Villisca & Malvern

Ahhhh Iowa. Most paranormal teams know all about The Villisca Axe Murder House, but Iowa is chock full of some amazing places to investigate and learn from. This trip we were excited to have Phil Adams with Beyond Reality Paranormal with us at both locations.

And we got to meet up with Journey into the Haunted, The Witches Familiar Paranormal Research, Twin Flames Paranormal, Ope a Ghost and Mudrat!! What an amazing and dedicated bunch of people. We are so honored to meet these teams that follow our own heart in how to ‘work’ in this paranormal field/community.

So done with the sappiness and onto the weekend!!

Our first stop was Villisca. Unfortuneately we couldn’t do an overnight as it was already booked, so we did a day tour. I (Charity) have to say I about fainted at meeting the MAN and LEGEND Mr Johnny Houser. Johnny has been in the paranormal field for YEARS and is the caretaker of the Villisca Axe Murder House. (and of Church the cat, or maybe Church is Johnny’s caretaker?)

We won’t go into the history of Villisca - if you are reading this pretty sure you already know what happened there. And for us, being in a place of such notoriety where we KNOW 10000% for sure that a horrible tragedy took place just raises the bar a bit on the creep factor. The house felt welcoming, if that makes sense - like it needs people there to tell its story. Not gonna lie, there were quite a few people in our tour guessing maybe 30. So getting any kind of “investigating” in was tough - Twin Flame DID get an amazing EVP, a little girl clearly answering the question “How old are you” with “Eleven” (head over to their FB page to check it out!)

The upstairs boys bedroom (right next to the attic area where it is speculated the killer hid) was giving crazy K2 hits (especially when we turned the device towards the wall that separated the attic and the bedroom) Michelle kept feeling like something was hitting her in the back of the leg - debunking that was easy as their was nothing around to do that at the time and one of us (Phil or I) was normally behind her at all times, NOT kicking her in the leg. The bedrooms were just unsettling (although Phil said he felt comfortable and wanted to take a nap…..don’t worry Phil you’re going to get your chance to do that!)

All in all, we didn’t get much to report - the SpiritChat did give us some interesting answers to questions but for most of the time we were in the house we just took in the energy and the house itself. It was enough to make us want to come back there and do an overnight, which we have scheduled for 2025. We did go over to the Villisca Cemetery for a bit to pay respects to the Moore and Stillingers - and try to contact them. It was very quiet, and a very beautiful place. Highly recommend just walking through the cemetery.

Next stop? Just about an hour away awaited Malvern Manor.

We pulled into town and made our way to our Airbnb - which we will chat about here as well. The Art Church is an amazing place, a 1870 Presbyterian Church that was decommissioned and turned into a living quarters on the ground floor and a art studio/event space above. Honestly we got a TON of interaction there (see our LIVE we did which we will upload to YouTube shortly) outside of just being at Malvern (another bucket list item) it was a real highlight of the trip for activity.

Malvern started off with a hysterical costume contest - proud to say our very own Squidward…er Michelle…won the big prize! It was quite a fun time walking from the Airbnb down to Malvern while she’s in a huge blow up squid costume. After the fun and getting to meet people, we started a human pendulum experiment.

The human pendulum is basically where you use a person in the middle of a circle to “act” as a pendulum. Very similar to holding a crystal pendulum in your hand, the spirits can use this person to give us yes or no answers. This was our second time participating in this and it is a very interesting method. There are alot of questions about this method - including the human intervention piece. When you ask a question is the person acting as the pendulum TRULY under the influence of a spirit or just subconsciously answering the question the way they want? In any way, it is a fun and great way to get new people involved in investigating and make them feel part of the teams!

Break out sessions started next - Hank’s Room, Suzie’s Room, the Attic and the Shadow-Man Hallway. Each area was doing different methods. Estes, EVP, etc. With all of our interactions, the Attic was pretty mind-blowing. Strictly due to the fact that one of the ladies in the group literally caused the Short Burst EVP recorder Chuck (Mudrat) was using to stop working. After she left - it worked. She did put on Hank’s shirt while in his room, which apparently ticks him off and he followed her. They took her outside to sage her and immediately the EVP machine started recording correctly. Coincidence? We don’t really believe in them. (Just as an FYI - the Attic Steps are TERRIFYING.)

In the Shadow-Man Hallway, Phil went under the Estes Method for the first time. We were definitely getting some answers and interaction. That hallway is very creepy - when we all stood in front of open doors, Michelle and I both started to feel freezing cold and a slight breeze. The tale of this hall is that a tall shadow man rushes at people. Both Johnny Houser and Josh Heard have had interactions with this guy and been so terrified they left the building. (These guys don’t scare easy) Other teams experienced touches and one person was scratched.

While on our solo investigations, Phil saw a shadow person cross the doorway when we were sitting in Suzie’s Room. Which was odd because we kept getting the feeling that someone or something was keeping the spirits in the room from talking to us. Our music box also went off briefly while it was in the hallway. After checking, there were no other teams on that floor with us.

While the activity wasn’t off the charts crazy, it was there and it was palpable. It was enough for us to come home and immediately book an overnight there with a smaller group. All in all it was a great time, we got to finally meet some teams we had been interacting with on socials and meet new teams. We had fun, laughed a TON and just really enjoyed our time there.

Now to go back to the Art Church AirBnb….

This place was OFF THE HOOK active. We decided since we had some downtime before eating dinner to haul a bunch of equipment upstairs to the church area and just do a little impromptu investigation. We were NOT disappointed at all. A spirit of a preacher or similar type of authority figure came through and he wasn’t all that friendly. We were getting someone coming through making the flashlight turn off and on. We think that was the lady that was coming through. She apparently worked for the church at some point, cleaning and working in the “garden”. Several of the interactions we received were that she was not very well liked or respected in the community and not treated well by her employer. Lots of theories after having our friend Kim Horn jump on the live and give us some thoughts as to what she was feeling. Very interesting place - we would love to go back. Michelle and Phil were both awakened in the night with VERY loud thumps coming from upstairs.

All in all it was a great trip to Iowa. Please be sure to follow Phil at Beyond Reality Productions as he got some GREAT video of all our investigations and our shenanigans.