The Demonic House in Gary, Indiana

In January 2016, a house located in Gary, Indiana, and alleged to be infested with demons was torn down. Despite the destruction of the house, the site remains a subject of fascination and debate, with some visitors describing it as "crazy spooky at night".

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Latoya Ammons and her mother who lived in the house with her and the grandchildren

The house was located at 3860 Carolina Street. It was built in 1926 in Gary, Indiana an industrial town near Chicago. It was a small house with two-bedrooms and one-bathroom with approximately 864 square feet of living space. The original owners lived there until the 1980s, when it was sold to Charles Reed who rented it out until 2014.

In November, 2011, Latoya Ammons an unemployed mother of three moved in. The grandmother also lived there. According to Father Maginot who would go on to perform several exorcisms at the house, she had a relationship with a man she had just learned was married, and was trying to distance herself from him. The exorcisms held at the house were the first ones necessary in the diocese in 21 years.

When the man's wife found out about the affair she called LaToya and made a threatening remark to the effect that "you will regret ever messing with my husband." The question was whether this woman or her husband were into the occult. Was this a case of a disgruntled spouse, or someone laying a curse down? He told Latoya he was a good Christian, but he never attended any church either by himself or with her.

It seems that even before Latoya moved to the house on Carolina Street strange things started to happen. Before the break up, she would be with him in bed and the sheets would mysteriously slip off, objects went missing including certain family photographs. He even asked for her underwear, saying he wanted it as a souvenir of their relationship.

According to Father Maginot in March 2012, the discarded boyfriend allegedly stalked Latoya. He came by the house and was not allowed to go inside. He stood on the porch and gave each of her sons a $5 bill, but not the daughter. It was after this that events in the house became darker and more menacing.

As to whether it was Latoya's relationship that brought the disturbance to her life, or if there was something in the house already, Father Maginot said there was something about the basement, where a portal had been created. There was an area of four by three feet under the stairs where the poured concrete had been broken. When police dug there they found a white pair of panties, a political shirt pin, a broken, plastic shoe horn, a lid for a small cooking pan, socks with the bottoms cut off below the ankles and a metal object that looked like a weight for a drapery cord.

The items were found at two feet in depth, and were dated to possibly the years of the Great Depression or WWII. Had spiritism been practiced in the house during earlier years?

On his first visit Father Maginot saw when the light in the bathroom flickered, and the window blinds moved even though there was no breeze. He also saw the black boot prints described by LaToya Ammons and her mother.
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She left the property in June, 2012 after her children were removed from her care, and she claimed supernatural activity drove her from the house.

Mr. Reed the landlord did not learn of the alleged paranormal activity in the house until 2014, he said: "I thought I heard it all. This was a new one [for] me. My belief system has a hard time jumping over that bridge." According to him, none of the prior occupants ever reported strange incidents like the one described by Ammons. When the Ammons finally moved out, she was behind on her rent, and used the claimed paranormal activities to avoid payments. The tenant who moved in after Ammons had not noticed any paranormal events, either. Reed believed the story was a hoax.

Ammons reported swarms of black horse flies on the porch during winter, with freezing temperatures outside. Even though they tried to kill them, the insects would return. After they moved in at night they would hear steps coming up from the basement.

Rosa Campbell, Ammons' mother heard heavy footsteps in the basement, and the creak of the door as someone came into the kitchen. They would investigate but nothing was in the kitchen except the light would flicker. 

Latoya and her mother slept with the bedroom door open and Rosa Campbell saw a "shadowy figure of a man pacing in the living room." The next morning they found muddy boot prints on the floor.

They put a lock leading out of the basement, and the same was reenacted with the heavy steps, except they heard the knob turn, and then pounding on the door.

The activity was not restricted to the adults. Ammons' 12-year-old daughter supposedly levitated while she was unconscious during a sleepover with a friend. Latoya Ammons described as something "raised her [daughter] up off the bed, snatched her off the bed". 

The family prayed until she floated back to the bed. She had no memory of the incident afterward. The older son was thrown across the room, and the younger son once started to growl and say, "It's time to die," and "I will kill you", while his eyes had rolled into the back of his head.

​Another time the daughter tried to open the door to her bedroom and was unable to do so, as if someone was holding it from the the other side. Suddenly it flew open.

The family spoke to their doctor, Geoffrey Onyeukwu five months after they had moved to the house. He noted in his medical notes, "delusions of ghost in home" and "hallucinations". 

He sent Ammons with the children to an emergency room.

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Re-enactment from Bagans' docu-episode c.2014

On April 19, 2012, The Department of Child Services (DCS) received a report stating the children had been at Dr. Onyeukwu's office and were sent to the emergency room. The doctor reported the mother said there were demons in the home, and they were attacking the children. She also described where the children fought with one another and were abusive to one another, then they passed out.

The children said there were ghosts in the house, "thousands of them and he can see them." One of the boys said one demon told him that he was going to hell and that he wasn't going to God.

The youngest boy described speaking to a young boy who was in his closet, and all the children described an old woman seen in the back yard of the property.

The doctor believed the mother had mental health concerns, and the children were performing for her and that she was encouraging the behavior.

The medical staff at the hospital stated that Latoya Ammons reported various stories about spirits and demons, and that they were in her home due to someone dying in the house.

They observed the 7-year-old growl, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. 

Police when visiting the house found multiple religious shrines, and bibles throughout the house.

During the interview with DCS personnel, Latoya Ammons told of taking her family to different temples and churches looking for help. While this conversation was taking place, her 7-year-old son who was in the same room, but divided by a curtain started to growl when his mother spoke about the different churches. The more she spoke about the churches the louder he growled. A scuffle was heard and when Ammons with personnel went to where he was, they found the younger son had his older brother in a head lock and was choking him. All the time he was growling and it took several staff to pry his hands open. Then he lay back down on the bed, and his facial expression changed.

The children were removed from the mother's care to ensure their safety. By then Ammons had already contact Father Maginot who was coming to the house to bless it.

The children's paternity was never established, and DCS were unable to locate the respective fathers of each to advise them of what was happening, even though they recommended the children should visit with them.

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Father Michael Maginot would go on to exorcise the house and Latoya Ammons

The three children had a history of "irregular school attendance", and a complaint was filed against their mother in 2009. In 2012, Latoya Ammons blamed their continued bad attendance on the demonic activities.

Professionals and psychologists interviewed the three children and wrote: "the children were acting deceptively and in accordance with their mother's beliefs". The youngest son "acted possessed" whenever he was challenged or was asked "questions that he did not wish to answer."

The story of the haunting was picked up by newspapers, including stories that DCS personnel saw the younger boy "walking up the wall backwards".

Charles Austin the police captain believed paranormal activity was taking place in the home.

​Reverend Michael Maginot interviewed Latoya Ammons and her mother on April 22, 2012, after a Baptist minister bowed out of trying to help the family. This was a church which the neighbor belonged to and specialized in deliverance. After the visit by the Baptist minister who felt overwhelmed by being in the house, Latoya and her mother discovered a statue of the Holy Family placed on an alter was thrown across the room, and broke off at the top.

Father Maginot concluded the family was being "tormented by demons." He conducted a series of exorcisms in 2013, even though he was not the exorcist serving the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. However he was the pastor of St. Stephen Martyr Church in Merrillville, Indiana, and the person the family reached out to originally. Due to this, Bishop Dale Melczek allowed Father Maginot to handle the case under supervision of Father Vincent Lampert, pastor of St. Malachy Church and the exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Father Maginot would go on to perform three exorcism, two in English and one in Latin. Latoya Ammons was also exorcised. Father Maginot reported that he was considering a fourth exorcism, which he never did do, because the family fled the home. After the family moved to Indianapolis the events were said to stop. 

At the time Father Maginot became involved in the case the children had been removed by the state, and he never met them. They would eventually be returned to their mother's care in October, 2012.

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Gary Indiana’s demon house was demolished January 2016

Zak Bagans the host of Ghost Adventures bought the house in 2014, and during 2015 filmed a documentary in the home about the events that transpired within its walls.  He claimed something powerful, dark and intelligent haunted the small structure.

Father Maginot was contracted as an adviser to Bagan's film, however he requested a written clause in the agreement specifying the retelling would be truthful.

“The truth makes it fascinating,” he said in an interview with The Register. “The devil looks bad in this. He loses a lot of mystique.” 

During the winter of 2014, when the film crew went into the home, they found a hole in the roof which damaged the interior a bit. Father Maginot explained, "It looked like an animal had scratched through the roof and ceiling, but we could not find it anywhere in the house, and there were no animal droppings around."

They also found a weird-looking hand mark on a table in the living room that was coated in dust. “It was a long hand that did not seem human; it had no palm and was around 12-15 inches long,” Father Maginot said.

"Hollywood makes them [demons] like monsters, but, actually, they are very manipulative in how they work," he explained. "For instance, there was a lot of tension between Zak and me in the beginning, until we realized what was going on."

Father Maginot suspected the devil was behind many of the delays they encountered, with the aim of stopping the documentary from being completed.  

"Sometimes, demons cause scary things to happen, but usually only when they are pushed and shoved do they go that way," Father Maginot said. "The normal way that demons work is through temptation. I think it’s God’s purpose to show evil at times so that we can see what we are truly dealing with."

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Father Maginot was quick to point out that the devil is not God, and is not all-powerful. He cannot take a human's free will or end their life however he is still very dangerous.

After the filming was complete, Father Maginot blessed the house. “I did the biggest blessing I could,” he said. “I used holy water and incense, and I prayed it in Latin.”

Father Maginot explained that houses can be blessed to drive out evil spirits, since spirits don’t live in a location like people do.

“Evil spirits can choose to act at a location, and evil activities might have brought that about, but spirits don’t occupy time and space like we do,” he explained. “Something happened to bring on the evil.”

The disadvantage of the attention the house garnered is that many were hoping to use it before it was demolished. 

“People were going to the house and doing séances,” he said. “Any continuation of evil could have been caused by people bringing it on by their actions."

Father Maginot was called in to perform an exorcism on a teenage girl (unrelated to the original family), who visited the house and suddenly became oppressed with thoughts of suicide.

Father Lampert warned that a fascination with evil can create serious danger. "There are a lot of people that watch those ghost-hunter shows that don’t have a connection with God," he said. "Evil plays on a person’s mind and memories. If a person does not have a faith life to deal with evil, then his life can be destroyed by it." According to him, without God in one’s life, there is no protection from such evil.

​In an email interview Bagans, who is Catholic said he is convinced there was an evil presence in the home.

“I do believe the dark forces in the house were aware of my presence and did interfere with the production in many different ways — some serious,” he said. Bagans added that, immediately after his investigation, he developed Diplopia (Double Vision) from which he continues to suffer.

During a 2015 interview, Bagans described dreaming of a 12-foot-tall goat man creature before he bought the property.

He said a camera operator started to vomit during a shoot. At the hotel he vomited blood and was screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to fight a "goat-man" in the elevator.

When asked why there was a goat man demon in Gary, Indiana he answered: "Demons like to make their nests where there’s lots of violence and people are vulnerable. You know how many abandoned churches there are in Gary? You can’t find a better breeding ground for demonic possession."

In 2012, Gary, Indiana was experiencing a high crime and murder rate, so much so that Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson asked for the Indiana State Police to assist due to the severity of the situation.

​In 2016, the house was razed. Afterward he took the wooden staircase from the property to put it on display in his Las Vegas museum, along with dirt from the establishment.

In 2024, Netflix released The Deliverance based on the family's experience.

3860 Carolina Street, Gary, Indiana only an empty lot c. present day

THE AFTERMATH

During the investigation by police they reported problems with their electronic gear after entering the home. A veteran newspaper homicide reporter refused to visit the house after nightfall. A DCS case worker who came to the house, suffered several accidents ranging from burns due to a motorcycle, three broken ribs while jet skiing, a fractured hand and a broken ankle while running.

Was this all a result of spirit attachment, or just plain negativity that had gathered inside the house or plain bad luck?

Father Maginot though protected by prayers, described where he had computer problems when searching for information on demonology. He was a regular bike rider. Once he was nearly hit head on by a bicycle speeding along a ten-mile bike ride. In order to avoid the crash he was thrown off the path and his bicycle seat was turned at a 45-degree angle. Luckily he landed on a patch of grass, after being hit in the head by a branch. On another occasion he barely avoided another bicycle crash with a mom riding with her small child. Once he went into a tunnel, and he had not been able to see that about 20 students were walking in the darkness, and he had to move suddenly to the side in order not to hit them.

During the second and third exorcisms, a storm caused the lights in the rectory to go off. Another outage struck after the 4th of July, which became a 34-hour blackout, something that had not occurred in 14 years. This happened just before Mass was held, which was celebrated nonetheless by candlelight. These incidents dovetailed with electrical problems the house on Carolina Street had, such as static on the phone, and and unexplained static on the television.

Around Easter, 2012 they had a family gathering at the house, and many of the family members described something following them home, heavy feelings and headaches. This lasted for about 2 weeks, and they refused to return to the house.

Did what happened to Laytoya Ammons happen as a result of her last love relationship, and moving into a house which harbored it own darkness?

​Solution to keep out evil from your home: anoint every window and door with holy oil and blessed salt, if you have it; use Holy Water on a regular basis.

FATHER MAGINOT'S REPORT TO THE BISHOP C.2012

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