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We would love to hear your stories, so pitch us your creepiest encounters at you can see me in the dark.

You can see me in the dark.

You're hearing these eyewitness accounts from people who you really believe them.

You know, you're not sitting there like, oh, they just say this to be on TV.

Like, you can tell they're a little scared talking about it,

which adds so much terror to the story as you're watching it. Hey, it's Melissa. For today's episode, we're gonna do something a little different. Nate and I have been traveling so much for work, and we've packed a lot of life into the past few months, so it's just gonna be me this time. I'm having a conversation with journalistist, host of the Cemetery Row podcast, Engos Tour Guide, Sheena Barnett. Sheena's been on the pod before. She had a Patreon story about a haunted doll that mysteriously showed up at her house, and it never left. It's a fun one. Y'all should check it out. Today, she is on the main feed with a truly unique tale. This story came together in the best and most unexpected way possible. I took what I thought was a typical work trip to Orlando, Florida, and I came home with not only a ghost story, but a 50-year-old cold case, a haunted mansion, and a reflection on a classic episode of Unsolved Mysteries. You can see me in the dark presents, Sheena. Can you hear me? I'm hoping it's still working. Yeah, I hear you just fine. Okay, awesome. You know, you and I started this by talking about how much travel that I do. And so I my day job is I work for a corporate video production company. And I spend a significant amount of time on the road. I am flying to different cities all around the country, and it's exhausting, but it's also incredibly cool in that, as I've always said, I get to parachute into people's lives for a day, and I get to learn about their job, what they do, why they're good at their job. I learn a little bit about the town, the city, live, get a great suggestion on where to eat lunch. And then sometimes, if the conversation goes in the right way, I'll let it slip that I host a ghost podcast. And often I will get a ghost story, or I'll get a, hey, you check out this place, whatever. And so recently, I found myself in Claremont, Florida. And it was not a town that I had ever heard of before. It's kind of a, I hate to call it a suburb, and it's just its own little town. It used to be, it was home of all the orange groves and I was out there to interview somebody and in our conversation, ghost stories stuff comes up and he was like, oh, well, you know, we've got a local legend here. Let me send something about it and we're packing up trying to get out and until I'm at the airport

that I look at the lake that this guy has sent me. And I realize that it is the house that I saw when we drove into town that we were driving into the town square and we're looking around and I look up and it is this incredibly beautiful

Victorian house. I mean I'm a sucker for Victorian house, it doesn't matter where we are, I'm gonna freak out over it. And this one just, I mean it took my breath away when I saw It's this beautiful white Victorian with a red gabled roof and I you know my colleagues driving and I'm like oh my god oh my god and I found out later that this house is built in the 1880s you know it's one of the oldest first houses in that neighborhood but just you know it was gorgeous and. But then, you know, I moved on with my day, and naturally, I'm at the airport. The airport the next day, click that link, and of course, it is that house. It's that house. It all comes back to the house somehow. It really does. So I'm, you know, I immediately, like, I text the guy back that I'd interviewed and I'm like,

do you know anybody connected to this house? Because I felt like, well, this house, it got my attention when I drove into town and I happened to talk to somebody who knew the story about it. So I'm like, well, do you have any information? He's like, I don't. But low and behold, it turns out I had a connection because you had just talked about it on your own podcast. Yeah, yeah. So we had decided on my podcast Cemetery Row. I talk about Cemetery's with two of my best friends. And I believe it was my co-host Laurie who said, let's do a whole episode about our favorite and saw mystery segments and my first thought was well-crap because Hannah covered my favorite one which was Resurrection Mary that I think back when we started the show that that was the the segment that really terrified little baby Shina but I'm like hmm what's another segment I loved and I immediately thought of this one because again, it's all my favorite things. It's dreams, it's a haunting, it's a true crime, it has everything. And when you watch the segment, you're just like, oh, this could be my family. They say, you know, you don't get the feeling that these folks are seeking out attention or that that they're making up, they really feel like when they tell the story, you're like, no, I believe you saw what you saw. And it's so it's scary in that way. And then there's the entire scary crime that happened that is still unsolved. And so it just, it really stuck with me. And so I just done, when we talked about it, I just done all the research, I rewatched the segment obviously, but then I dug deep into the battles of the internet and old newspapers and all that good stuff to find out where everything happened and how it went down. And then of course, being a cemetery podcast, I wanted to find where some folks from the story were buried. And I did find that for a few of them, but not for all of them. But yeah, it's just a fascinating story all around. For our younger listeners, can you give like just a quick like elevator pitch, explain what unsolved mysteries is was? Yeah, first of all, it was hosted by the incredibly dapper Robert Stack, best known for playing Elliott Ness in the Untouchables, the TV show back in the day. So well known actor, an older man very handsome, has a fabulous voice. And there would be, I don't know, four to five maybe segments per episode. He would sort of narrate what was going on, but then they had these interviews with the people who were involved. They also did these dramatic, you know, dramatizations. Sometimes it included the people who were actually involved and bless their hearts. They're not always great actors. Sometimes they hired actual actors to be in these dramatizations and bless their heart. Sometimes they weren't great actors. And then sometimes you had some great actors, like Matthew McConaughey is in one of those episodes. So, yeah, so every week you would get a different set of stories and the topics ranged from unsolved murders to the unexplained, which would include aliens and ghosts, medical miracles. I mean, just all types of stuff. Some of them were a little more complicated. Some were very kind of straightforward. A few of them were pretty silly, but I don't know. It made it smart. And I think everyone had that one segment that scared the crap out of them. So, and if they had an update, if the guy who committed the crime was called, would would update you that type of thing. And that continued on for many years. I know after Robert Stack, I believe he retired from acting and then he passed. There was a whole nother like newer generation of unsolved mysteries episodes. And now if you watch it on Pluto or wherever it's streaming, they usually have really recent updates, which is nice. I understand now as an adult, it's kind of a great show for a kid with ADHD because they change segments every, you know, 15 minutes or so. And so you're getting something scary all the time. So I loved it. It terrified me because here's an hour of things that are unsolved or unexplained and whatever this bad man or bad creature or whatever is. Hey, it's just out there in the world. We don't know where it is. Good luck going to sleep tonight. So I don't know. It just it it was good storytelling me in and then you get an update if you were lucky and you felt like you had some closure. So yeah, I mean, I remember watching it live all the time. When I was in college, my newspaper staff got me the unsolved mysteries DVD box sets because those existed for like three seconds. I have rewatched the segments millions of times. There's some I almost have memorized because I think they're just that well done. I just love it. And this was this certain story we're talking about. That's when it's always stuck with me. I always thought it was such a fascinating case for so many reasons. So you said that some of these episodes would scare the crap out of you and was this story one of them? Yeah, kind of. There are a few really powerful visual moments in it and we will get to those. But yeah, and it was one that always stuck with me because it was a lot of stuff I loved in one story. There was this ghost story, which I've always been a sucker for ghost stories. But then you find out there's this entire unsolved murder involved with it. And it's like, oh, we're getting all of my favorite things in one segment. We just hit the jackpot. But also the dream aspect, the fact that this woman dreamed about this house and Then later moved into it. I always thought was interesting Especially the older I got and started dreaming about specific houses and so it was like, okay, I feel Like this is me is the house I'm dreaming about can I just do do a murder to like, it's a little creepy.

Okay, well then let's let's dig into it then. So tell me the story of, I guess we'll call it the John Hardenhouse. I mean, it's not right. It's not who currently lives there. But I guess that's

kind of, we can call it the Claremont house or call it the John Hardenhouse, but who was John Harden

and what happened? So John Harden was a 32 year old man who lived in the home in the mid 1970s. He had actually married his high school sweetheart Rita a couple of years beforehand and they had some kids, but then out of the blue, is how unsolved mysteries describes it. Out of the blue he was like hey I'm having some difficulties I need to go away for a while and when I'm recovered I'll come back. Now that to me sounds like you have possibly an addiction of some sort or something but I don't know I don't want to assume but he never did come back and. And for what it's worth, his wit, well, his first wife Rita does speak very highly about him on unsolved mystery. She is a guest on there and she spoke beautifully about him. So I did not get the impression there was bad blood. She could have very easily been like, he left me and married someone else and had another baby because that's exactly what happened. He left Rita and then he married another lady and they had a newborn. When all of this goes down, they have a newborn baby. But Rita takes the classy route and she's like, you know, I wanted him to go get help and we had a great time at the blah, blah, blah. So either way, either way, yes, John has remarried another lady has a newborn baby. They have moved into this house in Claremont. On March 22nd, 1975, John woke up around midnight and he smelled smoke. And of course, being afraid that his house was on fire, he jumps up. He looks outside. His truck is on fire. So he runs down the back stairs, out the back door, and he tries to put the fire out, but when he does that Someone shot him someone was hiding in the bushes and they shot him now some sources I say I saw said he was shot in the chest some I saw said he was shot in the back either way it killed him and The police of course investigated and they determined that that fire had been set intentionally to Laura John out of the house and the phone lines have been cut as well.

So this was a setup. The murder weapon was found somewhere nearby in the bushes but to this day this is an unsolved crime we have no idea who killed John Harden but the reason we know about all this and the reason why I feel like the murder is so famous is because of the family that moved in later then starts to have paranormal experiences. And what I think is fascinating is that June Ferris, who has some husband, children, all that good stuff, they're living in Richmond, Virginia. In August of 68, she started having dreams about a particular house. It was somewhere that was completely unfamiliar to her. Never been there before it, but in the dream, it was always the same activity. She was running down a back staircase and running out the back door and then she'd wake up. Fast forward to 1972. June and her family moved from Virginia to Florida. Two years later in 74, she does the same thing you do. She drives through Claremont, Florida, sees the old home and is like, wow, that's a beautiful home. I love it because it is beautiful. And so she and her friend go in to explore it. I think it might have been on sale at the time because this would have been right before John and his family moved in. And the whole time she's in the house, she's like, I feel like I know this place. This doesn't feel unfamiliar to me. And then when she sees the back staircase, she's like, that's the staircase that I've run down in my dream for the last however many years, you know. So it kind of freaked her out. And so what all happens with John happens with John then the next year in 75 and then June and her family move in in March of 78. And that's when they realize we're haunted. Some of the stories that they included in the show, they said that they had a boat hitch and it repeatedly lived itself off the hitch and fall down. And they would like they could they saw it happen and they were how is this happening? This is weird. Oh, and can I say real quick? It looks like this. In the recreation in the show, it looks like the boat hitch was where his truck was parked, the truck that was on fire. I did not catch that. You're exactly right. Yes. And then, June's daughter Robin and her husband, David, were sleeping one night. They heard music boxes playing, which back then in what the 70s, I feel like everybody had at least one music box and they went downstairs and they found that several of the family's music boxes were all turned known and all playing by themselves. That's creepy. In 1985, June's daughter Laurie and her boyfriend Bob are watching TV. They hear the back door slam and they hear some footsteps and Bob's like, well who just came home So he goes to check and there's no one there And he's like that that was strange Later Robin saw the ghost of a man who looked like he was in his thirties walking down those backstairs And then a few months later and this was a segment that is God bless them a A little cheesy, but when you're a kid, it kind of scared me. Bob was going into the attic, and he saw this vapor-like mist, and it shot through his body. Which, you know, I'm cool with seeing a vapor-like mist. I don't know that I want it to go through me. And God bless Bob for staying with Laurie during all of this and being like, I'm not leaving you even though you live in a haunted house. So Bob, who was the one who actually researched it and found out that this murder took place there. So they suspect that it is the ghost of John haunting his old home. June said there were a couple of times her grandkids woke up and would

see a man standing in their bedroom but like watching them sleeping but not in a creepy way. The way a parent would and Rita said you know he would do that with our kids all the time. He just wanted to check in on them and just watch them sleep for a minute. So it sounds like the ghost was maybe a little playful sometimes a little a bit of a protector. But yeah, I just, I love that this is a crime that happened in the middle of this completely separate woman is dreaming about before it even happens. I don't know if she is still alive, if Dreamfair is still alive, but I would love to interview her and be like, have you have you had psychic dreams before ma'am? Because she kind of did, but of course she didn't know him to say, hey, be careful. So I don't know and I will say this to you. I did learn this. Robert Stack does mention at the end of the segment that his camera crew experienced a ton of paranormal activity. They had doors opening and closing, a window shattered, equipment malfunctioned, all the typical haunting activity. So yeah, it's such a cool story. Yeah, I think something that blew my mind in watching the episode, because maybe I saw it when it originally aired, but I made a point of sitting and watching it this morning. And I'm like, I cannot believe that the current owners of this house let a camera crew into their house to recreate a murder that had happened at their health for the baby boom. It was like the 90s were a different time. I guess they were. They were. The family was very accepting. And I mean, literally had actors in the bedroom. Recreating John running down the stairs. They recreated his truck on fire in the driveway. And then being shot. I mean, just, I mean, whether or not you want to, I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm assuming you believe in supernatural phenomenon and make abilities. But just the like, just the audacity of recreating that in that space and just the energy that like that would open up in that space. And yes. And I will say like having been by that house, it's arresting. Like there is something about that house that literally pulls people in. Obviously, Jim Ferris having those dreams. Yeah, yeah. And I would think in doing such a direct recreation, that's got to upset the energy, the spirit, whatever, because if he's still reliving that, reliving, that's got to trigger him in some way. So of course they're gonna experience a lot of paranormal activity. I had the impression, I don't remember now where I've read this, but I had the impression that this was filmed, I think after, so June and her family had moved out, maybe another family had moved in and then they had moved out and that's when they filmed this. And so that's why they were able to film in, in the house itself. That's the impression I got because anytime I have gone to peak at the house online, because of course you can do that nowadays, I'm like, that's the house from unsolved mysteries. They didn't just recreate a set somewhere, they didn't just, you know, this isn't some random house. No, that's the actual house they filmed in. And so it's, I thought they did it really, really well. They seem to stay pretty faithful to the story. And yeah, I just, another thing I thought that was interesting and I don't want to get into the family's business too much. But I did find this interesting. It was of course, obviously, John Harden passed away in 75 and his wife Rita passed away several years later. But let me see. One of John's sons Timothy died at the age of 30 just days after the unsolved mystery segment aired. And I don't know what calls that. It's not my business. But I just found that interesting. So yeah, I find it interesting in just the internet era that we're in now where you Google this house and this is a small town in Florida. Right. And so people like to talk on Facebook and there there are, I'm not going to repeat what is said, but there were a number of comments of people making some really interesting one flat out accusation someone made online about someone they suspected being involved in the John Harden case. And as other people saying, well, I knew him when he lived in Jacksonville and said that, oh, he told me he had problems. So it was just interesting to see that like here's a case continues to be unsolved, continues to have people talking and speculating about what happened. It's a very cold hearted murder is that's the only thing I've ever thought about it. It was what a terrible thing to do to a man who has a wife and baby upstairs. And you put his truck on fire, knowing he's gonna come out, setting him up, that's just cold-blooded. So I don't know what he did to deserve that, but I can't imagine. It's horrifying.

A big thank you to Shina for sharing her story.

And we'll see you next time on You Can See Me in the Dark. you