Spooky Halloween Travel!

Happy Halloween!  We thought this week we’d bring you a super SPOOKY post about three of the most haunted places on Earth…  Buckle in!

The first stop on our tour of the most haunted places on Earth is probably one of the most well-known and Iconic murder-houses of all time.  The Amityville Horror House in Amityville, NY was built in the 1920s by John Moynahan in the Dutch Colonial style for him and his family.  According to the Long Island Village Voice, Moynahan interestingly built his house sideways because he didn’t like mowing the lawn.  In 1974 Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr murdered his entire family with a shotgun in cold blood.  After committing the crime he went to work for a bit in the morning, messed around in the afternoon and finally burst into Henry’s Bar, yelling, “You got to help me! I think my mother and father are shot!”  A small group of people accompanied him to his house and discovered the six other members of the DeFeo family dead in their beds.

Around a year later, George and Kathy Lutze bought the beautiful home at a bargain rate.  They began reporting paranormal activity such as voices, dark shadows and even black slime oozing through keyholes.  They described typical horror-movie scenes like swarms of flies invading their space and tormenting them.

This infamous house has inspired books and major motion pictures.  It is now privately owned and the address has been changed, but a drive by on a road trip is still worth the extra miles.

Our second most haunted destination now operates as a BnB.  Another infamous murderer, Lizzie Borden all but beheaded her father, affluent bank director with an axe as he napped on August 4, 1892. His second wife, Abby—who Lizzie refused to address with her real name, instead calling her only “Mrs. Borden”—met a similar fate in an upstairs bedroom. Everyone but the judge knew that Lizzie committed the terrible axe murders. She was tried and found not guilty the following year. The Borden house, a Greek Revival, has since been restored and now operates as The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast. Unlike many murder houses, this museum and B&B flaunts its grisly past with this tagline: “Apart from that bloody murder all those years ago, our hospitality is impeccable!”

 

Our third and final stop on the Murder Express is HH Holmes’ famous hotel.  He began construction in 1886.  He’d often hire workers that would go mysteriously missing.  He kept his contractors in the dark, giving each person onlyparts of the overall plan, so that he alone would hold all of the secrets of the dark hallways and trapped held within.

The picture to the right details some of these hidden passages and dungeons.

Among many schemes over his lifetime, which include faking the death of his friends and colleagues and luring guests from the 1893 World’s Fair, was his most well-known M.O.  He would greet his guests, offering them a special room before leading them down twisted hallways to a dark room with four ominous brick walls.  He’d then leave his prey to suffocate, often aided by gas piped into the room through an intricate system.  He stole the possessions of those he killed, often a meager reward for taking a life.