Of all the supposed real-life haunted houses out there, few boast as much evidence of paranormal activity as the exorcism house in Gary, Indiana. According to witnesses, a real-life version of The Exorcist happened after Latoya Ammons's family moved into their new home in 2011.
Shortly after Ammons, her mother, and her siblings moved in, frightening things began happening. In time, Ammons came to believe her family suffered from a plague of hundreds of demons. She sought the help of religious leaders, clairvoyants, and even local police. The rest of Gary initially dismissed the Ammons' claims of a haunting, until they experienced it for themselves.
The Carolina Street house in Gary, Indiana, gained national notoriety after a local reporter picked up the story. The details, creepy enough to raise your hairs on end, come directly from firsthand accounts from religious leaders, law enforcement officials, and Ammons herself. Even though science can help to explain hauntings, the exorcism of Latoya Ammons defied all types of explanation.
The House Filled With Flies In The Middle Of Winter
Photo: Hammond Police Department.
In November 2011, the Ammons family moved into a rental home on Carolina Street in Gary. On the quiet block, Latoya Ammons, her mother Rosa Campbell, and Ammons's children quickly settled in.
But by December, strange phenomena began happening inside the house. Despite the frigid weather, black flies began swarming the house's screened-in front porch. The family killed the flies, but they just kept coming back.
Latoya Ammons and Rosa Campbell began hearing noises in the house at night. The women always locked the door between the kitchen and the basement, but they claimed it would creak open by itself late at night.
One evening, Campbell told investigators she awoke to see the shadow of a man pacing in her living room. When she got up, she claimed she discovered wet bootprints on the floor but no pacing man.
Ammons's 12-Year-Old Daughter Levitated Above Her Bed
In the early morning of March 10, 2012, all hell broke loose. The family had company, including Ammons's 12-year-old daughter, who had a friend sleeping over. Around 2 AM, Ammons went to check on them, only to find herself in a waking nightmare.
She called Campbell to the room, where both women along with others watched as the 12-year-old levitated above the be unconscious. Without any explanation, the women and witnesses began to pray until Ammons's daughter woke up. She woke with no recollection of the events.
Child Services Got Involved
The Ammons family reached out to the police for help, but law enforcement initially approached their claims of demonic activity with skepticism. Fearing some form of abuse, the Indiana Department of Child Services even removed Latoya Ammons's children from her home.
"All of the children were experiencing spiritual and emotional distress," one Department of Child Services employee wrote. But the authorities weren't convinced the source of that distress was supernatural. Clinical psychologist Stacy Wright, who conducted a psychological evaluation of the Ammons children, had her doubts:
"This appears to be an unfortunate and sad case of a child who has been induced into a delusional system perpetuated by his mother and potentially reinforced by other relatives."
Desperate for help the police failed to provide, the Ammons family turned to the church. Many religious leaders refused to listen to their claims of demonic activity. However, one church official instructed them to thoroughly clean their home with bleach and ammonia, and then use oil to draw crosses on every door and window in the house. They did.
The family members also built an altar in their basement, and every night they recited Psalm 91 from the Bible:
"You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday."
Clairvoyants Claimed More Than 200 Demons Had Infested The Home
Latoya Ammons, desperate for answers, also spoke to two clairvoyants, who informed her of more than 200 demons supposedly possessed her home. Their advice? Move out, immediately. But the Ammons family couldn't afford to.
Instead, Ammons built an altar in the basement, and began burning sage and sulfur throughout the house. After three blissfully quiet days, the demons came roaring back.
