The Sallie House June 2024
Ah the Sallie House. What person that is even remotely interested in the paranormal doesn’t know about this cute little home in Atchison Kansas? The subject of MANY tv shows and the subject of quite a bit of speculation and trepidation. People have uttered words like portal, demon, satanic worship and more. And it all started when a young couple rented the home in 1993.
Tony and Debra Pickman rented the home built sometime between 1867-1872 by Doctor Charles Finney, and there are some mumblings of the house having issues WAY before the Pickmans reports. But what really kicked off the fascination with the house was the episode of the TV Show ‘Sightings’ in the 1990’s. Since then it has been on many shows, and been investigated by a long list of paranormal teams.
So let’s just jump in and say this right off the bat - there is something dark in that house. Michelle and I both are always very hesitant to label anything a ‘demon’ mostly because we think it is way too easy to pin that on places. Is it uncomfortable? You bet your ass it is. That basement is a whole new level of weird. But a demon? Yeeeeaaahhhh don’t think so - at least not in our opinion. Others will VERY vehemently disagree but unless you are basing your opinion off your own feelings and observations during an investigation (and not on watching a certain TV show) then don’t come at us yelling. And to be fair, we did NOT do an overnight there. It was not available when we were in town for the McInteer Investigation, so we booked only a day tour for an hour. So there is that - maybe when we go back with all our equipment and stay we might change our minds.
We took NOTHING with us for the hour - just ourselves and our phones to take pictures and turn on the Necrophonic and the Necrometer. (Don’t hate on phone apps - we have had some pretty good interactions with them that we can’t explain) When you first walk up, the house is totally just this little adorable home on a quiet street in one of the most haunted towns in America. People live next door, there’s kids playing and dogs barking…small town America. But once you cross that threshold. Something changes. We both kept saying how QUIET the house was. There was NO noise from the outside. It just felt STILL and NOT in a good way. It gave you goosebumps and made the hair on your neck stand up.
We won’t go into the full history of the house here - you can Google that and find all kinds of info. But the house is named for a little girl that is claimed to have died in the house at the hands of Doctor Finney. Her mother brought Sallie writhing in pain to the home of the Doctor (there is no evidence the doctor actually practiced in the home, he had a office/surgical suite down the road) Sallie was having severe abdominal pain. He gave her anesthesia and began emergency surgery, as he believed that Sallie's appendix was about to rupture; however, he made the first incision before the anesthesia kicked in. As he continued surgery, Sallie was screaming from pain and bled out, which ended up killing her. There is a little “shrine” of sorts in the kitchen of the house talking about this event.
We walked the house, starting in the living room and walking towards the kitchen/dining area. It’s kind of a very surreal moment to be in a house that you have seen SO many times on TV and it look exactly the same. It’s an odd dejavu feeling that honestly I personally couldn’t shake the whole time I was there. The whole house felt heavy (you’ll hear investigators and psychics use that word alot) It was like you couldn’t take a deep breath. Michelle did pick up on a girl spirit, but she also said there was something dark hovering around her. Did Sallie die in so much pain that her death ripped open a doorway for something a little more sinister to come through? Or was she just here and then the alleged stories of Satanic worship in the basement bring in something that has trapped her here for its enjoyment? We just don’t know. Hopefully when we go back to do an overnight we can figure some things out.
Our apps didn’t really give us much - we did get words like pain, doctor and some good answers to yes and no questions. The most interesting thing that came through was 2 names….Stephanie and George. Steph is the owner of the McInteer Villa and George Gerady also owned the home starting in 1969. We had already done one night of investigating at the McInteer when we came to the Sallie House. Our thought was possibly one of the spirits from the McInteer followed us or can go from place to place. You get so many names coming through on Spirit Chats and Apps and sometimes (well, most of the time) they don’t make any sense. So having those two come through back to back was a little interesting. While upstairs we brought a ball out of the child’s room and set it so both of us could watch it closely. Me by the stairs sitting and Michelle in the second bedroom doorway sitting. It moved. Not a lot, but it moved. I purposely set the ball with the logo facing us so we could focus on that. That got our hopes up so when we went back downstairs we placed the same ball at the top of the stairs in hopes it would come bouncing down to us. (It did not - boo) But it did move slightly again when we went back upstairs later to finish out our hour. We decided to hang out in the child’s room with the thousands of toys and try to talk to little miss Sallie. The ball moved and we did hear very faint footsteps on the stairs.
The most interesting part of the trip was the basement. Now - let me be very clear about the fact that you are NOT supposed to go down into the basement. The house is owned by the city and they are VERY proud of their haunted heritage so they take care and maintain the home. We went back and forth with going down, not wanting to do anything to cause any harm. In the end we decided a quick walk down to have a peak and not leave the stairs area then back up. We had opened the door once before we went upstairs and we both physically backed up about 3 steps. It’s different down there, the feeling coming from the basement is just heavier and anxiety producing.
Old stairs in an old home suck people. They are narrow and weird and not built for people with size 10 feet like I have. But we are both used to them as we live in homes built in 1938 and 1940. This was a different feeling though. Could it have been the apprehension just to be going down there? Maybe - sometimes it is better to go into a location cold. Not know anything. As a researcher that KILLS me, I like to know EVERYTHING. But it does lend itself to not having pre-conditioned ideas and thoughts. Once down, we turned on our red led lights and just started to look around. Then we heard it. Footsteps. Clear as day following us down into the basement. It was so clear it felt like we were going to look and see a physical person walking down (like a police officer telling us we aren’t supposed to be down there) But there was no one. We both heard it, we both were standing still and neither of us were still on the wooden stairs. We were standing on the cement floor at the base.
The rest of the basement is exactly as it is on every tv show - creepy. There is a large black spot on the floor where the alleged satanic symbol was. Its not very big, you can pretty much see 95% of the basement without moving from the stair area. Except for one piece. The gaping hole that was knocked into a wall. Behind it is dirt and a void. I trust my partner unequivocally when she gets the heebie-jeebies and she was very physically affected and she kept looking at that hole in the wall. But alas our hour was almost up and we wanted to go back upstairs to finish out the time.
Is there something in the Sallie House? Yes. Is it evil? Maybe - we need to go back and check it out more. But actually being there during broad daylight and having some of the feelings and odd things happen was exciting. Spirits just don’t go bump in the night - they play during the day too. We are hoping to book an overnight there soon and report more. Till then - if you go - say HI to Sallie for us, and don’t go into the basement. Stay Spooky Friends
