house and in the nighttime, it wakes up kind-of."
Marshall didn't quite believe in haunted houses, until he moved to Mitchell four years ago and experienced the unexplained, firsthand.
"I heard footsteps on the stairs and we've actually heard her sing, heard 'Ring Around the Rosey' in the middle of the night," said Marshall.
There was story after story, of spirits moving among the living.
"There was a couple in here that woke up in the middle of the night and there was something standing by their bed. Things standing in the doorways, doors open and close, things tap on the walls, move the bed. We've had two people that actually left in the middle of the night because it was just too much for them," Marshall said.
The hauntings started, Marshall said, during the home's renovation to a bed and breakfast. When he uncovered hidden pocket doors, he believes he breathed new life into the home's troubled past.
The original owners, Dr. John and Jessie Gibbons, lost three children here. Rachel, died at age eight. She accidentally set herself on fire with a candle on Christmas Day.
"I think she's definitely still here," Marshall said. "You actually hear a child singing. You hear, we all were sitting downstairs one night and we heard 'mommy'."
Jarret's not the only one to experience something he couldn't quite explain here. Psychics and ghost trackers from around the country travel to Mitchell to see, and hopefully record, paranormal activity.
"They've gotten some great EVP's, electronic voice phenomena." Marshall said.
To Marshall, the paranormal is now normal.
As for skeptics - "I thought the same thing until all the rational things went away. It's one of those things where you're never quite by yourself," said Marhsall.
There's no specific air date yet for the program "Children of the Grave" on Sci-Fi. Marshall says video of paranormal activity on YouTube has made non-believers into believers.
