EUGENE, Ind. (WTHI) – There’s a house – right here in the Wabash Valley – that some call the ‘most evil and haunted house in North America.’
It’s a home in Eugene, Indiana that has caught the attention of national television stations, and even movie producers.
The former owners of the house contacted News 10. They say it’s not haunted at all. They told us it is all a hoax.
According to them, the stories coming out of that house are fabricated facts about their loved ones.
Just by looking at the house, it looks like any normal home nestled in the middle of nowhere.
You’ll find it on the corner of Elm Tree Road and Water Street in Eugene.
Adam Baird and his sister Haley Navarro say they just want people to know the true story behind this house, a tragic story they’ve been trying to get out for nearly a decade.
Here are what they say are the facts.
In 2001 – their mother Cheryl Skinner died of a heart attack at the young age of 42. They say she had a heart attack at the home, but she passed away at the hospital.
Then, their stepfather, Curt Skinner, committed suicide in the family home several years later. Haley says she found out he had cancer and couldn’t afford the treatments, so he ended his life.
Life-changing, devastating events to say the least. But then more changes. A paranormal team bought the house.
The paranormal investigators claim the house is haunted by several people who died inside the home – including Cheryl and Curt Skinner.
Adam and Haley say their parents’ deaths are being used for profit.
“There are all these lies talking about how my mother died of a drug overdose and that she was underneath the bed and was bloated and nobody found her for two weeks…they were charging people to come in and haunt my mother, called my mother out by name and my stepfather,” Adam told us.
The paranormal team has nicknamed the house ‘Willows Weep.’
A play on words based on the huge willow tree in the front yard. They say if you pull a branch off the tree, something bad is going to happen.
Haley says that’s ridiculous. She told us the tree was the last memory she has of her mother.
They planted it together just months before she died.
“We don’t want you paying money on lies. If you’re gonna do a haunt, we want you to at least know the truth,” Haley said.
Dozens of people have come to the house over the last several years – paying money to investigate the house.
Adam and Haley told us their family home was nice inside, well kept when they lived there. Now, they claim the owners purposefully changed the appearance.
“It had carpet, it had nice furniture ya know it was a place we would grow up in and they stripped all that out to make it look haunted and scarier than what it really was,” Adam said.
The new owners claim there’s a chair inside the house that Curt Skinner shot himself in, saying you can see the blood-stained upholstery.
They also say the hats, boots, and guns are Skinner’s as well. Haley says no way.
“It’s not even the same furniture that was in the house. They put guns and hats in there. He wore trucker hats, he never wore cowboy hats,” Haley told us.
“We have children and we don’t want our children growing up seeing this house as portrayed their grandmother this way of being haunted,” Adam said.
Adam and Haley say to them, this isn’t just some people in a ghost story, this is their loved ones.
Real people they say are being lied about.
They just want the stories to stop and their loved ones to rest in peace.
We tracked down the current owner of the house, a man named David Spinks. He’s a paranormal investigator and lives in West Virginia.
On Tuesday, you’ll hear his side of the story.
