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Criminal

How to Sell A Haunted House

Criminal

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.739.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2020

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1989, Helen Ackley decided to sell her old Victorian house in Nyack, New York at 1 Laveta Place. It didn’t go as planned. There were stories of ghosts, and the house became the center of a case that’s referred to as “The Ghostbusters ruling.” The judicial opinion read: “as a matter of law, the house is haunted.”  We speak to Mark Kavanagh, Cynthia Kavanagh, Richard Ellis, University of Chicago law professor Lior Strahilevitz, and Randall Bell, who specializes in real estate damage economics. Randall Bell has consulted on the property where 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult died by suicide in 1997. He also consulted on Nicole Brown Simpson's condo, and one of the sites of the Manson family murders. Part of his work is evaluating how the psychological stigma attached to these properties affects their value. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for this show comes from Krakan.

0:03.0

Krypto is like the financial system, but different.

0:07.0

It doesn't care where you come from, what you look like, your credit score,

0:11.0

or your outrageous food delivery habits.

0:13.7

crypto is finance for everyone everywhere all the time.

0:18.4

Krakhan, see what crypto can be.

0:21.3

Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest.

0:25.0

This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.

0:31.2

I was sleeping in the bedroom. My wife was next to me. It was dark and I heard creaking coming up the steps.

0:40.0

But it's an old house so I didn't really think anything of it, but then it sounded like the door was opening, but I was facing towards the window, so I didn't really turn over to see what's going on.

0:50.0

And then suddenly felt like something sat on the bed right next to me and the bed

0:58.5

actually felt like it pushed down and I felt like someone was leaning

1:01.6

against me.

1:03.0

At the corner of my eyes, through the window I could see a silhouette of a female figure.

1:08.0

But the person really wasn't there, but it felt like it was there.

1:13.0

Then the person, Lord the Ghost, I guess, got up and I could hear the door again creaking and the stairs creaking down and then I was, I freaked out and woke up my wife and

1:25.6

Basically I could hardly talk and say I think I saw a ghost and what did your wife say?

1:32.0

Well, she she asked me well, was it male female? I said female and she says, oh, yeah, she's been around before.

1:40.0

So your

1:44.1

having bad dreams, she said, oh yeah, I know her. I've seen her.

1:47.4

Yep. She's one of the regulars.

1:49.7

Yes, she's one of the regulars.

...

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