Are you one of those people who just can’t wait for Halloween? Do you love haunted houses? Well, don’t bother with those fake so-called spooky attractions at those famous amusement parks.
Believe it or not, there are actually genuine haunted houses all over the United States. Yes, we mean honest-to-God, dark, mysterious, drenched-in-death, haunted houses.
These are houses where various deadly serial killers dumped the still-warm bodies of their victims and places where the neighbors all swear they heard strange sounds and the unexplainable voices of invisible strangers.
These are places where entire families have seemingly disappeared without a trace and once happy homes that suddenly became the sordid setting for sudden suicides and malicious murders. Self-identified “viral photographer” Seph Lawless courageously crept into several of these dilapidated digs and creepy, collapsing quarters to put together his book “13: Hauntingly Beautiful.”
The book focuses on how spooky these spaces are. In the photo book, Lawless discusses the terrible tales and eerie urban legends that he learned of while shooting pictures of the houses. He even researched corroborating news reports in order to aptly caption his pictures.
Via his official Instagram page @sephlawless, he states: “I’m the guy you’ve seen on the news that documents abandoned places worldwide.”
Seph Lawless is a pseudonym. His real name is not publicized. His gloomy and ominous photos of assorted abandoned structures are famous. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Lawless personally witnessed the collapse of the American automotive industry as his father was once employed by the Ford Motor Company. This is perhaps why he is fascinated with aspects of American industrial decline and other examples of urban decay.
The following photos were taken by Lawless himself. They are pictures of actual haunted houses located in the US. Some of them are of houses where dead bodies were discarded and others are real murder scenes. They are all quite disturbing.
The first haunted house on the list is the infamous Haught Mansion located in Brush Park, Michigan. In the 1940s this building was home to a swanky house of ill repute. Years following its closing, numerous corpses were discovered in the building’s basement. The victims’ chests and torsos had been defaced with flawless rings. Click On the Next > Button to See Next.
This broken-down bordello in the Great Lakes State appears as Wayne Manor in the 2016 motion picture “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” One of the picture’s assistants discovered the building while perusing Lawless’ pictures for possible shooting locations.
Detroit, Michigan has a gazillion ghost stories. Temple Street is terribly torrid. Back in 1942, a trio of priests was reportedly killed in this decaying Victorian home.
The people who live across the way all claim to have heard the spirits that are trapped in the building. (The abandoned house was more recently torn down so that new homes could be built there.)
According to ABC News, this long-empty house in eastern Cleveland served as a serial killer’s dumping ground in 2013. The corpses of three women were uncovered here. The murderer curled up one of the females and put her in plastic bags.
In 1958 in Nova, Ohio, this house was the scene of an accidental shooting, murder, and suicide. It was here that Benjamin Albright accidentally shot and killed his own son. Sometime after that, Albright murdered his wife and committed suicide. Now known as “the Nova House,” the dwelling has been vacant ever since. Some of the former residents’ personal property remain inside.
This house in Milan, Ohio is allegedly the place where neighborhood witches practice their forbidden art. The former homeowner, referred to as “the Milan Witch,” is reputedly entombed under the building’s front porch.
It was in this house in Buffalo, New York, that Sheriff Donald Caters killed himself following a foreclosure on his home. Since Caters’ suicide in 1968, the building has been uninhabited. Local residents say that you can hear mysterious voices in and around the building.
According to Lawless’ book, the original owners of this plantation house in Mississippi owned slaves. There are walls here that have been etched marks that may have been made by slaves to track the passage of time. He noted that this place was “emotionally draining to photograph.”
The evil “Phantom Killer” brought all his victims to the road behind this house in Texarkana, Arkansas. The murders were known as “the Moonlight Killings.” This macabre murder was never brought to justice. Some sources believe his gruesome killings were actually the early crimes of the more infamous Zodiac Killer.
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The now well-known Bailey Mansion actually inspired the first season house featured in FX’s first season of “American Horror Story.” While the show’s setting was Los Angeles, California, the real Bailey House a.k.a. “the murder house”–is situated in Hartford, Connecticut.
This haunted house constructed in 1899 was located in Mckeesport, Pennsylvania. It caved in a day after it was photographed. Lawless said: “It’s truly frightening and it still gives me chills thinking about it.” He was quick to add that “the creepiest mansion I visited was filled with mannequin heads neatly displayed on shelves along with old rusted medical tools.”
The folks who live around these row houses in Louisiana say that a young boy once killed himself there. The people who lived in the row houses became scared and moved.
Many weird and unusual sounds have been reported in the Old Hickory Tavern found in the town of Coudersport, Pennsylvania.
One of the most haunted houses in America, the frightening Franklin Castle can be found only in Cleveland, Ohio. Local legend has it that several murders were once committed here. Locals also report hearing strange noises and even seeing ghosts.
Built between 1875 and 1880, this foreboding three-story manse was constructed for the politician and newspaperman Frank Knox. The building was sold in 1928 and turned into a restaurant and hotel.
Lawless claims to have seen “shadowy figures” while preparing the photographs. While he believes they were just “derelicts,” he confesses that the idea that he was being unknowingly being watched “is a frightening concept as well.”