The city of Gary, Indiana, already gets a pretty rough rap. It had a remarkably high murder rate in the 1990s, and there was the whole thing about that one possessed house. Wait, what? You hadn't heard about 3860 Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana, the house that was so horrifyingly scary that it was demolished in 2016? The tale of this Gary, Indiana hell house is probably one of the most crazy things that happened in Indiana, and it's a tale that'll send chills down your spine for sure.
Ed. note: the photos below are for illustrative purposes only and do not depict the house mentioned in this article.
In 2014, a woman by the name of Latoya Ammons, her mother, and her children all claimed that they regularly became possessed by demons - demons that, they said, lurked in the very house they were renting in 2011-2012.
In fact, the entire house was thought to be filled head-to-toe with demons and demonic entities, and these frightening entities terrorized the Ammons family day after day and night after night. The activity began almost immediately; just a few days after they moved in, swarms of large, black flies covered the walls and windows on the porch, and no matter what was done about it, they always came back - despite it being winter.
Ms. Ammons and her family had moved into this small, single-family home at 3860 Carolina Street in mid-November, just as the weather was getting cold, and over the next several months, they would be subjected to a terrifying reality.
Aside from the flies, Ms. Ammons began hearing footsteps - heavy ones that sounded as if they belonged to a man - pacing around in empty rooms and on several occasions saw a shadowy male figure lurking in her peripheral vision before she began simply seeing it in the open, outright. Over time, the activity escalated, and at one point, Ammons claimed that she had even been choked by unseen hands.
She wasn't the only one in the house to experience these things - her children, perhaps, had been on the receiving end of some of the worst of it.
During a sleepover with a friend, Ammons's 12-year-old daughter was seen to levitate above her bed, asleep, and didn't come down until after her terrified family surrounded the bed and prayed loudly. She never woke up during the incident, and when she woke the next morning, she was unaware that it had happened at all. Her family (and her friend), however, were horrified.
The entities' abuse of the children intensified when Ammons' young son was thrown across a room by unseen hands, and each child seemed to become "possessed" from time to time.
A doctor who was called to the house and witnessed the behavior wrote it off as "delusional", and police were called to ensure the safety of the children. The Department of Child Services wrote it off as the children "performing" for their mother... until someone from their office allegedly witnessed one of the children walking backward up a wall.
Police Captain Charles Austin became a believer; he claimed that the things he'd seen were proof enough that the Ammonses were telling the truth.
A photo taken by police of the exterior of the home revealed a strange, shadowy figure in a front window - despite the house being empty at the time. It was published by the Indianapolis Star, and eventually, the Ammons requested a formal exorcism of the house.
In April 2012, a priest named Father Michael Maginot was summoned to the house and determined that not only were there at least 200 demons within it, but that it also might just be a portal to hell itself.
Despite the three exorcisms performed by Father Maginot, the family moved away in late 2012 and didn't speak of their terrifying ordeal until a couple of years later, when the star of Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures purchased the home and filmed a documentary about its hauntings before declaring "something" at work within the house was simply too much to allow to go on. On January 19, 2016, he had the house razed to the ground.
What do you think? Was 3860 Carolina Street in Gary, Indiana truly inflicted with literal demons? Was the psychologist right and the entire fiasco was a result of hysteria? Have you ever experienced something terrifying that you couldn't explain? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.
If you're curious about this haunting town, check out this delightful VRBO stay in Gary, Indiana. It's the perfect place to rest after a day of exploring.
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